December 12, 2010

Vote for Justice for North Korea

For the last three years I’ve been an active volunteer with a small group called Justice for North Korea in Seoul.  JFNK currently is one of a dozen and a half NGOs in Korea competing for gift certificates valued at several thousand dollars to be raffled or auctioned off at a fundraising event. The online voting at 10 Magazine went up late last week and ends Tuesday, December 14th at 11:59 p.m., Korea time (that’s 9:59 a.m. EST on Tuesday)....
Categories Activism/Refugees
December 12, 2010

I wonder if China is pleased with Japan’s new plans to expand defense spending, deploy more PAC-3 Patriot missile batteries, build more submarines to patrol disputed waters, and arm more Aegis cruisers with Standard-3 missiles. Again, there is even talk of acquiring nuclear weapons. China has only its own reckless backing of North Korea to blame for this. Me, I’d be happier if we sold the same types of gear to Taiwan, which as I take delight in repeating, happens...
Categories China & Korea/Japan/Korean War II/Regime Change/Washington Views
December 10, 2010

China’s Very Bad Week

I’ll begin this post by offering my congratulations to Liu Xiabao, and extending my hope that he’ll soon collect his Nobel Peace Prize in person. In recent years, Nobel Committee has tarnished the prize with some poor choices, and it may be that a man of Liu’s courage and character lends the Nobel more credibility than the other way around. Even President Obama had to concede that Liu deserved the prize far more than he ever did. The last regime...
Categories China & Korea/Korean War II/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 9, 2010

So is China that rising global power with the clout to lead a 19-nation boycott of the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, or is China that third world Paper Tiger with delusions of grandeur that can’t even keep Kim Jong Il’s guns inside their zippers? My vote is with the Wall Street Journal on this one. It’s just too delectable to contrast China’s protestations that it has no power to prevent its economic dependent from starting Korean War II, and then...
Categories Uncategorized
December 8, 2010

If You Must Bomb, Bomb Their Palaces

Now that Victor Cha has written that another Korean War is a very real possibility, that risk has become a matter of accepted conventional wisdom. Some in South Korea seem to be waiting for an excuse to restore deterrence through bombing. This is probably a mix of bluff and bluster, but there’s no arguing with South Korea’s right to self-defense and its need to restore deterrence. A lot of unthinkable things have already happened this year, and I certainly hope...
Categories Korean War II/NK Military/North-South/ROK Military
December 7, 2010

Victor Cha: “There is a real possibility of war on the Korean Peninsula.”

So begins a very sober assessment from a man not known, to put it mildly, for his erratic mood swings or his turbulent creative energy. If anything, I think Cha understates the gravity of the situation. North Korea — by the way, it was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008 — has already sunk a South Korean warship, shelled a South Korean island, killed and maimed Marines and civilians, and turned the survivors...
Categories ROK Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 4, 2010

Stephen Solarz, Rest in Peace

I came to know the name of Stephen Solarz as a high school kid, observing a man I either agreed with (the Philippines) or disagreed with (Central America) strongly. After his electoral defeat in 1994, the next time I heard his name when I learned that he was one of the leading members of the board of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea. I met Mr. Solarz once, after observing him making a rousing speech in front of...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/U.S. Politics
December 3, 2010

Huzzah, I’m finally a moderate!

Not being a frequent reader of Foreign Policy, I don’t know much about the leanings of the particular bloggers there, although most would call that publication a stalwart of the “realist” view that had so recently become fashionable in Washington, before Al Qaeda in Iraq was squeezed down to a small nub of its former self, and before it became evident that North Korea, Iran, and China weren’t prospective negotiating partners after all. This week, we read one FP contributor...
Categories Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/Washington Views/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 1, 2010

I’ll bet China could stop North Korea from giving the Dalai Lama a visa!

