I don’t know why it comes as a surprise to anyone when North Korea reneges on anything:
North Korea said Friday it is ditching a nonaggression pact and all other peace agreements with South Korea, in an apparent attempt to use the threat of an armed clash to press Seoul to give up its “confrontational” stance.
The communist nation also said it will no longer respect a disputed sea border with the South, raising the prospect for an armed clash along the Yellow Sea boundary the scene of deadly skirmishes between the two navies in 1999 and 2002. [AP, via IHT]
It was not entirely clear which agreements the North Koreans were talking about, as though the North had ever really felt bound by any of them. The exact words of the North Koreans were:
“We do declare that all the understandings for solving inter-Korean political and military confrontation are invalidated.” [Daily NK]
But why? In most cases, you can safely assume that it’s about money, and when the North Koreans want to demand more, any old excuse will do. The most recent would seem to be the appointment of a new Unification Minister whose ideological views align with those of the elected president (the horror!). They were expecting Comrade Chung, perhaps? Maybe President Lee Myung Bak should have just scrapped the entire ministry as originally planned.
The real reason for North Korea’s new hostile policy probably has more to do with the interruption of billions of dollars in regime-sustaining extortion payments the North bullied out of previous left-leaning South Korean governments. Since his inauguration a year ago, President Lee has insisted that South Korea should actually get something back for its money — the return of Korean War prisoners of war or abductees, maybe the removal of some of those guns aimed at Seoul, or a little meaningful performance on one of many North Korean commitments to give up its nuclear arsenal. It’s pretty clear in retrospect that financing those programs was not an effective way to curtail them. And as for the theory that more “engagement” with the South would slowly transform the North into something less miserable and oppressive, there’s a lot more evidence for exactly the opposite.
South Koreans have seen all of this before. Most are reacting to the new announcement with yawns, although “analysts” think some sort of provocation near the Northern Limit Line could be in the works. The South Korean government warned the North that any intrusions across the Northern Limit Line will be met with a “resolute response.” According to the Daily NK, the North Korean military has canceled leaves and appears to be in a heightened state of alert.
(I would just like to say what pleasant change it is to see any Korean government, North or South, slinging strident rhetoric toward someone other than us for once.)
Most of the press reports also suggest that the North Koreans are trying to get the attention of Barack Obama, which is a half-truth, because what the North Koreans really want is their very own bailout. What we’re seeing is the beginning of the same old extortion racket the North Koreans have used against every new American president since at least Richard Nixon. There’s always a “crisis” with the North Koreans around the time of a presidential transition. And if my guess is right, the new administration is occupied with the selection of political appointees to fill key civil service posts and much less “ready from day one” than advertised to deal with the threat, however empty it may be, of a third theater war. Which means it’s quite likely that we’ll soon send some special envoy off to Pyongyang to find out the asking price of a few more months of quiet time for appointments, confirmations, and policy reviews.
Of course, North Korea can’t survive for long without the generous underwriting of nations with functioning economies. With its calculated alienation of the South and no immediate prospect of large-scale U.S. or Japanese aid, the North is turning to its main backer, China, to provide the support it will need to sustain its belligerence and terrorism in the meantime.
Updates, 31 Jan 09: Here’s the statement from North Korea’s “Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland,” courtesy of KCNA:
Pyongyang, January 30 (KCNA) — The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea issued a statement Friday in connection with the situation on the Korean Peninsula growing tenser as the days go by due to the south Korean conservative authorities’ reckless moves to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK.
Citing facts to prove that the Lee Myung Bak group, far from reflecting on the treacheries of pushing the north-south relations to a serious crisis, shamelessly is challenging the north, raising a hue and cry over the “threat from the north” and “adherence to principle,” the statement said:
The inter-Korean relations have reached such pass that there is neither way to improve them nor hope to bring them on track. The confrontation between the north and the south in the political and military fields has been put to such extremes that the inter-Korean relations have reached the brink of a war.
The group of traitors has already reduced all the agreements reached between the north and the south in the past to dead documents.
Under such situation it is self-evident that there is no need for the DPRK to remain bound to those north-south agreements. [KCNA]
Oddly enough, even New York Times correspondent Choe Sang Hun has to concede the point I made above, that “North’s government has flouted [the agreements] repeatedly, rendering the pacts little more than symbolic.” It’s nice to hear a Times reporter admit that, even if only to minimize the significance of what North Korea is doing now. I would agree with the Times’s reporting today that the significance of the agreements is minimal, but unlike The Times, we’ve known it all along.
