US twists arms, Pyongyang plays footsie
Washington is pressing hard to squash skepticism from South Korea and objections by Japan in order to pull North Korea off the US's "sponsor of terror" list and reach a compromise over nuclear arms assessments. Pyongyang has responded with a drumbeat of typically menacing gestures and continues to dance circles around inspectors. - Donald Kirk (Oct 10, '08)



The facts and fables of a unified Korea
In a remarkably blunt speech, former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun has stressed that any unification of the Korean Peninsula can only follow peace being negotiated with the Pyongyang regime. His remarks come as enthusiasm for unification wanes and hardline tactics to change the North look increasingly unrealistic. - Andrei Lankov (Oct 6, '08)

In North Korea, a port with no joy
It was a happier day in North Korea when former US president Jimmy Carter posed for photographs with Kim Il-sung in 1994 atop a West Sea dam - one of the Hermit Nation's proudest achievements. But today, as Donald Kirk reports, the dam and the harbor it protects are threadbare and sad - apt analogies for an economic vision gone awry and a nation left to starve. (Oct 3, '08)

Nuclear bond for North Korea and Myanmar
A recent flurry of high-level contacts between North Korea and military officials from Myanmar raises the possibility that Myanmar is seeking nuclear weapons procurements. Whether the visits are related to nuclear or conventional arms, military industrial development or tunneling technology, they set off security alarm bells in Southeast Asia. - Norman Robespierre (Oct 3, '08)

A little taste of North Korea
Dear Leader Kim Jong-il is in excellent health, and the highlights on any visitor's itinerary remain noodles, monuments and museums and the extravagant display of national glory by thousands of flash card-wielding youngsters, Don Kirk discovers on his latest trip to North Korea. Foreigners can't find out what's really going on in the Hermit Kingdom, but whatever they do, they mustn't crumple the local newspaper. (Sep 26, '08)

COMMENT
Nothing succeeds like succession
Speculation over North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's health is a reminder of the instability surrounding the country's nuclear program and the danger a collapsing regime poses to itself and its neighbors. However, it is not succession that will guarantee the North Korean state's future and resolve the peninsula's security concerns, but a resolution of the nuclear issue. - Scott Thomas Bruce (Sep 26, '08)

A reason to bring US troops home
The United States' strong military presence in Japan and South Korea is the result of Cold War commitments which are rapidly losing their relevance. The US bases cost billions of dollars in upkeep and generate no small measure of resentment. Yet withdrawing the troops and securing the US itself has occurred to almost no one in Washington. (Sep 24, '08)

Pyongyang defies all odds
North Korea should be ripe for a revolution, with the government having failed spectacularly to manage the economy, let alone take care of the well-being of the people. It survives because the leaders are united and grassroots social activity of any kind is not tolerated. The death of Dear Leader Kim Jong-il would not necessarily change this. - Andrei Lankov (Sep 17, '08)

Korean investors reach for Cambodian skies
South Korean investors are pouring into the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, with plans for towering glass and steel skyscrapers. But whispers of a property bubble in Cambodia and fears of a financial meltdown at home put some of the more ambitious South Korean plans in danger. - By Geoffrey Cain (Sep 15, '08)

'Dear Leader, get well soon'
It's better the devil - or in George W Bush's case, the "pygmy" and "tyrant" - you know, than the one you don't. Whatever, if anything, is ailing North Korea's Kim Jong-il, Washington finds the prospect of a power vacuum in the nuclear-capable country to be a worse scenario than Kim's demise. - Donald Kirk (Sep 12, '08)

Grave illness or stroke of genius?
Kim Jong-il is still a lightning rod for international suspicion and media speculation, as the frenzied coverage of his health problems shows. But the real reason for his absence from a national celebration may be a crafty ploy by Pyongyang to raise the stakes in the ongoing talks on its nuclear program. - Sunny Lee (Sep 12, '08)

Seeing doubles in Dear Leader's no-show
North Korea celebrated its 60th anniversary on Tuesday with a massive military parade and other festivities. But, by all accounts, no Kim Jong-il. His apparent no-show will intensify speculation as to the health - physical, mental or otherwise - of the secretive "Dear Leader". Some experts claim he died years ago. - Kosuke Takahashi (Sep 9,'08)

McCain sullies North Korea line
Although he did not mention North Korea by name, US presidential candidate Senator John McCain's chest-thumping acceptance speech was full of war tales and fighting talk hoped to bring more "patriots" on-side. But his words have muddied last-ditch efforts by the George W Bush administration to salvage its legacy through resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue. - Donald Kirk (Sep 8,'08)

