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Category: North-South

June 14, 2009

Kaesong Death Watch

North Korea’s latest demands seem calculated to drive away investors: Although it was expected that North Korea would ask for higher salaries during the talks, an increase of more than fourfold was a surprise and is unlikely to be accepted by the South Koreans, who pay about $170 a month to Chinese laborers at their factories in China. “That’s nonsense!” Park Jung-ho, a former official of a shoe factory operating in Kaesong, said of the North’s wage demand. “We have...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
June 10, 2009

Kaesong Investors Want $24 Million Bailout

Yesterday, I passed along reassurances by the head of the trade association for Kaesong investors that there was no reason to worry about a southward exodus.  What a difference a day makes: South Korean firms at a jointly-run industrial estate in North Korea will ask Seoul for emergency funds as business slumps amid tensions between the two governments, an official has said. On Tuesday a clothing firm became the first to announce it would quit the Kaesong estate, which opened...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
June 9, 2009

Kaesong Death Watch

For new readers, I am not a fan of the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a zone in North Korea that uses South Korean management and capital, and North Korean laborers that aren’t actually paid wages, so to speak, as much as they’re given food rations as compensation.  The idea was that Kaesong would change North Korea’s society and economy — in the original German, that’s “arbeit macht frei” — but at the first hint of that, the North Korean government predictably...
Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/North-South/Sunshine
June 3, 2009

Kaesong Death Watch: Fleeing for the Exits

South Korean companies are packing up their equipment and leaving Kaesong while they still can. Even by the Hanky’s low standards, this is an exceptionally dishonest bit of spin.  The reporter tries to place the blame for the exodus on President Lee for joining the PSI, while making only cryptic references to the events that brought that decision about.  But it’s the glaring omissions that are the most striking:  the Hanky makes no mention at all of North Korea blocking...
Categories Media Criticism/NK Economics/Sunshine
May 27, 2009

So Long and Thanks for All the Cash

I’ve seen a number of different estimates of how many South Korean taxpayer dollars Roh Moo Hyun sent to Kim Jong Il and his regime during Roh’s term in office.  Starting from this 2006 estimate of approximately $3 billion (based on an approximate average exchange ratio of 1,000 won per dollar) and extrapolating about subsequent transfers, a rough estimate of $4 billion seems fair. Now consider: Kim Jong Il, who never actually bothered to visit Roh and granted him just...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
May 27, 2009

And in Other News, The Korean War Is On Again

It would be too unfair to entitle this post, “Obama restarts Korean War,” even in jest, but on the other hand, we may now safely abandon all hope that his election would pleasure the world with a gentle warming sensation, release our tensions, and leave us in a state of affectionate post-coital afterglow.  The world does not work that way.  I knew we were in for something like this as soon as Obama threw Kim Jong Il below the fold...
Categories History/Korean History/Korean War/North-South
May 27, 2009

S. Korea Studies Plans to Protect Its Citizens in Kaesong

HOW ABOUT, ‘STAY OUT OF KAESONG?’: A senior South Korean government official said when North Korea banned South Korean traffic to the industrial park late last year, the government began working out measures in preparation for the possibility of the industrial park’s closure. “Since last Friday when the North declared all incumbent regulations and contracts regarding the Kaesong Industrial Complex null and void, we’ve been mapping out concrete measures in preparation for various scenarios concerning the North’s possible close-down of...
Categories Sunshine
May 26, 2009

Will we see a more proactive South Korea?

While I’m hearing a lot of commentary on what Obama should and shouldn’t do with his North Korea problem, I am curious as to what South Korea is thinking. I have been told by contacts in South Korea that these latest moves by the DPRK have not been able to break through the average South Korean’s desensitized shell. Indeed, South Korean headlines seem to suggest the South is just as obsessed with the nuclear test’s affect on the economy, if...
Categories North-South/South Korea
May 23, 2009

Some Final Thoughts on Roh Moo-Hyun

Even though most indications were pointing to an unhappy ending to the former president’s legacy, I was still shocked to hear the news of Roh’s death. His presidency, beginning with the elections that got him inaugurated, served as a constant backdrop during my time in South Korea, which correlated with his term. I arrived in Korea just after the conclusion of the World Cup. Tensions were high in relation to the unfortunate tank incident involving the U.S. military and South...
Categories Appeasement/North-South
May 22, 2009

Roh Moo Hyun Dead, an Apparent Suicide

Update 2:   Here’s a translation of Roh’s suicide note. “I’m indebted to too many people. The pain that I caused to so many people is too great. The pain in the coming days is unfathomable,” Roh said in the note disclosed by police. “Due to my frail health, I cannot do anything. I cannot read or write. Don’t be too sad. Don’t blame anyone. Life and death are identical parts of nature. It’s fate,” the note said. It also...
Categories Korean Politics/Sunshine
May 21, 2009

Sunshine Death Watch

BUT WOULDN’T THAT BE NEEDLESSLY STRENUOUS?  South Korean conservatives call for their government to close down Kaesong before Kim Jong Il gets around to it.  Personally, I think things are going perfectly just as they are. THE GRAND NATIONALS ARE REALLY TWO PARTIES, to hear Andy Jackson describe Park Geun Hye’s efforts to keep her people out of President Lee’s government.  Fortunately for them, the left is even more fragmented and rudderless, because that and the fact of incumbency are...
Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/Sunshine
May 17, 2009

Kaesong: Dead or Just Pining?

[Updated below] The headline is pretty much what I’d predicted three years ago:  “North Korea announces nullification of all ‘Kaesong agreements,’” and that’s from the Hanky: North Korea’s military leadership has made statements hinting they would demand a withdrawal of businesses from Kaesong, but this is the first time the Bureau has brought up the possibility. In this notification, North Korea said, “We announce the nullification of all Kaesong Industrial Complex agreements made between the two Koreas which gave preference...
Categories Appeasement/NK Economics/Sunshine
May 15, 2009

S. Korea Tightens Controls on Dual-Use Technology Transfers to N. Korea

I’ve long suspected that technology transfers to Kaesong included many dual-use items, including American technology, that the North Koreans would easily put to destructive uses.  South Korea finally seems to be doing something about this: South Korea’s audit agency expressed concern Wednesday that materials used to develop weapons of mass destruction may enter North Korea due to Seoul’s lax monitoring and advised the Unification Ministry to tighten rules. The ministry, in charge of overseeing personnel and equipment exchanges with North...
Categories Proliferation/Sunshine/Technology/WMD
May 4, 2009

ROK Navy Saves N. Korean Freighter from Pirate Attack

The spirit of 2000 isn’t quite dead yet: A South Korean naval unit rescued a North Korean freighter from being hijacked by suspected pirates in Somali waters on Monday, a Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) official said. The incident, which took place at 5:40 a.m. (Somali time) 37 km south of the Yemeni port city of Aden, came amid chilled relations between the Koreas that have been technically at war for over five decades.  [Yonhap] The freighter arrived safely in...
Categories Humor/Satire/North-South
April 28, 2009

Kaesong Death Watch

There’s enough bile circulating in my veins as it is, so it’s a burden lifted to read reports like this, via G.I. Korea, and have the confidence that the behavior will be terminated and deterred in due course. These days, Kaesong isn’t shipping much merchandise, but a lot of karma is about to arrive on some manufacturers’ loading docks. Exhibit A: Amid North Korean demands to increase “wages” for Kaesong workers — the workers themselves probably see little or any...
Categories NK Economics/Sunshine