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Category: Japan & Korea

January 8, 2007

U.S. and Japan Quietly Prepare for North Korean Collapse

The Asahi Shimbun said the government has estimated that 100,000 to 150,000 people would arrive from North Korea and has been discussing with the United States how to deal with such a situation. Japan could only provide temporary shelter for several tens of thousands of displaced persons and would need to consider transferring them to third countries in such a case, the Asahi quoted government sources as saying. The refugees are expected to head to southern Japan from ports on...
Categories An Alliance?/Japan/Japan & Korea/Reconstruction/U.S. Military
January 7, 2007

Gerry Bevers, Tokdo, and the Heckler’s Veto

Kind words about your thoughts mean all the more when they come from someone like Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid. Kevin, who reads and writes in fluent French, speaks fluent Korean, and creates art and books that people pay real money for, is what people call a “renaissance man.” He’s even created photoshop icons for pretty much every k-blog but this one…. Kevin links to what he calls my “awesome … ranticle” (thanks!) on the Marmot thread about the...
Categories Censorship/Japan & Korea/Korean Society
January 5, 2007

Yet Another Nuke Test?

Yonhap is reporting suspicious vehicle movements, plus South Korean denials that  another test is likely (the power of bilateral engagement and  “carrots” will save us … just like before!).  Until Google Earth goes real time, the most accurate indicator of  a North Korean provocation we ordinary folks  are going to get is the exact opposite of whatever South Korea predicts. Update: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice caution[ed] the communist nation that a second nuclear test “no doubt would deepen its...
Categories Appeasement/Japan/Japan & Korea/WMD
December 11, 2006

Talks Watch

North Korea sounds serious about wanting to exclude Japan from the six-nation talks. “Japan is nothing but a swindler who doesn’t even have the qualifications to attend the six-party talks,” the ruling Workers’ Party daily Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial carried by the North’s Korean Central News Agency. I continue awaiting an explanation of just why it’s America’s fault that we’re failing to break through and reason with these people.
Categories Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/WTF?
December 6, 2006

South Korea’s ‘Hostile’ Class

Leaving no stone unturned in its quest to emulate North Korean concepts of social justice, South Korea has announced the first official list of 100  Japanese collaborators whose blood, we can suppose,  will hereby stain three generations of class enemies (from way back in 1904, in some cases!).  Just to make sure the new songbun designations become nice and official, the government sent notices to  said descendants.  Depending on whose report you believe, there are either about 400, about 800,...
Categories History/Japan & Korea/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/WTF?
November 17, 2006

Proliferation Security Watch

The AP has a very detailed story on the search of a North Korean ship in the Indian Ocean, along with a nice summary of other searches in the recent past.  In this case, it sounds like all they found was cement. In other searches, Hong Kong authorities detained two North Korean cargo ships in October for safety violations apparently unrelated to the U.N. sanctions. Myanmar permitted a North Korean cargo ship in distress to anchor at a port in...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Japan & Korea/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WMD
November 4, 2006

Great Moments in Diplomacy: N. Korea Wants Japan Kicked Out of Six-Party Talks

Something tells me that we haven’t reached a fundamental change in North Korea’s negotiating attitude. North Korea said Saturday it wants Japan out of six-party disarmament talks, calling officials in Tokyo “political imbeciles” for saying they will not accept Pyongyang as a nuclear power. …. A statement from North Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday said “there is no need for Japan to participate in (the talks) as a local delegate because it is no more than a state of the...
Categories Diplomacy/Japan/Japan & Korea/Six-Party Talks/Unintended Humor/WTF?
October 29, 2006

Japan Rethinks Yasukuni as It Matures Into a World Power

The Weekly Standard had a very interesting piece last week about Japan’s “quiet revolution” in military policy. Thanks to North Korea (and probably as a result of China’s unilateral arms race, too) Japan is rearming. There are several obstacle to this, and the Abe government is moving to overcome all of them. First is Japan’s own pacifist streak; that ended in 1988 when North Korea shot a Taepondong over Honshu. Second is Japan’s constitution, specifically Article 9’s renunciation of war....
Categories Geopolitics/Japan/Japan & Korea
October 15, 2006

U.N.S.C.R. 1718: Who Won, Who Lost (Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 13)

John Bolton: Winner. I’d like to hear John Bolton’s critics deny that, as with Resolution 1695, he has wrung far more effectiveness from the U.N. than we had come to expect. Not only should we confirm this man, pronto, we should clone him. Madeleine Albright never got results like these. The United States: Winner. We got everything we really wanted here: help constricting Kim Jong Il’s financial arteries the right to search his ships and planes. an embargo on the...
Categories "United" Nations/Appeasement/China & Korea/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Geopolitics/Japan/Japan & Korea/Money Laundering/U.S. & Korea/WMD
October 13, 2006

Nuke Test Roundup

*   The Japanese government has approved a total ban on trade with North Korea, and the ban has already taken effect.  The BBC has a showing the last boat carrying used bicycles and refrigerators back to North Korea, to be given as rewards to loyal party members.  *   Gordon Cucullu, writing  at Front Page Magazine, talks about cutting China’s support to North Korea; you might want to read this first, however. *   The New York Times talks...
Categories China & Korea/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
October 11, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 12

“If the U.S. keeps pestering us and increases pressure, we will regard it as a declaration of war and will take a series of physical corresponding measures,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Well, what on earth did they expect?  Applause?  Mind you, they still have the chutzpah to say they want to disarm, but the last time they said that was just hours before their alleged nuke test.  Meanwhile,...
Categories China & Korea/Japan & Korea/NK Economics/WMD
September 21, 2006

Shinze Abe Elected as Leader of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party

And it’s more bad news for Kim Jong Il: Mr. Abe, a conservative, is also well known for his tough stance toward Pyongyang. He became interested in the issue of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in 1988 and began investigating the kidnappings when he was first elected to the Diet in 1993. After a decade of effort by Tokyo, Pyongyang admitted to the kidnappings in 2002, and Mr. Abe rocketed into political prominence. Newspaper reports have suggested that Abe,...
Categories Japan & Korea/Korean History/NK Economics
September 16, 2006

Lantos Compares Yasukuni Criminals to Himmler and Göring

[Update: An elderly nurse has come forward to admit that she helped with the victims’ hasty burials as American occupation forces arrived. The apartments were built on the site later, which causes one to ask how the builders could have failed to notice the bones. The suspicion is that they’re linked to the infamous Unit 731.] With that crotchety old World War Two vet retiring, at last the American Congress can let bygones be bygones. [Democratic Rep. Tom] Lantos, a...
Categories Asia/Japan/Japan & Korea