This should do wonders for North Korea’s foreign direct investment:
North Korea told South Korea on Monday it put a South Korean worker at the joint industrial zone of Kaesong under probe on suspicion of violating relevant regulations, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said. North Korea sent a notice to South Korea, saying the South Korean worker, detained at around 11:50 a.m., has criticized the North’s political system, ministry spokesperson Lee Jong Joo said at a press briefing. [Kyodo News]
I now strongly doubt that Kaesong can ever recover from North Korea’s actions over the last year, and I wonder if anyone has ever added up the total cost of the Kaesong experiment: the infrastructure, the subsidies, equipment, advertising and promotion, and payments to workers regime officials. One wonders how this ponzi scheme compares to, say, Madoff’s.
North Korea claims that the arrested manager was trying to “corrupt” and “cajole” a North Korean woman into defectng. No actual evidence is offered to either support or refute that claim, but the Chosun Ilbo’s anonymous analysts doubt it:
Observers say it is improbable that a staffer with Hyundai Asan, which has been Pyongyang’s main South Korean business partner for years, intentionally made remarks that would irritate the North at a time when it is imminently launching what the West believes is a ballistic missile.
A researcher with a South Korean government-funded think tank said it is more likely the North is holding the man hostage, much in the way it has arrested two U.S. journalists for on charges of spying. [Chosun Ilbo]
No doubt, a confession will be forthcoming. I’d expect the same for the two imprisoned U.S. journalists who will soon face what passes for a trial in North Korea. North Korea’s seizure of a South Korean man lengthens the odds that three foreigners all coincidentally happened to transgress against the North just before a planned missile test. A new North Korean strategy — one that would constitute international terrorism — appears to be emerging.
President Bush announced the removal of North Korea’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism on June 26, 2008. Discuss among yourselves.
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union…. To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. [John F. Kennedy, Oct. 22, 1962]
… Mr. Gates said the United States had no plans to take military action to halt the launching or to shoot down the missile in flight — with one exception. “If we had an aberrant missile, one that was headed for Hawaii, that looked like it was headed for Hawaii or something like that, we might consider it,” Mr. Gates said. [New York Times, Mar. 29, 2009]
I tend to see Robert Gates as one of the new administration’s responsible adults, but he hasn’t learned the first rule of deterrence.
North Korea is now threatening to press a reset button of its own — this one on the entire six-party sham if we take any action based on its missile test:
In an interview with the official Korea Central News Agency, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said “even a word” by the UN Security Council about “the peaceful launch of a satellite” would constitute “violent hostility.” [Chosun Ilbo]
I’d previously predicted that North Korea was looking for an excuse to do just that, so this isn’t surprising. North Korea wants a new round of American concessions in exchange for the same promises it has broken before, and the Obama Administration appears to have no better ideas than to go along. As an indication of just how little the last two years of Chris Hill’s diplomacy have accomplished, North Korea is threatening to restart its “disabled” plutonium reprocessing program at Yongbyon:
” … All the processes for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula … will be brought back to what used to be before their start and necessary strong measures will be taken,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the official KCNA news agency. [Reuters, Jonathan Thatcher]
So after all those concessions, North Korea is in a position to threaten the undoing of Chris Hill’s sole claim to any accomplishment at all — the partial “disabling” of the 5-MW reactor at Yongbyon. Does that necessarily mean restarting the 5-MW reactor? That wouldn’t be my first guess. Instead, I’d wager that the 50-MW reactor next door is more likely to be rushed to completion, but either way, the fact that we’re now faced with the very same threat after all those concessions speaks volumes about how little our diplomatic brain trust has accomplished in North Korea.
Gates let slip this assessment of the minimal impact North Korea’s walkout would really have:
“The reality is that the six-party talks really have not made any headway anytime recently… Launching a missile like this and threatening to have a nuclear test, I think it says a lot about the imperviousness of this regime in North Korea to any kind of diplomatic overtures,” Gates told Wallace. [The Politico]
Sounds like a ringing endorsement of the man who would be our next ambassador in Baghdad, doesn’t it?
THE SENATE Foreign Relations Committee is expected to approve Christopher Hill’s confirmation today, but tabloid rumors notwithstanding, that isn’t the final “confirmation” vote.
