Quotes of the Day:
“Military necessity does not admit of cruelty – that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, . . . nor of torture to extort confessions.”
- Abraham Lincoln, from his instructions to the troops in April 1863
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
- Edmund Burke
“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
- Justice Louis Brandeis
1. N. Korean leader visits Samjiyon city in first public activity in more than month
2. U.N. rapporteur raps China over repatriation of N. Korean defectors: news report
3. Envoy describes end-of-war deal North can't 'walk away from'
4. North Korea’s Kim appears after month-long absence, visiting ‘utopia’ city created to cement regime’s legacy
5. Disinformation is spreading beyond the realm of spycraft to become a shady industry – lessons from South Korea
6. Diplomacy Is Critical to Denuclearization of Korean Peninsula, DOD Official Says
7. Tyrant Kim looks fighting fit in 1st public appearance since month-long absence
8. Time for Japan and South Korea to bury the hatchet
9. A revolt against America (Korean history)
10. 'Covid obsessive sent suspicious package to vaccine factory and Kim Jong-un'
11. The little film made from a man’s desire to right a serious wrong
12. The Brave Women-Led Movement Making History on the Korean Demilitarized Zone
13. N. Korea calls on police in Yanggang Province to make "100 rounds a day" to prevent defections
14. Husbands of undocumented North Koreans beg China not to deport their wives
1. N. Korean leader visits Samjiyon city in first public activity in more than month
He's back. Kim Jong-un does another "Mark Twain."
And you have to love the return of his leather coat as well. Looking like the Matrix.
(2nd LD) N. Korean leader visits Samjiyon city in first public activity in more than month | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: CHANGES photos)
By Choi Soo-hyang
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has visited the northwestern city of Samjiyon, near the border with China, where a major development project is underway, Pyongyang's state media reported Tuesday. It marks his first public activity in more than a month.
Located at the foot of Mount Paekdu, the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula, Samjiyon is known to be the birthplace of Kim's late father and former leader Kim Jong-il. Developing the city has been one of Kim's pet projects since taking office in late 2011.
"Kim ... gave on-the-spot guidance to Samjiyon City to learn about the real state of the third-stage project, with the conclusion of Samjiyon City construction now in hand," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, adding the development will be wrapped up this year.
The North originally planned to complete the Samjiyon development in three stages by 2020 in time for the 75th anniversary of the ruling party's foundation but failed to meet the deadline amid crippling sanctions and a prolonged border closure due to COVID-19.
Kim praised officials for their "lofty loyalty, strong will and sweat" to push forward with the project and said the four-year construction proved "the iron will of our state to achieve prosperity our own way and with our own efforts."
The mass-scale project includes "the construction of dwelling houses for thousands of families, public and production buildings, educational facilities, a water supply and drainage system, roads, an afforestation and greening and power grid system," according to the KCNA.
North Korea elevated the status of Samjiyon from a county to a city after celebrating the completion of a major construction there in 2019 and has called for transforming the area into the "wealthiest" region in the country.
Kim said the city could serve as a guideline "for making a new start for the change of local areas" and called for boosting the country's construction capabilities.
The North Korean leader also urged officials to make "substantial farming preparations for next year" to ensure a "stable increase in potato production without fluctuation despite the unfavorable conditions in the northern alpine areas" and ordered research to protect forests to cope with harmful insects and climate change.
The latest visit marked Kim's first public appearance reported in state media in more than a month, after he delivered a speech at a defense exhibition on Oct. 11.
scaaet@yna.co.kr
(END)
2. U.N. rapporteur raps China over repatriation of N. Korean defectors: news report
Yes, and not to beat the dead horse, but China is complicit in north Korean human rights abuses. I doubt this came up in the Biden-Xi virtual meeting last night though I understand other human rights issues did so maybe this was mentioned. China should treat these people from north Korea as refugees and be allowed to go to South Korea.
U.N. rapporteur raps China over repatriation of N. Korean defectors: news report | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, Nov. 16 (Yonhap) -- A U.N. official on the human rights situation in North Korea has criticized China for sending back North Korean defectors, describing the practice as a serious challenge to international law, according to a news report Tuesday.
"The issue is very serious and the government is challenging international law," Tomas Ojea Quintana, the special rapporteur on North Korea human rights, was quoted as saying by the Voice of America (VOA).
He added, "I urge once again the People's Republic of China to contemplate the application of the principle of 'non-refoulement' to North Koreans who may face torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment upon repatriation."
The Chinese government earlier stated that those North Koreans had "entered China for economic reasons using illegal channels." So, they are "illegal immigrants, not refugees," it added.
The U.N. official, a lawyer from Argentina, expressed regret that the Chinese authorities take such a stance and "dodge the application of this critical principle that protects every human being from torture and ill-treatment, that also applies regardless of the illegal entrance to China or the status of the person" despite its international obligation under the Refugee Convention and its Protocol, the VOA reported.
In August, Quintana and some other U.N. experts sent a letter to the Chinese government requesting information on allegations that 1,170 North Korean defectors were detained there, facing forced repatriation.
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
3. Envoy describes end-of-war deal North can't 'walk away from'
Excerpts:
Later this week, Choi is expected to discuss the North Korea issue and Seoul's end-of-war proposal with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts in bilateral and trilateral talks in Washington.
Choi Young-sam, spokesman of Seoul's Foreign Ministry, clarified in a press briefing Tuesday, "There is no change at all in the basic position of the Korean government that the end-of-war declaration is a trust-building political and symbolic measure."
He said the vice foreign minister's remarks appeared to be made "in the context of emphasizing the continued engagement with North Korea."
Tuesday
November 16, 2021
Envoy describes end-of-war deal North can't 'walk away from'
Seoul's First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun speaks at the South Korea-U.S. Strategic Forum held at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington Monday. [YONHAP]
A declaration to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War could create a denuclearization process that "no one can easily walk away from," said South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-kun in Washington Monday.
"The peace process could likely be long, arduous and even torturous," Choi said in an annual South Korea-U.S. Strategic Forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank. "On the way, North Korea might be tempted to look back and doubt or hesitate to stay the course. In this vein, we need a framework that can keep Pyongyang on track."
Choi continued, "It is imperative to devise a structure from which no one can easily walk away from the whole process. By presenting North Korea with a clear picture of what it can gain or lose through the process, we may be able to convince them that their best bet is to stick to the process."
Choi's speech discussed South Korea's global engagement, its dynamic alliance with the United States and the North Korea issue in the forum co-hosted by the CSIS and the Seoul-based Korea Foundation.
President Moon Jae-in reiterated his call for an end-of-war declaration in an address to the United Nations in September as a means of encouraging Pyongyang to return to dialogue, which prompted a series of talks between South Korean and U.S. officials in recent weeks on the matter.
The Korean War ended in June 1953 with an armistice agreement rather than a peace treaty, hence the two Koreas remain in a technical state of war.
Seoul has previously suggested that an end-of-war declaration would be political and not legally binding. However, Choi's remarks at the forum appeared to indicate that such a declaration should go beyond that.
"By putting an end to the Korean War, our government intends to commence the process of making irreversible progress in denuclearization and turning the abnormally long armistice into a peace regime," said Choi.
A peace regime, he said, "will comprise a set of norms and principles that will define the future of the Korean Peninsula including those regulating the inter-Korean political relationship, military confidence building measures and economic and social exchanges."
He added that an end-of-war declaration will "mark a meaningful entry point" for the two Koreas and the United States to "shape this new order by opening up a venue for denuclearization dialogue."