Continuing with the KCNA report, we quickly descend to state terrorism:
The statement vehemently denounced on behalf of all the Koreans the Lee group for having pushed the inter-Korean relations to the brink of a war through its moves to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK in gross violation of the inter-Korean agreements.
In view of the prevailing situation the statement solemnly clarified as follows:
First, all the agreed points concerning the issue of putting an end to the political and military confrontation between the north and the south will be nullified.
Second, the Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-aggression, Cooperation and Exchange between the North and the South and the points on the military boundary line in the West Sea stipulated in its appendix will be nullified.
Holding the Lee Myung Bak group wholly accountable for the present grave situation to which the inter-Korean relations have been pushed, the statement continued:
Never to be condoned are the crimes the Lee group has committed against the nation and reunification by bedeviling overnight the inter-Korean relations that had favorably developed amidst the support and encouragement of all the Koreans and ruthlessly scrapping the inter-Korean agreements.
The Lee group seems to wait for something, calling for “adhering to the principle” but it will only face a heavier blow and shameful destruction. [KCNA]
President Lee’s response has generally been about right: not overreacting or rewarding the North Koreans, making sure there’s a destroyer standing by in the disputed area, and subtly highlighting, in a compassionate yet slightly bewildered tone, just who the regime’s actions really are hurting:
Mr. Lee, the South Korean president, who has largely ignored the recent North Korean threats, urged the North to reopen dialogue. “Of all the countries in the world, who cares the most sincerely about North Korea? The United States? Japan? China? Russia?” said Mr. Lee in a live television round-table discussion. “North Korea must realize that it’s South Korea.” [N.Y. Times]
Lee could afford to be much less subtle about this. The regime’s hypersensitivity to criticism of its domestic atrocities and the bacchanalian lives of its leaders ought to be proof enough of how dangerous it believes those words to be. That’s one more example of leverage we often don’t realize we have. And realistically, what is North Korea going to do about it? Cut off our smack supply? Renege on all those disarmament agreements it already reneged on last year? Slaughter what’s left of its cash cows? Spurn our efforts to waste even more aid on it? Provoke a skirmish that could very well end in a destabilizing military humiliation? Start a war that would end life as Kim Jong Il and his corpulent little brood know it?
Another “pragmatic” step by Lee is to work more closely with Japan. The obvious objective must be to unite around some shared interests and jointly impress those upon the United States (the State Department meekly said that North Korea’s words are “not helpful,” but restated its commitment to the failed six-party talks). The outgoing administration was able to bypass the interests of both South Korea and Japan because the two Pacific neighbors were divided against each other. The combined influence of Japan and South Korea will be harder for this administration to ignore. President Lee’s advisors must be smart enough to know that a more cooperative relationship with Japan is one way to keep South Korea from becoming marginalized.
Worse, Richardson actively sought out photo ops with officials of the genocidal regime as a marketing gimmick to burnish his foreign policy credentials and sell his ability set aside moral trivialities for the sake of “peace.” What’s the matter, don’t you like peace?
Richardson has three big strikes against him in which I’d invested a lot of optimism: first, he crossed the Clintons (”Judas!“), who must not want him meddling in their foreign policy fiefdom now. Second, he’s under an ethical cloud related to the alleged steering of contracts. Third, the Obama people are reportedly upset that Kim Jong Bill wasn’t up-front about said ethical cloud while he was under consideration for Commerce Secretary.
If Richardson gets the position, I’d say with high confidence that it’s time to abandon all hope for change, and that the Obama Administration will do even worse than the Bush Administration did on pressing this issue with the North Koreans. To make Kim Jong Bill our point-man on getting the North Koreans to do anything we want them to do would be the equivalent of putting Jack Madoff in charge of the S.E.C.
If ever there was a nomination that deserved to be held up, this is it.
See also:
Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton has no better ideas about how to deal with North Korea than the way Chris Hill has been doing it. Bob Gates is ambivalent at best.
