November 28, 2010

Funny how that works: China doesn’t want to restrain North Korea from attacking South Korea, but hates it when the U.S. Navy shows up on its front door. The Wall Street Journal passes along a sampling of Chinese reactions to the shelling of Yeonpyeong. Well-connected people I’ve spoken to seem convinced that there’s a segment within Chinese academia and government that really has had it with North Korea, but I doubt China will ever restrain North Korea without being subjected...
Categories Anju Links/WMD/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 27, 2010

“Some people imagine there is a building somewhere with a secret door they can open and find a group of scantily clad women enriching uranium.”

This delectable quote, attributed to Christopher “Kim Jong” Hill, is passed along by U.S. Representative and blogger Ed Royce. It seems that every North Korea wonk in Washington is laughing at Hill’s quote this week. Admittedly, I’ve certainly imagined everything Hill described, but not all at the same time. Alas, only my imaginings about the building, the door, and the uranium ever came completely true. As for the remainder, the prospects seem rather bleak. At Hill’s urging, North Korea was...
Categories WMD
November 27, 2010

North Korea: Sorry We Shelled Your “Human Shields”

You have to admit that it was pretty diabolical of Lee Myung Bak to have planted those human shields in their own villages and homes years before he was even inaugurated. In fact, the two civilians who were actually killed were construction workers on the ROK Marine post, but the given the North’s shelling of civilian neighborhoods, it’s lucky there weren’t a lot more “human shields” killed: The North really does have a special gift for adding insult to injury....
Categories Propaganda/Subversion/U.S. Military/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 26, 2010

Before We Start Bombing North Korea, Let’s Try Turning It into Afghanistan

I don’t know about you, but when North Korea decided to shell South Korean homes and kill South Korean civilians in South Korean territory, my balance of risks shifted. We’ve always known that if U.S. and South Korean forces attack North Korea, North Korea would respond by trying to kill as many American and South Korean civilians as possible. Estimates that this would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties are probably worst-case scenarios, but a toll of several thousand...
Categories China & Korea/NK Military/Regime Change/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 25, 2010

Hey, I wanted to hear more about those pressure points.

Watch my good friend Sung Yoon Lee, appearing on the PBS News Hour, speaking in edited paragraphs. I can hardly write an edited paragraph. In my native language. How does he do that? Oh, and some guy named Victor Cha was there, too. Cha and Lee seem to agree that North Korea’s recent brazenness is related to the succession, and inventing some cred for Kim Jong Eun, which also sounds plausible to me even if I don’t think Jong Eun...
Categories Kim Jong Un/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 25, 2010

Mike Chinoy Responds

You know, if I’d realized that Mike Chinoy, former CNN correspondent and author of “Meltdown,” was reading all those things I was writing about him, I might not have been so mean. Why was I not informed? Dear Joshua, I am a regular reader of OneFreeKorea, which I have always found interesting and thought-provoking, despite the darts you regularly send my way. I have not responded to your frequent criticisms, but under the current circumstances, and given your derogatory comments...
Categories WMD
November 24, 2010

Mayor of Incheon Blames North Korean Shelling on Little Eichmanns Coming Home to Roost

I’ve often said that in the eyes of many “progressive” South Koreans, it’s just not physically possible for North Korea to do wrong, and Incheon Mayor Song Young-Gil has done much to confirm our worst fears. A day after the North Koreans shelled Yeonpyeong Island — which, by the way, is undisputed South Korean territory — Song tweeted out that the attack was provoked by South Korean military exercises. Song also uploaded some pictures and said that North Korea shelled...
Categories Korean Politics/Useful Idiocy/WTF?/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 24, 2010

South Korea is now reporting two civilian deaths from North Korea’s shelling of Yeonpyeong Island yesterday, raising the death toll to four. Given that the North fired 80 shells onto the island and destroyed 60 homes, it seems miraculous that more people didn’t die. Korean language reports (hat tip to my wife) are saying that kimchee may have saved lives. It’s kimchee-making season, which means that most of the civilians were down in the markets buying cabbage, garlic, and pepper...
Categories Anju Links
November 23, 2010

Thoughts on North Korea’s Shelling of Yeonpyeong-Do (Updated: Video, President Lee Calls for Retaliation)

Since I served in Korea years ago, I’ve feared that North Korea would try a limited artillery strike as a way to raise the stakes. It looks like my fears have been realized: South Korea says two marines have been killed and 16 others injured in a North Korean bombardment of a South Korean island near the countries’ disputed western sea border. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Tuesday that it returned fire and scrambled fighter jets in response....
Categories China & Korea/Yeonpyeong Attack
November 22, 2010

What? North Korea had a secret uranium enrichment program all along? Why was Mike Chinoy not informed?