THE U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION has adopted a resolution denouncing North Korea’s human rights record and reappointing Vitit Muntarbhorn for another year. The resolution was adopted despite the opposing votes of China and Russia:
The UN Commission on Human Rights yesterday adopted the European Union-led resolution on a 26-6 vote with 15 abstentions at a meeting at the UN office in Geneva, Switzerland. The resolution expressed concern at the “grave, widespread and systematic human rights abuses in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea [North Korea’s formal name], in particular the use of torture and labor camps against political prisoners and repatriated DPRK citizens.” [Joongang Ilbo]
I REMEMBER WHEN the South Korean left wanted nothing more than bilateral talks between the U.S. and North Korea. It seemed as if all talks were good talks — even without South Korea — but that was then, and besides, who invited Japan?
BRIBERY ALLEGATIONS AGAINST PARK JIN: Too bad. I like Park and I hope he comes out of this with his name clear.
SHAKING A BLOODY HAND: Obama and Clinton signal a thaw in relations with the Burmese junta thugs who murdered thousands of peaceful protestors so recently. Still under review: a relaxation of sanctions. This new administration is starting to look like a dreary time for the human rights of anyone not plotting to blow up schools and airliners. By the way, guess which country is the leading investor in Burma’s natural gas sector, an industry with a history of committing atrocities to mobilize slave labor? (Lawsuits by victims drove Unocal out of the country.) Hint: it aint Madagascar. One NGO has even filed a complaint with the OECD.
Two American journalists detained at North Korea’s border with China two weeks ago will be indicted and tried, “their suspected hostile acts” already confirmed, Pyongyang’s state-run news agency said Tuesday.
The Korean Central News Agency report did not say when a trial might take place, but said preparations to indict the Americans were under way as the investigation continues.
“The illegal entry of U.S. reporters into the DPRK and their suspected hostile acts have been confirmed by evidence and their statements,” the report said, referring to the country by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. [AP, Jean H. Lee]
I know this is going to seem inexplicable to most of you, but this smarter, more humble diplomacy of outreached hands doesn’t seem to have unclenched any fists. Perhaps it’s time to question some assumptions about the source of our differences. Thanks to a reader for forwarding, end update.]
* * *
We still don’t know how Laura Ling and Euna Lee ended up in North Korea. Maybe the North Koreans grabbed them from Chinese soil, as they did to Kim Dong Shik before they murdered him, or as they frequently do to their own escaped subjects. Maybe Ling and Lee wandered onto North Korean soil through inadvertence or just plan poor judgment. Or maybe they were in the riverbed itself:
About 6:30 a.m. on March 17, Laura Ling and Euna Lee took a video camera and ventured onto the ice to get some footage for San Francisco-based Current TV. According to some accounts, they had nearly reached the opposite side when the North Korean border guards emerged and took them into custody. [L.A. Times, Barbara Demick]
Whatever the case may be, Ling and Lee certainly weren’t the first reporters to have approached the border more closely than prudence would suggest. Demick relates her own previous interactions with border guards in that same sector:
Did we have drinking water? Cookies? Cigarettes? What nice sunglasses I was wearing. How much did they cost? Would I give them away? How about my watch? Or even a watch battery.
We eyed somewhat anxiously the Kalashnikov assault rifles they had slung over their shoulders. A young South Korean women who was one of my traveling companions asked if they were real.
“Of course, it’s real. You don’t think we would carry toy guns,” answered one of the North Koreans. Flirtatiously, he took it off his shoulder and extended the weapon for the young woman to hold.
After a few minutes of banter, we gave back the gun, along with a bottle of beer and a case of Choco Pies, a South Korean junk food that the Northerners accepted with delight. We all waved cheerful goodbyes, declining their invitation to visit the other side.
The reports of Ling and Lee’s capture are still hopelessly inconsistent, but for some reason, the North Koreans decided to take prisoners this time.
Another theory that had occurred to me is that Ling and Lee were lured to or across the border by someone acting on the North Korean regime’s instructions. This is groundless speculation, of course. I’ve read no published report to suggest that it’s the case, but it’s also plausible, because it’s consistent with North Korea’s past practices, motives, and immediate interests. There could never be a better time to hold two Americans hostage than just before a planned missile launch, when the American government is threatening punitive sanctions. North Korea’s contempt for journalists who refuse to toe its party line is well known, and the North Koreans may very well hold a grudge against Lisa Ling, Laura’s sister. And after all, if North Korea is willing to go all the way to Japan and even Europe for hostages, why not the Tumen River?
