Archive for February, 2009
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 26, 2009 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Human Rights
The State Department has released its 2008 country reports on human rights. The North Korea report is here, and it reflects no improvements in the abysmal state of life, such as it is, in North Korea. It features this litany of arbitrary murders by the state’s agents:
During the year the South Korean nongovernmental research organization North Korean Human Rights Infringement Record Center reported that North Korea carried out 901 public executions in 2007. North Korea also reportedly carried out 56 cases of summary executions with no judicial process.
A South Korean nongovernmental organization (NGO) reported that 15 North Koreans, including 13 women and two men, were shot in front of local residents on February 20 for illegally entering China.
On January 3, Agence France-Presse reported that a South Korean NGO stated North Korean authorities had executed a cooperative farm chief and two colleagues for starting a private farm in December 2007 in Pyongsong City. According to the report, the three were shot 90 times, four others were sentenced to life imprisonment, and the families of those executed were taken to prison camps.
On March 10, railway cargo guards allegedly beat 20 homeless children, killing several. The guards had caught the children stealing from a railway car.
On July 11, security forces shot and killed a South Korean tourist visiting the Mt. Kumgang Tourism Park.
On August 26, a South Korean NGO reported that soldiers beat 20 homeless adults for trying to steal corn from trucks in Hamheung city, South Hamgyoung Province. The report said that one of the individuals was killed, and that the soldiers threw the body into a dumping ground near the station.
On October 8, a South Korean NGO reported that authorities in Hoeryong City, North Hamgyong Province, publicly executed five women accused of trafficking in persons. Family members of the women were not notified until after the execution. According to the report, the families petitioned the government, claiming the women were not granted due process, but the municipal government insisted the executions were carried out legally and did not respond to the petition.
Religious and human rights groups outside the country alleged that some North Koreans who had contact with foreigners across the Chinese border were imprisoned or killed.
There were no new developments in the alleged 2006 death penalty sentence for Son Jong-nam, whose brother reported that Son was still alive as of the spring of 2007.
The language of the 2008 report is generally similar to that of the 2007 report. You can see links to previous reports here.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 26, 2009 at 7:42 am · Filed under Japan & Korea, Abductions, Activism
The Japanese NGO ReACH, which advocates for the return of abducted Japanese citizens and for human rights in North Korea, has assembled a long list of known North Korean fax numbers, which I’ve published here for all the world to see, below the fold. REACH is calling on Japan’s massive community of netizens (and you, too!) to send spam faxes to these numbers, and offers some recommendations to maximize the subversive/disruptive effect if you decide to join the fun:
- Starting with the obvious: the message should be in Korean. I have a limited capacity to translate a few of these.
- Think about how the recipient will perceive what you’re saying. Invective and insults will only reinforce xenophobic programming, and it should go without saying that few North Koreans will appreciate your biting satire. Keep the tone supportive and sympathetic.
- Keep it factual. Hyperbole and fiction are much less persuasive than facts.
- Practical and useful information is more likely to be read.
- Don’t send the same old thing to the same fax a hundred times. Let a hundred flowers bloom.
- In North Korea, it’s illegal to throw away anything with an image of Kim Jong Il or Kim Il Sung. Imagine how confused they’ll be receiving a fax with a picture of Kim Jong Il like this one. While anecdotal information suggests that most North Koreans have little use for Kim Jong Il, there’s still plenty of residual reverence for Kim Il Sung. If I were designing a fax to send, I’d concentrate on His Porcine Majesty as a propaganda foil: health and succession rumors, his opulent lifestyle, and reports of the severity of the famine (residents of Pyongyang may still not realize how bad the famine was in other parts of the country).
- The grand prize in this contest is a return fax, a letter, message, or other verified confirmation that someone is reading your information. If that happens, I’d love to know, but for God’s sake don’t post which numbers fax you back anywhere on the net (if a number is non-working, drop me a line and I’ll take it off the list). In theory, if we can come up with a list of numbers that are actually receiving the information, it would be possible to send regular summaries of news reports to Pyongyang’s samizdat grapevine.
You have to admit that the targeting here is a lot more precise than those leaflet balloons. REACH is asking for your best designs, so feel free to e-mail them to me (see third sidebar) and I’ll forward them along. I’ll post the best ones here.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 25, 2009 at 10:11 pm · Filed under Anju Links
WHOOP DE DOO: Another one of those private delegations of North Korea “experts” is headed for Pyongyang. I’ll go out on a long limb here: in a few days they’ll return none the wiser to deliver more North Korean extortion demands to credulous American reporters.
AND HOW IS THIS NOT A PROVOCATION?