Some analysts question what a formal end to the war would do to the status of U.S. troops in Korea and Seoul-Washington joint military exercises.
Security experts point out that an end-of-war declaration should not have a legal impact on the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) and the United Nations Command, stationed in the country as a result of the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty.
Whether North Korea even agrees to an end-of-year declaration, or if it will commit to any tangible steps in the denuclearization process remains unknown. Kim Yo-jong, sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, called Moon's end-of-war proposal an "admirable idea," but Pyongyang has made clear Seoul and Washington need to withdraw their so-called "hostile" policy.
At the forum, Choi admitted that the North's response is "hard to predict" and said there is a need for a "wait-and-see" approach.
He noted that the Moon administration has about six months left in office and said on the peace process, "We do not aim to achieve everything at once. We do not push this in any hurry."
He said, "We want to create a structure and roadmap so that we can update, adapting to different circumstances and environments, and we believe that an end of war declaration is one good example."
Choi pointed out that there is no other country that can propose such a "bold initiative" than South Korea.
He continued, "Above all, it is the morally right thing to put an end to the war and begin the peace process.
Some experts at the forum expressed concerns that North Korea appears more focused on sanctions relief, while others questioned how much the Joe Biden administration, already hobbled with domestic issues, will focus on an end-of-war declaration.
Richard Johnson, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for countering weapons of mass destruction and acting deputy secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense, warned that the situation is "worsening" in terms of North Korea's "increasing technical sophistication" shown through its recent hypersonic missile and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launches.
Johnson took part in the Biden administration's review of North Korea policy, which seeks a "practical, calibrated approach including diplomacy as its first tool of resort." But he added that Washington "cannot give up on" simultaneously fully implementing and upholding the UN sanctions regime and U.S. bilateral sanctions.
He stressed the U.S. commitment to reinvigorating and modernizing its alliances, namely with South Korea and Japan, adding if it is "not getting any feedback" from the North, it will have to "do other things" to uphold stability in the region.
"It takes two to tango," said Johnson. "So we look forward to seeing if we have a dance partner that wants to come to the floor, but we will not stand idly by and ignore the threats that we see from North Korea's actions both in its nuclear and missiles program."
Later this week, Choi is expected to discuss the North Korea issue and Seoul's end-of-war proposal with his U.S. and Japanese counterparts in bilateral and trilateral talks in Washington.
Choi Young-sam, spokesman of Seoul's Foreign Ministry, clarified in a press briefing Tuesday, "There is no change at all in the basic position of the Korean government that the end-of-war declaration is a trust-building political and symbolic measure."
He said the vice foreign minister's remarks appeared to be made "in the context of emphasizing the continued engagement with North Korea."
BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
4. North Korea’s Kim appears after month-long absence, visiting ‘utopia’ city created to cement regime’s legacy
I imagine that Kim Yo-jong's number one priority at the Propaganda and Agitation department remains enhancing the legitimacy and legacy of Kim Jong-un.
North Korea’s Kim appears after month-long absence, visiting ‘utopia’ city created to cement regime’s legacy
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has made his first public appearance in more than a month, visiting a new state-developed alpine city billed a “model” socialist “utopia,” as he looks to cement his legacy during a period of widespread food shortages.
The visit to the northern city of Samjiyon, reported in state media Tuesday, comes as Kim approaches his 10th anniversary as leader of a country that has been cut off from the rest of the world since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. With its ski slopes, commercial and medical facilities and homes for thousands of families, the city — near the border with China — projects a very different image than that of a nation gripped by extreme poverty.
Samjiyon is a major economic project developed by Pyongyang to support the notion that North Korea is thriving in spite of international sanctions over its nuclear program, experts said. The regime’s official Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday that Kim said the city’s buildings reflect the “lofty loyalty, strong will and sweat of our people” and the “iron will” of North Korea to “achieve prosperity our own way.”
The city is near Mount Paektu, a mountain that has a central place in North Korean’s founding lore and from which the Kim family purports to trace its roots. Its completion had been set for the 75th anniversary of the founding of the country’s ruling Workers’ Party last year, but construction was slowed by the pandemic.
Kim’s visit was timed to mark the final phase of construction, set to wrap up by the end of this year. “This is all about cementing Kim Jong Un’s legacy as he approaches his 10-year anniversary,” said Jean H. Lee, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center. “Kim wants to reinforce the mythology that he is fulfilling a divine mandate to rule.”
Developments such as Samjiyon are particularly significant to his legacy now, she added, as North Korea is undergoing severe extreme economic hardship following nearly two years of pandemic-led border closures that stopped the flow of most goods and food into the country.
North Korea has been breeding black swans, which state media has encouraged people to eat amid scarcity of other foods, according to NK News, a website that monitors the regime.
Kim became leader following the death of his father in December 2011 and has spent years removing rivals and developing defense capabilities, including nuclear weapons and missiles. He says the weapons are needed to bolster the regime in the face of South Korea and the United States.
“The reality is that not enough resources are being poured into infrastructure in North Korea. They are being poured into building nuclear weapons,” Lee said. “The little that is devoted to infrastructure is strategically focused on projects that serve the purpose of supporting the Kim mythology and propaganda” while many other towns and cities across the country languish.
The dictator had not been seen in public for 35 days — reportedly the longest such absence since 2014 — but Lee said the extended period was not particularly significant given the time of the year. Kim’s occasional departures from the public eye have long stirred debate over his health.
Kim also toured agricultural areas around the city, which he described as “a picturesque model unit in rural buildup,” according to state media. He also called for more scientific research into potato production in “unfavorable” alpine conditions.
Read more:
5. Disinformation is spreading beyond the realm of spycraft to become a shady industry – lessons from South Korea
Excerpts:
South Korea has been at the forefront of online disinformation. Western societies began to raise concerns about disinformation in 2016, triggered by disinformation related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Brexit. But in South Korea, media reported the first formal disinformation operation in 2008. As a researcher who studies digital audiences, I’ve found that South Korea’s 13-year-long disinformation history demonstrates how technology, economics and culture interact to enable the disinformation industry.
...
The expansion of the disinformation industry is troubling because it distorts how public opinion is perceived by researchers, the media and the public itself. Historically, democracies have relied on polls to understand public opinion. Despite their limitations, nationwide polls conducted by credible organizations, such as Gallup and Pew Research, follow rigorous methodological standards to represent the distribution of opinions in society in as representative a manner as possible.
Public discourse on social media has emerged as an alternative means of assessing public opinion. Digital audience and web traffic analytic tools are widely available to measure the trends of online discourse. However, people can be misled when purveyors of disinformation manufacturer opinions expressed online and falsely amplify the metrics about the opinions.
Meanwhile, the persistence of anti-Communist nationalist narratives in South Korea shows that disinformation purveyors’ rhetorical choices are not random. To counter the disinformation industry wherever it emerges, governments, media and the public need to understand not just the who and the how, but also the what – a society’s controversial ideologies and collective memories. These are the most valuable currency in the disinformation marketplace.
Disinformation is spreading beyond the realm of spycraft to become a shady industry – lessons from South Korea
Disinformation, the practice of blending real and fake information with the goal of duping a government or influencing public opinion, has its origins in the Soviet Union. But disinformation is no longer the exclusive domain of government intelligence agencies.
Today’s disinformation scene has evolved into a marketplace in which services are contracted, laborers are paid and shameless opinions and fake readers are bought and sold. This industry is emerging around the world. Some of the private-sector players are driven by political motives, some by profit and others by a mix of the two.