For North Korea, having two American hostages now serves many purposes: deterring U.S. sanctions, deterring the press from covering the misery of its subjects, extorting money and other concessions, and eventually, gaining a favorable photo op for the regime and a favored apologist when it eventually decides to release Laura Ling and Euna Lee. Human nature being what it is, the odds are at least fair that one of these women will also compliment the regime for not standing both of them in front of a firing squad. Human nature is messed up.
No matter what charges are made against the journalists, North Korea will probably use them — and the timing of their release — as leverage in negotiations with the United States and other countries over aid, nuclear weapons and, most urgently, the planned test launch in early April of a long-range missile, several analysts said. A U.S. official Wednesday confirmed reports that North Korea had moved the missile onto the launch pad.
“They do become bargaining chips,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor of North Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. The two journalists interviewed Lankov shortly before they traveled to the North Korean border.
“North Korea will send them home, but it will not happen quickly,” Lankov said. “The North Koreans want to show the world that illegally crossing their border will not be tolerated and they want to squeeze political and financial concessions from the United States.” [Washington Post, Blaine Harden]
In other words, Ling and Lee are being held because of benefits North Korea expects to extract in exchange for treating them leniently (not killing them, for example) or releasing them. After all, in what sense do two rather naive American reporters hanging around a dilapidated border region between two allied dictatorships represent a true security threat to anyone but themselves?
Let’s begin with a historical contrast that pretty much speaks for itself:
It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union…. To halt this offensive buildup, a strict quarantine on all offensive military equipment under shipment to Cuba is being initiated. All ships of any kind bound for Cuba from whatever nation and port will, if found to contain cargoes of offensive weapons, be turned back. This quarantine will be extended, if needed, to other types of cargo and carriers. We are not at this time, however, denying the necessities of life as the Soviets attempted to do in their Berlin blockade of 1948. [John F. Kennedy, Oct. 22, 1962]
Kennedy and Obama: young, pretty, and underqualified. There ends the analogy for those who see beyond the superficial.
Unless he shoots it down, of course.
I’m very tired of the whole irrelevant discussion about whether North Korea can make a missile test “legal” by putting a satellite on top of said missile. If you’re a practical thinker, the simple fact is that no nation with this little regard for human life is trustworthy with the technology to take out Seoul, Tokyo, or Seattle. North Korea, by launching a satellite over a neighboring country, is committing state terrorism for the specific purpose of extorting regime-sustaining aid. If you’re of a more legalistic, internationalist, or multi-culti variety, of course, you obviously believe no higher moral authority exists than a U.N. Security Council resolution … expect maybe for two U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Resolution 1695 says that “the DPRK shall suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching.” Resolution 1718 “[d]emands that the DPRK suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme, and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching.” (Both brought to you by that great champion of internationalist rule of law, John Bolton — applause!). And by “related to,” I’m pretty sure the resolutions meant, among other examples, fully functioning missiles that happen to carry alternative payloads, including satellites that play tinny rinky-dink hymns to His Porcine Majesty. If you’re charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, it’s not going to be a defense that the firearm was loaded with blanks when you were arrested.
By the way, here are some brand-new satellite images of the Musudan-ri launch site. Thanks to a reader.
The Sea of Japan is now crowded with American, South Korean, and Japanese warships. It looks like chaos in our government, but — to expand on an e-mail from another reader — I’m starting to think that the Japanese government trembles with throbbing priapism at the very thought of dropping this missile into the waters near Tokdo, and let me tell you why: the Japanese people have had it with North Korea’s antics, and Japan has an election coming soon. Not long ago, it was presumed that the Democratic Party of Japan would take power for the first time in decades. That is no longer a safe assumption, thanks to a DPJ corruption scandal. This is not to say that Japanese voters are enthusiastic about Taro Aso. After all, Aso is a dick. But in times like these, the Japanese are feeling betrayed by their American protectors and vulnerable in a tough neighborhood. If the Japanese military drops this missile, Aso will get a massive jolt of popularity that will keep him in power for several years.
GOOD QUESTION! Now that he’s pending confirmation as a senior Pentagon official, do you suppose Ashton Carter will call for President Obama to destroy North Korea’s missile on the ground, as he and William Perry did in 2006? The idea of launching a military strike against North Korean territory is stoopid — that’s with two O’s — whether you look at it politically, diplomatically, or militarily. Waiting for North Korea to launch it and destroying it in flight, however, would be a another matter entirely.
