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Category: China & Korea

February 16, 2006

Banco Delta Sanctions ‘Severe Blow’ to NK Economy

The Chosun Ilbo,  relaying an AWSJ story, reports that the Treasury Department’s action against the Macau-based bank “dealt a severe blow to the secretive country,” “dried up its financial system,” and “brought foreign trade virtually to an end.” In December, I noted reports  that North Korean front companies and spies were fleeing Macau en masse. According to today’s story, Banco Delta has now announced that it’s ending its financial ties with North Korea in an effort to prevent a run...
Categories Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/NK Economics/U.S. Law/Uncategorized
February 15, 2006

Stranger Than Fiction: The Pyongyang Charm School

Everyone is ashamed of something in his past.  High on my own list is the time my brother persuaded me to read “The Charm School,” a Nelson Demille spy novel.  The plot premise was that  Moscow took custody American MIA’s from North Viet Nam to create a “charm school,” an exact replica of an  American  neighborhood, complete with American residents.  The idea was to immerse Soviet sleeper agents into their next work assignments. Unlike some other aspects of life in...
Categories Abductions/Activism/Appeasement/Asia/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Japan/Japan & Korea/North Korea/Southeast Asia/WTF?
February 13, 2006

‘He Doth Protest Too Much’

Would a statement like this have been uttered by a Korean diplomat ten years ago? Responding to a question about giving greater “strategic flexibility” to the U.S. Forces Korea, Kim said, “Even though I am an ambassador to China, I would say that it is certain that Korea and the U.S. are allies, and as such the bilateral relationship is far stronger than other relationships, which allows us to agree on strategic flexibility. He said China has not so far...
Categories An Alliance?/China & Korea/Uncategorized
February 12, 2006

Has George Bush Finally Put the Fear of God in Kim Jong Il?

Via Kyodo news: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il thinks his government could collapse if the United States continues to impose financial sanctions against the country, diplomatic sources close to the six-way talks on North Korea’s nuclear program told Kyodo News on Saturday. The sources said Kim made the remarks when Chinese President Hu Jintao asked him at their meeting in Beijing last month to drop the lifting of the sanctions as a condition for Pyongyang to return to the...
Categories China/China & Korea/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/Uncategorized