South Korea has been at the forefront of online disinformation. Western societies began to raise concerns about disinformation in 2016, triggered by disinformation related to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and Brexit. But in South Korea, media reported the first formal disinformation operation in 2008. As a researcher who studies digital audiences, I’ve found that South Korea’s 13-year-long disinformation history demonstrates how technology, economics and culture interact to enable the disinformation industry.
Most importantly, South Korea’s experience offers a lesson for the U.S. and other countries. The ultimate power of disinformation is found more in the ideas and memories that a given society is vulnerable to and how prone it is to fueling the rumor mill than it is in the people perpetrating the disinformation or the techniques they use.
From dirty politics to dirty business
The origin of South Korean disinformation can be traced back to the nation’s National Intelligence Service, which is equivalent to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The NIS formed teams in 2010 to interfere in domestic elections by attacking a political candidate it opposed.
The NIS hired more than 70 full-time workers who managed fake, or so-called sock puppet, accounts. The agency recruited a group called Team Alpha, which was composed of civilian part-timers who had ideological and financial interests in working for the NIS. By 2012, the scale of the operation had grown to 3,500 part-time workers.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in (left) campaigning in 2014 for Kim Kyoung-soo (right), who became governor of South Gyeongsang Province in 2018 but was subsequently convicted of opinion rigging.
Since then the private sector has moved into the disinformation business. For example, a shadowy publishing company led by an influential blogger was involved in a high-profile opinion-rigging scandal between 2016 and 2018. The company’s client was a close political aide of the current president, Moon Jae-in.
In contrast to NIS-driven disinformation campaigns, which use disinformation as a propaganda tool for the government, some of the private-sector players are chameleonlike, changing ideological and topical positions in pursuit of their business interests. These private-sector operations have achieved greater cost effectiveness than government operations by skillfully using bots to amplify fake engagements, involving social media entrepreneurs like YouTubers and outsourcing trolling to cheap laborers.
Narratives that strike a nerve
In South Korea, Cold War rhetoric has been particularly visible across all types of disinformation operations. The campaigns typically portray the conflict with North Korea and the battle against Communism as being at the center of public discourse in South Korea. In reality, nationwide polls have painted a very different picture. For example, even when North Korea’s nuclear threat was at a peak in 2017, fewer than 10 percent of respondents picked North Korea’s saber-rattling as their priority concern, compared with more than 45 percent who selected economic policy.
Across all types of purveyors and techniques, political disinformation in South Korea has amplified anti-Communist nationalism and denigrated the nation’s dovish diplomacy toward North Korea. My research on South Korean social media rumors in 2013 showed that the disinformation rhetoric continued on social media even after the formal disinformation campaign ended, which indicates how powerful these themes are. Today I and my research team continue to see references to the same themes.
The dangers of a disinformation industry
The disinformation industry is enabled by the three prongs of today’s digital media industry: an attention economy, algorithm and computational technologies and a participatory culture. In online media, the most important currency is audience attention. Metrics such as the number of page views, likes, shares and comments quantify attention, which is then converted into economic and social capital.
Ideally, these metrics should be a product of networked users’ spontaneous and voluntary participation. Disinformation operations more often than not manufacture these metrics by using bots, hiring influencers, paying for crowdsourcing and developing computational tricks to game a platform’s algorithms.
The expansion of the disinformation industry is troubling because it distorts how public opinion is perceived by researchers, the media and the public itself. Historically, democracies have relied on polls to understand public opinion. Despite their limitations, nationwide polls conducted by credible organizations, such as Gallup and Pew Research, follow rigorous methodological standards to represent the distribution of opinions in society in as representative a manner as possible.
Public discourse on social media has emerged as an alternative means of assessing public opinion. Digital audience and web traffic analytic tools are widely available to measure the trends of online discourse. However, people can be misled when purveyors of disinformation manufacturer opinions expressed online and falsely amplify the metrics about the opinions.
Meanwhile, the persistence of anti-Communist nationalist narratives in South Korea shows that disinformation purveyors’ rhetorical choices are not random. To counter the disinformation industry wherever it emerges, governments, media and the public need to understand not just the who and the how, but also the what – a society’s controversial ideologies and collective memories. These are the most valuable currency in the disinformation marketplace.
[The Conversation’s science, health and technology editors pick their favorite stories. Weekly on Wednesdays.]
6. Diplomacy Is Critical to Denuclearization of Korean Peninsula, DOD Official Says
Yes, diplomacy is critical. But we have to stop the decline in readiness by the reduction of exercises in the fantasy hope that the cancellation, postponement, or scaling back of exercises will somehow positively change Kim Jong-un's behavior and will bring him to the negotiating table. We must exercise hard to sustain readiness. A strong defense and in this case, the ROK /US Combined Forces Command. provide the foundation for deterrence.
Diplomacy Is Critical to Denuclearization of Korean Peninsula, DOD Official Says
The way to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula lies in exploring diplomacy with North Korea in a calibrated approach, a Defense Department official said today.
Honor Guard
An honor guard performs a ceremony during a meeting between former Defense Secretary Ash Carter and South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-Koo in Seoul, South Korea, April 10, 2015.
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Photo By: Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Sean Hurt, DOD
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Richard C. Johnson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for countering weapons of mass destruction and acting deputy secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense, said the tool of first resort is making sure the United States is upholding the United Nations sanctions against the North Korean regime and U.S. bilateral sanctions. "These tools are very important, not only as a signaling device, [but as a] tool to prevent and reduce threats and to counter proliferation," he told attendees of the Korea-U.S. strategic forum, which was hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
"So, I think it's important to recall that we will continue to do what we are doing. That now and at the Department of Defense, one of the things that we do in support ... is to actually spearhead an effort where we're joined by seven other nations — including Australia, Canada, France, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom — to enforce the resolutions, particularly preventing North Korea from proceeding [with] illicit, refined petroleum and helping to deny the revenue from illicit sources that comes from their [weapons of mass destruction] and missile programs," Johnson told attendees of the Korea-U.S. Strategic Forum 2021: The Road Ahead After the Biden-Moon Summit.
In terms of where the United States is going in its attempts to denuclearize North Korea, the U.S. has shown its commitment to reaching out to North Korea to speak with them diplomatically, Johnson said. He cautioned, however, that COVID-19 has been an obstacle. "We have a real challenge on our hands to figure out even the mechanism, the place, the time — all those sorts of things would be an important component."
Johnson said that although U.S. officials see diplomacy as the tool of first resort, the U.S. will not let diplomacy take a backseat to its efforts to uphold its commitments to allies and partners. "In short, we've made very clear our interest in reaching out, but, in the meantime, if we're not getting feedback from [North Korea] and understanding that COVID is an important component of this, we will have to do other things to make sure that we uphold and maintain strategic stability in the region and protect our allies and partners."
Johnson said his colleagues at the State Department are doing all they can to engage with U.S. partners and allies and are meeting regularly.
"But in the meantime, as they say in English, 'it takes two to tango' so we look forward to seeing if we have a dance partner that wants to come to the floor. But we will not stand idly by … ignoring the threats that we see from North Korea's actions both in its nuclear and its missile programs," he said.
Standing Guard
South Korean soldiers stand guard on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area near a United Nations building as soldiers from the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, visit the room where international negotiations take place with North Korean representatives, March 26, 2016.
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Johnson added that the United States also assesses that North Korea is also undertaking offensive chemical and biological weapons programs, which are a serious threat to the Korean Peninsula and the entire region, including to U.S. forces in South Korea.
"I hope that we will not see provocations from our North Korean counterparts, if you will. [But] we're prepared to take practical steps in a calibrated manner, including diplomacy," Johnson said.
