Quotes of the Day:
"Democracy refuses to think strategically unless and until compelled to do so for the purpose of defense."
- Sir Halford John Mackinder, British Strategist and Geographer
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do."
- Voltaire
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."
- Epicurus
1. Satellite images may show North Korea is prepping for another nuclear test
2. Putin could inspire North Korea to launch war under tactical nuclear umbrella
3. Starvation becomes a side effect of North Korea’s struggle to contain COVID
4. S. Korea, U.S. come up with concrete ways to boost alliance: FM Park
5. Foreign ministry pushing for new bureau focused on science, technology diplomacy
6. USFK chief hosts farewell event for outgoing S. Korean JCS chair
7. New infectious disease outbreak reported in N. Korea; leader Kim sends medicine: KCNA
8. North Korean doctors in Laos ordered to pay ‘loyalty funds’ to Pyongyang
9. Technical inspection of Nuri space rocket under way after canceled launch
10. U.S. will keep the pressure on N. Korea, says Blinken
11. ‘Not defection’: Authorities U-turn on South Korean man’s killing by North Korea
12. FM suggests holding ‘2+2’ ministerial summit with top US commerce chief
13. Pyongyang might be preparing for more than one nuke test
14. Korea, Japan inching back to intelligence-sharing pact
15. N. Korea orders universities nationwide to prevent students from traveling during summer break
16. Column: In dealing with North Korea, unpredictability is the norm
17. Inside ‘Pachinko’, The Apple TV+ Hit From Soo Hugh That Captured Hearts
18. No Progress on Name for New Presidential Office
19. North Korean defector: I am terrified of the 'massive indoctrination coming from the left' in public schools
1. Satellite images may show North Korea is prepping for another nuclear test
Excerpt:
The report also said the new imagery suggests possible preparation for a VIP visit. Senior North Korean military leaders and even Kim Jong Un himself often watch tests or visit after tests. “A close-up view of the portal area shows the actual concrete portal with an adjacent caisson retaining wall and some minor landscaping with small trees or bushes — likely in anticipation of a visit by senior officials,” the report said.
Satellite images may show North Korea is prepping for another nuclear test
The photos also show some landscaping that suggests a pending visit by senior officials like Kim Jong Un, who are known to watch nuclear tests.
NBC News · by Courtney Kube · June 15, 2022
New satellite imagery may indicate North Korea is preparing to conduct another nuclear test at its Punggye-ri test site and could do so at any time, according to a new report by Beyond Parallel, a project focused on Korea at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Analysis of images from Sunday, June 12, shows ongoing work at one tunnel area, called Tunnel No. 3, and new construction at another, Tunnel No. 4, said the authors of the report.
The rebuilding and preparation at Tunnel No. 3, which began approximately four months ago, appears to be complete, said the authors, and it is “ready for an oft-speculated seventh nuclear test.”
The report also found that the new construction activity at Tunnel No. 4 strongly suggests “an effort to reenable it for potential future testing.”
“The timing of a seventh nuclear test now rests solely within the hands of Kim Jong un,” said the report.
Earlier this week South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Jin Park said North Korea appears to be ready to test. “It is being observed that preparations for a nuclear test are completed, so now only a political decision remains,” he said.
U.S. officials also believe North Korea could be planning an underground nuclear test this month.
The new construction activity at Tunnel No. 4 began since the last Beyond Parallel report on May 17, 2022, which the authors said indicates the work is recent. The imagery shows a new caisson wall under construction and construction materials are seen near the entrance to the portal.
Tunnel No. 4 was believed to have collapsed when North Korea disabled the site in 2018, but the report found that “the extent of actual damage inside the tunnels due to the disabling was unclear and these new indicators of activity suggest that the disabling was not complete, as is the case with Tunnel No. 3.”
The report also said the new imagery suggests possible preparation for a VIP visit. Senior North Korean military leaders and even Kim Jong Un himself often watch tests or visit after tests. “A close-up view of the portal area shows the actual concrete portal with an adjacent caisson retaining wall and some minor landscaping with small trees or bushes — likely in anticipation of a visit by senior officials,” the report said.
NBC News · by Courtney Kube · June 15, 2022
2. Putin could inspire North Korea to launch war under tactical nuclear umbrella
We must try to discern the regime's nuclear use doctrine. I believe Kim will use nuclear weapons at the beginning of any war to achieve its objectives. He will surely strike bases in South Korea and Japan with WMD (nuclear and chemical) to reduce ROK mobilization and deny US reinforcement of the peninsula. I do not believe that he thinks "tactical" nuclear weapons will allow him to have freedom of action to conduct military operations because of our fear to respond. If he is going to execute his campaign plan to unify the peninsula by force he will go all in from the beginning .This is why our deterrence is so important and why job one must be to deter war.
Putin could inspire North Korea to launch war under tactical nuclear umbrella
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could be the next authoritarian to launch a war of aggression under the cover of nuclear weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has inaugurated a new chapter in nuclear weapons deterrence theory, which historically was organized around the principle of mutually assured destruction. The Kremlin chief has invoked Russia’s arsenal of hypersonic and tactical nuclear weapons as a shield to protect the invading Russian forces from a decisive Western intervention, and the efficacy of that tactic could inspire rogue regimes around the world, international officials and analysts fear.
“The Ukrainian war still is a regional war, but the way Russians have waged it, the implications are strategic and global — and for quite a long time to come,” Janis Sarts, the director of NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Riga, Latvia, told the Washington Examiner.
Putin has used the possible employment of tactical nuclear weapons to “cover the flanks” of his military while prominent state TV presenters conduct “constant preparation of the Russian internal public opinion for the nuclear war” — a dramatic contrast to the approach taken by Soviet propagandists during the Cold War, according to Sarts. “The fundamentals of how we treat deterrence are changing because of the aggression [in Ukraine],” he said.
Sarts does not speak for NATO directly, as his organization is accredited by NATO but remains independent of the trans-Atlantic alliance. His team in Riga has monitored the tactics that Russian officials and state media use to limit the aid that U.S. and European governments are willing to provide to Ukraine, however, and the signal their threats broadcast not only to Western capitals but around the world.
“And clearly, North Korea, as well as a number of other nations that want to challenge the West’s dominance are watching closely — not only the nuclear piece but many other pieces,” Sarts, a former senior Latvian defense official, said during a meeting at the Latvian Embassy. “And therefore, in my view, in Ukraine, there is much more at stake than meets the eye, typically.”
Some damage may already have been done if Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s “strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today, maybe East Asia tomorrow” is correct. Kishida, addressing an international security conference in Singapore on Friday, aired a series of implicit accusations that China has disregarded various international rules and norms. But his most explicit suggestion, that Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling might inspire imitators, put a spotlight on Pyongyang rather than Beijing.
“The ramifications of Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons are not limited to the threat itself. The threat may have already caused serious damage to the nuclear nonproliferation regime,” the Japanese leader said. “Even before the Ukraine crisis, North Korea frequently and repeatedly launched ballistic missiles, including ICBM-class missiles, and we have great concerns that yet another nuclear test is imminent. The nontransparent buildup of military capacity, including nuclear arsenals that can be seen in the vicinity of Japan, has become a serious regional security concern.”
North Korea’s nuclear test has been expected for weeks, with little clarity about when exactly Kim might order the demonstration. And North Korea tested a barrage of short-range ballistic missiles following an explanation that the regime was "enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes.” That unusual statement is rendered all the more ominous for its publication in the context of Russia's war in Ukraine, though U.S. officials hesitate to link the two in public.
“I’m always cautious about speculating on what’s influencing the DPRK leadership’s decision-making,” Ambassador Sung Kim, the State Department’s special envoy for North Korean issues, told reporters June 7. “So I don’t know, honestly, whether some of their brazen activities and statements this spring are influenced by developments, external developments, including what’s happening in Ukraine.”
In any case, South Korean officials are speaking of North Korea’s tactical nuclear weapons as a qualitative change to the danger posed by the regime.
“And now, its nuclear missile threats have become more than a simple threat,” South Korean Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup said Sunday at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Shangri-La Dialogue, where the Japanese prime minister also spoke. “From short-range to intercontinental ballistic missiles, North Korea’s repeated missile provocations are advancing in quantity and quality. ... Our government will strengthen capabilities to better implement the U.S. extended deterrence and will dramatically enhance response capabilities of the Republic of Korea military to deter North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his South Korean counterpart “expressed special concern over North Korea’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric regarding the use of tactical nuclear weapons” during their meeting Monday, as the South Korean diplomacy chief put it.
“We affirmed that any North Korean provocations, including a nuclear test, will be met with a united and firm response from our alliance and the international community,” South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin told reporters at the State Department. “We affirmed that any North Korean provocations, including a nuclear test, will be met with a united and firm response from our alliance and the international community.”