And there’s this: “The Barack Obama administration should seek behavioral change from North Korea rather than a sudden collapse of the regime, says the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, which advises the Barack Obama administration. In a report released Wednesday, the CFR also calls for close cooperation with neighbors including China to avoid conflict.” Given China’s generosity to the Clintons, I’m sure there will be plenty of cooperation.
I’m at a complete loss to top the absurdity of Korean politics:
Their political rivals had fled moments earlier through a secret back door. An incensed Lee smashed her colleagues’ nameplates to the floor.
“If I had caught the GNP lawmakers running away, I would have shouted, ‘You bastards!’ ” the petite, bespectacled lawyer said later as she poured tea in her office. “My gesture was symbolic, to mark a moment when the values of democracy and the process of reason had given way to chaos.” [L.A. Times]
I think this says it well enough:
“Many believe that it reinforces the notion that South Korea may be part of the First World economically, but remains politically backward,” Hwang said.
Ya think?
The political antipathy has paralyzed the National Assembly, where legislators were able to muster votes on fewer than 300 of the 2,600 bills introduced in the most recent session.
“Many fighting politicians really do believe that if they lose their battle, democracy itself will be in danger,” said Andy Jackson, a political columnist for the Korea Times.
U.S. officials who negotiate FTA’s and cost-sharing agreements should be forced to watch these videos before boarding their flights to Seoul, just to prepare them for the political culture they’re about to enter.
He was seconded by a fallen government, gets no respect from the U.S. government, and works for the world’s most overrated entity, but Vitit Muntarbhorn, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea is making (in U.N. terms, at least) a creditable effort to do his job:
An independent U.N. investigator on North Korea’s human rights situation Tuesday described the food shortage and rights violations in the country as ‘’very grim'’ and called on Japan to strengthen support systems for those who have fled the country.
U.N. special rapporteur Vitit Muntarbhorn also urged Pyongyang to ‘’take action efficaciously'’ to address its past abductions of Japanese and other foreign nationals, stressing that the international community ‘’remains highly unsatisfied'’ with its response so far. [Kyodo News]
Muntarbhorn is visting Japan this week. The Japanese seem to have had some success at cultivating him to leverage world opinion toward the return of their abducted citizens. And while I tend to believe that “world opinion” is also overrated, I’m glad to see the Japanese continue to buck the trend of excusing North Korea from every known law, principle, or standard of civilized conduct.
North Korea continues to want us to believe that Kim Jong Il is hale and healthy, and a surprising number of journalists continue to report the KCNA’s uncorroborated claims of his public appearances as “evidence” of his recovery:
“When he appeared in the auditorium the audience broke into the stormy cheers of ‘Hurrah!’ and extended the warmest lunar New Year greetings to him,” KCNA said.
While state media reported his appearance, they did not release any photos or footage of the leader at the ceremonies.
Kim waved to the performers and audience when the show was over, KCNA said. The report did not say when the concert took place; Monday was the first day of the new lunar year.
The public appearance is the latest indication Kim, who turns 67 next month, has regained his health and remains in control of the Stalinist nation of 23 million. [AP]
If the North Koreans really want the more skeptical among us to believe that His Porcine Majesty has “regained his health,” why don’t they release recent video of him walking, or audio of him speaking about current events? So far, I’ve seen convincing evidence that Kim, who turns 67 next month, can sit upright. That seems to be setting a low bar for someone who sits at the pinnacle of the world’s most perilous palace intrigue.
For whatever it’s worth, Hillary Clinton says the six-party talks are “essential.” What’s not clear is whether the six-party talks would be in tandem to more bilateral talks, or whether the six-party talks would effectively become five-party talks if the North Koreans decided not to show up.
There is nothing so harmful to the interests of a nation as a politician desperate for a legacy:
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter says North Korea’s nuclear issue could be worked out “in half a day” given the right conditions.
Carter told AP he believes North Korea would surrender its nuclear weapons in return for U.S. diplomatic recognition, a peace agreement with South Korea and the U.S., and new atomic power reactors and fuel oil.
He said North Koreans “have always been willing to forego their nuclear capability if they have diplomatic relations with the United States.” [Chosun Ilbo]
He forgot the reparations aid, the free electrical grid, moving the NLL down to Incheon, withdrawing USFK, 50 seats in the South Korean parliament, gold-plated commodes for Kim Jong Il’s palaces, and whatever else “hostile policy” happens to mean that week.