It's important to reiterate how important extended deterrence is in the U.S. relationship with South Korea, as well as Japan and Australia, he said. "The work that we're doing to help develop a common operating picture to increase our allies' understanding of strategic capabilities — [such as] tabletop exercises — are really important."
"I think at the end of the day our focus is on what can we do with our allies and partners in strong solidarity in making the region a safer and more stable place," he said.
7. Tyrant Kim looks fighting fit in 1st public appearance since month-long absence
Tyrant Kim looks fighting fit in 1st public appearance since month-long absence
KIM Jong-un appears to have shed more pounds after reappearing for the first time since his month-long absence sparked fresh speculation about his health.
The North Korean despot returned after his longest absence in seven years for a visit to a “utopian model rural city” project in the north of the country, according to state media.
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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited Samjiyon City in his latest public appearanceCredit: Reuters
4
The dictator had not been seen since a huge missile exhibition 30 days agoCredit: Reuters
Dressing in a long black leather coat, Kim inspected the towns surrounding the city of Samjiyon as part of a project to rebuild every small town in the area, the Voice of Korea reported.
According to NK News, Kim has called for the roads to be repaved every year, for new machinery to be given to a model potato farm, and for the local forest to be protected from climate change.
"The construction of Samjiyon City is a starting point of a new revolution to lead the local people to a civilized material and cultural life," he reportedly said.
The dictator had not been seen since a huge missile exhibition 30 days ago — his longest disappearance from public life for seven years.
North Korean observers said the absence was the longest period of absence since 2011.
It follows reports about his health which were made earlier this year.
His last appearance on state media is believed to have taken place on October 12 during coverage of a massive missile exhibition in Pyongyang the day before.
He was seen on state channels until Tuesday — yet satellite imagery has shown increased activity at his east coast beach house and a lakeside mansion near the capital, NK News reports.
Observers claimed it was his longest absence for seven years amid speculation in recent months about his health.
Kim has taken at least seven breaks lasting at least two weeks in 2021, according to NK News.
He vanished from public view for long stretches in 2020.
In June, Kim reappeared in public looking substantially thinner than before, following a nearly month-long absence.
The North Korean leader has sparked health fears in recent months after shedding more than 40 pounds as commentators questioned whether his weight loss is intentional or due to a grave illness.
Images of a trimmer Kim sporting a beige suit with a serious look on his face have now led to conspiracy theorists claiming he has been replaced by a lookalike.
"Kim Jong-Un has been replaced by a lookalike," one online sleuth wrote on Reddit.
But many were quick to shoot down the whacky claim, saying Kim looks the same - just slimmer.
One replied: "He lost that baby fat and is showing his grown man face?"
Another added: "I was thinking the ears were identical.
"So identical, in fact, that I’m convinced this is just a slimmer, healthier Kim."
Sleuths pointed to slight differences in Kim's nose, wrinkles, teeth, cupid's bow, hairline and ears.
The latest body double claims come after it was reported North Korea is hunting for a Kim successor amid fears the tyrant's health is failing after his sudden weight loss.
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Kim has taken at least seven breaks lasting at least two weeks in 2021Credit: Reuters
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Kim Jong Un speaks to officials next to military weapons and vehicles on displayCredit: Reuters
Kim Jong-un hugged by adoring kids as his troops step out in bizarre red hazmat suits for North Korea's midnight parade
8. Time for Japan and South Korea to bury the hatchet
This covers more than the ROK-Japan relationship.
Note these points:
Washington should keep in mind that public opinion polls in South Korea reveal overwhelming support for the ROK-US alliance – and for the American military presence.
These polls are telling, given the South Korean extreme leftists (known as Jusapa) who dominate the Moon administration are fundamentally anti-American and pro-North Korea. They typically see the US as an occupying force and as the reason the peninsula and Koreans are divided. Jusapa view the Japanese as American lapdogs.
If the Americans speak up, the Jusapa will not like it (nor will their comrades to the North), but a majority of South Koreans just might.
And another note of caution: Even “pro-American” South Koreans need to be careful about letting resentment of Japan get out of hand. Besides harming defense capabilities, many American citizens (and voters) might question why US troops should fight and die on South Korea’s behalf if Koreans won’t fully cooperate with the United States.
As for Japan, the Americans are similarly committed to dying for Japan and need to request that the Japanese government bend over backward (even if asking feels like “once again”) to try to sort this out.
Of course, it often takes generations to get over history. And even then memories linger. But wallowing in resentment is no more productive for governments and nations than it is for individuals.
One hopes for South Korean and Japanese leaders to come along who speak up for a cooperative present – rather than leaders such as Lee Jae-myung, who seem to be trying to recreate the past through divisive statements about the future.
That may, in fact, be possible. The South Korean opposition’s presidential candidate, Yoon Seok-yeol, said the other day that, if elected, he would put relations with Japan back on an even keel. Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida just might reciprocate.
Time for Japan and South Korea to bury the hatchet
With leadership changing in Tokyo and Seoul, voters and their US ally should demand greater cooperation and statesmanship
For years, American diplomats and military leaders have been asking the South Koreans and the Japanese, “Can’t we all just get along?”
The logic is clear: If the three worked together, at least militarily, it would greatly complicate life for those in North Korea and China who want to change the status quo.
And yet, there are still some who answer “no, we can’t get along” – including Lee Jae-myung, the ruling Democratic Party’s candidate in next year’s South Korean presidential election.
In a recent interview, Lee ruled out the possibility of a US-South Korea-Japan military alliance, explaining that South Korea “needs to be prepared in the event Japan’s dream of continental expansion erupts militarily.”
Lee Jae-myung, running for president as the candidate of South Korea’s ruling leftist party, has already shown the anti-Japan card. Image: YouTube
Yes, the animosity is real and deep. And each side thinks it is more aggrieved than the other. But there are also those on the outside who are working to stoke the embers of the past for their own aims. And, if it continues, the outcome could be disastrous for the people of all three now free countries.
The historical touchstone period is 1910-1945, when Japan colonized the Korean peninsula – although Koreans claim Japanese torment of Korea goes back much farther.
View from Tokyo
Japan feels it has made reparations and apologies – and has already (more than once) reached an agreement with South Korea on a “full and final” settlement of differences. Tokyo complains the Koreans keep asking for another apology.
Tokyo is also irked that South Korean administrations periodically play the Japan card as a way of drumming up domestic political support.
During the Moon administration, South Korean courts awarded damages against Japanese companies for using Koreans as forced labor during World War Two – despite a 1965 bilateral agreement that supposedly had settled such claims.
The “comfort women” issue is another perennial cudgel used against Japan – as Tokyo sees it – as are complaints about Japanese politicians visiting the Yasukuni Shrine. And there is South Korea’s rubbing of Japan’s noses in the Dokdo/Takeshima island issue – Japanese territory (according to Tokyo) that the Republic of Korea seized from a weakened post-war Japan.
View from Seoul
South Korea reckons it is “right” about all the things the Japanese complain about. In fact, it is risky for anyone in South Korea to publicly suggest otherwise.
While South Korean leftist administrations most readily and forcefully play the Japan card, conservative administrations have done so as well. Such demagoguery has been effective.
Some Koreans understand the nation’s broader geopolitical interests and the need to prioritize a secure future over past resentments – but even they often can’t help themselves.
To quote one US Marine officer who spent many years in South Korea: “The Japanese bring out the worst in the Koreans.”
Some statues, such as this one of a comfort woman, placed provocatively outside the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, are meant to inspire rancor. Photo: Asia Times / Andrew Salmon
Japan’s colonial era and the country’s World War Two actions inflicted much human suffering.
