As an ethnically homogenous and already divided nation, Korea might seem to be immune from all the fragmentation that seems to be happening around the world today. Far from the Korean peninsula, the European Union is negotiating the British exit and facing a possible withdrawal by the Spanish region of Catalonia. The Middle East is… Continue reading Korea and the Geopolitics of Division
There’s been precious little good news from Asia these days. Washington and Pyongyang continue to trade threats of war. Right-wing nationalist Shinzo Abe won reelection as prime minister in Japan last month. Major storms have hammered several countries in the region, most recently Typhoon Damrey in Vietnam. And now, in the wake of those typhoons… Continue reading Building On The Good News From Asia
North Korea has the worst human rights record of any country in the world except perhaps Eritrea and Syria. There is, however, a curious exception to this record: disability rights. This case offers a powerful counter-example of successful engagement in an arena where the country normally experiences nothing but universal condemnation. For nearly two decades,… Continue reading Engaging North Korea Successfully on Human Rights
North Korea has the worst human rights record of any country in the world except perhaps Eritrea and Syria. There is, however, a curious exception to this record: disability rights. This case offers a powerful counter-example of successful engagement in an arena where the country normally experiences nothing but universal condemnation. For nearly two decades,… Continue reading Engaging North Korea Successfully on Human Rights
The United States faces a new nuclear power ruled by a communist dictator. Washington is worried that the leadership of that country is crazy enough to use its new weapons — even against the United States. Meanwhile, other countries fear that the “madman” in the Oval Office might just launch a pre-emptive nuclear attack. This… Continue reading Time to Make a Deal with North Korea
The storm inside the Republican Party has reached Category Four. At the end of August, as Hurricane Harvey tore through Texas and Hurricane Irma was poised to devastate Florida, the hard right was experiencing its own high winds and pelting rain. On the TV show Fox and Friends, conservative commentator Laura Ingraham took aim at the Trump administration… Continue reading Hurricane Donald Hits the Republican Party
The United States has beaten its head against the wall of North Korea for more than 70 years, and that wall has changed little indeed as a result. The United States, meanwhile, has suffered one headache after another. Over the last several weeks, the head banging has intensified. North Korea has tested a couple of possible intercontinental… Continue reading Trump and the Geopolitics of Crazy
North Korea has prided itself over the years on remaining relatively detached from the international community. During the Cold War, for instance, it refused to become a cog in the Soviet trading system that would have relegated it to supplying raw materials to and purchasing finished products from the imperial center. Instead, it remained economically… Continue reading Isolating the Isolated
American beef is now available in China — as a result of a deal that Donald Trump made with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In exchange, Chinese chicken is now available in the United States. Seems like a fair deal — hats off to Trump. Oh, except that there are a few important caveats to the quid pro… Continue reading Trump: Let’s Make a (Good) Deal
North Korea is not a tourist destination that I generally recommend for Americans. South Koreans have special reasons to visit the country – to see members of their divided families, to visit legendary places like Mt. Paektu, to experience an alternative Korean reality. Chinese tourists visit North Korea to get a taste of their own… Continue reading Honoring Otto Warmbier
The U.S. media has been full of dire warnings of an imminent U.S. attack on North Korea. Two aircraft carriers are now within firing distance of North Korea. They’re part of a military exercise in the Sea of Japan in which South Korea and the United States are coordinating a drill involving advanced bombers. The Pentagon recently tested a successful anti-missile… Continue reading Can South Korea Help Prevent a U.S. Attack on North Korea?
Donald Trump recently executed a 180-degree turn on China. He had nothing good to say about the country when he was running for president. Once elected, it looked as though he might even tilt toward Taiwan. But after a tete-a-tete with Chinese premier Xi Jinping, Trump changed his mind and reversed his intention to label… Continue reading Trump’s Next Diplomatic Reversal: North Korea?
Virtually every week, politicians and journalists and policy experts attempt the impossible: mind reading. Specifically, they want to know what’s going on inside one man’s mind. They want to know what Kim Jong Un is thinking and, more importantly, what he wants. It’s impossible to know for sure what another person is thinking. And yet… Continue reading What Does Kim Jong Un Want?
The political theorist Thomas Hobbes warned in the 17th century that without the modern state and its sovereign control of territory, humanity would slip back into a state of nature in which violence was uncontrolled and ever-present. “A war of all against all” would break out, he wrote, in which neighbor would turn against neighbor.… Continue reading The Cyberhacking of All Against All
James Mattis visited Asia this month on his first foreign trip as the new head of the Pentagon. It was less a get-acquainted visit than a damage control tour. His boss, President Donald Trump, had threatened to escalate tensions with China and prevent North Korea from launching a nuclear-capable ICBM. He’d accused Japan of currency… Continue reading Will Trump Complete the Pivot to Asia?