According to the Defense Ministry, North Korean artillery batteries deployed in Haeju and on the Ongjin Peninsula fired dozens of shells into the West Sea in the morning and afternoon. Some residents on Yeonpyeong Island reported hearing the report of guns several times between 9 to 10 a.m. [Chosun Ilbo]
All of which sent the ROK military into a state of high alert. But don’t take this as a provocation, says the South Korean Defense Ministry.
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FINDS IRONY in North Korea projecting how America’s economic crisis is causing it to direct its belligerence to the outside world?
Rodong Sinmun Tuesday in a signed article cites facts to prove how hard the U.S. imperialists are working to ignite another Korean war. This reveals their desperate intention to get rid of their serious economic crisis, the article notes, and goes on:
Imperialist states pursue the policy of aggression and war against other countries to meet the interests of monopolistic businesses and their demands for expansion. [KCNA]
If the North Koreans have identified a real cause-and-effect relationship here — and I think they speak from first-hand experience — then no country whose cities look like this from outer space is safe with nukes or ICBM’s. Also, I wish to register my profound disappointment that we are not yet loved by the rest of the world.
AND IN AN EPIC TRIUMPH OF SERVICE OF PROCESS, a North Korean has filed a lawsuit in a South Korean court. No, he’s not a defector. He still lives in North Korea.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 25, 2009 at 9:53 pm · Filed under WMD, Proliferation
Kim Jong Il may not really be capable of traipsing around the remote area near the Musudan-ri launch site, but the point here is that his regime wants us to believe its hints and threats. As little regard as Kim Jong Il has for U.N. weapons inspectors and resolutions, you have to ask yourself why they still bother to tell fibs like this:
The preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway at Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province.
When this satellite launch proves successful, the nation’s space science and technology will make another giant stride forward in building an economic power. [KCNA]
I know what you’re thinking — someone is finally meeting that pent-up demand for satellite broadcasts of “Song of General Kim Il Sung.” If only the North Koreans realized what Iran would pay them to launch a satellite to broadcast Koranic suras. There are always skeptics, of course:
“It’s really absurd and funny for North Korea, a country unable to feed its own people, to say it is developing a space program,” said Kim Tae-woo, a senior analyst at the government-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analysis. [N.Y. Times]
And if the North Koreans launch anyway? The South Koreans continue to hint at sanctions, and the U.S. government is trying to sound like it has a pair:
In the event Pyongyang nonetheless fires a missile, the U.S. plans to intercept it. North Korea is believed to be planning to fire a missile over Japan and drop it in the Pacific, as it did with a Taepodong-1 missile in August 1998. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at a press conference on Feb. 10 said if North Korea test-fires a missile at the U.S. mainland, the U.S. would intercept it. U.S. Pacific Command is deploying gunships in forward positions to monitor North Korean moves and shoot the missile down.
In the third stage, the U.S. plans to convene a UN Security Council session immediately and discuss resuming sanctions against North Korea. After a missile test in October 2006, the UNSC banned any additional nuclear and missile test and called on the North to return to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under the provisions of Article 41, Chapter 7 of the UN Charter. Article 41 of the UN Charter has the effect of international law and is powerful second only to Article 42 that stipulates the possible use of force.
“The UN Security Council has repeatedly convened to review Resolution 1718 against North Korea,” said a diplomatic source in Washington. “Once the council is convened, it could adopt a resolution for additional sanctions.” [Chosun Ilbo]
I’ll believe that when I see it, and what’s more, if the Obama Administration actually tries to enforce sanctions that really stab at the regime’s finances — and actually leave them in place until the North Koreans perform — I’ll be the first to admit that they have more spine than Bush’s people did. I’m still waiting for the day when someone tries to negotiate with North Korea on any terms other than its own. Coming to the table with some leverage we’re willing and able to use would be a very good start for this administration.
Related: The IHT has this run-down of North Korea’s various missiles, including a new medium range model.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 24, 2009 at 6:02 pm · Filed under Anju Links
SOUTH KOREANS BLAME THE NORTH for the current downturn in inter-Korean relations by 63 to 27, according to a new poll. A solid majority supports aid to the North only on the condition that it gives up its nuclear weapons. Assuming this poll is accurate, it suggests that North Korea’s recent behavior has created a backlash in South Korean public opinion, creating support for Lee’s North Korea policy that didn’t exist when he was elected.
MORE RESHUFFLING OF GENERALS in North Korea.
THE NEW YORK TIMES PROFILES THE ANONYMOUS NORTH KOREAN ARTIST who has shaken up Seoul’s art scene with his parodies of North Korean propaganda art. Unfortunately, South Koreans are not famed for their appreciation of satire. Still, this is another small step forward for the development of defectors’ impact on South Korean culture. One can hope that eventually, it will be felt in their homeland.