No informed and intelligent observer of North Korea’s actions or words could possibly believe what Carter says. Could Carter possibly be unaware of this, this, this, or this? In other words, is Carter uninformed, unintelligent, or both?
I would also like to register my curiosity about the whereabouts of the man who once called himself “the human rights president.” Does Jimmy Carter still have nothing to say about North Korea’s concentration camps and public mass executions, or does the former president suffer from a rare and intermittent paralysis of the larynx that only afflicts him when he’s confronted by the atrocities of people who hate America?
A new documentary will play at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and this is one that I’m going to be watching very carefully: “Kimjongilia.” The film is about North Korea and those who have escaped it, their tortuous flights, and their often equally tortuous deprogramming as they adapt to life on Earth. The film’s subject matter focus is on the concentration camps, and the astonishment of the Director, N.C. Heikin, that world opinion has not arisen in outrage against them.
The film’s artistic focus is on the jarring contrast between the regime’s eerily beautiful deification with the grim alternative reality of life, such as it is, for an ordinary North Korean citizen.
You can read more about “Kimjongilia” in this review, and watch a trailer here. Thanks to the producers of “Kimjongilia” for the hat tip, and if you know of anyone who would be interested in this film, you can use the “share this” links below to e-mail this post to them.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who as mayor of Seoul awkwardly offered the city to Almighty God, was recently rescued from the brink of a social and sectarian fiasco when a staffer prevented him from sending Chuseok gift sets of dried anchovies to a group of Buddhist monks (link is in Korean).
Fact 1: Buddhist monks are required to abstain from eating living things.
Fact 2: 22.8% of President Lee’s constituents are Buddhists.
So many mouths. How can one man put a foot in all of them?
So over the weekend, I finally had a chance to read Nicholas Eberstadt’s fine summary of the Bush Administration’s eight years of drift and indecision on North Korea (hat tip to Robert Koehler). It’s hard to pick a favorite passage, but this one certainly struck a chord:
In the absence of a coherent policy, though, the imperative of “success” in talks with North Korea suddenly took on a life of its own for the Bush team. (After all, there was no alternative strategy, no “plan B,” for what to do if the talks came to an unsuccessful end.) Consequently, instead of crafting our conference diplomacy with Pyongyang in accordance with our overall strategy for North Korean threat reduction, our efforts at North Korean threat reduction came to be tailored to the perceived needs of our conference diplomacy. [Nicholas Eberstadt, The Weekly Standard]
I’d be sincerely flattered if that choice of words wasn’t coincidental. The main shortcoming of Eberstadt’s piece may have been its lack of explanation, beyond the Banco Delta Asia example, of what Eberstadt’s own Plan B might include. What’s really been missing from almost every discussion about how to deal with North Korea is an alternative to the false choice between appeasement and war; after all, it’s hard to sell a better alternative if you don’t articulate what it is. So, with the duty to pick nits duly discharged, Eberstadt’s work is certainly the best historical summary of GWB’s North Korea policy I’ve seen anywhere.
It’s too bad so little will be learned from it.
Robert is probably right that South Koreans are a lost cause when it comes to the development of some unselfish compassion for the North Korean people. I’ve been ready to write South Korea off as an ally in any meaningful strategic sense for years, ironically because I believe that it will take a U.S. demonstration of its willingness to “see other people” before South Koreans re-learn the difference between alliance and colonialism. (If this piece is correct, that demonstration may not be far off.)
Robert also questions whether squeezing North Korea can work without China’s cooperation, pointing to the example of Rhodesia’s success at evading some poorly designed, poorly enforced U.N. sanctions. Thinking that some more current economic statistics would be helpful here, I tried to call my local Rhodesian embassy, but for some reason, I was unable to locate a listing for one. I was able to find this Peterson Institute study, however, which notes that the success of economic sanctions depends on many factors, such as the goal of the sanctions, the economic resilience of the target, the attractiveness of the target’s exports, and the will of other parties to support the sanctions regime. Rhodesia was a major exporter of minerals and agricultural products, including beef and tobacco. North Korea’s export customer base consists of crank addicts in Harajuku. Indeed, we’ve learned that the microeconomy that sustains North Korea’s power structure is actually quite fragile.