North Korea’s tactical nuclear capabilities appear more significant in light of the Kim regime’s historic desire to unify the Korean Peninsula as a communist state. Granted, North Korean officials last year removed the communist party regulations that called for a “revolution for the national liberation of the Korean people,” but even that updated text affirmed that North Korea wants to force the United States to withdraw from the peninsula.
“Does this become a circumstance where North Korea feels emboldened by having these nuclear weapons, [such] that they could then engage in a war or a conflict with South Korea or Japan?” said Foundation for Defense of Democracy senior fellow Anthony Ruggiero. "There’s the other aspect, which is coercion — potentially, the prospect of an actual conflict supported by a nuclear weapons program allows North Korea to be even more aggressive. I think that’s on the mind of the Japanese prime minister.”
The answer to those questions may be linked to the unfolding Russian campaign in Ukraine, where Putin has demonstrated the utility of possessing nuclear weapons in the context of an offensive war, even if they go unused.
“What we've seen with Putin is that prevents the global response or limits the global response. You don't see it play out actually in the operational theater,” continued Sarts of NATO. “It plays on a global scale. ... If you see them gaining ground partially by [flouting] all the rules, challenging the West, yet through this nuclear rhetoric and others, actually getting something and not paying a cost, well, what would be [the] lesson?”
3. Starvation becomes a side effect of North Korea’s struggle to contain COVID
The COVID paradox for the regime: The effects can be devastating but they also provided Kim the opportunity to further repress the people and prevent resistance. Yet the draconian population and resources control measures makes the suffering even worse and may increase the potential for resistance leading to instability.
Will these conditions lead to instability? Will they lead to the loss of the party's central governing effectiveness? WIll they lead to the loss of coherency of the military and its support for the regime? Will these conditions of instability and the threat to the regime lead to Kim Jong Un to assess his only option is the execution of his campaign plan to unify the peninsula by force in order to ensure regime survival( his calculus - I do not think he will be successful if he does attack but the amount of blood and treasure expended will be greater than the Korean War in 1950).
We need to be very wary about the indications and warnings of instability and we need to make sure our contingency plans are updated.
Starvation becomes a side effect of North Korea’s struggle to contain COVID
The government is forcing ‘volunteers’ to feed families of patients in quarantine but doesn’t offer any extra food.
By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean
2022.06.15
The increase of COVID-19 cases in North Korea is creating knock-on hardships for the families of patients, as the loss of income from quarantine restrictions has left some without enough money to feed themselves.
The cash-strapped North Korean government has responded to reports of family members of COVID patients starving to death, by forcing neighbors to “volunteer” to feed them–but the state isn’t providing any additional food for the effort.
North Koreans have long chafed at being drafted by the state to provide free labor, food, building materials or cash for national projects–orders that come on top of the non-stop struggle to survive on a bleak economy.
A family illness can have devastating consequences in North Korea, where both men and women need to work to earn enough to support their families. Men work in government-appointed jobs, but because their salaries are low, women are expected to earn additional income through side businesses.
“Confirmed COVID-19 cases have increased from the beginning of May. COVID-19 patients were quarantined at the facilities while their families were quarantined in their homes,” a resident from Unsan county in South Pyongan province, north of the capital Pyongyang, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“An elderly family member of a COVID patient died, unable to eat properly during the 15 days that the patient was in quarantine. It was then that they started organizing the volunteer group,” she said.
The source said that since the beginning of June, each neighborhood, or division and subdivision of each rural town, was directed to operate a group of volunteers to look after the families of quarantining patients.
But the government did not give these groups any extra food to carry out their work, as it is in short supply in the chronically malnourished country.
“The local government provides a certain amount of corn to COVID-19 quarantine facilities, but they don’t give anything, not even a single cabbage, to the families who all quarantine in their homes. There have been cases of elderly people who starved to death … because they were trapped at home, unable to make money, and they had nothing to eat,” she said.
“As the residents' complaints increased and became stronger, county quarantine command reported these cases to the National Emergency Quarantine Command. When the case was reported to the Central Committee, the authorities organized COVID-19 volunteer groups across the country, including in Pyongyang, and took measures to provide food and water for the elderly and other at-risk people in their quarantine homes,” she said.
The measures included forcing some North Koreans to harvest their own vegetable gardens to give food to the quarantining families, the source said.
While residents do what they can to avoid being tapped to volunteer, authorities tend to target the people with the largest vegetable gardens.
“They complain and ask, ‘Who is this service for?’ The authorities are using us to provide what the government should be providing, and they are taking all the credit,” the source said.
In Uiju county, near China in the northwestern province of North Pyongan, authorities organized volunteer groups there after the death of the child of a woman in her 30s who was away in quarantine, a source there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“She was the breadwinner for her family and her 3-year-old child died of malnutrition as her husband watched at home,” he said.
“The authorities who organized the volunteer groups are appealing to people to show the true face of socialism by displaying the spirit of service that offers generous support and effort. They are asking people to think of those who are facing greater difficulties than they are in the time of COVID-19,” said the second source.
Authorities are forcing better-off citizens to volunteer for at least 10 days and to donate about 30 kilograms (60 pounds) of potatoes each, he said.
"Residents say that if the state wants to take care of the families of COVID-19 patients, the state should be the one that provides the food and vegetables,” the second source said.
“They say [the government] is just passing on the cost to the residents, and it is not volunteer work for the families of COVID-19 patients but volunteer work for the state.”
After two years of denying the pandemic had penetrated its closed borders, North Korea in May declared a “maximum emergency” and acknowledged the virus had begun to spread among participants of a large-scale military parade the previous month.
Though North Korea has not been tracking confirmed coronavirus cases, possibly due to lack of testing equipment, state media has been publishing daily figures of people who report fever symptoms.
As of Tuesday, 4.53 million people have come down with fever, 72 of whom have died, 38 North, a site that provides analysis on the country and is run by the U.S.-based Stimson Center think tank, reported.
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin J. Chung. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
4. S. Korea, U.S. come up with concrete ways to boost alliance: FM Park
Appears to be a good visit.
Excerpt:
"We held productive discussions on issues ranging from North Korea, the bilateral alliance, expanding the supply chain, as well as security and practical cooperation, based on the momentum of strengthening the South Korea-U.S. alliance created by their successful summit meeting on May 21," he told reporters as he arrived at Incheon International Airport.
S. Korea, U.S. come up with concrete ways to boost alliance: FM Park | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- Seoul and Washington have come up with "concrete cooperation measures" for the future development of their alliance, South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said Thursday.
Park made the remarks as he wrapped up his four-day trip to the U.S., the first of its kind since he came into office last month.
"We held productive discussions on issues ranging from North Korea, the bilateral alliance, expanding the supply chain, as well as security and practical cooperation, based on the momentum of strengthening the South Korea-U.S. alliance created by their successful summit meeting on May 21," he told reporters as he arrived at Incheon International Airport.
Park held bilateral talks with his U.S. counterpart, Antony Blinken, and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, and discussed ways to boost bilateral cooperation during his trip.
During his meeting with Blinken, the two sides agreed the North Korea issue is the "top policy priority" for both Seoul and Washington.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
5. Foreign ministry pushing for new bureau focused on science, technology diplomacy
Seems to make sense.
Foreign ministry pushing for new bureau focused on science, technology diplomacy | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- The foreign ministry said Thursday it is working to establish a new bureau in charge of "science and technology diplomacy" in a bid to deal more proactively with relevant issues and challenges facing South Korea.
The ministry has a department that handles relevant affairs, but its new head, Park Jin, openly raised the need for expanding the team to a bureau with a larger workforce and more resources. The minister was speaking to a group of South Korean correspondents in Washington D.C. during his trip there earlier this week.
Internal preparations are already under way and there will be interagency consultations, according to ministry spokesperson Choi Young-sam.
If launched, the bureau will be tasked with focusing on diplomacy related to science, technology and cyber sectors.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
6. USFK chief hosts farewell event for outgoing S. Korean JCS chair
USFK chief hosts farewell event for outgoing S. Korean JCS chair | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Force Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Paul LaCamera hosted a farewell ceremony for South Korea's outgoing Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Won In-choul on Thursday, praising his contributions to the two countries' alliance.
The ceremony took place at Camp Humphreys, a sprawling U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul. Around 100 South Korean and U.S. military officials, and guests joined the event, according to the USFK.
"Gen. LaCamera expressed his gratitude to Gen. Won for his leadership and contributions to maintaining a robust combined defense posture and the ironclad ROK-U.S. alliance," the USFK said in a press release. ROK stands for South Korea's official name, Republic of Korea.
Won is set to leave office, as President Yoon Suk-yeol has tapped Army Gen. Kim Seung-kyum to succeed him. Won has led the Joint Chiefs of Staff since September 2020.