HOW MANY DIVISIONS DOES BAN KI MOON HAVE? North Korea rejects the visit of a U.N. envoy to talk missiles.
UH OH:
As the global economic crisis deepens and the demand for Chinese exports slackens, manufacturing jobs in the Pearl River Delta and all along the once-booming coast are disappearing at a stunning pace. Over the last few months, more than 20 million migrant workers have been cast into the ranks of the unemployed ….
This week, more than 3,000 public security directors from across the country are gathering in the capital to learn how to neutralize rallies and strikes before they blossom into so-called mass incidents. At a meeting of the Chinese cabinet last month, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao told government leaders they should prepare for rough times ahead. “The country’s employment situation is extremely grim,” he said.[N.Y. Times]
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 24, 2009 at 9:58 am · Filed under Diplomacy
For a moment, leave aside what we think Hillary Clinton’s goals for her recent Asia visit should have been. For most of us, that is just an exercise in catharsis anyway. Ask yourself what Mrs. Clinton’s subjective goals were. One certainly must have been to improve our frayed alliances with South Korea (frayed by Roh Moo Hyun’s America-bashing populism) and Japan (frayed by George W. Bush’s betrayal on the abduction issue), and to show both nations that America is a reliable friend. On North Korea, she probably wanted to deter belligerence, encourage disarmament, and invite “engagement” of some kind. She wanted to present an image to China that is both tough and pragmatic.
While Mrs. Clinton’s visit has some useful bits of script, I suspect that her visit accomplished none of those things in the eyes of anyone but the most wishful of observers. The most obvious example was South Korea, which was hoping for “a strong message to the North” about its missile testing, nuclear proliferation, and terroristic threats like this one:
The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said “Inter-Korean political and military tension has reached the extreme. A physical clash remains only a matter of time.” It claimed South Korean and U.S. troops are “concentrating their energy on reinforcing their combat capabilities and preparing for a war against the North.”
The news agency enumerated South Korean military exercises and said the “warmongers’ confrontational action” had brought relations to a point “where it is difficult to save the situation or to straighten things out.” [Chosun Ilbo]
Instead of a “tear down this wall” moment, Mrs. Clinton’s words were overcalculated, awkward, and mealy-mouthed: “The possible missile launch that North Korea is talking about would be very unhelpful in moving our relationship forward.” On the one hand, it probably gives no offense. On the other, it conjures the images of two real estate lawyers chatting on e-Harmony. She sounds so … unelectable.
If Mrs. Clinton’s goal was to graciously invite Kim Jong Il into the loving arms of earthly civilization, it couldn’t have helped to refer to North Korea’s “poverty and tyranny,” or to muse publicly about the regime’s potential instability or a possible “succession crisis.” Please don’t mistake this for an objection on my part. North Korea probably cares much less about what we say than what we pay. But just imagine how the press would have reacted if John Bolton had said those things. Not that Mrs. Clinton has much to worry about from the press, now that her contest with Obama is safely behind her. The New York Times’s Mark Landler and the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler spackle liberally over Mrs. Clinton’s gaffes as “tossing away the script,” a refreshing new brand of candor! And to think that in diplomacy, candor is a virtue again! (Sheesh. Is that what reading Pravda and Izvestia was like in the 70’s?) Still, if one criticizes this regime, the criticism should have a higher purpose than domestic triangulation, something that won’t fool many of us in the intended audience anyway.
Of Mrs. Clinton’s lowest moment, in China, I’ve already said plenty. Another bad sign: Mrs. Clinton is considering whether to lift sanctions against Burma.
Clinton deserves some praise for meeting with the families of Japanese abductees, but her failure to offer any specifics to back her support left the families disappointed, and probably did little to undo the damage. Japan wants a reversal of Washington’s policy on removing North Korea from the terror-sponsor list. Instead, Japan will get McSame. Of course, it’s still early in the administration, so an excess of pessimism is no more justifiable than the optimism of a headline appearing over the words of my friend, Rabbi Abraham Cooper:
By exclusively pursuing the nuclear tail around the six-party table, we have also contributed to the horrible suffering of the people of North Korea and degraded the United States’ long-standing commitment to fundamental human rights. Like the inmates of the Soviet Gulag or the Nazi concentration camps of the 1930s, about 200,000 to 300,000 hapless victims in North Korean camps wait for help.
Every day, they are forced to renounce their very humanity. How else to survive when prison guards threaten to chop off a child’s hand to force a confession from a parent? Why doesn’t that guard, or those who’ve run gas chambers or performed experiments on political prisoners, have any reason to fear punishment under international law?
Our silence to these and other outrages is perhaps Pyongyang’s greatest victory to date. We want them to dispose of fearsome weapons ― they want our silence. And too often, we have acquiesced. For the past two years we have let Japan go it alone in its fight to bring back citizens who were abducted by North Korea, kidnapped as they walked the streets of their hometowns in Japan. [Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Korea Times]
Which is, more or less, what Mrs. Clinton gave when she visited the very guarantor and enforcer of North Korea’s oppression.
Admittedly, criticism from Claudia Rosett and John Bolton shouldn’t surprise anyone too much. Bolton sees “overwhelming — and unfortunate — continuity” with the Bush administration. Rosett only reminds us what’s already obvious to anyone capable of comprehending it: the nature of the regime itself is as inseparable from how it deals with us as how it deals with its own people.
If Mrs. Clinton’s “unscripted” musings were meant to sound smart and wonkish, she gave me the impression of someone who doesn’t really know what to do next. According to at least one report, her advisors are riven by the same factional gridlock that paralyzed 43’s first term. Even from the subjective center-left perspective of someone who probably shares Hillary Clinton’s policy goals, it’s difficult to see which of those goals her visit really advanced.
Related:
Although I doubt that the many of the Korea Times’s Korean readers have much sympathy for Japanese abductees, I can’t let this comment by Rabbi Cooper pass without comment:
The logic of [sacrificing our commitment to human rights] was never stated more vapidly than in the written statement of a private witness at last week’s hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee: “Japan will continue to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution when it comes to engaging North Korea, despite being one of our most important allies. By allowing the abduction of a handful of its citizens decades ago to dominate all policy considerations when it comes to the North, Tokyo has become irrelevant at the nuclear talks,” the statement said, implying that being part of a negotiating process should outweigh a nation’s interest in the rights of its own citizens. Thankfully, Hillary Clinton disagrees.
When that statement was first e-mailed to me — among others — I was more than a little shocked to see that the person who said that is a former Executive Director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and a person I know and like. It’s incomprehensibly cold to advocate abandoning these victims of international crime, and I have to wonder why someone who believes in subordinating human rights to diplomatic “practicalities” had any business leading an organization that should advocate exactly the opposite.
Who would say the same if these were Americans?
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 21, 2009 at 10:35 am · Filed under China, Human Rights, Activism
If I had to pick one single moment when the Human Rights Industry lost its focus on the objective measurement of evil, this statement by Amnesty International General Secretary Irene Khan may be it:
“A new agenda is in the making, with the language of freedom and justice being used to pursue policies of fear and insecurity. This includes cynical attempts to redefine and sanitise torture,” said Ms Khan.
She said the US claimed to be promoting freedom in Iraq, yet its troops had committed appalling torture and had ill-treated detainees. She described Guantánamo Bay as “the gulag of our time”.
She said: “The US administration attempted to dilute the absolute ban on torture through new policies and quasi-management speak such as ‘environmental manipulation’, ’stress positions’, and ’sensory manipulation’.”
As the unrivalled political, military and economic hyper-power, the US sets the tone for governments’ behaviour worldwide, said Ms Khan. “When the most powerful country in the world thumbs its nose at the rule of law and human rights, it grants a licence to others to commit abuse with impunity,” she said. “From Israel to Uzbekistan, Egypt to Nepal, governments have openly defied human rights and international humanitarian law in the name of national security and ‘counter-terrorism’.” [The Guardian]
Let’s unpack all that is implicit in this statement:
(1) Guantanamo, which Amnesty frequently and visibly campaigns against, is at least the moral equivalent of the Laogai or North Korea’s death camps, which Amnesty almost never visibly campaigns against;
(2) the “fear and insecurity” of many Americans is an illusion of the state, or in any event, deserves no place in the making of national policy;
(3) The greater truth of Iraq is Abu Ghraib, not the end of endless Anfals and invasions, or the fresh bloom of peace, prosperity, love, and even some semblance of freedom (Iraq now scores the third-highest freedom index in the Middle East, excluding Israel);
(4) there is no moral difference between waterboarding a grand total of three terrorists to foil their plans to blow up skyscrapers (all filled with Little Eichmanns, no doubt) and Uzbekistan torturing the aspirations out of an opposition activist, China shooting a Falun Gong practitioner for his kidneys … or North Korea slowly destroying 200,000 innocents in a living hell that seems unmarked on Amnesty’s globe;
(5) states torture dissidents not because it suits their interests or because they think they’ll get away with it, but because America issued them “licenses” when it waterboarded a man who murdered thousands of civilians on its own soil, and was plotting to murder thousands more. (Let me suggest another theory: if anyone has granted a license to commit abuse with impunity, it’s a Human Rights Industry that was too preoccupied with Gitmo to take up the causes dissidents in distant dungeons, or to recall that real gulags still exist, unmourned by Amnesty. This is not to suggest that America is above licensing evil, though Amnesty is just as guilty of moral default in the case of the world’s worst ongoing atrocities, which are happening in North Korea today. If there is a perfect word to describe the amount of attention Amnesty pays to the people of North Korea, that word is “token.”)
There is, however, a problem with throwing away your objective standards: you never know when you’ll miss them.
Paying her first visit to Asia as the top US diplomat, Clinton said the United States would continue to press China on long-standing US concerns over human rights such as its rule over Tibet.
“But our pressing on those issues can’t interfere on the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis,” Clinton told reporters in Seoul just before leaving for Beijing. [Agence France-Presse]
But — other than thinking beings with powers of reason and judgment — who are we to say that one is different than the other? Who are we to say that America has any moral authority to accuse anyone else?
T. Kumar of Amnesty International USA said the global rights lobby was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by Clinton’s remarks.
“The United States is one of the only countries that can meaningfully stand up to China on human rights issues,” he said.
“But by commenting that human rights will not interfere with other priorities, Secretary Clinton damages future US initiatives to protect those rights in China,” he said.
Students for a Free Tibet said Clinton’s remarks sent the wrong signal to China at a sensitive time.
“The US government cannot afford to let Beijing set the agenda,” said Tenzin Dorjee, deputy director of the New York-based advocacy group.
The wisdom, effectiveness, and morality of the means by which America fights terrorists are matters legitimately subject to debate by people of conscience. I would expect classically liberal human rights activists, who are usually distinguishable from the angry nihilists who sometimes ally with them, to take a vigorous part in that debate. But the suggestion of moral equivalence between the gulags of totalitarian states, on one hand, and the detention and “aggressive” interrogation of terrorists — when the alternative is the death of innocent people — does not so much prove the truth of the matter asserted as suggest that the nihilists have hijacked the moral rudder of classically liberal values. To equate Guantanamo with atrocities on every scale (Pravda, no less, recently compared it to Auschwitz) has now become a popular device of tyrants and those who enable them, and of the intellectually and morally lazy. The result is a blurring of the world’s conscience, the loss of any ability to make moral and numerical distinctions and assign our priorities accordingly. That is exactly what plenty of those who blurred these standards must have intended, but I suspect that a much larger number just followed the bleating herd.
The temptation of this moral laziness may result, in part, from the complexity of the questions Guantanamo raises, and the relative infrequency with which those questions are plausibly answered: What are we willing to do to one man to save thousands from him? Can a clear line be drawn to limit the state’s power to torture? How effective are tactics such as waterboarding? What judicial procedure is appropriate for people who hide in lawless places, operate clandestinely, and respect no standard of civilization? What better alternatives should we consider? (I posit that it is the height of hypocrisy to excoriate Gitmo and America from a place that is safer because Gitmo’s occupants are there, and yet to slink away when the discussion shifts to who else will keep these people out of the world’s schools and subways. I ask again: what else is to be done with them? We’ve heard Amnesty’s answer, and we now know the result of heeding it.)
As for Mrs. Clinton, perhaps they’re being too hard on her. She has only the meager ration of conscience that God gave her, and she knows how her bread is buttered. What else did we expect?
I have no doubt that Amnesty’s hyperbolic rhetoric pleased many of its members and raised a lot of money at that time. It may even have played some part in making Hillary Clinton the standard-bearer of America’s interests and values. It’s also why I cannot take Amnesty seriously anymore — I am a former member — and I know I’m not alone in this belief. Amnesty’s decline into irrelevance will probably take many years, but the real victims of its moral retardation are only starting to feel the lash on their backs.
Related: Greetings, lurkers! Being loved is still overrated:
- Canadians love Barack Obama so much they’re pulling out of Afghanistan.
- Europe loves Obama so much it won’t send more troops.
- Russia loves Obama so much it got us kicked out of a key logistical base for Afghanistan.
- Iran loves Obama so much it turned away his ping-pong emissaries.
- North Korea loves Obama so much, it’s honoring him with a fireworks display.
- The wacky left does not love Obama anymore. It’s already calling him a war criminal. Sigh.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 20, 2009 at 11:29 am · Filed under Human Rights, Proliferation
South Korea and the United States have shared intelligence that North Korea is operating a plant to produce a small amount of highly enriched uranium at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, a Seoul daily reported Wednesday.