China cozies up to Seoul
Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to South Korea last week has further consolidated the "strategic cooperative partnership" announced during President Lee Myung-bak's trip to China in May. Bilateral trade and diplomacy are blossoming as Beijing works to counter a strengthened United States-Japan-South Korea military alliance. - Jing-dong Yuan (Sep 2, '08)

Pyongyang plays a wild card
North Korea's claim of resuming nuclear warhead development was drowned out by the US Democratic convention, and likely won't be heard next week when the Republicans take the stage. Whether it is sneaky timing or an enormous bluff, the North can present President George W Bush a full-blown nuclear crisis before he steps down. - Donald Kirk (Aug 29, '08)

If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Talking tough with North Korea and casting it as a rogue regime didn't achieve much for the George W Bush administration. Tensions only began to subside when it tried a bold new diplomatic tack. New US presidential candidates promising "change" should take note. (Aug 28, '08)

North Korea wary of Russia's return
Russia's muscle-flexing in Georgia certainly has implications for the former satellite states of the old Soviet Union, but the impact is less clear for northeast Asia, especially North Korea, which the Soviet Union supported with enormous military and economic aid - but where Russia still arouses deep suspicions. - Donald Kirk
(Aug 22, '08)

South Korea starts state sell-off
The world's third-largest shipbuilder, Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, is expected to come up for sale next week, and may raise as much as US$3.5 billion for state coffers. Other sales are to follow as President Lee Myung-bak, his popularity waning, acts on campaign reform pledges. (Aug 14, '08)

US 'terrorizes' Pyongyang
The failure of the United States to take North Korea off the State Department's list of nations sponsoring terrorism represents a last-gasp effort by Washington's hardliners to force North Korea's hand. Now the question is how far is the US really prepared to go before the confrontation on the Korean Peninsula again reaches crisis levels. - Donald Kirk (Aug 13, '08)

Lee's pardons send mixed message
South Korean business groups welcomed the government pardon of company executives, including Hyundai Motor chairman Chung Mong-koo, convicted for a range of corporate offences. Others said President Lee Myung-bak's decision demonstrated to foreign investors the inequity of the country's business environment. (Aug 12, '08)

Internet rumors roil China-Korea ties
For web surfers in China and South Korea, less-than-credible Internet news reports lead to tension and nationalism over interpretations of history. Bloggers on both sides claim to be reading more and more incriminating allegations online, but the two sides aren't really communicating at all. - Sunny Lee (Aug 8, '08)

Blunt Bush changes Korean tune
In a sharp reversal of the United States' soft line of the past few years, President George W Bush has bemoaned North Korea's poor record on human rights and reminded Pyongyang of its membership in the "axis of evil". Dear Leader Kim Jong-il will not be amused, but Bush's message is also aimed at South Korea. - Donald Kirk (Aug 7, '08)

South Korea and the US at odds
South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak and US President George W Bush will have very different agendas when the two meet this week in Seoul. Lee has to deal with rapidly deteriorating relations with North Korea, while Bush wants a greater contribution from South Korea in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. - Donald Kirk (Aug 4, '08)

SPEAKING FREELY
Red neon cross lights up Koreans
A ubiquitous red neon cross rivals the national flag as a symbol for the Republic of Korea. It represents Tonghak, an indigenous religion founded by a peasant mystic in 1860. Today, the same hard peasant wisdom still commands Korean democracy and Tonghak manifests itself in rebellions and protests, perhaps most recently against American beef. - Taru Taylor (Jul 30, '08)

Seoul has desert island dreams
South Korea and Japan are at it again in their long-running dispute over a group of islets. It is no coincidence that Seoul revs up concerns about the uninhabited crop of rocks just when it needs to deflect attention from real problems, especially those with North Korea. - Donald Kirk (Jul 25, '08)

Russia is key to North Korea's plight
Whether Kim Jong-il is able to rescue North Korea again from a looming catastrophe depends on his ability to quickly find access to relatively cheap fuel and energy. Russia is already helping, but unless it includes South Korea in oil, gas, railway and exploitation projects, its progress will be limited. - Leonid Petrov (Jul 23, '08)

An elusive new face for North Korea
While progress is being made in getting North Korea to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, the broader issue of the country establishing viable economic and security relationships with surrounding countries remains highly contentious - and a potentially divisive subject among those countries negotiating with Pyongyang. - Donald Kirk (Jul 18, '08)

Flash of temper livens Korea talks
North Korean guards kicking over tables on the demilitarized line with South Korea and threatening armed conflict "at any moment" have overshadowed the six-party talks in Beijing on Pyongyang's nuclear program. The guards will get over their temper tantrums; it won't be as easy to nudge North Korea into the next phase of disarmament. - Donald Kirk (Jul 11, '08) 

