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May 19, 2006

Bush’s Old “New” Approach

[Update 2, 5/18: On the other hand, the “Kim Jong Hill” plan looks great next to the Richard Lugar plan, which is nothing more than a shiny new formula for buying lies with bribes. Lugar is a very nice person to meet and has his heart in the right place, but diplomatically, this is not the thing to be proposing when our financial crackdown and our political offensive are both showing some promising signs of success. When dealing with gangsters,...
Categories Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 18, 2006

Senior N. Korean Scientist Defects

[Updated 5/18; scroll down.] The bad news is that he’s headed for South Korea, which will try to keep a tight lid on him: According to the official at the South Korean human rights group, the North Korean defector headed a provincial committee of the General Federation of Science and Technology of Korea while in the communist state. If he comes to the South, the defector would be the highest ranking scientist from the reclusive North ever to defect to...
Categories Defectors/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/WMD
May 17, 2006

The UniFiction Church Choir

Progress at Last! The last seven years of the Sunshine policy have finally secured a legacy Roh can campaign on. Goodbye “sea of fire,” hello, “deluge of fire!” I’d like to see those neocon skeptics deny that “deluge” beats “sea” any day of the week! This from the lovable North Korean site “Within Our Race” (a rough translation). ================ Who Stopped My Peace Train? My money is on this not being the last obstacle that bars the path of Kim...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/China/China & Korea/Diplomacy/Europe/Human Rights/Humor/Satire/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Education/Korean Law/Korean Politics/Korean Society/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Unintended Humor/WTF?
May 17, 2006

Nationalism, Meet Socialism, Part 2

Behind chilling practice lies chilling theory, as expounded by a North Korean general: “Our nation has always considered its pure lineage to be of great importance — I am concerned that our singularity will disappear. Instead of contradicting him, the South Korean delegation said such dilution of the bloodline was “but a drop of ink in the Han River,” adding this would cause no problems “if we all live together.” Let’s not bicker and argue over who diluted who…. But...
Categories Diplomacy/Human Rights/Korean Society/NK Military/Racism
May 16, 2006

Korea Diary, 17 May 06

If you need an even better illustration of the idiocy of the Tokdo distraction, read this moving story about the families of two hostages, one Japanese and one South Korean, who married during their captivity in North Korea. Yokota expressed gratitude that his son-in-law was a South Korean. “I am so lucky to have a South Korean son-in-law, not a North Korean. I am so happy that I can hope that our families may meet one another again. He said...
Categories Abductions/Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Counterfeiting/Diplomacy/Drugs & N Korea/Europe/Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights/Inside NK/Islam/Japan/Japan & Korea/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/Proliferation/Refugees/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized/WMD
May 16, 2006

LiNK Press Release

[Update: NKay has the full schedule for “Project Sunshine.” The name is rather inspired, I think.] Adrian Hong sends news of LiNK’s next campaign to seize the initiative on human rights on the streets of Seoul. Some gratuitous advice: bring plenty of camcorders in case these guys show up. That way, if they revert to their thuggish character, there will be incentives for the South Korean and American governments to add significant legal action to the self-discrediting of the radical...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Politics/Korean Society
May 15, 2006

UniFictions

This one is straight out of the Peter Ban book of Foreign Policy: A new sign reading “Passengers Heading to Pyongyang Board Here” was set up on the Dorasan Station platform, one of the test-operation sections of the Gyeongeui and Donghae Lines over which South and North Korea reached an agreement on May 13. What an amazing coincidence! Why, that’s just six days before the next election! Still, if we really, really wish for it, it will be. I wonder...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
May 14, 2006

Links of Interest

Richardson has already linked it, but I want to add is that this one could be very, very important to what happens in North Korea. The United States is considering economic sanctions on Chinese banks which have business transactions with North Korean companies allegedly implicated in the development or proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), a news report said Sunday. ================= Rep. Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, has a message for President Junichiro Koizumi. Hyde,...
Categories Activism/An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Censorship/China/China & Korea/Defectors/Democracy/Diplomacy/History/Human Rights/Korean History/Korean Law/Korean Politics/News Links/NK Economics/North Korea/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views/WMD
May 14, 2006

Yankee Come Home

Corporal Henry D. Connell was just a boy of 17 when he died for the freedom and prosperity of a place he probably knew nothing about before his country sent him there. The world has forgotten the hill where he died in a Chinese attack on the night of November 2, 1950, along with the imprisoned country in which the hill can still be found. What was left of Henry Connell’s body remained there until 1994, when his bones, and...
Categories Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 12, 2006

The Rising of the Goons

[Update 3, 5/14: Via the Chosun Ilbo: Some 4,000 members of the Pan-national Committee to Deter the Expansion of U.S. Bases held a massive protest at the site for the new U.S. Forces Korea headquarters in Pyeongtaek on Sunday. Feared large-scale violence, however, was averted as protestors refrained from using lethal tools like steel pipes or bamboo sticks while police stopped short of full-scale suppression. The coalition comprises members of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, the Korean Federation of...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 12, 2006

Ooh! Over Here!

“The regime change crew is in charge now and they are looking for any new ideas that can affect regime change.” — John Wolfstahl, CSIS The tone of regime change opponents and Bush foes is also interesting to observe these day. Two of them have published pieces nearly simultaneously, concluding that Bush has made the decision to get rid of Kim Jong Il. I agree. They they wonder if he’ll have time to do it. I agree with that, too....
Categories An Alliance?/Diplomacy/NK Economics/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/Washington Views
May 12, 2006

Balance This!

[T]he Foreign Ministry’s special envoy on international security, Moon Chung-in, in a phone interview with the Chosun Ilbo elaborated on remarks a day earlier that Roh “is losing patience with U.S. President George W. Bush. Today, my friends, I write to you from a city living in fear. As our President, George W. Bush, sits in the White House nibbling compulsively at the bleeding tendrils where there were fingernails just a day ago, a cunning tiger holds court from his...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/WTF?
May 12, 2006

MUST READ: WSJ Interview with Newly Arrived North Korean Refugees

“Before we begin this interview, I want to thank God for bringing us to this land of dreams. We sincerely thank President George Bush and the American government for letting us enter as refugees.” She bows slightly, closes her notebook, and prepares to relive her ordeal. Just go read it. Now. A big hat tip to a reader for fowarding this one.
Categories China & Korea/Defectors/Human Rights/Human Trafficking/Refugees/U.S. & Korea/Uncategorized/Washington Views
May 11, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 39: The Korean Malaise, Anti-Americanism & Anti-Anti-Americanism

The bee-man has officially entered his sixteenth minute, and Korea’s fiery gaze has shifted to the violent excesses of the extreme anti-American left — chiefly the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and Hanchongryeon. There is new statistical evidence that the violence of the red guards has triggered a backlash and alienated the silent majority. This occurs just 20 days before a round of local elections that will choose the next mayor of Seoul and the governor of Kyonggi Province, among...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/Uncategorized
May 11, 2006

Highway Rohbery

I thought the idea was to teach capitalism to North Korea, not to teach South Korea’s government how to expropriate and confiscate. The government has asked the Federation of the Korean Industries (FKI) to help urge large companies to set up in the Gaesong Industrial Complex. Most large companies do not want to do so, and they view the request of the government as “pressure. The leader of the Gaesong Industrial Complex Support Team of the Ministry of Unification and...
Categories An Alliance?/Appeasement/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea