North Korea: Witness to Transformation

Reading US Tea Leaves: Obama’s State of the Unions

Stephan Haggard — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:00:33 +0000

Every January, North Korea watchers in the US grab their copy of the joint New Year’s editorial—typically in translation—and try to read the tea leaves; we plead guilty to this ritual. But I was listening to Ambassador Bob King at USC last week, and he suggested that we should be reading our own tea leaves. [...]

Et tu, Brute? Seoul, Beijing and the Overseas Vote

Stephan Haggard — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:47:44 +0000

Critics of China’s “peaceful rise” like to point to the numerous accommodations—large and small—that governments in the region are making to Beijing’s sensitivities. In December, we reported on a deal Japan struck with China on North Korean refugees harbored in its consulates. But it now looks like South Korea is making subtle adjustments as well. [...]

Chinese Repatriation of Refugees

Stephan Haggard — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:00:52 +0000

One of the central points we keep repeating is that the North Korean refugees are—well–refugees. They have legitimate fear of persecution on return to their home country because of what must be considered a “political” belief (as the Refugee Convention requires): that they should enjoy the freedom to leave their own country. Moreover, the Refugee [...]

Kim Jong-Il fulfills lifelong wish to become a bronze statue

Alex Melton — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 12:09:38 +0000

Just in time to honor his 70th birthday (on Valentines Day by some accounts), a clearly representative sample of the North Korean population was at hand to unveil a new bronze statue immortalizing the dear leader upon his trusty steed. He appears riding alongside his father, Kim Il-Sung, sporting a far less receding hair line [...]

Sources: World Economic Forum on North Korea

Stephan Haggard — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 12:00:11 +0000

Principled statements for engagement with North Korea are in surprisingly short supply in the US at the moment; the last that springs quickly to mind was the Asia Society’s task force report on North Korea Inside Out. (Truth in advertising; we were a member of that task force). At Brookings’ Northeast Asia site, Evans Revere [...]

Sources: Cathcart and Krauss on Sino-North Korean Relations 1983-85

Stephan Haggard — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:00:57 +0000

Adam Cathcart recently pulled together a thorough dossier on early Chinese reactions to the death of Kim Jong Il (our highlights here). He and colleague Charles Kraus have now produced a second dossier based on a small cache of four newly-declassified CIA documents and a memorandum of a conversation between Kim Il Sung and Eric [...]

W on North Korea

Stephan Haggard — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:47 +0000

We are finally wading through Condeleeza Rice’s memoir, which provides her counterpoint to those we have reviewed by Rumsfeld, Bolton and Cheney (here and here). She is refreshingly blunt on the internal wrangling in the administration; indeed, she claims North Korea policy was the most politically contentious foreign issue the administration faced. Before turning to [...]

South Korea’s Saenuri (neé GNP) in Transition

Stephan Haggard — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:45:53 +0000

The popularity of software mogul Ahn Cheol-soo–particularly among the younger generation–is shaking up South Korean politics. The country’s ruling party (Hannara or the Grand National Party [GNP]) now seems to be engaged in a major makeover in advance of the April National Assembly elections. The changes extend to a new name (the Saenuri party), which [...]

Food Update: Doubts on China, the WFP, and Ireson on Prices

Stephan Haggard — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:30 +0000

We try to maintain an appropriate degree of incredulity about news on North Korea. But although surprised, we were not adequately skeptical in our post on two stories (from Tokyo Shinbun and the AFP) on a massive Chinese food aid program. Talking with friends in governments and NGOs on both sides of the Pacific, skepticism [...]

The KORUS Blues

Marcus Noland — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:19:54 +0000

Setting aside Syria, South Korea may be the only country in the world with politics more polarized than the United States. While in Seoul last week I was reminded of this when the leaders of the political opposition attempted to march on the US embassy to deliver letters addressed to President Obama and Vice President [...]