US caught in wrangle over envoy
A debate over North Korea's human rights abuses - in fact, the exclusion of the issues from the agenda for six-party talks on the North's nuclear program - is holding up nomination of veteran diplomat and "Korea hand" Kathleen Stephens to the post of ambassador to South Korea. The situation could prove self-defeating as it threatens to undermine the fragile US-South Korea alliance and, ultimately, any potential progress with North Korea. (Jul 10, '08) 

Close encounters with North Korea
For some 20 years, outlandish stories of North Korean abductions pushed Japanese imaginations to the outer limits of Cold War paranoia. With the emergence of several true narratives, the abduction issue has taken on September 11 significance and given Japan an opportunity to assert victimhood, dust off plans to drive up defense spending, and embark on a new brand of militarism. - John Feffer (Jul 7, '08)

Seoul's summer of discontent
Labor leaders and protest organizers have vowed to continue their months-long fight over the import of US beef into South Korea, even as President Lee Myung-bak pleads with the nation to work together to overcome the crisis. - Donald Kirk (Jul 2, '08)

A day in the bosom of the Dear Leader
Get past the X-ray machines, the quizzical customs officials and the rules about what to never say about the "Dear Leader", and you'll soon have crossed the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea. Seoul-native Sunny Lee made the trek, took a peek, and learned a little something about the hopes and humor of his North Korean neighbors. - Sunny Lee (Jul 2, '08)

Pyongyang tests market skills with nibbles
North Korean-made chocolate, potato chips and noodles are appearing on the shelves of the country's top hotel, marking the government's determination to build an independent economy. Requests that partners sign blank-sheet contracts indicate there is a way to go before the goal is achieved. - Ting-I Tsai (Jul 2, '08)

Rare Bush success leaves sour taste
North Korea's symbolic destruction of a tower at its Yongbyon plutonium plant was a rare hint of success for the stained foreign policy scorecard of US President George W Bush. But this is just the start of an uncertain process - and potential crisis - that Bush will leave to his successor. - Jim Lobe (Jun 30, '08)

A flawed delivery from Pyongyang
North Korea's long-delayed declaration is more noteworthy for what it does not say about its nuclear program, especially as it does not address the chief concern of the United States, that is, what Pyongyang has been doing to develop the capability of exploding a nuclear warhead with uranium at its core. All the same, Washington is prepared to overlook this omission and move on. - Donald Kirk (Jun 26, '08)

A secret US handshake with Pyongyang
The announcement by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that North Korea will this week release a complete account of its nuclear activities has raised suspicions about Washington's over-eagerness to accommodate Pyongyang, and what else may have been promised, and at what cost. - Ralph A Cossa (Jun 24, '08)

    US cautious over N Korea disclosure (AFP)

Presidential apology falls short
South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak issued another apology to his people on Thursday in the face of protests over the import of beef from the United States and a free-trade accord with Washington. Saying "I'm sorry", though, won't magically make the problem go away. - Donald Kirk (Jun 19, '08)

Are we all North Koreans now?
The global economy is reeling from the triple whammy of soaring energy and food prices and extreme weather stress, and as long as policymakers don't address all three of these trends as one major crisis, it could get a whole lot worse. Just ask North Korea, which in the 1990s was the world's canary. The famine there that killed as much as 10% of the population was a harbinger of the crisis that now grips the globe - though few saw it that way at the time. - John Feffer (Jun 18, '08)

Washington fiddles while Seoul burns
The frustration and fury in South Korea over United States beef imports is no longer, if it ever was, about science or sick cows. It is about emotions, and until the bad vibes are soothed, the crisis will escalate, with dangerous consequences for the US-South Korea relationship. Washington pressed the Lee Myung-bak administration to accept an all-or-nothing trade deal and now it has a political and moral obligation to help defuse the crisis. (Jun 16, '08)

     Seoul and US to extend beef talks (AFP)

Party time at South Korea's protest 2.0
Like at any good festival, some South Koreans have arrived at the ongoing anti-government protests in Seoul wearing animal costumes. There are young lovers, street vendors and impromptu concerts throughout, making it clear that this leaderless mob is singing its own tune. Old-school protesters call it "a picnic that doesn't change the nation". It's so much fun, one might wonder "what's the beef"? - Sunny Lee (Jun 12, '08)

US beef row steers Seoul into chaos
Mass hostility for a US beef deal has gripped South Korea, bringing tens of thousands to the streets and the president's cabinet to the brink of resignation. But this is about much more than poisoned steak; it is a revival of anti-government sentiment that always simmers near the surface of South Korean democracy. The protests could also spoil the US alliance - the alleged goal of those at the forefront of protests in the capital. - Donald Kirk (Jun 10, '08)

