Category: DPRK Government

Warming of chilly tensions between North and South Korea

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After months of unsettling tensions, North and South Korea tentatively agreed Thursday to hold talks about reopening the shared manufacturing zone where Pyongyang halted activity in April.

The North proposed the meeting to discuss the shuttered Kaesong Industrial Zone — a major symbol of cooperation between the two countries — along with other issues in a statement published by state-run media. “The venue of the talks and the date for their opening can be set to the convenience of the south side,” it said.

South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae suggested a date of June 12 for the meeting.

As tensions flared on the Korean Peninsula in April, Kim Jong Un’s regime began blocking South Koreans from entering the Kaesong complex, which sits on the North’s side of the heavily fortified border and houses the operations of more than 120 South Korean companies. Pyongyang then pulled out the more than 50,000 North Koreans who work in the zone’s factories.

Daniel Pinkston, a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia, suggest that North Korea’s key ally China, which has expressed displeasure with some of Pyongyang’s recent behavior, may not have been “as generous as the North Koreans have been expecting in terms of aid, assistance, trade and investment.”

Additionally, U.S.-South Korean military exercises have ended, and Pyongyang has toned down the frequency and intensity of its threats against the same.

The North’s statement Thursday also proposed that the potential talks cover other issues besides the Kaesong complex. Pyongyang said the talks could also include “humanitarian issues” such as “the reunion of separated families and their relatives.”

CNN

North Korea brands American missionary as subversive plotting to overthrow the government

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North Korea (DPRK) has painted a picture that imprisoned Korean-American Kenneth Bae is a subversive who was plotting to overthrow the government. A spokesman of the North Korean Supreme Court told state news agency KCNA that Bae “set up plot-breeding bases in different places of China for the purpose of toppling the DPRK government, from 2006 to October 2012 out of distrust and enmity toward the DPRK.”

The state news agency KCNA refers to Bae by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, and charges that he committed such hostile acts as egging citizens of the DPRK overseas and foreigners on to perpetrate hostile acts to bring down its government while conducting a malignant smear campaign against it. KCNA goes into detail on the “propaganda materials” Bae is accused of carrying, which reportedly included a 2007 National Geographic documentary “Don’t tell my mother that I am in North Korea” and a book called “1.5 billion in China and North Korea, the world’s last closed nations.”.

NK News describes him as “a trained missionary who was using his China-based tour company as a platform to bring missionaries into North Korea.” It is reported that Bae was dispatched to China as a missionary of the Youth With A Mission in April, 2006.

KCNA reports that Bae set up “plot-breeding bases disguised with diverse signboards in different parts of China for the past six years.”

As to the proclaimed freedom of religion in North Korea, a North Korean defector told the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a report on treatment of Christians in the country, that the few visible churches in North’s Korea capital city are an elaborate show.

“North Korea does have Christians and Catholics. They have buildings but they are all fake,” the defector said. “These groups exist to falsely show the world that North Korea has freedom of religion. But [the government] does not allow religion or [independent] religious organizations because it is worried about the possibility that Kim Jong Il’s regime would be in danger [because] religion erodes society.”

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More on UN inquiry into North Korean torture and labor camps

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Michael Kirby, an outspoken former justice of Australia’s top court, was named this week as head of a three-member team that will look into allegations of torture, food deprivation and labor camps in North Korea that are believed to hold at least 200,000 people. Kirby previously investigated human rights abuses in Cambodia.

The U.N. Human Rights Council launched the one-year inquiry on March 21, hoping to gather enough information from camp survivors and other exiles to document violations that it says may amount to crimes against humanity. The commission is expected to be up and running by early July. The U.N. team would speak to North Koreans living in South Korea, Japan and Thailand, Kirby said.

Kirby said in an interview he had received hundreds of emails from human rights groups and representatives of those alleging abuse by North Korea in the day since his appointment.

Contacting North Korean authorities would be “top of the list” of priorities, he said, adding he was hopeful of a response from the government and its strongest supporters in neighboring China and Russia but that a lack of engagement would not stop the panel from completing its task.

Kirby said it was too early to discuss possible outcomes of the inquiry, such as whether it could lead to charges in the International Criminal Courts against any individuals. “In the end, it will be the political branches of the United Nations that will be making the decisions on the report of the commission of inquiry,” he said.

The inquiry is due to file an interim report by September, with a final report due by March next year.

