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June 3, 2006

Mercurial Politics, Part 2: The Left

[Update 5 Jun 06: Uri appears to be dissolving over a proposed merger with the Democratic Party. Scroll down for more.] Here is the most remarkable demographic trend of the week: Mr. Roh and Uri also seem to have lost the young vote. About half of Koreans in their 20s supported the Grand National Party, as did half of those in their 30s. The real action now centers around Korea’s political left and right, with the left being much more...
Categories Korean Politics
June 3, 2006

Mercurial Politics, Part 3: The Right

[Update 5 Jun 06: As I predicted below, the GNP win and the attack on Park Geun-Hye have given her a big boost at Lee Myung-Bak’s expense. Scroll down for more.] You know that the maneuvering is in high gear when it reaches the Washington think tank circuit. Here’s an excerpt from e-mail I received yesterday, inviting me to a think-tank event in Washington next week: The New Right Union (NRU) Mission Statement: “To expand freedom over the entire Korean...
Categories Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
June 2, 2006

S. Korean Students Will Hold Summit on N. Korean Human Rights

[Updated 6 Jun 06] In the heart of hostile territory, no less — North Cholla Province! The Young Students’ Solidarity for North Korean Human Rights (YSS) announced on June 1, “We will hold the “˜College Students’ Progress Assembly for Improvement in North Korean Human Rights and Democracy,’ which is the first time college students alone have held a meeting related to North Korean human rights. Founded in May 2003, the organization has a membership of over 500 students at 25...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Education
June 2, 2006

Jay Lefkowitz to Visit Kaesong?

He must be thanking his Creator that he’s not in Chung Dong-Young’s league now. South Korea has invited the man Comrade Chung snubbed last year to Kaesong, and Yonhap reports Lefkowitz, who has publicly raised some pointed questions about the use of slave labor at Kaesong, has accepted. The latest report follows this one, confirmed by the USG, that a senior State Department official will also visit. Just one small problem here: the North Koreans haven’t granted him a visa,...
Categories Appeasement/Human Rights/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
June 1, 2006

The ‘Streets Ingore,’ the Chosun Ilbo Doesn’t

Sort of a bad news/good news proposition: a few dozen passersby turn away, but a few million citizens read a sympathetic portrayal of your message and see your photogenic messengers in full color. The article depicts LiNK as a lonely voice in the wilderness, but in fact, Project Sunshine was media exploitation brilliance. LiNK is the flip side of the lesson Hanchongryon forgot: effective activism isn’t about numbers. It’s about using the numbers you have effectively.
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society
June 1, 2006

Exit Comrade Chung; Some Predictions

Adios, MF. Don’t let the Portal to Oblivion hit your ass on your way in. Never in Korea’s short history of electing local officials […] has a party which holds the Blue House performed so badly. My main hope for yesterday’s election was not for a GNP victory, but for an Uri defeat. The result, which officially qualifies as a “meltdown” on the Yangban’s scorecard, has already produced a windfall that far exceeds my limited expectations: the ignominious resignation and...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
June 1, 2006

A GNP Blowout

As predicted by just about everyone, except by greater margins than expected. Because the turnout was heavy, the GNP can consider this a convincing win, but I suspect it could have been the result of “negative turnout” — turnout by those voting against Uri, which has allowed South Korea to descend into chaos. The only governorship the Uri Party won was in its heartland of Cholla Puk-do. There’s no way the ruling Uri party can put a good face on...
Categories Korean Politics
May 29, 2006

Korea Diary, 29 May 06

A Cold Wind in the North: North Korea has cancelled its visa waiver program for some Chinese visitors, and China has reciprocated. Like every other effort to explain what the North Koreans are up to, it’s speculative. The Joongang Ilbo’s writer speculates that it’s about North Korean fears of excessive Chinese economic influence, which makes sense, whether or not it’s the reason for this move. Another possible explanation — purely speculation and entirely my own — is that North Korea...
Categories China & Korea/Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society/NK Economics/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 29, 2006