But it is worth remembering that Japan was punished for its behavior: More than three million Japanese died. Every Japanese city of consequence was in ashes. Nuclear bombs were dropped – with radiation sickening survivors for generations.
Japan was occupied by a foreign force – that still is in Japan. And Japan had to provide its own comfort women scheme for the occupying forces.
And while Korea suffered mightily at the hands of the Japanese, one might also consider World War Two allied prisoner-of-war accounts of extraordinary brutality by Korean guards in the Japanese-run POW camps.
And just 20-plus years afterward, South Korean troops in South Vietnam had a sometimes nasty reputation for massacring Vietnamese civilians and murdering prisoners of war. No apologies have been forthcoming.
The case for getting along
South Korea and Japan aren’t the only pair of countries with deep-rooted issues. But both are key US allies – covered by treaty obligations. US forces have been stationed in South Korea and Japan for more than seven decades. The Americans have solid longstanding bilateral (though not triangular) relationships with ROK and Japanese forces.
This is a part of the world where the United States has deep interests and, along with its allies, faces dangerous threats.
South Korea and Japan face common and immediate threats from North Korea. And the People’s Republic of China is looking to dominate the Asia-Pacific and drive the US off the peninsula and out of the region – making it easier for Beijing to dominate Japan, South Korea and everyone else.
Given the seriousness of the threats, from Washington’s point of view, the logic of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend” should trump historical animosity the way the threat of the Soviet Union brought post-War France and West Germany closer together.
Charles de Gaulle, left, and Konrad Adenauer turned French-German wartime enmity into alliance. Nearly six decades after their historic embrace, the two are still celebrated for their statesmanship. This Berlin statue could convey a lesson for new leaders in Japan and South Korea. Photo: Imago
One understands Washington’s frustration with Seoul and Tokyo’s inability to get along – especially as, without bases in Japan, it would be nearly impossible to defend South Korea. The three countries need each other.
Precedent for ROK-Japan cooperation
This is especially true because there are many potentially positive elements to build upon, should anyone want to. The South Korean and Japanese economies are intertwined; the familial and cultural connections, considerable.
Even militarily, South Korean and Japanese forces have worked together, including in combined efforts to enforce sanctions against North Korea:
- An ROK Navy/Japanese Navy exercise was held in the South China Sea – along with the US Navy.
- ROK/Japan high-level defense talks occurred (usually with Americans present and organizing the meetings).
- At least one ROK army unit has had a counterpart relationship with a Japan Ground Self-Defense Force regional army.
- Officers went on study tours in both directions.
- Defense attachés were posted respectively in Seoul and Tokyo.
- GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement), a three-way intelligence sharing deal including the US, lets South Korea and Japan share directly with each other information about North Korea’s military and nuclear activities.
However, the cooperation is not widely celebrated in the local media – and North Korean and PRC-linked political warfare seeks to undermine any rapprochement. At the same time, some South Korean and Japanese political leaders do Pyongyang and Beijing’s heavy lifting by looking for reasons to scale back cooperation and vilify the other country.
South Korean President Moon came within days of pulling out of the GSOMIA with the Japanese in 2019. He relented only under heavy American pressure.
Feel the love (not). South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in, left, shakes hands with Japan’s then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on August 5, 2020. Photo: AFP
Overall, the relationships are limited and somewhat forced, rather than based on any genuine desire to cooperate against recognized threats.
But, with the right leadership, things can change quickly. The French and Germans – who fought three ferocious wars between 1870 and 1945 – came together in the 1950s to lay the groundwork for what became the European Union.
It takes the sort of statesmanship that can put the past into the corner and figure out ways to resolve differences for the greater good.
More active US role needed
To help these leaders emerge, the Americans could shrug off their reticence and play a more active role in soothing the South Korea-Japan relationship.
Up until now, while the Americans remained mute, South Korean administrations and politicians – often to the delight of Beijing and Pyongyang – have too often been able to stoke anti-Japanese resentments for political advantage.
South Korean politicians whip up resentment – and votes – while hampering America’s ability to deter or fight a war. Yet the same politicians expect the Americans to fight and die on South Korea’s behalf – and potentially to risk North Korean missile attacks including, one day, nuclear attacks on American cities.
This has also made it harder for Japanese leaders who might otherwise be inclined to make concessions. And it serves as a convenient excuse for some Japanese leaders who don’t wish to make concessions.
Will Japan’s new Prime Minister Fumio Kishida prove to be Tokyo’s statesman on South Korea ties? Photo: Agencies
America has considerable “capital” in South Korea – not least as a security guarantor. Part of guaranteeing security should be to speak up and quietly (or not so quietly) insist on at least grudgingly improved bilateral relations.
And this should include military cooperation between the ROK and Japanese militaries, as part of an informal (and unstated) tri-lateral defense scheme for the Korean Peninsula.
Washington should keep in mind that public opinion polls in South Korea reveal overwhelming support for the ROK-US alliance – and for the American military presence.
These polls are telling, given the South Korean extreme leftists (known as Jusapa) who dominate the Moon administration are fundamentally anti-American and pro-North Korea. They typically see the US as an occupying force and as the reason the peninsula and Koreans are divided. Jusapa view the Japanese as American lapdogs.
If the Americans speak up, the Jusapa will not like it (nor will their comrades to the North), but a majority of South Koreans just might.
And another note of caution: Even “pro-American” South Koreans need to be careful about letting resentment of Japan get out of hand. Besides harming defense capabilities, many American citizens (and voters) might question why US troops should fight and die on South Korea’s behalf if Koreans won’t fully cooperate with the United States.
As for Japan, the Americans are similarly committed to dying for Japan and need to request that the Japanese government bend over backward (even if asking feels like “once again”) to try to sort this out.
Of course, it often takes generations to get over history. And even then memories linger. But wallowing in resentment is no more productive for governments and nations than it is for individuals.
One hopes for South Korean and Japanese leaders to come along who speak up for a cooperative present – rather than leaders such as Lee Jae-myung, who seem to be trying to recreate the past through divisive statements about the future.
That may, in fact, be possible. The South Korean opposition’s presidential candidate, Yoon Seok-yeol, said the other day that, if elected, he would put relations with Japan back on an even keel. Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida just might reciprocate.
Conservative presidential hopeful Yoon Seok-yeol speaks to foreign reporters in Seoul. Photo: Asia Times / Andrew Salmon
And since the United States is footing the bill for both countries’ freedom – to be paid in American blood (again) – it is time the US government at least speaks up and requests some statesmanship.
Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine Corps officer, as well as a former business executive and US diplomat, who has spent many years in Asia. He was the first USMC liaison officer to the Japan Self Defense Force.
9. A revolt against America (Korean history)
A very good counter to presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung's history discussion with US Senator Jon Ossoff.
Monday
November 15, 2021
A revolt against America
Ko Jung-ae
The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.
“Korea was annexed to Japan because the United States approved it through the Taft-Katsura Agreement,” Lee Jae-myung, presidential candidate of the ruling Democratic Party (DP), said during his meeting with U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff on Friday. “It is an undeniable, objective fact that Korea, not Japan, was divided, and the division of the Korean Peninsula, a victim of the war, caused the Korean War.”
“I am speaking this to you, as I was told you are interested in this issue, and I thought that’s great,” Lee told Ossoff and laughed loudly. He even clenched his fist and showed it to the Senator.