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
7. New infectious disease outbreak reported in N. Korea; leader Kim sends medicine: KCNA
(LEAD) New infectious disease outbreak reported in N. Korea; leader Kim sends medicine: KCNA | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: CHANGES headline, lead; UPDATES throughout with report of another disease outbreak; ADDS photo)
SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's new suspected COVID-19 cases recorded remained below 30,000, while the country reported an outbreak of an "acute enteric epidemic" in its southwestern region Thursday.
More than 26,010 people showed symptoms of fever over a 24-hour period until 6 p.m. the previous day, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, citing data from the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters. It reported one additional death, with the death toll rising to 73.
The country's total number of fever cases since late April came to over 4.55 million as of 6 p.m. Wednesday, of which more than 4.51 million have recovered and at least 46,230 are being treated, it added.
The nation's daily fever tally has been on a downward trend after peaking at over 392,920 on May 15, three days after it disclosed its first COVID-19 case after claiming to be coronavirus-free for over two years.
On top of its ongoing battle against COVID-19, the North announced an outbreak of another infectious disease in Haeju City of South Hwanghae Province.
In response, leader Kim Jong-un sent medicine prepared by his family to the ruling Workers' Party committee of the city the previous day, it added. It did not specify what the disease is.
Kim stressed the need to contain the latest outbreak "at the earliest date possible by taking a well-knit measure to quarantine the suspected cases to thoroughly curb its spread," it said.
He also emphasized confirming cases through "epidemiological examination and scientific tests" and stepping up efforts for sterilization of the infected regions, which includes the nearby county of Kangryong, it added.
yunhwanchae@yna.co.kr
(END)
8. North Korean doctors in Laos ordered to pay ‘loyalty funds’ to Pyongyang
No Korean from the north can escape supporting the regime. This is one of the characteristics of the mafia-like crime family cult.
Excerpts:
But the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue at the hospital to decline, as there were fewer wealthy foreign patients. The ward operated by the North Korean doctors was forced to suspend operations until the Lao government lifted restrictions in May.
As the money started rolling in, Pyongyang ordered the two doctors to resume payments, only in greater amounts that cut sharply into their incomes.
“I heard from an acquaintance, who is close to the doctors from Pyongyang, that the North Korean authorities have demanded excessive loyalty funds from the doctors,” a North Korean source in Laos told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Their operations have barely become normalized. But they look particularly depressed and disappointed because they owe more in loyalty money than they earn,” she said.
North Korean doctors in Laos ordered to pay ‘loyalty funds’ to Pyongyang
They now must send more money to the government back home each month than they earn, according to one source.
By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean
2022.06.14
North Korea is forcing two doctors who set up a highly profitable ward in a hospital in Laos to send their earnings back home as so-called “loyalty funds,” North Korean sources in Laos told RFA.
The North Korean doctors, a physician and a surgeon, were dispatched to the Southeast Asian country to set up a practice on one floor of the Lao-Asean Hospital in the capital Vientiane, an upscale medical facility that offers a higher standard of care than an average Lao hospital. The hospital caters to wealthy foreigners who live in Laos, as well as tourists.
Under the normal terms for North Korean workers dispatched to other countries, the doctors had to give their government a percentage of their earnings. In most cases, the money these workers keep is still several times what they could hope to earn at home.
But the COVID-19 pandemic caused revenue at the hospital to decline, as there were fewer wealthy foreign patients. The ward operated by the North Korean doctors was forced to suspend operations until the Lao government lifted restrictions in May.
As the money started rolling in, Pyongyang ordered the two doctors to resume payments, only in greater amounts that cut sharply into their incomes.
“I heard from an acquaintance, who is close to the doctors from Pyongyang, that the North Korean authorities have demanded excessive loyalty funds from the doctors,” a North Korean source in Laos told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“Their operations have barely become normalized. But they look particularly depressed and disappointed because they owe more in loyalty money than they earn,” she said.
The doctors started their practice in Vientiane to capitalize on the tourism industry centered there.
“Since there are many tourists, they expected that [opening a ward] in that hospital would be able to earn a lot of foreign currency,” said the source.
“They designated [their ward] as [part of the] international hospital rather than a North Korean one,” she said. “Most foreign tourists and residents recognize it as [part of] an international hospital that offers better treatment than the local Lao hospitals, and they visit a lot.”
Prices can be up to 10 times higher, and must be paid in U.S. dollars, cash only, according to the source. She said she was aware of a Chinese businessman who paid $20 for an abdominal pain diagnosis that would cost $2 in a typical Lao hospital.
“Since May, the hospital has been making a good profit as the Lao government completely lifted the COVID-19 lockdown,” she said.
Another North Korean in Laos said the hospital ward was established a few years ago, before the worst of the pandemic had reached Laos.
“It was founded and operated by two doctors in their 40s who were dispatched from Pyongyang a few years ago. They diagnose, treat and perform surgeries on patients regardless of their nationalities, and get a lot in foreign currency,” she told RFA on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.
“The Lao government closed the border and banned movement between regions in 2020. As the entry and movement of foreigners was suspended, the North Korean hospital [ward] started seeing fewer patients,” the second source said.
Eventually the ward had to suspend operations as the steady flow of patients dwindled.
“The [ward] has emerged from operational difficulties caused by the COVID-19 crisis, and it is making significant profits,” she said.
Sources told RFA that the North Korean ward is able to earn between $100 and $200 per day on average, but has been asked to send to Pyongyang $3,000 per month. After factoring in overhead, very little remains for the two doctors.
An employee of the Lao-Asean hospital confirmed to RFA’s Lao Service that two North Korean doctors have been working at the hospital for the past two years, but could not elaborate on how they came to work for the hospital or what their exact positions were.
A Lao health official, meanwhile, told RFA that the hospital is privately owned by a domestic company, Lao Medical Service Co., but that it was common for hospitals to hire doctors from abroad.
“Many private hospitals in Laos employ many foreign doctors and medical experts including Chinese and Vietnamese because these foreigners have great knowledge in the field,” the official said.
“As for the Lao-Asean Hospital, I know that the owner is a Lao investor who has hired several Chinese doctors to work with Lao counterparts and at least one of them is the head of a treatment department, but I don’t know whether the hospital has any North Korean doctors,” he said.
Additional reporting by RFA Lao. Translated by Claire Lee, Leejin J. Chung and Max Avary. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
9. Technical inspection of Nuri space rocket under way after canceled launch
Although disappointing and perhaps embarrassing, the fact that the process and procedures detected an anomaly that resulted in postponement is a good thing they were able to prevent mission failure.
(LEAD) Technical inspection of Nuri space rocket under way after canceled launch | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with details throughout; REWRITES lead)
SEOUL, June 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korean aerospace engineers were inspecting the country's homegrown Nuri space rocket Thursday, a day after a last-minute technical glitch in the oxidizer tank sensor forced the country to call off the rocket launch.
The Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) on Wednesday decided to indefinitely postpone the launch of Nuri scheduled for Thursday after the sensor was seen malfunctioning during a final pre-launch check-up at the launch pad in Naro Space Center in Goheung, a southern coastal village some 470 kilometers south of Seoul.
KARI engineers held a technical inspection meeting for Nuri, which has been transported back to the assembly building, earlier in the day to try to identify the cause of the sensor malfunction.
In the afternoon, engineers began inspecting the internals of the first stage of Nuri, where the sensor in question was installed.
According to officials, readings on oxidizer tank sensors normally change during the rocket erection process. Readings on the sensor for Nuri, however, remained static during the process.
Officials said Wednesday they were not certain of the cause of the problem, saying that the sensor itself could be flawed, or it could be a cable or terminal box issue.
"If we are able to identify a problematic part, we would either replace or fix it. If we find no problem, we should then check the level sensor in the oxidizer tank and replace it if necessary," Koh Jung-hwan, head of KARI's space rocket development operation, said in a press briefing Thursday.
Koh said the engineers were proceeding with the inspection with caution, as the rocket has been prepped for launch, with its ignition system in place.
The ministry has set the period between Thursday and June 23 as the launch window. If the cause of the problem isn't identified and corrected within the period, the launch could be delayed to late autumn, after the end of the seasonal monsoon and typhoon period.
South Korea had initially planned to launch the rocket Wednesday in a mission to put multiple satellites into orbit, but it was delayed by a day due to strong winds.
In its first launch in October, Nuri successfully flew to a target altitude of 700 kilometers but failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit, as its third-stage engine burned out earlier than expected.
KARI engineers reinforced an anchoring device of the helium tank inside Nuri's third-stage oxidizer tank.
South Korea has invested nearly 2 trillion won (US$1.8 billion) in building Nuri since 2010. The project was carried out with domestically made technology on its own soil, including design, production, testing and launch operation.
The country plans to conduct four additional Nuri rocket launches by 2027 as part of efforts to further advance the country's space rocket program.
odissy@yna.co.kr
(END)
10. U.S. will keep the pressure on N. Korea, says Blinken
Excerpt:
“We know that North Korea is working very hard to launch nuclear tests, and the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group (EDSCG) will be reactivated within weeks,” Secretary Blinken highlighted.
U.S. will keep the pressure on N. Korea, says Blinken
Posted June. 15, 2022 08:06,
Updated June. 15, 2022 08:06
U.S. will keep the pressure on N. Korea, says Blinken. June. 15, 2022 08:06. weappon@donga.com.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken said on Monday (local time) that the U.S. will "keep pressure until the North Korean regime changes course." He also added that more sanctions will be imposed against China and Russia, which are helping North Korea evade sanctions.
"Until North Korea returns to diplomacy and dialogue with the United States and its allies, the U.S. will keep the pressure on, as appropriate," Blinken said at a joint press conference after meeting with Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin.
In particular, regarding the possibility of sanctions to impose against China in relation to its violation of sanctions against North Korea, Secretary Blinken said, “The U.S. is imposing sanctions against individuals and entities in Russia and China that are helping North Korea, and we will continue to do so in the future.”
“We know that North Korea is working very hard to launch nuclear tests, and the Extended Deterrence Strategy and Consultation Group (EDSCG) will be reactivated within weeks,” Secretary Blinken highlighted.
11. ‘Not defection’: Authorities U-turn on South Korean man’s killing by North Korea
Cleaning up a mess fmr the previous administration.
‘Not defection’: Authorities U-turn on South Korean man’s killing by North Korea
Yoon office withdraws appeal filed under Moon against bereaved family in info disclosure suit
Published : Jun 16, 2022 - 18:00 Updated : Jun 16, 2022 - 18:06
The chief of the Incheon coast guard, Park Sang-chun, takes a bow ahead of the news conference held Thursday. (Yonhap)
INCHEON -- South Korea’s Coast Guard on Thursday reversed its earlier assertion that South Korean government worker Lee Dae-jun, who was killed by North Korean soldiers at sea nearly two years ago, was attempting to defect to the North.
“After a comprehensive investigation, we have failed to find any evidence to believe that the official had intended to defect to North Korea,” said Park Sang-chun, chief of the Incheon Coast Guard, in a news conference.
He offered his condolences to Lee’s family for their loss and the distress caused by delays in the investigation, which he said were due to difficulties in investigating crimes committed by North Korean troops in North Korean waters.
“We regret determining early on that the official had tried to defect to North Korea, and causing confusion to the public,” he said.
“I would like to state clearly that through joint efforts with the national security and the military, there is no evidence to prove that the missing official wished to defect voluntarily.”
With Thursday’s announcement the Coast Guard closes its investigation into Lee’s killing, which began with the receipt of a missing person report at around noon on Sept. 21, 2020. Lee, a Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries official, was shot dead by the North and had his body set ablaze around 32 hours after he was reported missing. He had gone missing while on duty on a patrol vessel.
At the initial briefing held less than a week after Lee was confirmed dead, as well as over several announcements that followed, the Coast Guard had consistently said that Lee was trying to defect from South Korea via sea.
As grounds for that claim, the Coast Guard referred to a wiretapped conversation obtained by the Ministry of National Defense, which allegedly revealed North Korean soldiers had “detailed knowledge of Lee’s personal information that only he himself could have told them.”
In a closed-door briefing that followed, a Defense Ministry official said that announcements made at the time were “based on preliminary findings only.” “They were never supposed to be definite,” he said.
But other evidence that emerged since then, and intelligence “collected from various sources,” led to the “change in stance,” he explained.
The director of the Coast Guard’s criminal investigations division said, “Again, it’s regretful that in the beginning confusion has been generated around whether it’s a defection or not.”
The Defense Ministry official and two Coast Guard officials who were present at the briefing all denied that political influence played a role in the reversal in the verdict. The recent shift in the administration in power “was not considered at all,” they said.
Lee’s family has openly rejected any claims of defection, and is seeking the release of the wiretapped audio and other documents surrounding his death that have been archived and were made confidential under the Moon Jae-in administration.
President Yoon Suk-yeol’s Office of National Security also on Thursday, withdrew the appeal filed by Moon’s Cheong Wa Dae against the family in an ongoing court battle over the release of the information.
In a first trial held in November last year, the court sided with the family and ordered Cheong Wa Dae to allow access to the requested information. The presidential office soon appealed the court’s order.
While he was still a candidate, Yoon had promised that he would help undo measures taken by the preceding administration to block the information’s disclosure.
“Without evidence, a man was framed as having tried to defect and the situation was made out to be as if it were somehow his fault,” Yoon’s official told reporters in a closed-door briefing held later the same day. “We believe that we have to get to the bottom of what was behind this mischaracterization.”
The official added that information archived as Moon’s presidential records remained inaccessible.
Kim Ki-yun, a lawyer representing Lee’s family, said in a phone call with The Korea Herald that the appeal’s withdrawal “certainly aids” efforts to declassify the information.
“This gives us some basis to argue that archiving the information as presidential records, despite the court decision, is wrongful,” he said.
“I feel like this is how it should have been all along,” Lee Rae-jin, the deceased official’s brother, told The Korea Herald. “I hope that this will be the beginning of the unveiling of the truth about what really happened to my younger brother.”
12. FM suggests holding ‘2+2’ ministerial summit with top US commerce chief
A good idea.
FM suggests holding ‘2+2’ ministerial summit with top US commerce chief
Published : Jun 16, 2022 - 17:01 Updated : Jun 16, 2022 - 17:01
South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin (right) shakes hands with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in their meeting in Washington DC, United States on Wednesday. (Yonhap)
South Korea and the US have agreed on strong industrial cooperation and on enhancing supply resilience, Seoul’s Foreign Minister Park Jin said on Wednesday (US time).
In his meeting with US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in Washington, Park also suggested holding “2+2” ministerial summit involving the top commerce chiefs and foreign affairs chiefs of the respective countries.
“South Korea and the US have a comprehensive strategic alliance, so we have agreed to continue to cooperate on various sectors, and to secure supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region,” Park said after his meeting with Raimondo.
“I also suggested we hold 2+2 ministerial-level consultation meetings involving top chiefs in charge of foreign affairs and commerce (from the two countries). (Raimondo) also shared understanding on the need for such a meeting,” Park added.
The two sides shared their assessment of the first presidential summit of the two countries. They reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen the bilateral ties in technology and the economy, as well as the Indo-Pacific Framework Initiative, a US-led economic initiative.
Park also requested that the US reconsider Section 232 of its Trade Expansion Act, which imposes a quota against steel imports.
The foreign minister’s trip to the US comes on the heels of the summit between South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and US President Joe Biden.
“I was able to see with my own eyes that South Korea is facing the historic moment of becoming a global pivotal state,” he said, describing his first four-day trip to the US.
During the visit, Park also held bilateral talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, after arriving on Sunday.
13. Pyongyang might be preparing for more than one nuke test
Perhaps one miniaturized weapon for an ICBM warhead and a second larger thermonuclear weapon to build on the 2017 event.
Thursday
June 16, 2022
Pyongyang might be preparing for more than one nuke test
New satellite images of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in Kilju, North Hamgyong province taken on Tuesday show new signs of construction activity at tunnel no. 4 in addition to preparation for a potential nuclear test in tunnel no. 3. [BEYOND PARALLEL]
North Korea appears to be preparing for more than one nuclear test by rebuilding two tunnels at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to satellite imagery analysis released by a U.S.-based analysis site on Wednesday.
Satellite imagery taken on Tuesday showed new construction activity near tunnel no. 4 at the site in Kilju in North Hamgyong province, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The report said the construction work at tunnel no. 4 "strongly suggests an effort to reenable it for potential future testing.”
Some of the new structures built at the site include a new retaining wall still under construction. Construction materials were seen near the entrance to the tunnel.
Previous reports focused on tunnel no. 3, which has been under construction for several months.
The report also noted that activities at tunnel no. 3, which began about four months ago, “are apparently now complete and ready for an oft-speculated seventh nuclear test.”
Neither tunnels no. 3 or no. 4 have yet been used for a nuclear test.
Beyond Parallel said the most recent images also showed the construction of new buildings or modifications to existing buildings in the site’s administration area, which may suggest "an effort to further reenable the facility” for future testing.
The U.S. think tank’s report came after Park Jin, Seoul’s foreign minister, noted that the North appeared to have completed all preparations for its seventh nuclear test and that only a “political decision remained” before Pyongyang conducts a test.