Siegfried Hecker seems significantly more astonished than I am that North Korea has 2,000 centrifuges spinning out enriched uranium. [W]hatever the reason for the revelation, which a seasoned American nuclear scientist called “stunning,” it provides a new set of worries for the Obama administration, which is sending its special envoy on North Korea for talks with officials in South Korea, Japan and China this week. The scientist, Siegfried Hecker, said in a report posted Saturday that he was taken during...
Categories WMD
November 20, 2010

Is Kim Jong Eun Already the Most Hated Man in North Korea?

More reports from Open News claim that the deification of Kim Jong-Eun is causing a backlash of discontent among the North Korean people: The source explained that “The punishment for attacking the government within North Korea is execution, so instead there have been outbreaks of criticism through graffiti across train stations, apartment walls, market places, and public buildings”¦according to others the graffiti expresses very strong discontent with Kim Jeong-Eun’s appointment as successor. The last time there were multiple reports of...
Categories Kim Jong Un
November 19, 2010

U.N. Shocker! China Helps North Korea Cheat on Sanctions

A new report by a panel of U.N.-appointed experts confirms what we’ve really known all along — that China is acting in bad faith by helping North Korea violate three U.N. resolutions China’s U.N. Ambassador voted for. With many thanks to a few good friends of mine, you can read the whole thing yourself here … un-north-korea-proliferation-report-11052010.pdf … or you can simply read the fair and balanced analysis that follows, beginning with these quotes to give you some idea of...
Categories Uncategorized
November 17, 2010

Now that Bush is safely out of the way, the truth can finally be told: Siegfried Hecker says that North Korea is building its own light-water nuclear reactor at Yongbyon. ___________________________ North Korea bites the hand that feeds it: Rodong Shinmun, the daily publication of the Chosun Workers’ Party, asserted in an editorial on the 11th, “We should wake up to western countries’ aid diplomacy,” citing a quote attributed to Kim Jong Il, “There is no more stupid and dangerous...
Categories Anju Links
November 16, 2010

China the Predator

The Washington Post, reporting on the ground work for President Obama’s Asia tour, reports that U.S.-China relations are abysmal. I would say they’re as bad now as they’ve been since at least the EP-3 Incident, and that they’re almost sure to get worse when Xi Jinping takes over as China’s new leader. It’s not Barack Obama’s fault that Xi is obnoxious even by the standards of the Chinese Communist Party, but it’s clear that Obama’s early deferential outreach to China...
Categories China
November 12, 2010

Obama: Bush Wimped Out on Kim Jong Il

Just how weak does your diplomacy have to be for Barack Obama, recipient of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, to call you out for it? I do not mean to imply that the answer to this question is an obvious one. I ask it because of this statement by President Obama, at a joint news conference with President Lee Myung Bak, after this Veterans’ Day speech at my former duty station: After delivering his remarks, Obama met with South Korean...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/Six-Party Talks/U.S. Politics
November 12, 2010

Get Your Goose Step PѲяn Here

Via a reader — thanks — I get this very nicely filmed clip of that big, expensive parade in Pyongyang a month or so ago to celebrate the ascension of Kim Jong Eun, who looks even fatter when filmed from an angle below his chins. At 1:29, you’ll get a good look at the Pokpung-Ho (Storm), North Korea’s latest modification of the Soviet T-62 main battle tank. At 1:56, you’ll see the new Musudan medium-range missile, a weapon so deadly...
Categories NK Military
November 9, 2010

Interesting: The rapid ascent of Kim Jong Eun and the building of a new ruling cast in Pyongyang is causing ripples to be felt in North Korea’s foreign currency earning apparatus. In Beijing, it is clear that anyone considered a supporter of Kim Jong Nam or Oh Keuk Ryul faces a rough ride. [Daily NK] The purge of those linked to Kim Jong-Nam isn’t a surprise at all. Jong-Nam has publicly criticized North Korea’s dynastic succession and predicted the collapse...
Categories Anju Links
November 8, 2010

If South Korea’s National Assembly can’t pass a North Korean human rights law now, I doubt there will be another opportunity anytime soon. But not surprisingly, the Workers’ Party, south Chosun Branch Democratic Party remains opposed, leading to this wonderfully expressive quote from Nam Sung Wook of the Institute for National Security Strategy: Therefore, he asserted, “Hoping to pass the North Korean Human Rights Law by the mutual consent of both opposition and ruling parties is the same as looking...
Categories Anju Links