Review of Robert Boynton, The Invitation-Only Zone (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), 271 pages The abduction of Japanese citizens by the North Korean government is so fantastical a story that it seems to be the stuff of magical realism. It’s not surprising that so many Japanese refused for so long to believe… Continue reading The Invitation-Only Zone (Review)
How I Became a North Korean, Krys Lee (Viking, 2016), 246 pages It has become harder and harder these days to define what it means to be North Korean. During the heyday of Kim Il Sung, it was much easier to conflate individual North Koreans with their leader, their state, and the country’s prevailing… Continue reading How I Became a North Korean (Review)
Over the last five years, South Koreans have worried that their economy has slipped deeper into stagnation. Growth rates have hovered between 2 and 3 percent. Consumer spending is weak, and household debt has risen to record levels. Because global demand has fallen, the world is not buying Korean exports as eagerly as before. This… Continue reading Can Korea Save the Global Economy
In poker, a wild card can add to the fun of the game. But it throws off the odds and makes the hands more unpredictable. That’s why poker purists prefer to keep jokers and other wild cards out of the deck. In American politics, the presidential primaries usually function as a vetting process to remove… Continue reading Donald Trump: Joker’s Wild
North Korea has had a relatively short and somewhat complicated relationship with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). In the period after the Korean War, when North and South Korea were engaged in a bout of diplomatic one-upmanship to see which could gain the most embassies around the world, Pyongyang largely steered clear… Continue reading North Korea and the GCC
The street protests of the Arab Spring happened largely because of disgruntled youth. The unemployment rate for young people in the Middle East and North Africa verged on the catastrophic in 2012: 42 percent for Tunisia and 38 percent for Egypt. Moreover, the rates had shot up significantly since 2010, so it seemed as though… Continue reading Korea’s Next Generation
In 2012, a year before he died, the distinguished political scientist Kenneth Waltz wrote an article in Foreign Affairs arguing that everyone should stop worrying about Iran getting a nuclear weapon. He didn’t think that Iran was likely to voluntarily abandon its efforts to acquire a nuke. Nor did he think that the country would… Continue reading Should South Korea Get the Bomb?
As the world focuses on the war in Syria, the refugee crisis in Europe, and the primary slugfest in the United States, the two Koreas are heading toward a catastrophe in the Far East. Although relations on the Korean peninsula have been deteriorating for the better part of eight years, the last six months have… Continue reading Darkness at High Noon
Liam Neeson recently donated $1,515 toward Korean reunification. The actor, who will be playing General Douglas MacArthur in an upcoming movie about the Korean War, wanted to do something to signal his support for improved inter-Korean relations. Along with his donation, Neeson predicted that the two Koreas will reunify within the next five years. Everyone… Continue reading The Reunification Guessing Game
Review of North Korea: Markets and Military Rule Most observers who conclude that North Korea is a static society only take a snapshot glance at the country. Perhaps they visit once on a tourist delegation. Perhaps they’re journalists who write one or two stories about the “other Korea” as part of their tour of… Continue reading North Korea: Markets and Military Rule (Review)
Japan and South Korea have very close alliances with the United States. They also have had diplomatic relations with each other for 50 years, not to mention considerable trade back and forth during that time. At a popular level, many Japanese are wild about Korean bulgogi and soap operas while many Koreans love Japanese sushi… Continue reading Japan and South Korea: A New Beginning?
In the famous tearjerker Love Story, a young woman dying of cancer tells her boyfriend that “love means never having to say you’re sorry.” North Korea has generally adopted the same attitude toward South Korea, with a small twist: juche means never having to say you’re sorry. Indeed, Pyongyang has never been very good about… Continue reading North Korea’s Sorry Politics
During the George W. Bush years, pundits and journalists were constantly speculating whether North Korea would be next in line for regime change. After all, Bush had included North Korea in his “axis of evil” speech in 2002. One year later, the Pentagon invaded Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, a member of the trio of tyranny. Perhaps… Continue reading After Iran, Is North Korea Next?
Reunification, for Koreans, has a mythic quality, like the Promised Land or the Holy Grail. Most Koreans dream of reunification, of a time in the future when the North and the South will join together to recreate the Korean whole that existed before division and Japanese colonialism. It’s a lovely idea, but no one has… Continue reading Reunification: The View from the North
When George W. Bush put Iraq, Iran, and North Korea into his infamous “axis of evil” speech in 2002, the three countries seemed to have little to do with one another— except that Washington didn’t like them (and they didn’t like Washington). Iran and Iraq were enemies, not allies, and the inclusion of North Korea… Continue reading Reviving the Iran-North Korea Axis