Open Sources

But they’re still members in good standing:

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution Tuesday condemning and expressing deep concern over human rights violations in North Korea. By a vote of 106-21 with 55 abstentions, the assembly backed a November 18 committee resolution condemning “torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment… public executions, extrajudicial and arbitrary detention” in the hermit state.

It also condemned the communist nation’s use of capital punishment for political and religious reasons, as well as collective punishment and the many prisoner camps where forced labor is the norm.

No love for Kim Jong Bill: The North Koreans barely acknowledged his presence, and now, the State Department is pouring cold water on the messages he carries back from that other Kim:

The United States Tuesday urged North Korea to stop provocations and take concrete steps for its denuclearization before the resumption of nuclear negotiations, stalled over the North’s shelling of a South Korean island and other hostile acts.

“We’re not going to get a table and a room and have six-party talks just for the feel-good notion of having six-party talks,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said. “When and if the North Koreans are ever serious about living up to their obligations, then we can think about restarting six-party talks.”

Gibbs was responding to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who said Monday, upon completion of a four-day trip to Pyongyang, that North Korea has agreed to allow International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors to monitor its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, north of Pyongyang, and negotiate the sale of 12,000 spent nuclear fuel rods.

Yeonpyeong refugees begin to return to their homes.

North Korea steals a page from Japanese activists, sends propaganda faxes to the South: I say let a hundred flowers bloom. As long as the South is also sowing subversion in the North, why not? Let’s have an all-out ideological throw-down.

So much for self-reliance, then:

North Korea’s economy has managed to pull off overall gains since 2000 mainly due to international aid, a state-run think tank said Tuesday. Citing assessments made by the Bank of Korea, the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) said Pyongyang’s economy grew at a modest pace from 2000 through 2005, before contracting in 2006 and 2007. The economy rebounded by expanding 3.7 percent on-year in 2008 before contracting 0.8 percent last year.

“The gains made in the last decade can be attributed to overseas support,” the KIET said “If such support dries up, the North’s economy could face hard times again.”

What? You mean to tell me that there are foreign governments that would continue to support North Korea financially in spite of its human rights atrocities, reckless proliferation, and launching a limited war against South Korea? Why, yes! And South Korea is still one of them!

So, this is what passes for rational political discourse about North Korea in China today: “Who is the most dangerous man on the Korean Peninsula? Maybe it’s not Kim Jung-il, but South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak.” I guess putting your fishing villages within range of a neighboring country’s artillery can seem dangerously provocative, if you’re the product of a political and/or educational system that discourages critical thinking. Is it just me, or is it really getting harder to distinguish Peter Lee’s alternative reality from Kim Myong Chol’s? I wouldn’t normally recommend Peter Lee’s writing to anyone, but I’ll make an exception for everyone in Washington who desperately wants to believe that secretly, China shares our interest in restraining North Korea, and is probably doing so in some non-obvious way.

Here’s more proof of China’s sincere desire to live in harmony with its neighbors:

Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun took over recently as the ministry’s Communist Party secretary, state media reported Wednesday, likely putting him in line to eventually take over from Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi. Yang was accused of being caught off guard when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced at a security conference in Vietnam this year that Washington considered the peaceful resolution of South China Sea disputes as part of the American national interest.