March 20, 2013

Follow the money. All of it.

Marcus Noland has published two fascinating charts on recent changes in North Korea’s palace economy. According to one, North Korea has begun posting a current account surplus by squeezing its poor, and by taking in foreign exchange from mysterious (but probably Chinese) sources.  That would certainly explain some of its recent, more aggressive behavior — a well-funded North Korea is menacing; an underfunded North Korea is relatively, if temporarily, conciliatory.  Judging by North Korea’s aggressive WMD development and investment in white elephants (gray...

Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions
March 19, 2013

Open Sources, March 17, 2013: Plan B Watch Edition

WHACK-A-MOLE:  The news that Treasury has designated North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank under Executive Order 13382 leaves me underwhelmed.  This executive order provides for the blocking of assets of entities involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and restricts transactions with those entities, assuming we can reach them.  I’m dubious about how many assets or transactions are within our reach, but the pin-pricky targeting suggests that this approach is far less comprehensive than what’s needed to defang North Korea....

Categories Anju Links/Money Laundering/Sanctions
March 18, 2013

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.

So the news today is that North Korea–which President Bush removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 for agreeing to give up its nuclear weapons programs–has warned the civilian populations of Baengnyeong-do, Yeonpyeong-do, and other islands in the Yellow Sea to evacuate now. The instrument this time is the quasi-official Uriminzokkiri, which is hosted in China, a nation that embraces the sacred principle that all speech, no matter how threatening or objectionable, has a...

Categories Kim Jong Un/Korean War II/Terrorism (NK)/Unfortunate photo ops
March 15, 2013

North Korea’s cash-for-summit demands put 2010 attacks in a new light

WERE THE 2010 ATTACKS North Korea’s way of making good on extortion?  Stephan Haggard, not widely know for his hard-line views, cites an article in the Chosun Ilbo revealing that Kim Jong Il wanted a summit with Lee Myung Bak, but at a price. The sticking point was money. How much? According to the Chosun Ilbo, $500-600 million in rice and fertilizer aid, which had effectively been cut from the first of the year, and perhaps some cash too; that was...

Categories Appeasement/Cheonan Incident/North-South/Sunshine/Terrorism (NK)/Yeonpyeong Attack
March 14, 2013

What will a U.N. inquiry on N. Korean human rights actually mean?

The U.N. Human Rights Council is set to approve an inquiry into human rights conditions in North Korea, conditions that a U.N. investigator says “may” be crimes against humanity: Marzuki Darusman, an investigator for the United Nations, is expected to present a report to the council urging the creation of an international commission of inquiry to follow up on the abuses recorded in the eight years that a United Nations official has monitored human rights in the North.  [N.Y. Times] So,...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
March 13, 2013

Why rising rice prices probably don’t mean that China is enforcing U.N. sanctions.

Hope springs eternal.  I said recently that it wouldn’t surprise me to see China temporarily restrict trade with / aid to North Korea to mislead us into thinking that it’s really pressuring North Korea to disarm, thereby slowing the momentum here to legislate what Glyn Davies calls “national” sanctions.  This trick works so well because so many of us so desperately want to believe that China will give us an easy out.  Witness this report, via Korea Real Time, that...

Categories China & Korea
March 12, 2013

Last week’s Senate hearings on N. Korea marked by skepticism and ambivalence

Last Thursday, two days after the hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee also held a hearing (on video here). This time, consensus was much less evident than ambivalence, and the views of the State Department were much more in evidence. Most of the oxygen was consumed by the first witness, Special Envoy Glyn Davies. Our Special Envoy’s testimony, by the way, was sponsored by Deer Park Bottled Water (written statement here). Chairman Bob Menendez...

Categories U.S. Politics/Washington Views
March 11, 2013

Chinese banks host massive slush funds for Kim Jong Un despite “tough” new U.N. resolution

So over the weekend, I read U.N. Security Council Resolution 2094, and I didn’t see much that deviated from the low expectations I expressed based on the press reports.  (Since then, Marcus Noland has expressed a similarly pessimistic view). For those nations that are interested in strict enforcement, there is useful material in this; for example, the reference to the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force, which you can find on Page 13 of this document, will cause some nations to be more circumspect about...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea
March 9, 2013

What would you ask the AP?