But what really distinguishes the failure of the Rhodesia sanctions from the demonstrated success of the Banco Delta sanctions was the willingness of the U.S. Treasury to impose and enforce them unilaterally on banks doing business with North Korea, thus severing the regime’s ability to recoup its ill-gotten gains. That’s why U.S. sanctions could be applied to a Chinese bank located on Chinese soil, without China’s cooperation, and still have such a devastating effect. If you won’t take my word for the success of those sanctions, take Marcus Noland’s. And the BDA sanctions were a pale shadow of the many financial tools in America’s kit bag. Since the BDA sanctions were imposed, the United Nations has passed two new resolutions (1695 and 1718) that are far tougher than anything it levied against Rhodesia. China voted for 1718, which contains very tough economic restrictions, but has thus far felt little U.S. pressure to enforce it.
Now, I don’t suggest for a moment that President Obama is likely to impose tough economic measures on the North Koreans right away, if ever. He’ll dither for at least a year while his new diplomats try their new Jedi mind tricks on their ruthless interlocutors. But when the diplomats finally realize that negotiations alone will get us nowhere, they will have other, stronger cards to play.
To the limited degree history remembers Jay Lefkowitz at all, it should remember him as a good and well-meaning man who was unequal to the great task laid before him. I have sometimes suspected that this was the very design of those who appointed him. With the change of administrations this week, Lefkowitz departed as Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, leaving behind a final report that still clings obediently to the myth of constructive engagement with sociopaths:
The Pyongyang initiative, Lefkowitz said, “may consist of a new framework for dialogue and effective steps to interact more deeply with North Korea. This should involve a candid and ongoing human rights dialogue with Pyongyang as a condition for the future normalization of relations.”
Lefkowitz called the working group on normalization of relations, established by a February 2007 agreement at the six-party talks, a “good starting point for this discussion.” [Yonhap]
Either Lefkowitz is still toeing the line of a Secretary of State who hushed him and held him in public contempt or he still doesn’t get it. To the North Koreans, constructive engagement means about as much as it does in your average prison holding cell. In principle, however, he is correct that money is the best lever to force the regime to modify its behavior. It’s just that Lefkowitz doesn’t dare advocate a sufficiently aggressive approach:
Lefkowitz proposed that the U.S. and its allies cooperate closely to link any aid to North Korea with human rights improvements. Such aid would include development assistance, World Bank loans, trade access and food.
“When countries provide unilateral aid to North Korea, it is easier for Pyongyang to resist monitoring,” he said. “If aid donors could be syndicated and would agree to offer large amounts of humanitarian assistance to North Korea contingent on full access and monitoring, Pyongyang might feel impelled to accept.”
“Were this to happen, the misery of the North Korean people could be partially alleviated in a way that does not strengthen the regime,” he added.
By the end of 2007, the U.S. and Korean press were paying noticeably less attention to his testimony and his conferences. Not surprisingly, the more unconditional concessions the State Department offered and the less it said about North Korea’s atrocities, the more atrocities it committed. Yet even as the State Department sidelined him from its policymaking, its talks with the North Koreans, and the public face of U.S. government policy, Lefkowitz somehow clung to the belief that he still mattered. What else could have kept him from resigning?
Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in July that he would invite Lefkowitz, to attend “all future negotiations with North Korea, except those specifically dealing with nuclear disarmament.”
His assurances cleared the way for some reluctant Republican senators to approve the nomination of Kathleen Stephens as the first female U.S. ambassador to Seoul.
The irony is that by renouncing the policies of the president who appointed him, he could have mattered. Certainly Lefkowitz owed Condi Rice no great debt of respect.
What will happen to the Special Envoy’s position now? (I know — the position title has recently been changed. I just don’t care.) The rumor in Washington today is that the Democrats plan to dual-hat the position with that of the nuclear negotiator, meaning that a person of Chris Hill’s inclination would have the deference to discuss human rights as little as he chooses. If that is so, we can be fairly certain that human rights will never be mentioned in any place where the North Koreans might hear.
Chronic food shortages will considerably reduce North Korea’s pool of military recruits in the coming years, with nearly a quarter of young adults unfit for service due to malnutrition-related mental disabilities, a U.S. intelligence report said. [Yonhap]
Malnutrition may also be taking an intellectual toll on North Koreans:
The famine of the 1990s has caused severe cognitive deficiencies among young North Koreans, said the report by the National Intelligence Council that used studies from several U.S. intelligence agencies.