WHY DO THEY STILL NOT LOVE US? Russian aircraft overfly U.S. carriers off South Korea, at an altitude of as little as 500 feet. This wouldn’t be happening if that chimpy cowboy George Bush wasn’t President.
PRIVATE AID GROUPS ARE LEAVING NORTH KOREA. Even as the regime deprives its people of one source of food, it continues its war against the markets on which most North Koreans now depend for their survival:
U.N. investigator Vitit Muntarbhorn told the world body’s Human Rights Council last week the situation in North Korea was “dire and desperate”. Authorities were moving to close all markets on which many people rely for food, he said.
North Korean authorities were also apparently planning to ban small-lot, or “kitchen” farming, which had been vital for the survival of much of the population, while army personnel were forcing farmers to provide them food, Muntarbhorn said. [Reuters, Paul Eckert]
IT WAS THE PROMISE OF EURO-BASHING that drew me in, admittedly, and although Charles Murray really didn’t deliver on that, I did find the most profound historical observation I’ve ever read that wasn’t written by Eric Hoffer:
The 20th century was a very strange century, riddled from beginning to end with toxic political movements and nutty ideas. For some years a metaphor has been stuck in my mind: the twentieth century was the adolescence of Homo sapiens. Nineteenth-century science, from Darwin to Freud, offered a series of body blows to ways of thinking about human beings and human lives that had prevailed since the dawn of civilization. Humans, just like adolescents, were deprived of some of the comforting simplicities of childhood and exposed to more complex knowledge about the world. And 20th-century intellectuals reacted precisely the way that adolescents react when they think they have discovered Mom and Dad are hopelessly out of date. They think that the grown-ups are wrong about everything. In the case of 20th-century intellectuals, it was as if they thought that if Darwin was right about evolution, then Aquinas is no longer worth reading; that if Freud was right about the unconscious mind, the “Nicomachean Ethics” had nothing to teach us. [Charles Murray, The Wall Street Journal]
[A]s the current assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, [Christopher Hill] presided over negotiations with North Korea that deliberately minimized focus on the bleak human rights record of that country, ignored its nuclear proliferation, and had the practical effect of affirming its nuclear weapons capability. Hill also has a troubling hotdog tendency to play by his own rules, to the detriment of U.S. diplomacy…. Hill’s brand of cowboy diplomacy might be justified if it produced favorable results, but his record in dealing with North Korea is dismal. [Washington Times Editorial]
Let’s begin with the sideshow: Chris Hill’s formal confirmation hearings began yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in a proceeding whose shallow questions bottomed out at pompous eyebrow-raising, but which more often resembled full-contact public analingus. I don’t know when I’ve ever seen ignorance clothed so pretentiously. Really, the degree to which the “august” senators on the Foreign Relations Committee have paid no attention to the conduct of policies they are charged with overseeing is depressing and stupefying, and yet it all somehow still makes for dreadfully dull viewing.
So naturally, I’m embedding the full two hours of video for you right here. I will confess that I did not listen to the entire thing, but I’d like to think that by now, some recently rendered Algerian jihadist in an underground cell in Albania is, and he’s about to break.
The subject of North Korea comes up at 32:46 (Sen. Lugar), 1:28 (Sen. Isakson), and 1:48 (Sen. De Mint). To a degree, the three of them asked questions about charges raised by Senator Brownback, who is not a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but whose presence overshadowed the entire event. At one point, one of the senior senators let slip that it would not be easy to install Hill as ambassador to Iraq this year, and that’s because Senator Brownback has been the Senate’s sole effective oversight over our North Korea policy, its impeccable record of failure, and Christopher Hill’s single-minded mendacity in the pursuit of agreement, at the expense of our vital national interests and the very soul our nation.
From Obama’s nomination and the behavior of the Committee majority, it couldn’t be clearer: When the Democrats promise us “tough and smart” diplomacy, they mean Chris Hill’s kind. In practice, that means screwing up the entire world, one genocide at a time. Iraq should not be next, especially when recent events there show so much promise that we can leave a Iraq a far better place than we found it.