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Enter Dennis Rodman maverick diplomat to North Korea

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There are reportedly no plans so far to send an American high-profile envoy to North Korea to act on behalf of US citizen Kenneth Bae, who was sentenced to 15 years hard labor after finding him guilty of unspecified crimes against the state in a move possibly intended to force concessions from Washington.

However, Dennis Rodman, the maverick basketball player turned maverick diplomat, has his own plan going. “I’m calling on the Supreme Leader of North Korea, or as I call him ‘Kim’, to do me a solid and cut Kenneth Bae loose,” he tweeted.

Kim Jong Un, Dennis RodmanThere can clearly be no doubt about the depth of the rapport between Kim Jong-un and Rodman. A couple of months ago, the two men met in Pyongyang, hugged, watched basketball together and became what Rodman called afterwards “friends for life”.

It may be that Kim is puzzling over the meaning of “do me a solid”, which would even stretch some people who speak English. The phrase appears to have its origins in the 1980s, with “a solid” being any fairly demanding favor that one (usually male) friend might do as a mark of friendship for another.

In January Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico, and the Google chief executive, Eric Schmidt, attempted to secure Bae’s release during a visit to North Korea but they were not allowed to meet him.

Last week the US state department called for Bae’s immediate release and said it was working on his case with the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which looks after US interests in the North.

 

Potential impact of North Korea on South Korean economy

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Bhaskar Chakravorti, Senior Associate Dean at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, shares this opinion on the Korean crisis:

We are at risk of losing sight of the deeper, longer-term danger to the region. The crisis that has receded to the background is an economic one — and we should not ignore it.

Now we all know that South Korea has been quite the rock star of emerging markets. It is one of the rare examples of countries that emerged from war, poverty and the inevitable “middle-income trap.” It multiplied its GDP three-fold in just 20 years. It was the first nation that went from being an OECD aid recipient to joining the OECD donor committee.

But, South Korea’s charmed decades may end soon. It is possible that its future may resemble that of its neighbor, Japan, and its “lost decades.”  As it stands, South Korea’s economy is too heavily reliant on manufacturing.

Of course, the crisis with North Korea creates its own drag in three major ways. One is that the uncertainty spooks investors away from South Korea and scares away companies as well (General Motors is already considering hedging their bets and establishing manufacturing elsewhere in Asia). Second, a geopolitical crisis, can take the Korea’s new president Park Geun-hye’s focus away from fixing the economy and instituting a process for reform of the South Korean conglomerates (chaebols) and helping re-build the middle class – her “economic democracy” agenda. Third, getting drawn into a conflict with North Korea, puts South Korea on the wrong side of a political alliance vis-a-vis its most important market: China.

Over the longer term, a continuation of the conflict has a fourth negative impact: one of the most powerful economic arguments for unification of the Koreas would be a solution to the forthcoming demographic crisis; North Korea would add to the labor force when the inevitable demographic constraint becomes a real bind.

There is, indeed, a bomb waiting to go off on the Korean Peninsula, but it is not of the Kim Jong-un’s making.

US citizen sentenced in North Korea to 15 years of compulsory labor for “hostile acts”

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A U.S. citizen, Kenneth Bae, was sentenced 15 years of compulsory labor by the Supreme Court of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Tuesday, the official KCNA news agency said Thursday.

State media refers to Bae as Pae Jun Ho, the North Korean spelling of his Korean name. The defendant was arrested while “committing hostile acts against the DPRK” after entering Rason City as a tourist on Nov. 3 last year, it said.

During the preliminary inquiry into his crimes, Pae “admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it.” His crimes were “proved by evidence,” the KCNA added.

Last January’s visit to North Korea by former U.S., New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and GoogleExecutive Chairman Eric Schmidt was reportedly linked to the release of Pae.

Pae Jun Ho (Kenneth Bae) has been detained for nearly six months in North Korea. Friends and colleagues say Bae, a Korean American who was living in Washington state and described by friends as a devout Christian and a tour operator, was based in the Chinese border city of Dalian and traveled frequently to North Korea to feed orphans.

Other Americans detained in recent years were also devout Christians. While North Korea’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the government.

The sentencing of Kenneth Bae comes amid signs of tentative diplomacy following weeks of rising tensions in the region. Analysts say Pyongyang could use Bae as a bargaining chip as it seeks dialogue with Washington.

In Washington, the U.S. State Department had no immediate comment.

It’s not the first time an American has been arrested and sentenced to labor during a nuclear standoff. In 2009, after Pyongyang’s launch of an earlier long-range rocket and its second underground nuclear test, two American journalists were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor after sneaking across the border from China.