I doubt don’t that the misrule of the Kims will also take a severe toll on the North Korean people morally and psychologically as well. It will take generations for North Korea to recover from this era.
North Korean television, monitored in Seoul, showed photos of Kim holding talks with Wang and hosting a reception for the Chinese official. Dressed in his trademark Mao suit, Kim appeared a little thinner, but generally in good health in the pictures.
KCNA and the North’s TV said Wang delivered a personal letter from Chinese President Hu Jintao to Kim, but did not elaborate. [AP, via IHT]
Or at least, that’s what he wants us all to think:
Analysts in Seoul saw the meeting as a North Korean attempt to demonstrate to the outside world that Mr. Kim was in control of his government, well enough to make key decisions about its nuclear weapons program and deal with the new U.S. administration. [N.Y. Times, Choe Sang Hun]
This is one of those rare cases in which (a) the truth really is somewhere in the middle, and (b) the “analysts in Seoul” haven’t lost all contact with it. I could be a flat-earther about this and insist that neither the Chinese nor the North Koreans are above staging a sham, but Kim Jong Il seems to have emerged from a rumored stroke with some degree of tyrannical capacity intact.
Then again, the absence of video and audio is telling. A stroke often affects the victim’s voice, speech, and ability to walk normally and would give us a better idea of whether the original reports were true, the extent of any disability, and approximately how long until His Porcine Majesty will be rolled off to join North Korea’s largest stockpile of preserved meat.
The thugs at the Korean Confederation of trade unions see opportunity in their country’s bad economic times, reports the sympathetic Hankyoreh:
The KCTU plans to launch an “all out war” against the Lee administration in February, since it has again made known its intention to have the ruling Grand National Party pass revisions to laws on irregular workers and the minimum wage in the extraordinary National Assembly session scheduled for that month. The KCTU plans to launch its offensive with demands for labor-government negotiations early in the month, and will then hold large daily rallies beginning in the third week, leading to a protest involving 30,000 of its members on the 28th.
“We can’t stop the bad legislative proposals originating with Lee Myung-bak,” said KCTU Secretary-General Lee Yong-sik. “Unless we have a war.” [The Hankyoreh]
If you live in South Korea, mark your calendars and plan on spending those days with your Wii. The KCTU has a history of bringing iron pipes, bamboo poles, and like implements of free expression to its demonstrations. Yet things aren’t really working out the way the KCTU had hoped:
It is unfortunate to see that the economic stagnation is weakening the union’s ability to wage labor struggles and that it could see a rise in self-interest among regular, as opposed to irregular, workers, and among unions at different companies.
For starters, there are fewer participants at KCTU rallies. Fewer than 100 KCTU members actually joined in its “48-Hour National Action to Stop the Broadcast Law” in the final days of 2008.
Union officials confirm that they are seeing a continued lack of power to involve large numbers of people in protests.
The Hanky helpfully theorizes that in bad economic times, workers may not want to rock the boat. I wouldn’t be astonished if the KCTU’s violence had begun to alienate workers, employers, and smaller unions considering an affiliation with them.
The KCTU has also suffered from its sudden inability to sow anarchy in the streets with impunity. The jihad the KCTU declared against Lee Myung Bak a year ago played a significant role in the beef riots that seriously damaged President Lee’s presidency, but when the entire basis for the riots was exposed as false, the radical left may well have emerged from the entire crisis with less public confidence that the U.S. beef that’s now flying off Korean store shelves. President Lee, not the sort to back down magnanimously when confronted, arrested the KCTU’s president and several other of its leaders in December for organizing “illegal” and characteristically violent demonstrations. The KCTU president sits in jail to this day.
When you subtract out all of the hours the KCTU devotes to anarchy and juche, it’s a wonder they have any time at all to think of their rank and file. Personally, I’ve long believed that South Koreans need to set aside an outlet for their more combative side where the fisticuffs wouldn’t impede traffic. They could set aside a special gladiators’ arena for that specific purpose, complete with bamboo poles, riot shields, and tear gas grenades for rent by the opposing sides. Think of the revenue the season ticket sales would generate … for education, of course. We could call it “Demo Land.” I even know where there’s some vacant land they could use.
South Korean President Lee Myung Bak, who as mayor of Seoul awkwardly