June 12, 2018

Agreed Framework III: A fisking

Yesterday, I said the best we could hope for from the Trump-Kim summit would be “a vague agreement that North Korea will denuclearize, without Trump making any concessions for such a nebulous promise.” We have that vague agreement (full text here). It is so vague, in fact, that it’s hard to even say what concessions were given, implied, or will be given in the coming months. Historically, vague agreements are the agreements Pyongyang loves. One the one hand, it will...
Categories Appeasement
June 11, 2018

Why Trump can’t lift North Korea sanctions unilaterally

THE HIGHEST EXPECTATIONS WE SHOULD HAVE FOR THE UPCOMING CIRCUS IN SINGAPORE are low expectations ” that the summit breaks with, at most, a vague agreement that North Korea will denuclearize, without Trump making any concessions for such a nebulous promise. No one deserves a Nobel Prize for trading away our last chance to disarm Kim Jong-un peacefully for more lies, or for excusing Kim Jong-un from the few consequences he faces for proliferation, crimes against peace, organized crime, and...
Categories Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. Law/U.S. Politics
June 11, 2018

Guest Post: Blue House Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok vs. Dr. Ji Man-won: Im sues Ji for defamation; Ji sues Im for National Security Law violations

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O. While I’m writing about the Circus in Singapore, Dr. O informs us about far more consequential things for Korea’s future. ~   ~   ~ On May 31, 2018, Im Jong-seok (임종석) (age 51), the Blue House Chief of Staff, sued Dr. Ji Man-won (지만원) (age 75) for defamation. Im also sued a small, online independent news outlet called Newstown (http://www.newstown.co.kr/), which publishes Dr. Ji’s work, and others for defamation at the same time. Dr. Ji,...
Categories An Alliance?/Censorship/Democracy/Korean Politics/Korean War II/The Fifth Column
May 31, 2018

Guest Post: Journalist preemptively jailed for libel in South Korea, a prosperous OECD country

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O. ~   ~   ~ The Committee to Protect Journalists’ map shows that 262 journalists were imprisoned in numerous countries around the world in 2017. The Republic of Korea was not on the map as one of those countries . . . until now. With the jailing of Byun Hee-jae of a small independent media outlet Media Watch (www.mediawatch.kr) on May 30, 2018,South Korea, a prosperous OECD country, took a step back by...
Categories Censorship/Korean War II
May 29, 2018

Guest Post: A Hostile Takeover of MBC, a Major TV Broadcaster in South Korea

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O. ~   ~   ~ Controlling the narrative through the information people receive is one of the key steps in influencing people’s thoughts and behaviors. Influencing the media is important in this regard. The Moon administration in South Korea has taken over control of Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), with help from the labor union, the National Union of Media Workers at MBC Headquarters (전국언론노동조합 MBC 본부), which is under the umbrella of...
Categories Censorship/Korean War II
May 18, 2018

On Libya, as an ahistorical justification for North Korea’s nukes

JOHN BOLTON LIKES THE LIBYA MODEL OF NORTH KOREA’S DISARMAMENT, KIM JONG-UN HATES IT, and Donald Trump is backing away from it. Nonproliferation experts, who at times seem to have embraced the defense of Kim Jong-un’s inalienable right to nukes as their own cause, hate it just as much as Kim Jong-un does. Many of them are fond of citing the 2011 Libyan Civil War as a justification for North Korea retaining a nuclear arsenal. The argument goes like this:...
Categories Diplomacy/Proliferation/WMD
May 14, 2018

Then they came for the defectors, but I said nothing: Why the UNHCR must investigate the Ningpo 13 case

Here Squealer’s demeanour suddenly changed. He fell silent for a moment, and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side before he proceeded. It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour had been circulated at the time of Boxer’s removal. Some of the animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked “Horse Slaughterer,” and had actually jumped to the conclusion that Boxer was being sent to the knacker’s....
Categories Defectors/Refugees
May 9, 2018

To save Korea’s democracy, withdraw its American security blanket

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” – Samuel Johnson Most Korea-watchers will view the recent hints from both Seoul and Washington about a U.S. withdrawal with alarm, and as a grave risk to the security of both Korea and Japan. Indeed, it’s one more development that’s consistent with my hypothesis that Pyongyang means to coerce and cajole Seoul into submission, first by lowering the South’s...
Categories An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Appeasement/Korean Society/Korean War II/North-South/Sunshine
May 8, 2018

Moon Chung-in throws U.S. Forces Korea out the Overton Window (Update: & so does Trump)

A PATTERN WE’VE SEEN REPEATED OVER THE LAST YEAR goes roughly as follows: First, Moon Chung-in, the left-wing South Korean President’s crazy old uncle1 shouts something wacky from his attic when the Americans are within earshot. The Americans wince and pretend they didn’t hear. President Moon Jae-in and his cabinet walk the wacky remark back and gently hush the crazy old uncle. But once Moon Chung-in has defenestrated the wacky idea out of his attic’s Overton Window, the hard-left base loots...
Categories An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military
May 3, 2018