Election Updates

If my math is any good — and if it were, I suppose I’d have found another line of work — Koreans are already voting in local elections. Here are a few last-minute posts before exit polls and results come in: Park Geun Hye is already up and out of her hospital bed campaigning in the wake a failed throat-slashing attack. Also yesterday, the Seoul West District Court dismissed an appeal by her admitted attacker, Ji Chung-ho, against his detention....
Categories Korean Politics
May 29, 2006

Operation Sunshine Continues

LiNK is asking for your help to shame South Korea’s government into showing some concern for the 23 million Korean citizens living North of the DMZ: LiNK is amassing a giant collection of “messages to the president” which we shall put on a banner to be delivered to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to show him that the people of Korea and the world are watching how he deals with the North Korean human rights crisis. Here’s how it works:...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Education/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 28, 2006

The Dictator on My Bar Napkin

Two recent news stories again raise the one of the most difficult questions free societies face: what role should governments play in limiting the expression of views that are tasteless, offensive, or which might even be lies designed to strip that society of its freedom? Let’s begin with some context. If the first casualty of prosperity is taste, a corollary to this rule is that the depth of affliction is proportional to the speed with which a society achieves prosperity....
Categories Anti-Americanism/Censorship/Democracy/History/Korean Education/Korean Society/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 22, 2006

Modern-Day Comfort Women Describe Escape and Survival

In a follow-on to interviews they gave here, some of the first six North Korean refugees are talking about their escapes from the North. Here is an excerpt from the Dong-a Ilbo’s report: A woman who shared the same cell with Chan-mi died of malnutrition with her whole body swollen; another woman she witnessed was beaten to death. Chan-mi wept when she said, “When I was pardoned last year in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Korean Workers’ Party...
Categories Activism/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 21, 2006

The Battle of the Hump, Part 4: The Fiaola Ricefield War

The lastest example of the Washington Post’s awful Korea coverage is certain to leave you less informed than before you read it. Anthony Faiola manages to distort the Battle of Camp Humphreys into a conflict between peaceful, bucolic peasants and Uncle Sam’s evil puppet. Faiola apparently found one of the few local residents in attendance — there are just 70 of them among thousands — a sympathetic-sounding 90 year-old woman. It makes a better story to tell it this way...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/Media Criticism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 20, 2006

Park Geun-Hye Stabbed

An assailant slashed the neck of South Korean presidential candidate Park Geun-Hye with a pencil knife at a campaign event in Seoul today, where she was at a political event with opposition mayoral candidate Oh Se-Hoon. The cut was 11 centimenters long and 2-3 centimeters deep. Word is, Ms. Park will be OK. The assailant appears to be a Korean man in his 40’s or 50’s. Park very recently resigned as head of the opposition Grand National Party to start...
Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 19, 2006

Four N. Korean Refugees Enter U.S. Embassy in China

[Updated 5/21; scroll down.] The Chosun Ilbo reports that a new group of North Korean refugees is under U.S. protection, this time in China. Four North Korean refugees have reportedly moved from the Korean Consulate in Shenyang, China to the U.S. mission to seek asylum there. If they succeed, they would become the second group of defectors from the Stalinist country to be accepted in the U.S., after six who were given official refugee status there via a Southeast Asian...
Categories "United" Nations/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized
May 19, 2006

Daily NK President Talks to TKL about the New Right and North Korea

Recently, Newsweek’s BJ Lee reported on the emergence of South Korea’s New Right. One of the persons prominently featured in the article was Han Ki-Hong, President of the Daily NK, an online newspaper focusing on conditions in North Korea (DO NOT MISS their latest report on North Korea’s growing border control problems). The Daily NK differs from the South Korean papers in that it primarily focuses on events in the North. More remarkably, its reporters are often North Koreans reporting...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/Geopolitics/Human Rights/Korean Politics/North Korea/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 19, 2006

Coming to a Congress Near Me…

… the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions. Ban Ki Moon doesn’t sound very enthusiastic: “A protest expedition by certain organizations could inconvenience all of our people as it may have a negative effect on our efforts to negotiate the visa-waiver program with the United States,” said the statement, also signed by Deputy Prime Minister for Finance Han Duck-soo. The minute one of them pulls out a stick or a pipe, I say ship the lot of them to Gitmo. In...
Categories Activism/Anti-Americanism/Korean Society/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea