September 22, 2006

The Sunshine Policy Is Dead, Part 2

South Korea has pretty much trashed its relations with the United States and Japan, and  its netizens are waging two boundary disputes  with the Chinese.  It’s a good thing reunification is just around the corner: South Koreans are more and more disenchanted with  North Korea, with a growing number losing enthusiasm for unification and believing their Stalinist neighbor could start a war, a survey released on Friday said. The poll by the daily JoongAng Ilbo was taken nearly two months...
Categories Appeasement/Korean Politics
September 22, 2006

The Case for Blocking Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations is facing new denunciations for being feckless, ineffective, and corrupt. The sun also rose, obituaries were published, children went off to school, and leaves in the northern latitudes began to change color. There was something different about the latest criticism, however: despite its general similarity of content, it came from The Guardian, the flagship of the British left, and The Hudson Institute, virtually the Jesuit order of Washington neoconservatism. That’s a stunning convergence from two groups with...
Categories "United" Nations/Human Rights
September 22, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 11: Eyes on Seoul

Green eyeshades are turning toward Seoul, Kaesong, and Kumgang.  If you think things were bad before, this is where U.S.-Korea relations will be severely tested.  The U.S. Treasury Department isn’t going to put up with Seoul acting as Kim Jong Il’s financier for long, and  with the  likely exceptions of some shady  Russian banks  and whatever China is secretly providing at the state-to-state level, South Korea is Kim Jong Il’s last cash cow. Kumgang That poll yesterday — the one...
Categories Appeasement/Money Laundering/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea
September 22, 2006

The Death of an Alliance, Part 52: Thirty Days

The Air Force, via  USFK Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Garry Trexler,  speaking at a public lecture, has given the South Korean Defense Ministry thirty days to find it some training range space, or see the air component relocated.  I’ll go that one further:  if the air cover leaves, the ground forces leave, too.  With the exception of small Special Forces and SEAL teams, the U.S. military fights combined arms warfare.  Take away the air cover and we go home.  I...
Categories An Alliance?/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
September 22, 2006

The case against Ban Ki-Moon

The United Nations is facing new denunciations for being feckless, ineffective, and corrupt. The sun also rose, obituaries were published, children went off to school, and leaves in the northern latitudes began to change color. There was something different about the latest criticism, however: despite its general similarity of content, it came from The Guardian, the flagship of the British left, and The Hudson Institute, virtually the Jesuit order of Washington neoconservatism. That’s a stunning convergence from two groups with...
Categories Anju Links
September 21, 2006

Shinze Abe Elected as Leader of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party

And it’s more bad news for Kim Jong Il: Mr. Abe, a conservative, is also well known for his tough stance toward Pyongyang. He became interested in the issue of Japanese citizens abducted to North Korea in 1988 and began investigating the kidnappings when he was first elected to the Diet in 1993. After a decade of effort by Tokyo, Pyongyang admitted to the kidnappings in 2002, and Mr. Abe rocketed into political prominence. Newspaper reports have suggested that Abe,...
Categories Japan & Korea/Korean History/NK Economics
September 21, 2006

The ‘C’ Word, Part 2: Yu Gi Joon Is a Vicarious Thug

[Update: Great minds think alike Oh, and did I forget to mention that Yu is spokesman for his party? Shoulda mentioned that.] I’ve previously stated — and will now restate — that it’s time for the United States government to condemn, in some appropriate but unambigous manner, any suggestion of a coup in South Korea. I yield to no one in my distaste for Roh Moo Hyun, who I believe will eventually share culpability for the needless deaths of many...
Categories Korean Law/Korean Politics/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea
September 21, 2006

John Feffer’s Dubious History of the Great North Korean Famine

John Feffer provides a deeply informed and lucid account of all these matters, full of insight, pointing the way to constructive solutions that are within our grasp.” — Noam Chomsky It’s no simple thing to be a North Korea apologist these days, and that’s never been truer now that any intelligent observer can see that the food situation in the North is getting worse fast. There are several converging reasons for this: expulsion of (most of) the World Food Program,...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Human Rights
September 20, 2006

Another Public Execution Video

The guerrilla cameras of the North Korean resistance have brought out another video of a public execution. Like the most recent video releases, showing border guards hauling away South Korean food aid and the display of a dissident banner, it’s from South Hamgyeong Province. The Daily NK has stills and audio, although the images, for understandable reasons, are not clear. The headline says the video depicts a woman being executed for stealing corn from another woman’s home. Later on, however,...
Categories Famine & Food Aid/Inside NK/Resistance
September 19, 2006

North Korea’s Growth Industry: Train Wrecks

Question: What self-respecting tyrannical mass-murderer would admit that he rules a country that’s completely broken? Answer: one that really, really needs the insurance money, even if it’s from a spate of horrific and previously undisclosed disasters: One of the incidents was the sinking of a passenger ship traveling between Wonsan and Heungnam, both east-coast ports. Half of the ship’s 200 passengers lost their lives, Minjok reportedly told its reinsurers. Industry officials here estimated that the insurance payment would be in...
Categories Inside NK/NK Economics
September 19, 2006

Kim Jong Il’s Man in Washington

The Washington Times has published another excerpt from Bill Gertz’s book, “Enemies: How America’s Foes Steal Our Vital Secrets — And How We Let It Happen.” Today’s installment is about John Joungwoong Yai, who was arrested for spying for North Korea in 2003 and charged with violating the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act. Yai’s sole occupation seems to have been some rather amateurish efforts to plant a spy with a security clearance inside the U.S. government. Yai appears to have targeted...
Categories North Korea/Washington Views
September 19, 2006

Kim Jong Il Unplugged, Part 10: The First Shoe Drops

Japan and Australia have imposed sanctions on a series of the companies Kim Jong Il uses to collect foreign currency and dual-use items. In Japan’s case, this includes shutting off a substantial income source for the North: cash remittances from ethnic Koreans in Japan: The sanctions will effectively freeze North Korea’s assets in Japan by banning withdrawals and overseas remittances from the targets’ accounts in Japanese banks. This is about as robust an option as I had predicted here, although...
Categories Money Laundering/NK Economics/WMD
September 19, 2006

Self-Fulfilling Demagoguery

The background research for Roh Moo Hyun’s national security policy was a “progessive” TV documentary. The claim: The USFK could strike North Korea and lead the South Korean army into a war without even consulting Roh first: A ruling-party official quoted Roh as saying at the time, “Could the U.S. carry out a bombing raid on North Korea as it wishes without our knowledge? It is possible. South Korea can’t even claim the status of a sovereign state. The truth:...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea
September 18, 2006

Two More Refugees Take Shelter in the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang

As with a similar incident at the same facility this year, these refugees first entered the South Korean Consulate next door and then jumped the wall separating the two facilities. The additional defections mean that nine North Koreans have defected today alone, with a striking number of refugees expressing a preference to go to the United States rather than South Korea. It may be time for those who predicted that the North Korean Human Rights Act would have no effect...
Categories China/China & Korea/Refugees
September 18, 2006

Yoduk Story Update

Tickets are now on sale at this link. Here are two background reports from the BBC and the L.A. Times. There have been numerous reports on “Yoduk Story” on this blog, including on alleged attempts by South Korea to censor it. Previously, Horace Jeffery Hodges had commented that the English translation for the YS production in Seoul was, well, Konglishy. After making some inquiries with people who are involved in bringing YS to America, I’m pleased to pass on that...
Categories Activism/Human Rights/Korean Society