The U.S. delegation, however, gave an icy response. Sen. Ossoff made it clear to Lee that he had laid flowers before the fallen U.S. and UN soldiers and veterans of the Korean War at the War Memorial in Seoul on the previous day. “The visitors thought it was extremely ridiculous for Lee to talk about the 1905 agreement, rather than what happened in 1950, and they wondered what was Lee’s intention,” a source well-informed about the delegation’s visit said.
Though Lee said it was “objective truth,” he made an oversimplified argument far from history. The Taft-Katsura Agreement was a 1905 memorandum signed between U.S. Secretary of War William Howard Taft and Japanese Prime Minister Count Taro Katsura during Taft’s visit to Japan. The memorandum stated that Japan confirmed the U.S. control of the Philippines and that the United States agrees with Japan’s reasons for its making a protectorate of Korea. But Taft stressed that it was his personal opinion. However, despite U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s approval of the memorandum, the agreement was not pushed forward any further.
At the time, Roosevelt believed that Russia’s control of Manchuria and Korea were more against U.S. interest than Japan’s control of the regions. But the United States became alarmed about Japan after its easy victories.
Ruling Democratic Party presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung speaks with U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff at the party headquarters on Friday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
The United States also maintained a cold perception toward Korea. In his book, Diplomacy, Henry Kissinger wrote that Korea belonged to Japan and that although the Korea-Japan treaty recognized the full and complete independence and autonomy of Korea, Korea had no power to enforce it. He went on to write that it is nonsense that another country will do what Koreans cannot do on their own.
And the statement was true. According to Sogang University honorary professor Choi Jin-seok, Japan had the intention to change the master-slave relationship between Qing China and Joseon to the same relations between Japan and Joseon. “The annexation on Aug. 29, 1910 was just a matter of formality,” said Prof. Choi. “For a long time, Koreans were the people who had endured years of shame. It is embarrassing to criticize the United States for not having protected Korea at the time.”
If that were the reason, Lee should have blamed the Britain. Japan’s rise was actually credited to the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. But I have never heard from British politicians that Korea was annexed to Japan due to the Anglo-Japanese alliance.
Lee’s blaming of the U.S. for the national division and the Korean War is also wrong. As former Prime Minister Lee Hong-koo said, Kim Il Sung, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong were directly responsible for the Korean War by believing that the United States would not intervene.
Lee’s perception and attitude toward the United States are clearly different from his low-profile attitude toward China. There is no need to even discuss the war. Due to China’s export bans, Korea is frequently suffering, and the recent case of the urea shortage is an example.
And yet, Lee met with Chinese Ambassador to Seoul Xing Haiming on Thursday and offered him a protocol treatment equal to that for Senator Ossoff, although Xing was just a deputy director-level official.
“China’s export amount is very little, and if you pay more attention, it will be helpful for us to overcome the crisis,” Lee told Xing. “There are many items that Korea is 100-percent dependent on China, and there will be an issue in the future. Because economic cooperation between Korea and China will continue to deepen and expand, we must prepare in advance.”
What does Lee really mean by asking China to be prepared? I cannot but ask Lee. Does he also have the historical perception of the former student activists — particularly those from the National Liberation faction — which has triggered tensions between Korea and the United States since the Roh Moo-hyun administration? Or else, why is he acting as if China, not America, is an ally when he makes a diplomatic debut? Is this a part of his election strategy to win anti-American voters? Whatever the reason, it is extremely anachronistic.
10. 'Covid obsessive sent suspicious package to vaccine factory and Kim Jong-un'
There are crazy people doing bizarre things everywhere.
'Covid obsessive sent suspicious package to vaccine factory and Kim Jong-un'
A man with an “obsessive interest” in Covid-19 sent a suspicious package to a vaccine factory – sparking a bomb scare and evacuation, a court has been told.
Anthony Collins, 54, also sent similar parcels to 10 Downing Street, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and a laboratory in Wuhan in China, the court heard.
Production of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab at premises in Wrexham in Wales ground to a halt in January after a package sparked a bomb scare and 120 people had to be evacuated.
Only after army bomb disposal experts had set up a 100m cordon and detonated the device, it was then they could be sure that it contained no explosive material.
Collins, from Kent, is charged over the incident and appeared at Maidstone Crown Court on Monday for trial.
He has denied one count of dispatching an article by post with the intention of inducing the belief it is likely to explode or ignite.
Concerns were raised by local postman Huw Jones, who noticed the odd-looking package covered in writing in his bundle when he arrived at the Wockhardt site on January 27.
Wockhardt in Wrexham (Image: Hadyn Iball / Norh Wales Live)
Police were called and the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit – bomb disposal – was called to the scene, the court heard.
Prosecutor Alan Gardner told the jury: “They, the Army staff, came to the site and they set up a cordon and they examined the package using a robot.
“It appeared looking at that X-ray of what was inside this package that the package contained batteries and electrical circuitry.”
The bomb disposal team proceeded on the basis that the package might contain a viable explosive device, the prosecutor said.
In total 120 people had to be evacuated and production of the vaccine was halted, though the batch was able to be salvaged later.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Image: AP)
The EOD team detonated the device and it was discovered that it contained no explosive material.
It had contained a calculator, a garden glove, four batteries, a “yellow biohazard bar”, a service wipe and a quantity of paper, the jury was told.
Mr Gardener said: “There is no dispute that it was Mr Anthony Collins who sent this package by post to Wockhardt.
“One of the pieces of paper – one of the documents – found inside contained Mr Anthony Collins’ name and address”, he added.
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Collins, of Chatham Hill, Chatham in Kent, was later arrested and interviewed by police.
Mr Gardner said: “Mr Collins told the police in short that his intention in sending the package to Wockhardt was to help scientists and the Government deal with Covid-19.
“The prosecution say it appears that Mr Collins had developed, for whatever reason, some degree of obsession with issues related to the Covid virus and the associated vaccines.”
The prosecutor said Collins had developed an “obsessive interest” in the virus and vaccines.
Other similar packages sent by Collins to 10 Downing Street, AstraZeneca, a US Air Force base in Gloucestershire, a laboratory in Wuhan and what appeared to be the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un were intercepted.
Wockhardt, a global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, was providing fill-and-finish services for the Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine – the final stage of putting the vaccine into vials.
11. The little film made from a man’s desire to right a serious wrong
Another human tragedy due to the bureaucracy.
The little film made from a man’s desire to right a serious wrong
The Age · by Stephanie Bunbury · November 15, 2021
Imagine you were a Korean war baby, adopted by Americans, raised speaking only English, playing baseball, totally Stars and Stripes.
Then, because of a misdemeanour or passport application or some other brush with officialdom, you were told that you were not and never had been American. Your parents never filled in a crucial application for citizenship because nobody told them about it. And you were now being sent back to South Korea.
It’s actually hard to imagine. Justin Chon says he made Blue Bayou, in which he plays a 40-year-old husband and father who suddenly finds himself on the fast track to exile, “in service to the adoptee community”. Since 2000, 50 people have been sent back to the countries where they were born – but there are tens of thousands at the same legal risk, whether they know it or not. There is no system of appeal: deportation is the end of the road.
Chon’s Antonio LeBlanc is a New Orleans tattooist married to Kathy, played affectingly by Alicia Vikander. He is stepfather to Kathy’s daughter Jessie (Sydney Kowalske) and there is a baby on the way. LeBlanc has a patchy past as part of a low-level gang who rustled motorcycles, but he has long since gone legit; money is tight, but they are a visibly happy family.
His list of priors is the clincher. Chon didn’t want his Everyman to be without fault. “I didn’t want it to feel like propaganda,” he says. “It’s just a man’s story, right? And in order to be that, he has to be human, and humans make mistakes. I think that is a big question in the film. Are humans allowed to make mistakes, or do you have to pay for them for the rest of your life?”