Senator Lugar helpfully invited Hill to answer Senator Brownback’s charge that Hill lied to him to get him to lift his hold on the nomination of Ambassador Stephens. I should note that when Brownback recently asked Hill the same question face-to-face, Hill insisted that he had invited Lefkowitz, who never showed up. Lefkowitz refuted that, and Brownback wrote to Lefkowitz yesterday asking him to respond for the record. But Hill, shamelessly unafraid of contradicting himself, changed his story yesterday. Hill now claims, retroactively, that he conditioned his promise to invite Lefkowitz to talks with the North Koreans, saying that he promised to do so only after the talks reached “Phase III,” that is, the phase after North Korea had verifiably disarmed. The transcript of the hearing reveals that Hill while initially tried to qualify his promise to Brownback, under Brownback’s direct and persistent questioning, he made an unequivocal, unqualified promise. The transcript not only proves that Hill is lying, but that Hill is lying about lying:
Senator Brownback: Ambassador Hill, there’s a Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, which I don’t believe has been invited
to any of the negotiations to date between the United States and the Six-Party Talks.
Ambassador Hill: Well, we have been—first of all, he would be most welcome if he wishes to attend. He has been—
Senator Brownback: I want to, because my time will be narrow here: Will you state that the Special Envoy will be invited to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea?
Ambassador Hill: I would be happy to invite him to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea.
I’m still not done. Hill’s claim could only be true if Hill honestly believed that Phase III would be reached before Lefkowitz left town with President Bush’s baggage train, and in fact, Hill said with a straight face that he expected exactly that. This does not even pass the laugh test. Hill could not possibly have believed this, but he certainly knew it to be false when the North Koreans repeatedly and publicly balked at inspection and verification in September and October of 2008. And yet, as Senator Isakson wondered, Hill did not go back to Brownback to explain this completely unexpected development.
One more: Senator De Mint asked Hill about Hill’s previous statement that we should not continue to negotiate with North Korea while it continues to proliferate. So why did Hill continue to negotiate with the North Koreans after we caught them building a nuclear reactor for Syria? Because, Hill now tells us, all of our intelligence suggests that North Korea had stopped proliferating after that. And also, the North Koreans said so. But multiplepublishedreports suggest that North Korea continues to proliferate WMD technology in violation of U.N. Resolutions 1695 and 1718, and are earning a significant percentage of their national income by doing it.
* * *
The hearing may have had some moments of unintended insight, but Sam Brownback towered above it in stature and relevance. Yesterday afternoon, Brownback addressed a mostly empty Senate gallery, but his words resonated among all of the great and small bookmakers of Hill’s odds of confirmation.
As the Weekly Standard notes today, Hill’s chances of confirmation are slim unless Brownback decides not to hold Hill’s nomination:
Harry Reid will have to shut down the Senate in order to get Hill confirmed, and with everything yet to be done before the recess, that seems unlikely. Chris Hill may not make it to Baghdad anytime soon, if ever — which is almost certainly for the best. [Weekly Standard Blog]
Some full disclosure: I’m proud to say that I supplied Senator Brownback’s office with the concentration camp photographs and assisted with research and suggestions for the speech — mainly quotations by Hill and others, and cites to sources — some of which appear to have made it into the final text.
The full text of Brownback’s must-read speech follows after the page break.
Updates:
The Congressional Quarterly explains the likely effect of Brownback’s hold — should he officially pull the trigger — and gives us the back story on the intense pressure that Brownback withstood before giving his speech on Wednesday:
Though Hill’s supporters appear to have enough votes to overcome Brownback’s objections and confirm the nomination, the Senate does not appear to have time for the procedural maneuvers that would be necessary to do so before the two-week spring recess begins on April 3. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is likely to approve Hill’s nomination March 31, but next week’s Senate schedule is likely to be dominated by consideration of the fiscal 2010 budget resolution.
A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he could not comment on when the Senate would take up the nomination until the committee approved it.
Human Rights Concerns Brownback’s speech indicated that both carrots and sticks from his colleagues had failed to persuade him to allow the nomination to proceed.
At Hill’s confirmation hearing Wednesday, Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., and ranking Republican Richard G. Lugar of Indiana strongly warned against delay.
“We are at war,” Lugar said. “This is not a parliamentary struggle among senators who have a diverse point of view.”
