November 27, 2014

I wish all borders could be like this

I have a tendency to get lost in Wikipedia, bouncing from page to page chasing curiosities. Last night, I learned this about Liechtenstein: During the 1980s the Swiss army fired off shells during an exercise and mistakenly burned a patch of forest inside Liechtenstein. The incident was said to be resolved “over a case of white wine”. In March 2007, a 170-person Swiss infantry unit became lost during a training exercise and inadvertently crossed 1.5 km (0.9 miles) into Liechtenstein. The accidental invasion...
Categories Europe
November 26, 2014

Oh, so this is what pissed the North Koreans off.

Speaking at the International Democrat Union last Friday, Park said this: In a luncheon meeting with the party leaders, President Park Geun-hye said North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons had resulted in the country’s isolation and dire human rights conditions. “Now the North Korean people are faced with hunger and a tragic humanitarian situation as the North sticks to the path of… isolation by developing nuclear arms,” Park said during the luncheon at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. “I...
Categories North-South/Sunshine
November 25, 2014

N. Korea threatens to shell Blue House over U.N. vote (It’s not just about balloons)

At my comments section, also known as The Diplomat, two recent articles take opposing views on ideas I’ve written about at length here. The first piece, by Zach Przystup, entitled “Pyongyang’s Poverty Politics,” argues that the regime in Pyongyang deliberately keeps large segments of its population hungry. It’s a question I’ve struggled with for years, but the more I know, the more difficult it becomes to avoid that conclusion. Then, Steven Denney posts a “respectful riposte” to my criticism of...
Categories Censorship/Terrorism (NK)
November 24, 2014

North Korea is back in the international kidnapping business

It wouldn’t be completely accurate to say that North Korea was ever out of the international kidnapping business, but last week Yonhap and The Daily NK reported that North Korean agents in Paris had attempted, unsuccessfully, to kidnap the son of an aide to royal uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was purged last December, and to bundle him onto a flight to Pyongyang. The AP later corroborated the report through unnamed French sources and published it. A North Korean student with...
Categories Kremlinology/Terrorism (NK)
November 24, 2014

Robert Potter’s “third way” is a good way, but it’s really a second way

Writing at The Diplomat, Potter takes on the futile task to navigating between pro-engagement extremists like Mike Bassett, Felix Abt, and someone named Joe Terwillager, on one hand, and anti-engagement extremists like me, on the other. Potter proposes this third way: Sanctions of the right kind can ensure that the Kim dynasty never becomes wealthy enough to close the markets down, but removing them entirely could empower the Kims and make the regime less likely to tolerate change. As for engagement, pointing...
Categories Capitalism/Sanctions
November 21, 2014

South Korea’s illiberal left: authoritarians in the service of totalitarians

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. [Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19] In America, we have grown accustomed to a political polarity in which we associate “left” with “liberal.” Whatever the merits of that correlation here, it’s useless to any understanding of politics in South Korea, where very few people...
Categories Censorship/Korean Politics/Refugees/Subversion/The Fifth Column
November 20, 2014

Kirby: “strategy of non-criticism” gained only “crumbs” for Japan, S. Korea

In an op-ed for CNN.com, Michael Kirby talks about North Korea’s crimes against humanity, the history of the U.N.’s attempts to “engage” Pyongyang on human rights, and the broader failure of strategies that sought to transform North Korea though scented candles, mood lighting, and Marvin Gaye music alone: The strategy of non-criticism, attempted friendliness and deference was singularly unsuccessful in securing either the goal of peace, national reunification or human rights compliance. For example, the meetings in Pyongyang in September 2002 with...
Categories "United" Nations/Anju Links/Appeasement/Human Rights
November 20, 2014

China’s bridge to nowhere?

The AP’s Pyongyang Bureau Chief reports that as China completes a $350 million bridge across the Yalu River from Dandong to Sinuiju, and weeks after its announced opening date, the North Korean side is largely an unfinished abutment. Now, it is beginning to look like Beijing has built a bridge to nowhere. An Associated Press Television News crew in September saw nothing but a dirt ramp at the North Korean end of the bridge, surrounded by open fields. No immigration or customs...
Categories Capitalism/China & Korea
November 19, 2014

Must see: An opinion about N. Korea sanctions from an actual sanctions expert (really!)

William Newcomb, formerly of the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.N. Panel of experts (UNPOE), was at The Korea Society last Friday to talk with Stephen Noerper about North Korea sanctions, what they are, and how to make them a useful policy tool again. Newcomb didn’t have time to explain all of the authorities and their provisions in detail, but he did make some important points. First, Newcomb blames “politics” for the fact that the UNPOE hasn’t designated a number...
Categories Sanctions
November 19, 2014

NIS: China oil-cutoff story was bogus

China is secretly providing North Korea with oil, with shipments over the border either intentionally omitted from its export statistics or broadly identified as aid, according to South Korean intelligence officials. Customs data released by Beijing indicates that no crude oil went over the border to North Korea in the first nine months of the year, although analysts in Seoul say that such a drastic halt in imports would have played havoc with the North’s industrial capability and its military...
Categories China & Korea
November 19, 2014

N. Korea perestroika watch: regime installs German-made cell phone trackers

If and when the Security Council takes up North Korea human rights sanctions, I hope they’ll start by ordering the public flogging of whomever sold these to Pyongyang: The North Korean authorities have installed a series of German-produced radio wave detectors along the border areas to monitor and block residents from making phone calls with people in other countries. The Daily NK has learned that by using the new devices near borders areas where phone reception can be detected, the authorities have been...
Categories Border Control/Censorship/Subversion
November 19, 2014

Kang Chol-Hwan does a Reddit AMA

“One of the biggest misconceptions I think people have of North Korea is that they are simple and naive,” he said. “But I feel that North Koreans as a group of people have gone through a lot of hardship, and their ability to survive in difficult situations are a lot higher that what people think. People think that unification will be a basketcase for North Koreans, but they will definitely be able to manage. People also think North Koreans will...
Categories Reconstruction/Refugees/The Camps
November 18, 2014

I heard Obama told Putin that Kim Jong Un was too big a wuss to test a nuke to punish the U.N.

Before the committee voted Tuesday, North Korea warned that it might retaliate with further nuclear tests. Trying to punish it over human rights “is compelling us not to refrain any further from conducting nuclear tests,” said Choe Myong Nam, a North Korean foreign-ministry adviser for U.N. and human rights issues, according to the Associated Press. [Washington Post, Anna Fifield] Oh, dear God, please, please do this.
Categories "United" Nations/Proliferation/Terrorism (NK)/WMD
November 18, 2014

Bruce Bechtol and Gordon Chang on the John Batchelor Show

The North Korea part begins around the one-minute mark. Chang and Bechtol think North Korea is unstable, but they may know something I don’t. I agree that the turnover seems to have been high lately—and some of that can be sourced to North Korean sources, for whatever that’s worth—but I just don’t have confidence that we really know the facts. If it is true, however, turnover sounds more like a sign of instability than a sign of consolidation. There’s also...
Categories Kremlinology/NK Military