The country conducted its sixth nuclear test in September 2017, before announcing a moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile testing in 2018, which now appears effectively scrapped.
Pyongyang has conducted 18 missile tests so far this year, and South Korean and U.S. intelligence officials have warned in recent months that the regime is prepared for a nuclear weapons test.
One goal that the regime has in mind with a nuclear test is to check its progress in miniaturizing a tactical nuclear warhead to fit atop a ballistic missile, a task that was included as a key item on the agenda of the North’s most recent five-year national plan in January 2021.
North Korea demolished the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in May 2018 in the presence of reporters from South Korea, China, Russia, Britain and the United States.
The demolition of the nuclear testing site was seen as a show of sincerity about denuclearization as North Korea planned for the first summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, which took place in June 2018.
Tunnel no. 1 was used for the North’s first nuclear test in 2006, while tunnel no. 2 was used for the five subsequent tests.
According to Beyond Parallel, current satellite images show no signs of activity at collapsed tunnels no. 1 and no. 2. The report’s image analysis shows abandoned tunnel spoil piles near both abandoned tunnels.
BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
14. Korea, Japan inching back to intelligence-sharing pact
Need more than inching.
Thursday
June 16, 2022
Korea, Japan inching back to intelligence-sharing pact
Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong, right, and Japan's Vice Foreign Minister Takeo Mori, left, during a meeting in Seoul on June 8. [YONHAP]
Top figures in Korea and Japan are expressing interest in returning to an intelligence sharing pact that was suspended in 2019 over bitter historical disputes.
Soon after Korea’s Foreign Minister Park Jin said in a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington on Monday that Korea wants the General Security of Military Information Agreement (Gsomia) “normalized as soon as possible.” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno followed with a similar comment.
Calling the pact mutually beneficial, Matsuno said in a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday that the agreement would strengthen bilateral security cooperation and contribute to peace and stability in East Asia, according to the Asahi Shimbun.
On the same day, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi expressed in another news conference his hopes for increased communication with Korea on military intelligence.
The Gsomia was established in 2016 and renewed annually through 2018.
In August 2019, the Moon Jae-in administration announced its decision to withdraw from the bilateral agreement in response to Japanese restrictions on exports to Korea of industrial materials needed to make semiconductors and other electronic parts.
Although Tokyo denied it, the export controls were seen as reactions to court rulings in Korea forcing Japanese companies to compensate Korean forced laborers from the last century. Korea retaliated by placing its own export restrictions on Japan.
The forced labor issue dates back to Japanese annexation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Millions of Koreans were subjected to forced labor by imperial Japan, especially in the years leading up to and during World War II.
Japan has protested the Korean court rulings, claiming all compensation issues related to colonial rule were resolved through a 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral relations.
Instead of going ahead with the withdrawal from Gsomia, however, the Moon administration in November 2019 decided to conditionally suspend the agreement.
When questioned about the trade spat, Park said in an interview with the JoongAng Ilbo on June 10 said that the two countries should “work on issues in a step-by-step manner, starting with ones that can be solved first.”
Members of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s foreign policy team, including the president himself, have stressed repeatedly the need to strengthen trilateral security cooperation among Washington, Seoul and Tokyo.
“In order to deal with the threat from North Korea, we need to have policy coordination and a sharing of information between Korea and Japan and with the United States,” Park said in a joint press conference with Blinken on Monday.
North Korea has tested 31 ballistic missiles since Jan. 1, a record number in a year, including an intercontinental ballistic missile on May 25. The last time it came close was in 2019 when it tested 25.
Recent satellite images of North Korea's Punggye-ri nuclear testing site, the site for all of its six nuclear tests, suggested the regime is gearing up for a seventh.
BY PARK HYUN-JU, ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]
15. N. Korea orders universities nationwide to prevent students from traveling during summer break
The effects of centralized decision making and control.
Excerpts:
University officials, for their part, are complaining that the order fails to reflect reality and makes no sense. In their view, while the order instructs schools to confine students in their dormitories to study during the summer, students still have to go out and buy their own food because the schools have no money to supply them with any.
University officials complain that keeping dormitories running smoothly on a daily basis – such as keeping drinking water clean and disinfecting showers, bathrooms and other shared facilities – is not easy. They also worry that their schools will have to take responsibility for quarantining dorm-based students if any of them come down with COVID-19.
“Dorm students and their families are distressed after hearing about the order,” said the source. “The government is failing to take active measures to deal with the [current] outbreak, so people worry that if an outbreak were to occur while students are in groups, the universities may not be able to respond properly.”
N. Korea orders universities nationwide to prevent students from traveling during summer break - Daily NK
University officials are complaining that the order fails to reflect reality
Students walking to classes at Kim Il Sung University (Kim Il Sung University website)
As part of efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19, North Korean authorities recently ordered universities nationwide to prevent students living in dormitories from traveling during summer vacation.
According to a source in South Pyongan Province on Monday, the order was recently issued by the State Emergency Anti-Epidemic Command along with the country’s education ministry. It emphasized that universities should ensure their students participate in on-campus activities rather than allow them to return home or travel to other places during summer break.
The order was sent in advance of the summer vacation out of concern that the students could become infected by or even spread the coronavirus during their travels home or other places, the source said.
In particular, the order instructed universities to prevent students living in dormitories from heading back to their hometowns during the summer vacation. It stressed that because the rice-planting season is over, universities should gather students in their dorms so they can more easily follow instructions from their schools.
Interestingly, the authorities presented a plan to have students in dorms continue their education during the summer vacation through remote learning programs or lecture material on USBs.
The order also called on universities to do everything they can to stop community infections from occurring. Specifically, the schools were instructed to establish strict emergency quarantine systems on their campuses and to separate students who live in dormitories and students who commute to school from home.
University officials, for their part, are complaining that the order fails to reflect reality and makes no sense. In their view, while the order instructs schools to confine students in their dormitories to study during the summer, students still have to go out and buy their own food because the schools have no money to supply them with any.
University officials complain that keeping dormitories running smoothly on a daily basis – such as keeping drinking water clean and disinfecting showers, bathrooms and other shared facilities – is not easy. They also worry that their schools will have to take responsibility for quarantining dorm-based students if any of them come down with COVID-19.
“Dorm students and their families are distressed after hearing about the order,” said the source. “The government is failing to take active measures to deal with the [current] outbreak, so people worry that if an outbreak were to occur while students are in groups, the universities may not be able to respond properly.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
16. Column: In dealing with North Korea, unpredictability is the norm
I am not sure why Mr. Cyr thinks the regime is unpredictable. It seems to me it has been very predictable. With some tactical variations it continues to follow the seven decades old Kim family regime playbook.
I do agree with his conclusion:
U.S. leaders should emphasize collaboration with allies, underscore military commitment and encourage South Korea diplomatic leadership. The Biden administration is returning to traditional, very strong ties between the U.S. and our allies, including closer military cooperation.
Our powerful comprehensive alliance, established during the Korean War, greatly reinforced during the Vietnam War, is now unbreakable.
I would just add that now is the opportunity to work toward an acceptable durable political arrangement on the Korean peninsula that will serve, protect, and advance US and ROK/US alliance interests in the region. As in this "vision:"
The Alliance way ahead is an integrated deterrence strategy as part of the broader strategic competition that is taking place in the region. There is a need for a Korean “Plan B” strategy that rests on the foundation of combined ROK/U.S. defensive capabilities and includes political warfare, aggressive diplomacy, sanctions, cyber operations, and information and influence activities, with a goal of denuclearization but ultimately the objective must be to solve the “Korea question” (e.g., the unnatural division of the peninsula) with the understanding that denuclearization of the north and an end to human rights abuses and crimes against humanity will only happen when the Korea question is resolved that leads to a free and unified Korea, otherwise known as a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
Column: In dealing with North Korea, unpredictability is the norm
Chicago Tribune · by Arthur I. CyrLake County News-SunJun 15, 2022 at 9:04 am
The communist regime in North Korea is more threatening than ever. On June 5, Pyongyang launched eight short-range missiles, the most ever in a single day.
The next day, South Korea and the United States launched the same number of missiles. President Yoon Suk-yeol, inaugurated last month, promises a hard-line approach to the North.
Advertisement
North Korea also just tested a missile capable of reaching the United States. The North has pursued nuclear weapons since 2006. From time to time, Pyongyang threatens to use them, including against the U.S., as well as Japan and South Korea.
These latest tests occur as the Biden administration gives priority to Northeast Asia defense. Last month, President Joe Biden visited both South Korea and Japan, with emphasis on military and Pacific security.
Advertisement
In moving forward, U.S. government officials should keep in mind three basic realities about dealing with North Korea. First, for many years Pyongyang has been inconsistent, often erratic. In 2013, the regime declared a “state of war” with South Korea and abruptly abrogated the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
Yet, accommodating moves followed. In short, unpredictability is the norm. This implies considerable factional infighting at the top, along with collective insecurity.
