Category: Uncategorized

South Korea has charged a South Korean man for conspiring to help North Korean agents kidnap Kim Dong-Shik in China, where he was helping North Korean refugees. The essential facts have been known for years, but the evidence recently and inexplicably became impossible to ignore. It may be perfectly true, as this article suggests, that a North Korean spy caught posing as a defector led to the big break in the case. Could Korea’s inferiority complex about Japan also be...

That much was a given after the events of last week. It’s astonishing that the issue of sanctions is still an issue at all. UPDATE: Here’s your “hostile policy” update. Cry “wolf,” and eventually the world will disbelieve you. Cry “war,” and they open their checkbooks. The North Koreans are clearly on to something.

China was also considerate enough to soften the blow from the Eberstadt interview by behaving in a way the Chosun called “hegemonic.” They’ve certainly been giving the members of the Assembly a lot of warnings lately. As if they expect to be in a position to take retribution.

It’s all a CIA smear campaign–as John Lovitz used to say, that’s the ticket! Much more here. How unfortunate for them that the Chinese appear to be in on it, too.

That much was a given after the events of last week. It’s astonishing that the issue of sanctions is still an issue at all. UPDATE: Here’s your “hostile policy” update. Cry “wolf,” and eventually the world will disbelieve you. Cry “war,” and they open their checkbooks. The North Koreans are clearly on to something.

China was also considerate enough to soften the blow from the Eberstadt interview by behaving in a way the Chosun called “hegemonic.” They’ve certainly been giving the members of the Assembly a lot of warnings lately. As if they expect to be in a position to take retribution.

It’s all a CIA smear campaign–as John Lovitz used to say, that’s the ticket! Much more here. How unfortunate for them that the Chinese appear to be in on it, too.

One of my regular readers is a teacher in Seoul who has visited North Korea and now volunteers his time to assist and teach English to North Korean defectors. Several weeks ago, I asked him if he would pose some questions to his students, contingent on them being comfortable answering. My correspondent asked me to be patient while he found the right circumstances to pose the question to the group. Today, I am pleased to report the responses of the...

Even I didn’t see this coming, and I’ve been salivating for it for years now. Nicholas Eberstadt sat down with the Chosun Ilbo today. He did more than take off the gloves; he’s swinging his numchucks. His comments seem to have scared even the Chosun, the proponent of what passes for “conservative” in South Korea–we hate you, but you’re very good for business. In today’s critical journalism consumer exercise, see if you can spot the interviewer’s sneer and the interviewee’s...

This week’s theme is “the winter marketplace.” Korean markets are sometimes warrens of tarpaulins, plywood, umbrellas, and neon; it can be hard to specify whether they are indoors or merely sheltering under a forest canopy of grimy plastic sheets stretched over narrow alleys. In winter, kettles of hot soup and gas burners warming noodles and fish cakes steam the air around this ancient commerce with ichteous perfume and give the bare yellow bulbs the glow of torches. Late at night,...

One of my regular readers is a teacher in Seoul who has visited North Korea and now volunteers his time to assist and teach English to North Korean defectors. Several weeks ago, I asked him if he would pose some questions to his students, contingent on them being comfortable answering. My correspondent asked me to be patient while he found the right circumstances to pose the question to the group. Today, I am pleased to report the responses of the...

Even I didn’t see this coming, and I’ve been salivating for it for years now. Nicholas Eberstadt sat down with the Chosun Ilbo today. He did more than take off the gloves; he’s swinging his numchucks. His comments seem to have scared even the Chosun, the proponent of what passes for “conservative” in South Korea–we hate you, but you’re very good for business. In today’s critical journalism consumer exercise, see if you can spot the interviewer’s sneer and the interviewee’s...

Even I didn’t see this coming, and I’ve been salivating for it for years now. Nicholas Eberstadt sat down with the Chosun Ilbo today. He did more than take off the gloves; he’s swinging his numchucks. His comments seem to have scared even the Chosun, the proponent of what passes for “conservative” in South Korea–we hate you, but you’re very good for business. In today’s critical journalism consumer exercise, see if you can spot the interviewer’s sneer and the interviewee’s...

This week’s theme is “the winter marketplace.” Korean markets are sometimes warrens of tarpaulins, plywood, umbrellas, and neon; it can be hard to specify whether they are indoors or merely sheltering under a forest canopy of grimy plastic sheets stretched over narrow alleys. In winter, kettles of hot soup and gas burners warming noodles and fish cakes steam the air around this ancient commerce with ichteous perfume and give the bare yellow bulbs the glow of torches. Late at night,...

This week’s theme is “the winter marketplace.” Korean markets are sometimes warrens of tarpaulins, plywood, umbrellas, and neon; it can be hard to specify whether they are indoors or merely sheltering under a forest canopy of grimy plastic sheets stretched over narrow alleys. In winter, kettles of hot soup and gas burners warming noodles and fish cakes steam the air around this ancient commerce with ichteous perfume and give the bare yellow bulbs the glow of torches. Late at night,...

Turkey has deported the two North Korean dope-dealing diplomats back to Bulgaria.

Score a point for the Marmot. This report suggests that foreign news stories describing Kim Jong Il’s brother-in-law as a more palatable successor led Kim to purge him. If true–and even this report casts it as speculation–it raises immediate suspicions of a cunning disinformation campaign intended to split the North Korean leadership. If so, good work.

I tend to treat the six-way talks as the irrelevancy they have proved to be. Odds are, if you’re reading this blog, you mostly agree. One hears honesty from a diplomat about as often as Soviet citizens read balanced reporting in Pravda. The analogy carries a step further; diplomacy, Pravda, and other carefully-crafted lies contain revealing omissions and nuances. A reference to party officials’ “mistakes” forecast their one-way ride to the Lubyanka just as surely as shifts in diplomatic positions...