‘’Despite North Korean authorities’ denial of existence of the uranium enrichment program, South Korea and the U.S. share an intelligence North Korea is running a plant for uranium enrichment,'’ a high-ranking South Korean source reportedly told the Dong-a Ilbo. [Kyodo News]
That would certainly help explain why North Korea’s “disclosure” documents about its plutonium reprocessing contained traces of enriched uranium. Yet on another level, this would make no sense: they could enrich uranium in any one of a thousand underground sites in North Korea, so why do it at the one place that’s most likely to attract international attention? If the North Koreans really wanted to put their uranium program in a place safe from the prying eyes and questions of diplomats and journalists, they’d put it in here.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 20, 2009 at 10:28 am · Filed under China
At the National Review, Jay Nordlinger reviews the arguments that bringing the Olympics to Beijing would pressure and encourage the Chinese authorities to liberalize and soften their oppression. Nordlinger finds the evidence to be quite the opposite, and I would go a step further: the ruling party not only amplified its oppression to keep the Olympics scripted, it successfully harnessed widespread foreign disapproval of its oppression to galvanize nationalist support for its worst policies. Today, we see a China that looks more like 1936 Germany than ever.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 20, 2009 at 7:14 am · Filed under NK Economics
The power to tax is the power to destroy — Daniel Webster
As the Obama Administration inherits an intractable, non-compliant, bellicose, and terroristic North Korea, the administration’s great challenge is to see beyond a strategy based on concessions alone. Via GI Korea, the new administration appears to be polarizing into factions, just as the Bush Administration did eight years ago. One of the factions advocates “normalization of relations with North Korea as soon as possible,” in other words, giving even more concessions up front in the hope that maybe this time, the North Korea will feel appeased enough to threaten, kidnap, and proliferate a bit less.
This would be the triumph of hope over experience. As the last 20 years should have taught us by now, North Korea is very practiced at extracting concessions in exchange for promises that are always just over the next horizon. But the next missile crisis is never further away than the next bad harvest.
Often, the shortest path to an better strategy is understanding what worked before. As Marcus Noland reminds the new administration in a new Newsweek op-ed, unilateral economic sanctions have proven to be highly effective:
Fortunately, should Pyongyang test its new toy today, Obama may have an easier time getting other key states to cooperate. The current South Korean government, for example, favors a tougher line on the North, and even China may be losing patience, showing a greater readiness to punish bad behavior. Both countries will be more likely to support restrictions that could really hurt Pyongyang. North Korea is critically dependent on outsiders for oil, food, and essential medicines. While no one is talking about cutting off the last two, China has stopped oil deliveries before, and when it did so in 2003, Pyongyang quickly returned to the bargaining table.
Other measures have also worked in the past. In 2005, for example, the US Treasury Department acted against a small Macau bank holding North Korean assets, including profits from missile and gold sales and possibly even including Kim’s personal political slush fund. This one measure tanked the black-market value of North Korea’s currency, disrupted legitimate commerce, and reportedly necessitated a scaling back of festivities associated with the Dear Leader’s birthday. And Pyongyang got the message: It soon made concessions, such as shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facilities and permitting the return of international inspectors.
As all this suggests, if North Korea starts acting up, more toothless trade sanctions will not stop it. But there are other options. If the key players make it clear in advance that another missile launch will be met with comprehensive and strictly enforced trade and financial restrictions, as well as energy cuts, a reduction in aid, and a willingness to disrupt the North’s military cooperation, such pressure could well succeed where other, more feeble efforts have failed in the past. [Marcus Noland in Newsweek]
Most of the conventional wisdom has missed this point, often willfully so. Throughout the Bush Administration, conventional wisdom held that (a) economic pressure didn’t work, or (b) that as a general matter, sanctions don’t work. What most of this conventional wisdom had in common is that it wasn’t coming from careful observers of the North Korean economy. Instead, most of it came from policy wonks whose biases happened to be the opposite of my own.
The conventional wisdom was correct to a limited extent: long-term trade sanctions on the broader North Korean economy were not an effective tool of nuclear diplomacy, because the regime doesn’t feel most of the pain they cause; the people do, and the regime doesn’t care about them (indeed, isolates them from the economic lure of the greater world). Not that the goal of the sanctions, at least initially, was to disarm the North — most were imposed for other purposes, chiefly technology control and human rights. If the sanctions were lifted, the regime would undoubtedly find a way to monopolize the profits and minimize any contact between North Koreans and earthlings, much as it did at Kumgang or Kaesong.