Second, we must highlight commitment to defense of South Korea and our own readiness, and willingness, to use a range of forces. The Obama administration rightly deployed the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Air Defense) antimissile system for this purpose.
In 2013, the Pentagon expanded anti-ballistic missile defenses on the U.S. West Coast. Simultaneously, THAAD was sent to Guam, a potential target. In 2009, THAAD was deployed to Hawaii for the same reason.
On cue, China expressed indignation about antimissile deployments. That was predictable, and understandable given potential use of the system’s radars for information gathering. At the same time, Beijing worked to restrain Pyongyang, including suspending airline flights between the two cities.
Third, we should emphasize coordination with other nations. This ideally should include China and Russia, but always our close friend South Korea and ally Japan.
South Korea’s substantial investment in and trade with China grows, while North Korea remains a costly dependent, though ideologically important. China’s President Xi Jinping visited Seoul in 2014. He finally visited North Korea in 2019.
China’s foreign policy reflects self-interest, and traditional caution regarding military force. North Korea is a drain, and over time a source of growing well-founded anxiety.
Advertisement
Lake County News Sun
Twice-weekly
News updates from Lake County delivered every Monday and Wednesday
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought North Korea’s long-evident economic deterioration to a crisis point. Trade and wider interchange with China contracted. Long-term economic sanctions stymie recovery.
The brutal Korean War of 1950-1953 devastated the Korean Peninsula, and made the Cold War global. President Harry Truman’s courageous decision to support the United Nations in defending the South against invasion from the North laid the foundation for today’s remarkably successful Republic of Korea.
Democratic change culminated with election in 1998 of President Kim Dae-Jung, heroic opponent of dictatorship. In 2000, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. During the earlier dictatorship, Kim survived imprisonment and at least one attempt to kill him. Occasional political turmoil since 1998 confirms South Korea democracy.
U.S. leaders should emphasize collaboration with allies, underscore military commitment and encourage South Korea diplomatic leadership. The Biden administration is returning to traditional, very strong ties between the U.S. and our allies, including closer military cooperation.
Our powerful comprehensive alliance, established during the Korean War, greatly reinforced during the Vietnam War, is now unbreakable.
Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War — American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan).
Advertisement
Chicago Tribune · by Arthur I. CyrLake County News-SunJun 15, 2022 at 9:04 am
17. Inside ‘Pachinko’, The Apple TV+ Hit From Soo Hugh That Captured Hearts
A good series. One thing this review and all others I have seen does not cover is that in this show you can see elements of Korean resistance. Of course most do not look for these things, but I do.
Inside ‘Pachinko’, The Apple TV+ Hit From Soo Hugh That Captured Hearts
The journey from page to screen for Pachinko began in 2017, on a plane ride from London to New York.
The transatlantic flight was a typical commute for Soo Hugh, who at the time served as executive producer and co-showrunner on the first season of AMC’s The Terror. Nearly seven hours in the air provided an opportunity for Hugh to finally—though somewhat hesitantly—dig into Min Jin Lee’s recently released New York Times bestseller. Theresa Kang-Lowe, Hugh’s former agent and friend, had sent it her way.
“I felt very ambivalent about reading it just because I knew it was going to be very personal,” Hugh says. “I knew that it was going to be this beautiful story and I also was just finishing up another big international show, so I was in a very particular headspace at that time.”
Soo Hugh. Josh Telles/Deadline
While fellow passengers scrolled through in-flight entertainment options and shifted in their seats to find optimal nap positions, Hugh immersed herself in the life of a young Korean woman in a rural fishing village on the coast of Busan, South Korea, during the era of Japanese colonial rule from 1910 to 1945. As she flipped from chapter to chapter, Hugh encountered Lee’s meticulously crafted words about protagonist Sunja’s boarding house duties, laundry routines and her secret love affair with a mysterious fish broker. From Lee’s specific descriptions of adolescence, maternity and Korean customs, Hugh says she connected “on an internal core level” to Sunja, despite her own vastly different experiences as a Maryland-raised Korean American television writer.
“I was really jolted by that shock of recognition. I wasn’t expecting it to be that visceral,” she recalls.
Several hours and scores of emotional pages later, a bowl of white rice brought Hugh to tears. In the book, Sunja’s mother Yangjin pleads to a merchant for a measly amount of white rice to celebrate her daughter’s sudden marriage. At the time, the Asian cuisine staple was incredibly scarce and reserved only for the Japanese and elites. A satisfying bowl of immaculate and steaming rice can certainly beget a powerful reaction. But in the matriarch’s desperation to provide anything and everything to her child, Hugh saw her mother, her grandmother, and all those who came before her.
But even despite that familiarity, Pachinko wasn’t a story Hugh felt she could adapt for television. At least not in its original structure. “I just didn’t see that show as one that I thought I could tell linearly, and so I was like, ‘I love the book, I’m going to put it away, I’m not the right person for it,’” she says.
Then came Hugh’s “eureka moment”, one that would remix Lee’s sprawling novel for the television format. Inspired by the time-skipping, country-hopping elements of The Godfather Part II, Hugh decided to follow not just one generation of the book’s central family, but two—putting Sunja’s coming of age in direct conversation with that of her grandson, Solomon. A non-linear approach presented a stage where Hugh could show how themes like home and identity—and the lack thereof—played out across past and present generations. How the choices of yesterday molded the privileges of today.
“What if this was a story about generations and specifically following generational trauma from one generation to the next, and creating a conversation about that?” Hugh asked herself. “Sunja’s life becomes the foundation, but upon that foundation you build this pretty amazing narrative structure.”
Confident with her newfound approach to Pachinko, Hugh, with Media Res’s Michael Ellenberg and Lindsey Springer and Kang-Lowe’s Blue Marble banner, began her search for a platform. With multiple buyers throwing their hats in the ring, Hugh knew she and her team had something special in the works. However, that spark in connection didn’t quite click until she sat down with Apple TV+ and Michelle Lee, the streamer’s director of domestic programming. It was “electricity in the air” when the two finally connected.
As Hugh recalls, the pitch meeting didn’t feel like one at all. What started off as Hugh’s attempt to convince Lee and her team to bring the trilingual immigrant story about a Korean family to TV, evolved into an emotional release for both sides. Perhaps it was that “shock of recognition” again.
“At one point very early on in the pitch I was watching [Lee] and I saw her tearing up, and then the minute I see her tear up I’m starting to lose it a little bit,” Hugh recalls. “That was a lot. I had to stop looking at her because my voice was shaking so much, and I just had to look at the spot on the wall behind her.”
She continues: “I just don’t think I’ll ever forget that pitch. It didn’t feel at all like I was trying to sell something at that moment. It felt like I was really having this very human connection with someone.”
From then on it was a done deal. By August 2018, the news broke that Apple would adapt the bestseller with Hugh at the helm. Less than a year later in March 2019, the streamer ordered the series. Author Lee was initially slated as an executive producer early in the process, but eventually dropped out of the project. She “just wasn’t creatively involved”, Hugh explains.
Nevertheless, Hugh marched forward with a distributor and a new vision on her side. She assembled her writers’ room, populated with some scribes who tapped into their own immigrant stories, and sought out the aid and talents of directors Kogonada (After Yang) and Justin Chon (Blue Bayou) to help bring her multi-generational conversation to life.
Then came the task of casting nearly 600 roles for Pachinko. Naturally, a series that concerned itself with multiple countries and numerous generations required a large enough lineup to fit time and space.
In a Yeongdo fish market, merchants and fishers display their freshest catches—eel, squid and abalone—while hollering their best prices. All the commotion comes to a sudden halt when two Japanese officials walk through the aisle, prompting nearly everyone to bow their heads in respect—except for one young woman who stands unfazed and unimpressed by their presence. This is the first time that audiences meet the teenage Sunja, and through her, fresh-faced newcomer Minha Kim. Wearing a stainless, traditional hanbok, Kim’s Sunja seems to float through the fish market, magnetizing the audience and her eventual love interest Koh Hansu alike.
Minha Kim. Josh Telles/Deadline
Kim, whose credits included Korean indies and the series School 2017, graduated from the Hanyang University’s Department of Theater and Film in early 2020. She was supposed to move to New York to kick start her stage career in the U.S. and enrolled in courses at the New York Film Academy, but life and the pandemic had other plans. Still experiencing the aimlessness all too common among recent grads, the Korean actress said she was searching for a great story to take on. Luckily a casting director had just the thing for Kim, who had neither a manager nor an agent in her corner at the time.
“Pachinko is totally a gift for me,” Kim says.