The nation’s top military officer challenged China to respond forcefully to North Korea’s recent attacks on South Korea and rejected Beijing’s calls for a return to negotiations with Kim Jong Il’s regime. “There is significant leverage [China] could apply to avoiding escalations and improving this troubling situation,” Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Washington think tank on Wednesday. “We need China to step up. [Stars and Stripes, Kevin Baron] China is just about...
Categories China/China & Korea/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 1, 2010

It’s (long past) time to close Kaesong.

So a week after the shelling of Yeonpyeong, the Washington Post leads me to believe that a lot of South Koreans who had been inclined to overlook previous North Korean outrages are really outraged this time. The Post’s correspondent thinks that the South’s infamous generation gap as to perceptions about North Korea has closed significantly in the last week. That’s good if it lasts, and if it translates into a policy that puts us on the path to strangling and...
Categories Appeasement/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 1, 2010

Doug Bandow Still Wants USFK Out

You’d think that the sinking of the Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong should have a lot of people questioning what deterrent value American ground forces really add in South Korea now, in light of the risk of having them within North Korean artillery range, and the great expense to American taxpayers. So amid the questions about how to respond — and the bad decisions of former presidents have brought us to point where we don’t really have many ways...
Categories An Alliance?/ROK Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
December 1, 2010

National Review nails it.

When North Korea acts up, you tend to see a great deal of commentary from — sorry — ill-informed people who are assigned to write about the subject. That’s why it’s refreshing to see things like this National Review editorial, which avoids the partisan temptation to blame North Korea’s behavior on an American President of the opposite party: Some conservatives have argued that the Yeonpyeong attack was a direct response to U.S. “weakness. In fact, the Obama administration has been...
Categories Yeonpyeong Attack
November 30, 2010

Treasury has blacklisted two more North Korean companies under Executive Order 13,551: The Department of the Treasury said in a statement that it “today designated Korea Daesong Bank and Korea Daesong General Trading Corporation pursuant to Executive Order 13551 for being owned or controlled by Office 39 of the Korean Workers’ Party.” “As a result of today’s action, any assets of the designated entities that are within U.S. jurisdiction are frozen and U.S. persons are prohibited from conducting financial or...
Categories Anju Links
November 30, 2010

Shen Dingli is a man who really knows the value of a fish.

Shen Dingli has become my favorite poster child for showing just what a bunch of maleficent assholes run China today, and in the aftermath of the Yeonpyeong shelling, he does not disappoint: Shen Dingli, a security expert at Fudan University in Shanghai, was more direct in laying the blame on Seoul. “South Korea provoked the Yeonpyeong conflict first,” he said. “The area where this incident happened is South Korean territory from a ‘South Korean perspective’. But it is a disputed...
Categories China/China & Korea/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 30, 2010

John McCain: “I think it’s time we talked about regime change in North Korea, and I do not mean military action, but I do believe that this is a very unstable regime.” _______________________________ Adm. Mike Mullen: “I am one who believes we shouldn’t be rewarding bad behavior here.” Until last week, I was hearing distinct signs that the State Department was losing patience with “strategic patience.” Now, all of the pressure — backed by a very conservative new House of...
Categories Anju Links/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 29, 2010

Rinjingang Video Shows the Misery of the Real North Korea

When you see all of those missiles paraded down the square in Pyongyang, do you ever ask yourself who paid for those missiles? Here are the people who paid for them. As you watch this, remember that Rimjingang‘s brave guerrilla cameramen risked their lives to show you the truth. These are the expendable people of North Korea, the ones who don’t have a place in the propaganda parades, the ones who don’t get to eat the food aid that the...
Categories Inside NK/Resistance
November 28, 2010

Is South Korea Finally Ready to Cut North Korea Off?

The New York Times, in a report bylined in Incheon, says that the Yeonpyeong attack has caused a significant shift in South Korean views about the North. After years of backing food aid and other help for the North despite a series of provocations that included two nuclear tests, many South Koreans now say they feel betrayed and angry. “I think we should respond strongly toward North Korea for once instead of being dragged by them,” said Cho Jong-gu, 44,...
Categories North-South/Sunshine/Yeonpyeong Attack