Chon wrote the script over two years, layering in story elements such as the location. “New Orleans is unlike anywhere else in America, so there is an irony in that, in that it feels like a foreign country in itself. And very multiracial.”
Asking a Swedish actress to play all-American Kathy was also a deliberate choice.
“I wanted her to make intentional choices about her character,” says Chon. “I felt if I had tried to cast an actress from the South, she would maybe take for granted who she is without analysing it in the way someone who is not American would. And someone who is as talented as Alicia, is going to take a look at a southern working-class American and decide very intentionally what she feels is important for the character.”
Which she did, right down to basing her shoes and hair on women she saw around her.
Chon is a sunny presence on screen. He was born in California to Korean parents who emigrated in the ’70s. He started out as an actor at the beginning of the Millennium, playing a lot of delivery boys and gangsters in Chinese Triads. Later, he was cast as a doctor or the IT guy.
“I think it’s slowly changing,” he says. “I felt like the stories I wanted to see weren’t being made, so decided to step on the other side of the camera.”
He hopes enough people in the right places get to see the film.
“If it’s not being talked about; nothing is going to get done about it,” he says. “That’s why I think, you know, films can be important.”
Blue Bayou is now showing in cinemas.
Stephanie Bunbury is a film and culture writer for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
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The Age · by Stephanie Bunbury · November 15, 2021
12. The Brave Women-Led Movement Making History on the Korean Demilitarized Zone
These "activists" and organizations have the support of the Kim family regime. They do not challenge the regime on human rights and they are influencing members of Congress to unknowingly support north Korean objectives. Their naive beliefs and lack of understanding of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime make their agendas and actions very dangerous.
The Brave Women-Led Movement Making History on the Korean Demilitarized Zone » FLUX
In the new documentary film Crossings, international activists mobilize the charge toward peace on the Korean peninsula. A Honolulu organizer highlights how Hawai‘i can play a key role.
On our war-wounded planet, some conflicts are acute, some chronic, and still others defy simple diagnosis. Nowhere is this truer than the Korean peninsula where, for more than 70 years, a divided nation remains in a state of war.
From 1950 to 1953, a brutal war took place on ground and air between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the north, backed by China, and the Republic of Korea in the south, backed by the United States. This war inflicted death and destruction, causing millions of mostly civilian casualties. A 1953 armistice signed by the United Nations Command, China, and North Korea halted active fighting, but a formal peace treaty was never concluded, leaving Korea in a technical state of war.
Today the Korean peninsula remains divided by a demilitarized zone, or DMZ, which is, in fact, one of the most militarized places on Earth. Previous attempts to cross the DMZ have been met with immediate arrest or death, but a 2015 crossing by a group of 30 women from 15 countries suggests another future is possible.
This peace effort is documented in Crossings, a 2021 documentary directed by Deann Borshay Liem making its world premiere at the Hawai‘i International Film Festival and streaming virtually through November 28, 2021. The film follows the transnational feminist group, now known as Women Cross DMZ, as they travel from Beijing to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to meet with North Korean women, then cross into the Republic of Korea to meet their counterparts in the south.
After multiple visits to North and South Korea, Christine Ahn, a Korean American peace activist based in Honolulu and founder of Women Cross DMZ, concluded that the participation and leadership of women was key to bringing peace to the peninsula. That required meeting with the people who were “supposed to be her enemy.”
From the documentary Crossings directed by Deann Borshay Liem. Image by Niana Liu.
Informed and inspired by decades of work by Korean women on both sides of the divide, Ahn points to studies that prove women-led peace efforts are stronger and more durable. Women Cross DMZ had three ambitious goals: replace the armistice with a peace treaty; reunite Korean families; and elevate women’s leadership in the peace process.
In May of 2015, the 30 women, accompanied by filmmaker Liem and a crew of three, flew to Pyongyang to seek dialogue, understanding, and a chance to end the so-called “forgotten war.”
The group was comprised of women from South Korea, Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and Europe. Delegates included Nobel Peace laureates Mairead Maguire and Leymah Gbowee, feminist organizer Gloria Steinem, members of CODE PINK, activists, educators, and leaders who could work across ideological and political lines.
While in North Korea, the group met women in a textile factory, a kindergarten, a maternity hospital, as well as at formal meetings and a symposium. In one scene, a Korean war survivor wept as she described both her hands being shot off by an American soldier during the war, her bitter memories still raw and mercilessly vivid.
Liem said her crew was allowed to film almost without restriction. They documented women working to dispel years of mistrust and fear, sharing their struggles and aspirations, and recognizing their common humanity. In a moment of striking candor, one young North Korean woman—an interpreter—told the women, “We are against [the U.S.] hostile policy towards the DPRK. We are not against the U.S. people.”
Hawai‘i can play a really critical role in ending the 70-year-old conflict, moving the U.S. from this stuck, broken, failed policy of maximum pressure, sanctions, and military aggression towards a different approach.
Christine Ahn, peace activist and founder of Women Cross DMZ
The visit took place during the administration of South Korea’s then-conservative president Park Geun-hye, and not everyone appreciated their efforts at rapprochement. As news of the trip spread, the women were vilified by some in South Korea as “North Korean sympathizers,” “propogandists,” and worse. They were chided for being naïve despite their collective decades of addressing war and conflict from Northern Ireland and Liberia to Okinawa, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Gaza, Iran, and elsewhere.
On May 24, 2015, the day the women crossed the DMZ, they received an ebullient sendoff by throngs of North Korean women wearing Chosŏn-ot (Hanbok), traditional dresses of plum pink, sky blue, and golden yellow, and waving bright red floral wands. Large banners read “Let us reunify the divided country as soon as possible!” But tensions at the DMZ were high and the air was heavy with uncertainty about what awaited them to the south.
Initially, the women planned to walk across the border at the Joint Security area (Panmunjom) where Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un stepped over the military demarcation line in 2019, but crossing on foot was politically sensitive and the US-led UN Command, which controls the South Korean side of the DMZ, insisted they enter by bus at the nearby Kaesong border crossing.
Upon arriving in South Korea, the women were met by reporters, some of whom challenged their motives. Several in the group were threatened with deportation, and all faced right-wing protesters, many of them North Korean defectors, with signs reading “Return to North Korea!” and “Women Cross go to hell.” That didn’t stop the group from crossing Tongil (Unification) Bridge where they were welcomed by South Korean supporters waving balloons and singing songs. South Korean committee member Jin Ok Lee said of the peace walk, “I think [it] sparked the revitalization of women’s peace movement in South Korea.”
Delegates of Women Cross DMZ include Mairead Maguire and Leymah Gbowee, and Gloria Steinem. Collectively, women from South Korea, Asia, Africa, Oceania, the Americas, and Europe are reflected in the group. Image by Niana Liu.
Recalling her visit to North Korea in Crossings, Liberian Nobel Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee said, “This is a place in my mind where there was no life, but you see the yearning for greater connection with the rest of the world. Five thousand women showed up and saw 30 international women. I believe it gave them hope.”
Six years after that trip, following Trump’s whiplash diplomacy which jerked between “fire and fury” and “love letters,” U.S.-Korean diplomacy is more muted. But the Biden administration has retained policies Ahn calls “regressive and draconian,” such as sanctions and a travel ban.
Speaking from her home in Honolulu, Ahn said, “I do feel like Hawai‘i can play a really critical role in ending the 70-year-old conflict, moving the U.S. from this stuck, broken, failed policy of maximum pressure, sanctions, and military aggression towards a different approach.”