Multilateral U.N. sanctions, however, were designed to be a tool of nuclear diplomacy. Resolutions 1695 and 1718, which John Bolton pushed through the U.N. Security Council after North Korea’s 2006 missile and nuclear tests, did contain some potentially effective limits on the regime’s finances. But in a much longer, in-depth review of the economic data, Noland finds that those resolutions had no measurable effect on the North Korean economy. Why did multilateral sanctions fail when unilateral U.S. sanctions worked? Because multilateralism puts the effectiveness of sanctions at the mercy of states that don’t share a sincere interest in disarming the North:
As can be seen in Figure 1, Chinese exports of luxury goods to North Korea did not fall to zero in 2007 under any variant; indeed, luxury goods exports increased between 2006 and 2007 under all three definitions. Resolution 1718 appears to have had no impact on Chinese behavior. [Marcus Noland, Asia Policy, Page 67]
Indeed, North Korean trade with China and South Korea increased after the imposition of resolution 1718. Part of this is attributable to the declining value of the North Korean won, the breakdown of North Korean border controls, and the increased availability (and attractiveness) of imported goods to North Korean consumers. It’s also clear, however, that neither the South Korean government nor the Chinese government took Resolution 1718 seriously. China never implemented either resolution and blocked the enforcement of both — indeed, had North Korea looked to China just before its nuclear test, it would have seen that the light was green. South Korea continued its massive, unconditional aid, and who can forgot the image of South Korea’s Unification Minister dancing in front of the North Koreans shortly after their nuclear test? The policies pursued by Christopher Hill later undermined the resolution’s financial and arms control provisions. In short, no major power but Japan, which had already imposed unilateral sanctions anyway, took Resolution 1718 seriously, which means that non-military, multilateral options failed as a deterrent. As usual, the United Nations failed because the nations were not united. North Korea called the U.N.’s bluff, and it was proven right because China and South Korea effectively undermined international deterrence:
If such warnings are to be heeded in the future, they must embody credible threats of penalty. In the present case a major problem, of course, appears to be that some of the permanent members of the Security Council, particularly China, displayed reluctance to fully embrace and implement sanctions. [….]
North Korea may have calculated quite correctly that the direct penalties for establishing itself as a nuclear power would be modest indeed. Presumably this experience will condition reactions of North Korean policymakers in the future—making deterrence on this issue and other sources of conflict more difficult. Sanctions that are fecklessly applied may be worse than useless: they could actually encourage other states to pursue undesirable behavior. If trade sanctions are to deter behavior in the future, they must be much more broadly targeted and enthusiastically implemented. [Page 76]
The lesson, then, is that unilateralism works and multilateral doesn’t, for the precise reason that the U.N.’s collective mind is neither serious about, nor dedicated to, a serious approach to the prevention of proliferation. This is not to say that Resolutions 1695 and 1718 were of no value. They could form the basis for highly effective implementing legislation right here in the United States, which Treasury could use to unleash hell if President Obama directs it.
Noland ends his piece befuddled by why the Bush Administration pursued U.N. sanctions that were so predictably doomed to be undermined by the machinations of friends, foes, and “strategic partners.” A far better question would be why it half-heartedly pursued, then prematurely abandoned, a strategy that really was working.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 19, 2009 at 11:45 am · Filed under Anti-Americanism, Korean Society
AFP reports that “South Korean officials said … they have found harmful bacteria in a French baby formula product and vowed to step up tests on future shipments.”
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 19, 2009 at 7:08 am · Filed under NK Economics
That Orascom’s big new investment in North Korea would fail has always been predictable, but it was always incomprehensible how Orascom’s business model centered around introducing the one thing with the most potential to destabilize the regime’s hold on power: a mobile phone network.
Not surprisingly, Orascom and the North Korean regime are already at odds over Orascom’s plan to pass out 100,000 free phones to generate a base of bill-paying subscribers. Instead, the regime is selling them for $235 apiece, a price very few North Koreans can afford. This is lethal for Orascom’s potential to make a profit on its phone venture, which was — again, incomprehensibly — the lynchpin of Orascom’s North Korea investment strategy. Orascom apparently made all its other investments in the North, including its reconstruction of the Ryugyong Hotel, conditional on the phone concession:
Although North Korea reluctantly launched the mobile phone services, it has devised mechanisms to still maintain the stability of the regime. For this reason, North Korea provided Orascom with a frequency different from what is now used in China and South Korea. This allows North Korean officials to ferret out illegal mobile phone usage in the border areas. In addition, North Korea charges high prices for registration for the service, and has announced that it cannot guarantee full service until it equips itself with complete and fully functioning wiretapping system. For this reason, Orascom’s telecommunication business in North Korea may face bleak future. [Open Radio for N. Korea]
Why did Orascom think it would be allowed to introduce a mobile phone network into the world’s most isolated society, where owning a mobile phone is punishable by a prison term? (Recall the rumors that the 2004 Ryongchon explosion was an assassination attempt on Kim Jong Il, triggered by a mobile phone.) Possibly because of its long-term relationship with North Korea in a series of joint ventures in construction and banking. Yet those investments were different in very important ways: they were carried out outside North Korea, and did not require a relaxation of the regime’s control over the movement of information between its subjects.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 18, 2009 at 7:43 am · Filed under Deprogramming
There may or may not be any truth to rumors that third son Kim Jong Un will the figurehead successor to His Porcine Majesty, but word seems to have spread inside the kingdom:
The source said, “People who have secretly been listening to South Korean radio seem to be circulating these stories but the Party in Pyongyang has not issued a special decree about it. Many people have an interest in the successor issue, so the rumors have been spreading even more rapidly.”