The AP is hosting an event on social media in North Korea, with the AP’s Eric Carvin and its Korea Bureau Chief, Jean H. Lee.  Thanks to the readers who let me know. The conversation was dead — no one seemed all that interested the AP’s views on social media amid the re-declaration of Korean War II — so I decided to stimulate a livelier discussion by asking whether the AP will ever reveal its agreements with KCNA, whether it pays...

Categories AP Watch
March 8, 2013

North Korea’s Underground Bond-Villain Air Base Nears Completion

Since we last visited Kim Jong Il’s big dig almost five years ago, North Korea has continued to make progress on its most sinister-looking airfield.  According to Global Security, it’s called Kang Da Ri. The first image is from November 11, 2002.  This series of images shows how the project has progressed steadily up through August 9, 2011: These final images show close-ups of the north tunnel entrance … … and this bridge, which will allow aircraft to cross over...

Categories Anju Links
March 7, 2013

Plan B Watch: China’s U.N. Bait-and-Switch

We’ve seen enough of China’s past conduct when it comes to U.N. resolutions aimed at North Korean proliferation that we ought to recognize duplicity when we see it.  We should also know by now that our hapless U.N. Ambassador isn’t very good at recognizing that duplicity.  That’s why the news that China is expected to vote for another U.N. Security Council resolution this morning underwhelms me.  I even think I have a pretty good  idea what China’s game is here. Like I said before — China...

Categories "United" Nations/China & Korea/Sanctions
March 6, 2013

N. Korea threatens to re-renounce Armistice; cancer threatens to re-kill Chavez

As one of the few Americans who can claim the “privilege” of a direct line of communication with North Korea, I offer two friendly reminders to my growing readership in Pyongyang: First, you can’t renounce something you’ve already renounced, and never really complied with anyway.  Second, South Korea never actually did sign that Armistice, and they aren’t sounding particularly stuck on it these days.

Categories Korean War II
March 5, 2013

Plan B Watch: Royce Seizes the Agenda

Hearings at the House Foreign Affairs Committee have traditionally been occasions when Special Envoys related their latest efforts to get North Korea to agree to behave until it chooses not to. Invariably, most of the Democrats would applaud them for it, most of the Republicans would express mild skepticism, and the Congress as a whole would defer. Until now, there was never any other alternative up for discussion.  Today’s hearing was a break with that tradition. It was the first...

Categories Anju Links
March 5, 2013

Park Geun Hye will back human rights probe of North Korea

You don’t need a Ph.D. to see that North Korea is gearing up to test Park Geun-Hye. The nice people at the quasi-official, Japan-based Chosun Sinbo reacted to Park’s inauguration speech, in which she called on North Korea to disarm, by saying they were “unable to hide our rage.” Domestically, the North has launched another series of exhausting war exercises, with soldiers forced to live days on end in tunnels, or standing guard and catching frostbite outdoors. All of this...

Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
March 4, 2013

The Fulcrum: 39°24’43.50″N, 125°53’25.70″E

Nearly all of the North Korean aircraft you can see on its airfields are ancient MiGs — 60s vintage or older.  But Sunchon Air Base, the home of the 57th Air Regiment, is where North Korea keeps some of its more modern aircraft — its Su-25 ground attack aircraft, and its MiG-29 fighters. On October 14, 2010, the North Korean ground crews rolled their wares out of their underground hangars.  It was a bright, clear day, giving us an excellent...

Categories Google Earth/NK Military
March 3, 2013

Rodman on North Korean gulags: “We do the same thing here.”

Update: Video: OH, AND HE ALSO SAID, “DON’T HATE ME”:  Hearing those words makes me wish we could fast-forward through whatever remains of Dennis Rodman’s biography and go straight to the perfect epitaph.  One of the drawbacks of our age is the constant mind-rape we endure from the forcible penetrations of unwanted information.  I’ll eventually die regretting all I know about Dennis Rodman because so many people enjoy watching the moral and financial despair of other people.  Thanks to those...

Categories Useful Idiocy
March 2, 2013

The Road Not Traveled: 40.013N, 126.154E

North Korean public works priorities are a thing to behold. Not far south of Huichon, in central North Korea, I followed a modern-looking superhighway northward to this dramatic terminus at a Bridge to Nowhere. Older (and newer) images on Google Earth show this project has been stalled for a decade. You can scan north from here and see miles of disused roadbed overgrown with farm plots, punctuated by the pilings of the unbuilt bridges. Now have a look at this...

Categories Google Earth