     SKorean beef protests intensify (AFP)

A new light on the Korean War
As South Korea looks ahead to the anniversary of the epoch-making, but now largely forgotten, Korean War that ended in 1953, the nation would do well to reflect on the freedom that many have come to take for granted, and the compelling need to bring freedom to their long-suffering fellow Koreans north of the 38th parallel. - Sung-Yoon Lee (Jun 4, '08)

Beijing and Seoul turn a new page
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's visit to China is seen as an uptick for bilateral relations and a positive sign for the region. Beijing's concerns about Lee's tilt towards Washington and Tokyo have been relieved, but problems remain, such as increasing nationalism in both countries and, as always, the North Korea nuclear issue. - Jing-dong Yuan (Jun 3, '08)

Time running out for Korean FTA
Opposition in the US Congress to terms of a free-trade agreement between Washington and Seoul, coinciding with protests against its terms in South Korea, could wreck the chances of a deal being ratified under the George W Bush administration. - Donald Kirk (Jun 3, '08)

Can God save Mr Bulldozer?
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's muscular leadership style - the machismo that made him a daredevil business tycoon - is failing to grip the public. The gung-ho workaholic is alienating people by his inability to communicate and a string of costly political miscues. Lee will attempt to turn things around during his present trip to China, but it may take a miracle to regain the faith of his nation. - Sunny Lee (May 28, '08)

South Korea's Lee takes a grilling
Like all South Korean presidents before him, Lee Myung-bak has enjoyed a very brief honeymoon. The knives are already out, with opponents using the issue of imported US beef to scuttle a United States-South Korean free trade accord in the hope of reviving their flagging movement. - Donald Kirk (May 23, '08)

Australian eggs for a Korean 'basket case'?
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's revamp of Australia's foreign policy has lessened the country's focus on Washington and redirected it to some odd places, for example Pyongyang, where a food crisis could be a boon for major grain exporter Australia. The US's dead-end in North Korea no longer means Canberra must follow suit at the risk of strategic and lucrative opportunities. - Leonid A Petrov (May 15, '08)

A poet well-versed in North Korea's pain
As court poet for North Korea's reclusive leader Kim Jong-il, Jang Jin-sung enjoyed all the trappings of life among the Pyongyang elite. But he traded it for a dangerous flight to South Korea, where he is now a best-selling author of poems chronicling the grueling misery of North Korean life. (May 15, '08)

COMMENT
Blair's Christian 'challenge' to the East
Former British premier Tony Blair, who recently converted to Catholicism, apparently believes his or other Christian faiths should underpin the West in meeting the challenges from the East. But people such as Blair should start taking the "East" more seriously, and the coming Group of Eight summit in July could be an opportunity for Europeans to start calling democratic Asians "we" rather than "they". - Masayuki Tadokoro
(May 14, '08)

China, Korea: More nationalist than thou
South Korea got an up-close view of China's new-found nationalism when Chinese protesters came out en masse for the Seoul leg of the Olympic torch relay. South Korea had its own patriotic upsurge ahead of the 1988 Games, but the neighbors continue to brand the other's acts as more excessive and upsetting. - Sunny Lee
(May 14, '08)

Koreas not eye-to-eye on Vision 3000
South Korea's no-nonsense new president, Lee Myong-bak, has released his alternative to the Sunshine policy of his predecessor towards the North. "Vision 3000, Denuclearization, Openness" is a carrot-and-stick plan that promises a windfall of assistance should North Korea surrender its nuclear weapons. But its feasibility is likely to remain academic: Vision 3000 has not the slightest chance of being accepted by Pyongyang. - Andrei Lankov
(May 13, '08)

North Korea gives a lot, expects more
Washington is likely to decide that North Korea's delivery of 18,000 documents on its nuclear program suffices to ask the US Congress to remove Pyongyang from an international terrorist list and lift sanctions. Yet the papers are not expected to reveal anything new, and the US's response risks cutting South Korea out of the loop of negotiations with the North. - Donald Kirk (May 12, '08)

     Negroponte in China for N Korea talks (AFP)

South Korea's Sunshine policy strikes back
Since President Lee Myung-bak took office two months ago, South Korea's Sunshine engagement policy towards the North has been eclipsed by tough talk directed at Pyongyang. Now proponents of the concession-based, carrot-laden approach are fighting back, and they have released statistics they believe will make Lee see things in a different light. - Sunny Lee (May 6, '08)