Lugar met with Brownback, who is not on the Foreign Relations panel, on March 24. At the hearing, Lugar read off an extensive list of Brownback’s complaints, including that Hill had broken a promise to invite the U.S. special envoy for human rights into the negotiations, and then gave the nominee a chance to rebut the accusations. [Congressional Quarterly]
In fact, Sen. Brownback has not yet clearly said that he’s going to hold the nomination, and barring something unexpected, that’s probably the only way to stop Hill from being confirmed. Most Republicans are too uninformed or mealy-mouthed to take a firm position, but even the Washington Independent concedes that Hill’s explanation of his promise to Brownback doesn’t fit with what Hill said last July:
In the 2008 hearing, though, Hill did specify that there were separate phases to the North Korean negotiating process. But he did not indicate clearly that that he would include Lefkowitz only during the normalization phase. Instead, he said, “I would be happy to invite him to all future negotiating sessions with North Korea.”
Though Hill did not acknowledge the discrepancy, at Wednesday’s hearing he expressed regret over not clarifying his position as the negotiations advanced. “In retrospect, Senator,” Hill told Wicker, “when I realized we weren’t going to get to Phase Three, I should have gone back to Sen. Brownback.” [The Washington Independent]
Yes, and in the interest of getting an ambassador confirmed quickly, I call on Senator Lugar to call on President Obama to nominate someone with some regional experience, and who isn’t a pathological liar. Is this too much to ask?
Update 2: Writing at the Weekly Standard blog, Stephen Hayes thinks he’s found another lie in Hill’s testimony.
North Korea is lifting its Taepodong II missile peaceful satellite launch vehicle onto the launching pad.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that such a “provocative act” could jeopardize the stalled talks on supplying North Korea with aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program.
“We have made it very clear that the North Koreans pursue this pathway at a cost and with consequences to the six-party talks, which we would like to see revived,” Clinton said Wednesday in Mexico City.
“We intend to raise this violation of the Security Council resolution, if it goes forward, in the U.N.,” she said. “This provocative action in violation of the U.N. mandate will not go unnoticed and there will be consequences.” [Reuters, Jack Kim]
Our bluff is about to be called, and we’ll soon learn whether Obama’s people have more sac than the people they succeeded, or the sincerity of belief in the U.N. to enforce two of its resolutions. They’ve thrown out a lot of hints about shooting the missile down and imposing sanctions on the North, but of course, Obama also said last summer that he would put North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism if it didn’t follow through with its commitments on verifying its (unmet) disarmament obligations.
Kim Jong Il has taken the measure of the Obama Administration, and we’re about to see whether he’s right.
The article, with the provocative title “Kim’s Crumbling Regime,” discusses trends in bottom-up marketization of the food supply and the regime’s failure — a potentially fatal one — to stop that trend and regain control over the food supply. I’m not plush for time today, so I’ll just throw out a link and recommend you read it on your own. I’ve discussed the same tends a great deal here recently, because a growing body of evidence suggests that they’re accelerating.
This is the price a journalist pays for trying to report the truth about North Korea, away from the regime’s guided tours. The information about the whereabouts of Euna Lee and Laura Ling comes from South Korean “human intelligence” sources in the North, so don’t take this at face value:
After being questioned at the security command, Lee and Ling were reportedly taken to Pyongyang last Wednesday. Each was put in a separate vehicle so that there would be no communication between them. According to South Korean sources, the journalists are being questioned at closed-off quarters under the auspices of the command near Pyongyang. One source said, “Our intelligence tells us that since this involved border security, the command wants to physically detain the journalists.” Another source said there is also a distinct possibility that once the current round of questioning is complete, the journalists will be handed over to the National Security Defense Agency, the North’s top intelligence unit.
The sources said U.S. officials were appreciative of South Korea’s quick effort and specific information. They also said Korea told the U.S. that the North is likely trying to get the journalists to admit to espionage at the border. According to the sources, given the North’s relentless style of questioning and investigation, Lee and Ling will have little choice but to reveal what they saw and heard.
When their capture first became known, the journalists were said to be on a trip to report on the plight of North Korean refugees, and their reports on the refugees or footage of North Korean territory could work against them.
The South Korean intelligence community believes the charges against the journalists will likely be espionage because they crossed the border. It’s a felony that could result in a minimum of 20 years in prison in North Korea.
One source said, “The North will film all of its questioning of the journalists and will prepare for negotiations with the United States.”