She pointed to the Korean War Divided Families Reunification Act, co-introduced by Hawai‘i’s Sen. Mazie Hirono in 2020 and again August 2021, and Rep. Kai Kahele’s co-sponsorship of a U.S. House resolution calling for peace on the Korean peninsula. Ahn hopes all of Hawai‘i’s congressional delegation will play a more active role promoting peace for Korea. Ahn also hopes the film will encourage people to join a movement of those who recognize that peace in Korea offers security for Hawai‘i too. For all who experienced the 2018 false ballistic missile scare, that connection is not an abstraction.
If the DMZ is a place of separation and tragedy, Crossings shows it can also be a place of hope and one from which the healing from the sickness of war and division that has beset Korea can begin.
13. N. Korea calls on police in Yanggang Province to make "100 rounds a day" to prevent defections
The regime is desperately afraid of Korean people who try to escape to seek freedom.
N. Korea calls on police in Yanggang Province to make "100 rounds a day" to prevent defections - Daily NK
Officials have been ordered to cover everywhere — even sparsely populated places — and watch every little thing residents do
North Korean authorities have reportedly been calling for the strengthening of public security organs to prevent defections and illegal border crossings into China. Believing that more people could try to defect with rivers on the Sino-North Korean border freezing over, the authorities appear to be taking measures to stop defections before they start.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Thursday, the Ministry of Social Security’s headquarters in Pyongyang ordered early this month that police in Yanggang Province strengthen their intelligence on residents and patrols, “making 100 rounds a day around their jurisdictions.”
The headquarters called for a “one security officer-per-square meter responsibility system,” meaning that officers should cover everywhere — even sparsely populated places — and watch every little thing residents do. The headquarters especially underscored that local officers “must not allow (potential) criminals to set foot in their districts.”
Public security officials in Yanggang Province have scrambled to respond. The provincial branch of the Ministry of Social Security called a meeting of the heads and deputy heads of city and county ministry branches on Nov. 3 and designated November and December as an intensive crackdown period. The meeting also reportedly stressed intensive crackdowns on people who violate nighttime curfew (6 PM to 7 AM) and on outsiders staying in the province for a long time.
In particular, the ministry’s local branch in the city of Hyesan instituted a real-time reporting system from Nov. 4 that provides on-the-ground information about what neighborhood officers are doing throughout the day.
A view of Yanggang Province from the Sino-North Korean border. / Image: Daily NK
Each officer has been assigned a quota of reporting on three or more suspicious individuals a day.
The source said that with the closing of the border due to COVID-19, fewer people are trying to defect, but the authorities appear tense nevertheless given there are signs that defections could increase due to food shortages.
However, some North Koreans public security officers wonder how they are supposed to make 100 rounds in their jurisdictions, “even if it is an order.”
The source said the authorities sometimes issue “dozens of orders a day,” but “an order is just an order; you can’t execute all of them.” He said within the party, they say you can “make 10 rounds and carry out one-fifth of the order.”
Ultimately, local residents are the ones suffering from the relentless patrols. Locals complain that they feel watched from the moment they open their eyes in the morning.
The source said some locals even mock the security officers, likening them to “modern Taekgan,” a reference to an opportunistic supporting character in an old North Korean film.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
14. Husbands of undocumented North Koreans beg China not to deport their wives
Again, China is complicit.
Husbands of undocumented North Koreans beg China not to deport their wives
The UN has asked Beijing not to repatriate more than 1,100 detained North Koreans.
By Jeong Eun Lee and Jeong Yon Park
2021.11.15
The Chinese husband of a North Korean escapee is pleading with authorities daily to show mercy to his detained wife, after hearing that Beijing will soon repatriate more than 1,100 illegal North Koreans, possibly sending them to their deaths, sources in China told RFA.
The husband, an ethnic Korean citizen of China from the border city of Dandong, has been raising his two children on his own since the summer, when Chinese police arrested his wife, a fellow ethnic Korean from Dandong told RFA’s Korean Service.
“He has been losing sleep due to the recent rumors that repatriations will restart soon,” said the source, who requested anonymity to speak freely.
“He married her six years ago after meeting her through an acquaintance. They moved to the city and had two kids and were living in what seemed like their happily ever after,” the source said.
“Now the children weep, eagerly waiting for their mother to return.”
The family in Dandong, across the river from North Korea’s Sinuiju, is just one of many similar cases where Beijing’s forced repatriation of illegal North Koreans will break up families and send women who married Chinese citizens to face hostile punishments in a country that views escapees as traitors.
The detained wives represent only a fraction of the 1,170 North Korean escapees said to be in Chinese custody who could not be repatriated since Beijing and Pyongyang closed their border at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in Jan. 2020.
The UN recently published a letter it sent to the Chinese government in August expressing concern about their fate.
“We are concerned that these 1,170 refugees are facing the risk of forcible repatriation in violation of the principle of non-refoulement. We are also particularly concerned that at least two of them are children who require special protection and health attentions from the authorities,” said the letter, signed by three UN officials including the special rapporteur for North Korean human rights, Tomas Ojea Quintana.
The letter noted reports that 50 such refugees were sent back to North Korea in July after spending more than a year in detention in Shenyang.
RFA reported at that time that the 50 North Koreans were loaded onto buses in Dandong and taken across the Yalu River. Sources said many Chinese onlookers showed hostility to the police, warning that they were effectively sending the refugees to their deaths.
A woman walks past an entrance of the customs in Dandong, Liaoning province, China April 21, 2021. Credit: Reuters
The U.N. letter asked Beijing to confirm the 1,170 detentions and explain why the North Koreans were being held. It also asked China to reaffirm that measures were in place to respect their rights as refugees to not be forcibly repatriated to a hostile country.
Punishment awaits
Chinese husbands of North Korean women are terrified across Liaoning and Jilin, the two provinces on China’s side of the 880-mile Sino-Korean border, another Chinese citizen of Korean descent from the city of Changchun told RFA.
“If the North Korean refugees are sent back, they will likely be tortured and executed or sent to a political prison,” said the second source, who requested anonymity for security reasons.
“I recently heard from an acquaintance who works for the Changchun Public Security Department that the North Korean escapees are really causing them a headache… He said it is difficult to do that kind of work because their husbands, their children and other family members come to the department every day, crying and asking for mercy,” the second source said.
One man who heard that his wife was to be the first sent back came to the department demanding to know if the rumors were true, the source said.
“If these North Koreans are sent back then there will be no greater tragedy for their Chinese husbands and children. When they were arrested, they told their families that they will never come back alive if they are sent back to North Korea.”
Young North Korean defectors hold placards denouncing China's policy of repatriating refugees from their country at a protest outside Beijing's embassy in Seoul in this file photo. Credit: AFP
Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans fled to China to escape a mid-1990s famine, with about 30,000 making their way to South Korea. As many as 60,000 North Koreans remain in China, despite having no legal status, and some have married Chinese nationals.
RFA reported in August that after a long period of time in which the North Korean spouses of Chinese nationals were treated leniently, despite Beijing’s commitment with Pyongyang to repatriate all illegal North Koreans found within its borders, police are now actively arresting them.
Beijing claims it must return North Koreans found to be illegally within Chinese territory under two bilateral border and immigration pacts.
Rights groups, however, say that forced repatriation is a violation of China’s responsibility to protect the escapees under the UN Refugee Convention.
According to the Department of State’s 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, there are up to 30,000 unregistered children of North Korean women and Chinese men. The report noted that the children are stateless and vulnerable to exploitation.
Translated by Leejin Jun and Claire Lee for RFA’s Korean Service. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