They later were pardoned on humanitarian grounds and released to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who flew to Pyongyang on a rescue mission. He also met with then-leader Kim Jong Il, which paved the way for talks.

American citizen faces trial in North Korea

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CNN reports North Korea plans to begin a trial against a U.S. citizen detained there last year, state media said Saturday, complicating tense relations between the two nations.

Pae Jun Ho entered North Korea as a tourist on November 3, according to the Korean Central News Agency. After his detention, evidence revealed he had committed an unspecified crime against the country, the news agency said. The agency said he confessed to the alleged offense, but did not say what it was.

“He will soon be taken to the Supreme Court of the DPRK to face judgment,” the news agency said.

Last year, consular officials from the Swedish embassy in Pyongyang, which looks after U.S. interests in North Korea, visited Pae.

Who is Pae Jun Ho?

 

Resumption of six-party talks on North Korea by summer?

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After weeks of harsh rhetoric from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, quiet diplomacy is taking shape regarding the country and its nuclear and ballistic-missile ambitions.

Through diplomatic exchanges, Beijing has played an active role to draw all parties back to the Six-Party Talks, said Huang Youfu, a professor on Korean studies at the Minzu University of China.

“When the US-ROK joint military drill ends later this month, Pyongyang will temporarily have no excuse to continue its strong words, so there will be more room for diplomatic talks, and the possibility of communication will increase”, he said.

Charles Armstrong, director of Columbia University’s Center for Korean Research, believes there’s a strong likelihood the Six-Party Talks will resume, possibly by summer, but it’s unlikely that it could happen immediately, after such a heated period of confrontation.

Shi Yuanhua, director of the Center for Korean Studies under the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University in Shanghai, said Pyongyang and Washington were likely to resume bilateral communication because both sides have the will to do so.

“But the negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang could be very difficult because neither side will give up its initial stance”, he added.

China Daily

 

Could North Korean economic reform lead to Korean reunification?

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Of all the world’s known unknowns, the future of North Korea is perhaps the hardest to predict and hence presents China with unknown difficulties ahead. Today’s difficulty is mainly one of embarrassment, to have an ally who treats its own people with such contempt, draws communism further into the mire, and creates international incidents with nuclear and missile developments, meanwhile ignoring Beijing’s mild chastisements and sensible advice.

Pyongyang’s latest verbal aggressions as well as missile and nuclear tests are just more of the same tactics it has used for two decades. Creating supposed crises raises its status in the world without really threatening anybody.

The best hope for China now may be that Pyongyang’s new young leader has sufficiently shown his nationalistic credentials with bombs and rockets to satisfy the public and the ageing generals who stand behind the throne. In which case, he may be able to continue the reforms he has hinted at. Mobile phones and some internet access, albeit purely domestic, are opening space for the spread of news from the real world outside.

Trade with China continues to grow and even some investment has arrived. The best news for China would be that economic reform not only continues but is focused on trade with China.

But such economic opening must also make North Koreans aware of the even greater economic advantages they could gain by merging with the South. That cannot be done overnight but the North still has the sinews of a once semi-developed industrial economy, which could easily be rebuilt with the South’s know-how and access to money.

The pull of Korean nationalism is strong. In their different ways, Koreans on both sides are equally nationalistic, with the South being fortunate that it was mentored by the US (and indirectly by post-war Japan) while the North was mentored by Mao and Stalin.

The status quo suits everyone except the suffering North Koreans. Kim Jong-un probably recognizes that he must try to be an agent of change. The risk that he is buried in the implosion of the system is high. Change is dangerous. But maybe he has a long-term game plan; perhaps to bring about reunification and so preserve something of the family name by exchanging power for an honored place in history and fat bank accounts for the leading army and party functionaries?

Read full South China Morning Post article 

North Korea refuses to abandon nuclear program

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Rejecting a U.S. precondition for talks, North Korea said on Saturday that it would not give up its nuclear weapons program, two days after it set preconditions for the U.N., the U.S. and South Korea to begin dialogue.

On Thursday, Pyongyang had demanded to lift the U.N. sanctions and to end the joint U.S.-South Korea military drills before starting peace talks. It added that Seoul must stop all anti-North Korea rhetoric, referring to the cyber attack on South Korean broadcasters and banks last month which Seoul blamed on its hostile northern neighbor. Additionally, it asked the U.S. to withdraw all nuclear weapons assets from South Korea and the region.

North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun termed the U.S. talk of dialogue as “nothing but rhetoric.”