Guest Post: Irrational Exuberance Redux: North Korea and its nuclear weapons, goals, and intentions

[The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O, the author of this book, and whose bio you can read here.] Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Board Chairman, called the overvaluation of the dot-com market “irrational exuberance” in 1996. The term was used again to describe the housing bubble of 2004 through 2007 by Yale Professor Robert Schiller. Now, here is another situation ripe for the term—the expectation that Kim Jong-un will give up his nuclear weapons. This irrational...
Categories Korean War II/Sunshine
May 2, 2018

North Korean Freedom Week is the next test for free speech in “free” Korea

A FEW OF US WILL ALWAYS STUBBORNLY INSIST THAT WE DISREGARD THE LIVES AND DIGNITY of North Korea’s oppressed people at our own peril. We argue that there can be no verified disarmament of a North Korea that remains a closed society, no security in its promises as long as it mendaciously denies the existence of its prison camps, no lasting peace as long as it holds human life in contempt, no reunification between a liberal democracy and a tyranny...
Categories An Alliance?/Censorship/Korean War II/Sunshine
April 30, 2018

Moon Jae-in just put Seoul on a collision course with U.S. & U.N. sanctions (updated)

THE ONE INVIOLABLE RULE OF INTER-KOREAN SUMMITS IS THAT THERE IS ALWAYS A SCANDAL sooner or later. Kim Dae-jung’s summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000 resulted in a Nobel Peace Prize, eight indictments, six convictions, and a bunch of suspended prison sentences for an illegal payment of $500 million to North Korea. Otherwise, it did not disarm North Korea and did not produce a lasting reduction of tensions.((Previously said $500,000. Since corrected.)) Roh Moo-hyun’s 2007 summit with Kim Jong-il also failed...
Categories An Alliance?/Kaesong/North-South/Sanctions/Sunshine
April 27, 2018

The Warmbiers sue North Korea

WHILE THE WORLD IS AGOG AT THE SIGHT OF KIM JONG-UN’S impersonation of a human being, Fred and Cindy Warmbier wish to remind you of his true character by sharing with you what their son—or what was left of him—was like when he came home from North Korea. Yesterday, they filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the North Korean government for the wrongful death of Otto Warmbier. I downloaded the complaint from PACER. Warmber...
Categories Foreigners in N. Korea/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Law
April 25, 2018

Steve Mnuchin is defying Congress & undermining the President’s North Korea policy

WHO, EXACTLY, DOES STEVE MNUCHIN THINK HE WORKS FOR—Donald Trump or Xi Jinping? We are just weeks away from a scheduled meeting between the President who appointed Mnuchin and the dictator of North Korea. That meeting may decide whether it’s still possible to disarm the North through diplomacy instead of a war that could easily go nuclear. Unlike every other U.S. president since there has been a North Korea, President Trump grasps that the prerequisite to a successful negotiation is...
Categories Money Laundering/Sanctions/U.S. Law
April 24, 2018

Will the real Im Jong-seok please speak up?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, AS IF TO ANSWER THE QUESTION I RAISED in the final paragraph of yesterday’s post, reports on the background of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s Chief of Staff, Im Jong-seok, or rather, some of it. It’s an unsatisfying report by first-rate reporters that reads as if it has been edited too heavily by lawyers. Its most glaring omissions are the word “Chondaehyop,” what it did, or when Im led it. Specifically, it fails to answer the questions that I’ve been...
Categories Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column
April 23, 2018

Moon Jae-in’s vision for reunification means One Slave Korea

LAST DECEMBER, I PUBLISHED A SURPRISINGLY CONTROVERSIAL HYPOTHESIS that Korean War II would not be a conventional war, but is a hybrid war to alternately cajole and coerce South Korea into gradual submission to the North’s hegemony, aggressive implementation of a series of joint statements, and eventual digestion into a one-country, two-systems confederation. I argued that this plan would only work if a sufficiently submissive government in Seoul yielded to Pyongyang while going only so far and so fast as...
Categories Appeasement/Korean War II
April 16, 2018

“Liberal” South Korean government blocks filming of Thae Yong-ho’s speech; article reporting it vanishes (Updated)

In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices … in the side wall, within easy reach of Winston’s arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for...
Categories Censorship/Defectors/Democracy/Korean War II
April 11, 2018

Using the law to break Africa’s addiction to North Korean weapons

When Africa binges on North Korean weapons, it doesn’t just deprive Africa of resources its people need for development; it fuels conflict and human rights abuses by some of the world’s most despotic governments. It also finances and encourages Pyongyang’s militarist reunification drive, and helps it buy more weapons for its generals to point at and terrorize South Korean cities. As with arms purchases by Syria, arms sales to Africa are a major hole in our sanctions that the Trump...
Categories Africa/Arms Trafficking