According to the source, the rumor began to circulate in mid-January. This coincides with the issuance of a related report from South Korea. [Daily NK]
The Daily NK sees significance in the regime’s lackluster efforts to tamp the rumors down:
The source said, “A majority of the people heard then for the first time the fact that the General (Kim Jong Il) even has a third son! After hearing the rumor, most people were unmoved, questioning whether a third-generation of Kims would continue to rule.”
The North Korean authorities have shown awareness of the circulation of these rumors, but have not implemented anything as a consequence. This is quite a different situation than the strict prohibition of the spread of rumors regarding Kim Jong Il’s sickness, as given in “People’s Unit” lectures at the time.
It’s interesting that the regime isn’t more aggressive about this in light of Jong Un’s illegitimacy and how that contradicts the state’s Confucian morality, and its attribution of that morality to Kim Jong Il. The most interesting point, of course, is that the regime lacks the ability to keep rumors like this out of North Korea today. It’s doubtful that Sunshine-era engagement allowed rumors like these to reach the provinces. Instead, it was most likely illegal border crossers, smugglers, and banned cell phones. As with economic change, political change will come from the bottom up, not from the top down.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 17, 2009 at 11:20 am · Filed under Diplomacy, Washington Views
One of the most consistently perceptive commentators on dealing with North Korea is Professor Sung-Yoon Lee, an adjunct assistant professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. By a very interesting coincidence, Stephen Bosworth, the next North Korea Special Envoy, is the Dean there. If Bosworth tolerates views this much at odds with his own, we can certainly hope he’s open-minded enough to take some good advice from Prof. Lee — if not initially, then after it occurs to him that the North Koreans are playing him. This one is a must-read, and it’s hard to single out one graf to quote, but the article is built around five basic points. Here is one that Bosworth should read, and re-read:
Third, in North Korea one finds the most extreme and pervasive manifestation of the cult of personality ever. Pyongyang’s mausoleum for the elder Kim reportedly cost $890 million to build, while hundreds of thousands died from starvation. The deification of the leadership is inseparably tied to the regime’s vigorous pursuit of nuclear status. Nuclear extortion accords the man whom his people call the “Great General” an aura of legitimacy and lends even fantastic slogans like “building a powerful and prosperous state” a semblance of credibility. Meaningful concessions will therefore not be forthcoming from this “omnipotent” leader of the world’s most militarized society unless he is forced to make them. [Prof. Sung-Yoon Lee, Asia Wall Street Journal]
I wonder how long it will take for Bosworth to figure this out. The North Koreans’ brazenness at playing the Bush Administration should be lesson enough, but at a minimum, the Obama Administration will feel obligated to give “diplomacy” another chance on its own watch. I suspect that after six months to a year of trying to squeeze something useful out of Agreed Framework 2.0, we’ll start to see rumors of an Agreed Framework 3.0, which is exactly what the North Koreans want. Implicit in the new deal-making will be that North Korea will keep the many concessions it won from the Clinton and Bush Administrations, and demand new concessions in exchange for the same things they’d promised Chris Hill and Robert Einhorn before.
Posted by Joshua Stanton on February 17, 2009 at 7:20 am · Filed under Refugees
On its face, this announcement is both interesting, and perhaps, understated:
The Ministry of Justice announced on Wednesday plans to build a retreat for refugees in Gyeonggi Province, aiming to open it in 2012. The ministry secured funds of W260 million in this year’s budget to design the facility, and is reportedly negotiating with the Ministry of Public Administration and Security for an appropriate site. [Chosun Ilbo]
Nowhere in the article does it say that the new center will be either primarily or partially for North Korean refugees, yet there are reasons to infer that it will be. First, South Korea has no great appreciation for ethnic and cultural diversity. Second, President Lee seems to have a sense of special responsibility to North Koreans, an increasing number of whom are crowded into immigration detention centers in Thailand. Third, the processing/deprogramming center at Hanawon is beyond capacity. Fourth, the number of new arrivals from the North continues to grow.
The failure to bring up the topic of North Korean refugees is understandable, given the North’s tendency toward bellicose reactions to such things. The administration is trying to get a new Unification Minister confirmed in spite of a withering attack by pro-appeasement lawmakers in the South, and probably doesn’t want to be seen as provoking the North.
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