After learning about the project, Kim sped through Lee’s book overnight and sent in her self-tape. Hugh was initially cynical when the casting director first claimed she found the perfect fit. She had heard that line before. But after a worldwide search with a number of “extraordinary actresses”, callbacks and conversations, it was clear to Hugh and her team that Kim had cracked the Sunja code.
“You just got sucked in. There was something, everything we wanted. Timeless and yet specific. Innocent yet wise. Real and authentic,” Hugh recalls of Kim’s audition tape. “It was there from the very beginning.”
Throughout the series, Kim stretches her abilities to embody the joyous highs and devastating lows of Sunja’s coming of age. She stands tall in her silent defiance against the Japanese in the fish market. She shrinks in heartache and tears when she reveals her accidental pregnancy to her on-screen mother Inji Jeong. While seemingly effortless in her portrayal of the series’ central matriarch, Kim’s work wasn’t without rigorous research.
Like the creatives behind Pachinko, Kim engaged with numerous historical resources to better comprehend the geopolitical and social conditions surrounding Sunja during the late 1920s. Books and documentaries on the subject supplemented her school knowledge. Kim also looked to novels written during the turbulent era to fill in the gaps of fact with humanity and emotion. Her most valuable resource, however, was one she had known since birth.
Kim grew up hearing her grandmother, who had remained in Korea throughout the Japanese occupation and World War II, speak about her own experiences. Her grandmother’s stories of survival often filled the silence at various family gatherings. But Pachinko offered a rare opportunity for Kim to dig even deeper into her own family’s history.
“We talked for a few days and every time I heard a story from her, I couldn’t stop crying,” Kim recalls. “It was an intense conversation, and I can feel the intimacy between my grandmother and me. It was so precious.”
Kim cross-examined the facts she came across in historical journals and documentaries with her inherited primary source. “‘Is that true? Did you really do that?’ And she said, ‘Obviously, it was worse than that.’” From Kim’s own time with her grandmother came a character in which viewers could identify their own mothers, family members and themselves.
Back in the Yeongdo fish market, K-drama heartthrob Lee Minho makes his debut as the respected, or feared, Koh Hansu, an older Korean businessman with his own traumas and connections to Japanese elites. Lee found himself doing something that he hadn’t done in nearly a decade: auditioning for a part. The audition process isn’t the most common practice in the Korean entertainment scene, and even less so for stars like the Boys Over Flowers breakout. But he was game.
“He’s like, ‘This is new for me, let’s try,’” Soo remembers of Lee’s audition. “Minho’s just one of those people that really thrives on challenges. He just likes always trying new things, so this was new for him. He’s like, ‘Interesting, let’s see how this process works.’”
A self-proclaimed “big fan” of the hit high school series Boys Over Flowers, Kim says she felt an immediate “great power” from her co-star during the chemistry audition.
“He has such powerful eyes. Whenever I look at his eyes, I get energy from his eyes,” Kim notes.
Minha Kim as teenage Sunja and Lee Minho as Koh Hansu in Pachinko. Apple
A longing gaze in the fish market is what sets off the series’ central romance and Sunja’s complicated multi-national journey. Kim views Lee’s Hansu as an encyclopedia of sorts for her character. After their initial encounter in the fish market, Sunja and Hansu grow close. He explains what the world has to offer outside of her small fishing village—abundant electricity, sweet oranges and candies.
On a riverbed boulder, Hansu roughly charts a map of the world for Sunja, including Japan and the United States, nations Sunja and her descendants will eventually attempt to call home as ‘Zainichi’—ethnic Koreans who migrated to Japan under colonial rule, and their descendants.
Several decades after the Japanese occupation of Korea and World War II, a 74-year-old Sunja flies first class from Osaka back to the Busan shores of her childhood. She runs from her taxi to the water. As she revels in the feeling of the sea’s welcoming, wet embraces, rain begins to pour. Droplets become indistinguishable from her tears of joy. This moment could not have been more frustrating for Oscar winner Yuh-jung Youn.
“I tried to put all the emotion over there, and then all of a sudden, they start pouring the rain,” Youn says. “I couldn’t act. I was upset with [director] Justin [Chon]. Sunset was just going down very fast, so I was just frustrated.”
Fresh off her Oscar-winning turn as the uncouth Grandmother Soonja in Lee Isaac Chung’s Minari, Youn says she felt an “immediate connection to Sunja”. Convincing the Korean acting vet, whose career spans more than 50 years and titles, including Dear My Friends and Lucky Chan-Sil, to take on another matriarch was no issue. Getting her to audition, however, was another story.
According to Hugh, Youn “rightfully so” rejected the request to try out. Youn, an icon in her own right, said auditioning for the Pachinko role held a certain weight for her career.
“I told [Hugh and Kogonada], ‘I understand your culture, but in Korea, everybody knows me. If I fail, they will think I failed, even if I’m not suitable for that role,’” Youn explains. “If I audition for that role, and then if I fail, rumor will get all over the country. ‘Oh, Yuh-jung Youn failed that role.’ I didn’t want to have that reputation. I didn’t want to ruin my 50-year career with one audition.”
What followed were conversations between Hugh, Kogonada and the star. Youn, born in North Korea shortly after the Japanese occupation, spoke about her personal connections with the character. She said her mother, like Sunja, lived through the Korean War, Japanese occupation and World War II. Born in 1947, Youn said she also experienced some of Korea’s turbulent history herself. She knew that she could play this role better than anybody. After conversations with the actress, that also became evident to Hugh and Kogonada, who directed four episodes including the pilot.
While her mother’s experiences of perseverance did not precisely match those of Sunja’s, Youn says her family history informed and nourished her performance as the Baek family matriarch: “It’s all in my body and in my thoughts.” The same goes for her own experiences as a single mother to two boys. While she didn’t have to sell kimchi in a foreign land to make a living like Sunja, Youn took up any opportunity to provide for her children following her divorce.
“I’d just get any job, any role. Maybe if they asked me to audition at the time, of course, I would do the audition,” she laughs.
In Pachinko, Sunja’s sacrifice and need to provide extends well into the ’80s to her grandson Solomon, portrayed by Love Life and Devs alum Jin Ha. A prestigious university graduate with a well-paying and seemingly stable career, Solomon can easily represent what many immigrants hope for in their future generations. The unspoken pressure to succeed after multiple eras of sacrifice, however, only grows more complex with his family’s geographical displacement and historical discrimination. Throughout the series, Solomon attempts to persuade a reluctant Zainichi Korean landowner to sell the only home she’s known since the colonial era to impress his boss in Japan, who himself questions where the young financier’s internal loyalties lie.
Jin Ha. Josh Telles/Deadline
“He’s already juggling so many different sides of himself,” says Ha, who is Korean American. “Whether it’s interacting with his Zainichi family in Osaka—what that means in terms of straddling the two cultures and histories there within himself—or if it’s him existing in spaces in Tokyo as a Zainichi person, and then, on top of that is his experience in America as an Asian American. The specifics of his Zainichi identity… it’s not a welcome or understood nuance. It reproduces itself into something else that’s not found in Japan or Korea.”
Some of the series’ most obvious departures from the original novel lay within Solomon. Using the character’s 50 pages as a starting point, Ha worked closely with Hugh to further flesh out his character’s various arcs, from his professional pursuits to his final moments with ex-girlfriend Hana. As Hugh says, “Solomon is our clay… let’s take that scalpel, and we’re going to form a human being.” Ha recalls that Solomon posed a peculiar challenge for Hugh, perhaps because he “demanded a sort of self-reflection that maybe she didn’t have to go through with a lot of the other characters”.
“We were working on this character together like we were two actors working on the same role. The conversations felt that easy and that personal too,” Ha says. “It was a lot of the traumas in our own life or the experiences in our life that resonate with Solomon’s character and therefore we can try to understand where he’s coming from.”
From expressing the complexities of Solomon’s identity to building some of his story from scratch, Ha says that he felt his Pachinko character was “certainly the biggest and most challenging role” of his career yet. To make the character even more of a challenge, Ha had to speak in three languages: Korean, English and Japanese. He was fluent in the first two coming into the role but received assistance from a team of translators and dialect coaches for the latter, once cast.
Pachinko presents audiences with color-coded subtitles—yellow for Korean dialogue and blue for Japanese. Each character interaction, across nations and eras, presents a unique set of subtitle combinations. Heart-wrenching dialogue between a teenage Sunja and her mother is entirely yellow. Solomon’s promises to boss Abe-san flash blue. But conversations between Solomon and his father Mozasu (Soji Arai) can often display both, to indicate switching between the two languages.
For Hugh, featuring all three languages—each with various dialects and accents—was essential.
“[Without the languages] I think you have no idea what it means to lose your home and then go to a country that’s not yours,” she says. “I think you have no idea what it means to speak from one generation to another and not be able to speak fully with them just because your language isn’t there. All of our big themes would have fallen completely flat.”