The source said the North could get the Americans to say they had spied on tape but will release them anyway, which would make the move seem like a goodwill gesture on the North’s part. [Joongang Ilbo]
In Pyongyang, investigators were poring over the two American journalists’ notebooks, videotapes and cameras amid allegations they “illegally intruded” into North Korean territory and were spying on the regime’s military facilities, the JoongAng Ilbo said. [AP, Jean H. Lee]
Well, if you’re a glass-half-full sort, being detained and interrogated incommunicado in the world’s most totalitarian state generates nothing but good will if all ends happily, and for an affordable ransom! Rosemary, book us three more of those guided tours of Pyongyang! But there are always a few people who must just hate peace:
Paris-based Reporters Without Borders called for the journalists’ immediate release, and urged China and North Korea to clarify where the women were detained. Their capture in China would violate international law, the group’s Asia-Pacific Desk chief said.
“It’s a kidnapping; it’s not an arrest,” Vincent Brossel told reporters in Seoul. “It’s a new case of kidnapping by the North Korean regime against civilians, in this case journalists.”
I’m not going to use the term “kidnapping” until I know which side of the border the women were on, but it’s nice to see reporters showing some agitation about North Korea imprisoning someone for once.
Yes, it’s a perfectly excellent nomination by the Obama Administration for Treasury. No, I’m serious.
Stuart Levey, the Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, played the key role in snipping North Korea’s financial lifelines in 2005 and 2006, starting with Macau’s Banco Delta Asia. Treasury’s effort ended when North Korea blinked and made a bunch of false promises to Chris Hill just to stop the pain, and Chris Hill duly made it stop. But no single U.S. government official had ever exerted any real influence on the North Korean regime until Stuart Levey dammed up Kim Jong Il’s steam of illicit income.
The Obama Administration will thank itself for keeping Levey around when Kim Jong Il launches the big rocket and he turns to the State Department for solutions and sees only shrugged shoulders and clucked tongues. Stuart Levey knows where the solution begins, and if he ever runs out of ideas, well, I can suggest a few more.
THE DAILY NK ALREADY HAS some details about the whereabouts of the American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee:
The information source also released that, “The emergency, that they had arrested American citizens, was immediately reported to the DSC, which supervises the border guard units. It was also reported to the headquarters of the 9th corps, which has jurisdiction over North Hamkyung Province. The two were sent to Pyongyang in the morning of the 18th after investigation by the special agents of the DSC. They were taken in separate cars, so as not to have contact with each other, escorted by armed vehicles.”
I haven’t heard one U.S. government official demand their immediate release.
THE BUBBLE HAS POPPED: North Korea’s interfence with access to Kaesong has cost investors there $10 million. Good.
PREDATOR STRIKES ARE TAKING A HEAVY TOLL on al Qaeda. I’m not seeing the downside of that, and it may impede AQ’s effectiveness, but it won’t wrest the frontier regions from AQ control. That will only happen when the inhabitants have sufficient inspiration and weaponry to drive AQ out on their own.
CHRIS HILL’S CONFIRMATION HEARING starts tomorrow, and the Weekly Standard has (second only to this blog) owned the story. Stephen Hayes relates the story of Hill’s insubordination to his bosses in talking directly to the North Koreans, which is a prohibition I find it hard to believe the last Administration was really serious about enforcing. Frankly, a writer of Hayes’s caliber could have done far better, and I hope he will yet.
Still, Hayes manages to do much better than the reliably shallow Joe Klein, whose lazy defense of Hill quotes Hillary Clinton gushing about Hill’s “persistence and success” in dealing with North Korea. The problem is that neither Klein nor Clinton can cite one tangible, meaningful example this success, and no, broken pre-owned promises don’t count. Care to try again?
Now here’s something I did not know, but which puts Hill’s sidelining of Kim Jong Il’s atrocities in some historical context. Remember Radovan Karadzic? He was the big-haired Serbian butcher who started and prosecuted a genocidal war that killed half a million Bosnians, and he apparently shared Kim Jong Il’s exquisite sensitivity at identifying an easy mark:
Christopher Hill, who was acting as Holbrooke’s “principal assistant” in the negotiations, pleaded with Holbrooke, on Karadzic’s behalf, to put the guarantee in writing. To Holbrooke’s credit, he refused. It’s hard to muster much outrage at Holbrooke’s conniving to get Karadzic to step aside, but that he continues to lie about his role in the negotiations is far more troublesome.
Hill’s role is less easily defended. The primary objection to his appointment as Ambassador to Iraq was his lies before a Senate Committee seeking assurance that human rights would remain at the fore of his negotiations with the North Koreans. Now we know that Hill was similarly sympathetic to Karadzic, who was responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia. He was willing to grant Karadzic immunity for those abuses in writing, even though as Holbrooke later conceded to one source, Karadzic never held up his end of the bargain.
This is precisely the complaint against Hill’s work in North Korea — a willingness to offer written guarantees in exchange for the easily broken pledges of men who, like Karadzic, ought to be charged with crimes against humanity. And his reward for this will be a post in Baghdad? [The Weekly Standard Blog]
Hill’s efforts may have jeopardized efforts to hold Karadzic accountable for, among other crimes, the shelling of Sarajevo, the death camp at Omarska, and the massacre at Srebrenica. This must be more of that “smart, tough” diplomacy we were promised.
For reasons I laid out here in January, pragmatism is making gradual gains on emotion in Seoul and forcing Japan and South Korea to understand that their interests have aligned:
A senior South Korean government official recently remarked that if the U.S. and North Korea speed up too much in bilateral talks, Japan could play a role in “slamming on the brakes.” He appeared to be suggesting that any bilateral negotiations bringing Washington and Pyongyang together after the North has launched a rocket next month could proceed too fast in the direction of normal diplomatic ties for the comfort of South Korea.
While is not against direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang, it feels a stop must be put to North Korea’s brinkmanship tactics, i.e. to ratcheting up tensions to speak to the U.S. direct and make diplomatic gains. And it is here, the official suggested, that Seoul-Tokyo cooperation comes in. “Japan was once considered a stumbling block to solving North Korean issues,” another South Korean official said. “But now has the most important role.” [Chosun Ilbo]
First reaction: since the beginning of the third Clinton Administration in 2006, the United States has sacrificed the interests of traditional Pacific allies to China. So where is the sinister whispering campaign about the China Lobby and its controlling interests in a cabal of ideologues who’ve penetrated the U.S. government? And while the media haven’t completely ignored China’s large-scale oppression of its subjects, Tibetan monks and landless Chinese farmers have far to go to achieve the radical chic adoration that Hamas has.
Second reaction: The problem with battling the emotion of the Korean Street is that you never know when it will roar up and smash years of intricate statesmanship. No wonder it’s so difficult for South Korea to form coherent diplomatic strategies. For the sake of apologies for what can’t be undone, the Korean Street turns away from saving the comfort women of their own time. Yet who believes that ten years from now, Koreans will be chopping off their fingers at the offices of the Hankyoreh or demanding apologies from the politicians who appeased the North’s regime at the cost of uncounted, unmourned North Korean lives? As is so often the case, Koreans shouldn’t have to look abroad to find the source of their own despair.
But they will.
And of course, the Korean Street’s obsessions extend to things that are simply inexplicable. Maybe the next baseball game should be for Tokdo, with the loser agreeing to renounce all claims forever.
North Korea’s government, for reasons that are not clear, has begun allowing cash transactions for food imports, and the result is a significant increase in food flowing into North Korea’s ports:
As a result, Shinuiju harbor is witnessing a mass importation of rice and flour from China for the first time. The amount of food imports, which started to increase in early February, has reached its peak in late February and early March, importing 800 to 1,000 tons of rice and flour everyday. Prior to the changes, an average of 500 tons of food was imported daily.
The sources also say that three to four cargo ships enter into Shinuiju’s military-appointed harbors, such as the Dong Yang harbor (exclusive warship for the Escort Command) and the Kang Sung harbor (exclusively for the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces), transporting daily imports. The amount of food these ships carry everyday reaches from 800 to 1,000 tons. As the rations are disembarked, they are immediately purchased by the awaiting wholesale traders and distributed throughout the country. [Open Radio]
One’s immediate suspicion is that the food imports would be allocated to only a select few; however, Open Radio also reports that as North Korea’s underground economy continues to develop, the imported food is flowing across district and provincial boundaries, and into North Korea’s hungriest regions. The decline of North Korea’s planned socialist economy means more abundance and more equality.
Repeat after me, kids: capitalism saves.
Separately, Open Radio also reports that South Korean food products coming in from Kaesong, including ChocoPies, chestnut bread, and coffee mix are hot sellers on the black market. It’s probably obvious enough to North Korean consumers that these products are from South Korea, which may have something to do with why the North Korean regime is moving steadily toward shutting Kaesong down. Kaesong proponents have claimed that their project would change the North by exposing its people to the lifestyle of the South. And since pretty much day one, I’ve predicted that as soon as such an effect was discernable, the North Korean regime would shut the project down.