Engaging performances by devoted actors and linguistic authenticity are just two parts to the equation behind Pachinko. A massive, transnational saga also required transporting audiences through history and across country lines. The season’s eight episodes take viewers from from a humble boarding house in Yeongdo, to the dimly-lit and grimy streets of Ikaino, Osaka; to the site of the devastating Great Kantō earthquake and to the geometric finance offices where Solomon seeks to prove his worth.
Production, which began in October 2020, brought Pachinko’s cast and crew to Korea and Vancouver. The series was supposed to also film in Japan, but pandemic restrictions put a wrench in the initial plans. Nevertheless, production designer Mara LePere-Schloop and her team worked to place and recreate the scaffolds and silhouettes of the past.
Like the stars’ performances themselves, building out the world of Pachinko required deep research into various eras of architecture, geography and more. The designers, with teams based in Korea, Japan and the U.S., consulted a variety of resources including rare photographs to build their historically accurate visions. The result are environments that help the performers, like Kim, immerse themselves into their respective decades.
“I couldn’t shut my mouth. I was just taking photos of [the sets] secretly,” Kim says. “Mara and [prop master] Ellen [Freund], I would always tell them ‘Thank you so much for making these fascinating sets. It helps me so much.’”
Set against a meticulously constructed recreation of an Osaka train station, is one of the most significant scenes in both the book and series. Sunja, now a mother of two sons, maneuvers a wood cart stocked with kimchi. Onlookers, both Korean and Japanese, sneer at her fermented cabbages, fearful that the dish’s trademark smell will drive away business. Now the primary breadwinner following her husband’s arrest, Sunja taps into the business savvy and persuasion of her hometown fisherman to convince passersby to sample, and purchase, her kimchi.
“Best kimchi in the world! My mother’s special recipe,” she touts. “This is my country’s food!”
One of the final frames of the season, the kimchi scene—with a standout performance by Kim, decade-defining sets from LePere-Schloop and even era-appropriate cabbage sizes curated by Freund—is a definite culmination of the many layers of intentionality and dedication from across the Pachinko team.
While a series that seeks to dazzle with star power, size and scale, at its core Pachinko is a tribute to a community whose stories haven’t had much time in the spotlight. With its season finale, Pachinko brings the fictional tale back to its roots by featuring the testimonies of real-life Sunjas: Zainichi Korean elders. Filmed in Japan during the pandemic, the intimate conversations see the women—who range from 85 to 100 years old—reminisce on loss, hunger, and the challenges of assimilation. But while flipping through scrapbooks filled with black-and-white family photos, the women also reflect on the lives they’ve made for their families, despite the history that they’ve come to accept, not resent.
The testimonies were initially slated to come at the end of what Hugh imagined as a four-season journey. But unsure whether Pachinko would even make it to Season 2, Hugh says she “started to feel this sense of urgency. Who knows how much longer these women will be with us?”
She continues: “[Pachinko] was built on the backs of real people who lived. These lives really did have this kind of trajectory and we really wanted to make that as powerful as possible. These women, for so long they didn’t think their stories were at all worthy to be told, and the lives of all those women are anything but boring. They’re extraordinary.”
Confronting the past—by having intimate conversations with our elders, flipping through history books or embodying those who came before us—is what molds identity and keeps the often private, personal stories of survival and love from slipping between the cracks of the monumental.
Exposing the experiences like those of her mother to educate younger generations like her sons’, was Youn’s mission for Sunja. “You need to learn the history, and why we are who we are today,” she insists.
Sunja’s story may be one among millions of migrants, but it’s one that hits home for viewers across ethnicity, nationality and age. The evidence? The viewers who have sent Kim Sunja-themed gifts and expressed that they felt seen in her performances.
“Whenever I got their reactions, I feel like I’m alive,” she recalls of one fan event held at an Apple Store in Korea. “This is my responsibility as an actress and as a storyteller. This is my job. I feel so proud of my job. Whenever I get people telling me that, ‘You remind me of my grandmother,’ I’m speechless because even though I’m not Sunja in real life, I get the chance to give them courage, which I get a lot of courage from other actors and actresses. It’s like the vice versa. It’s so mutual.”
Read the digital edition of Deadline’s Emmy Drama magazine here.
Facing similar interactions was Ha, who recently had a ride-share driver tell how Pachinko has educated her on the Zainichi experience and Korea’s history. With moments like that, Ha says, he “couldn’t ask for anything more in my heart”. Pachinko has clearly created conversations about family and helped renew interest in Korea’s past, but even just on paper, the series is a welcome and sophisticated addition to the ever-growing American television landscape. As Hugh notes, a show like Pachinko—with its predominantly Asian cast told in three languages centering on a minority of the Asian diaspora—would not have been possible even five years ago. But in 2022, Pachinko is a reality and is nothing short of “groundbreaking”, notes Ha.
“We live in a world of superlatives and hyperbole, but I think ‘groundbreaking’ is actually accurate. There have been other American-produced shows that have featured multiple languages, but I don’t think at this scale and certainly not these languages. How much it centers, and focuses almost entirely on, Korean and Japanese and Zainichi characters… I don’t think we’ve seen that before, especially from our own perspective. It’s about us. It’s for us.”
18. No Progress on Name for New Presidential Office
It does mention the report we saw yesterday that said the temporary name is theYongsan Presidential Office (YPO).
It will be important to have a name that "sings" and rolls off the tongue in both Korea and English as well as have proud meaning (recall what SFC Provo said to COL Kirby in the Green Berets - the name of a building has to "sing," e.g., "Provo's Privy")
No Progress on Name for New Presidential Office
June 15, 2022 13:31
The presidential office has made no progress in finding a name for itself after it moved out of the old presidential palace of Cheong Wa Dae.
"A decision was made not to recommend a new name for the presidential office for now," presidential spokeswoman Kang In-sun said Tuesday. "Rather than choosing one hastily among those suggested, we decided to take more time until a suitable name emerges."
National flag-themed pinwheels spin in front of the presidential office in Yongsan, Seoul on Tuesday. /News1
From some 30,000 entries suggested by the public, five were picked for consideration including "People's House" and the address "Itaewon-ro 22," in emulation of 10 Downing Street, but none won a majority vote.
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
19. North Korean defector: I am terrified of the 'massive indoctrination coming from the left' in public schools
As an escapee from north Korea I have great respect for Yeonmi Park. And she has embraced capitalism and done very well for herself using her experiences to profitably sustain herself in the US.
But I think she needs to stay focused on north Korean human rights and focus her activism on north Korea. She appears to be co-opted here and her experience is being exploited to support an agenda within the culture war in the US. She is merely repeating talking points while making a comparison to authoritarian regimes. Her stance here diminishes her legitimacy though there are those that will support her because of the position she takes. Unfortunately this will undermine her message and activism more broadly. She should stick to what she knows and what she can effectively influence, e.g., the plight of the people in north Korea.
North Korean defector: I am terrified of the 'massive indoctrination coming from the left' in public schools
North Korean defector Yeonmi Park draws a parallel between Nazi ideology and the left-wing indoctrination
Yeonmi Park blasts the left-wing indoctrination in K-12 public schools in an interview with Fox News Digital.
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Yeonmi Park, who defected from North Korea on a quest for self-preservation and freedom, told Fox News Digital that she is worried freedoms are being lost in America amid what she describes as the left-wing indoctrination in K-12 schools.
"This is exactly the dictator's handbook. I mean, it's [Adolf] Hitler's youth, Mao's youth and Kim Il-Sung's youth. They always go for young children because they have [not] lived their life enough to... have critical thinking skills. Their brains are very plastic, very malleable, and easy to observe information and believe it and [they're] innocent," she said. "And... big killers [who] want to seize power from the people, they always mobilize the youth. And that is the truth that [worries me that], as a parent myself, that I cannot protect my child right now in America."
Park was born in Hyesan and said that the people are so oppressed in North Korea that they do not have the ability to describe it – the words were stolen in Orwellian fashion.
"So the thing about North Korea is that is so oppressed to the point we don't even have the word for oppression… There's actually even the control of the language in words. And this is why it concerns me where there's such a something called a speech code, the things that we cannot talk about in America right now," she added.
"I'm willing to move anywhere it takes for me to protect my child from this brainwashing," she said. "So when one more person convert[s] every day like that, we are going to end up like North Korea eventually. So I think it's our personal responsibility to protect as many people… [and] children as we can from this massive indoctrination coming from the left."
Park escaped in 2007 when she was 13; it was a long and treacherous journey to China, Mongolia, South Korea and then to the United States in 2014. "I escaped North Korea when I was 13 years old... And that journey led me to become trafficked in China and sold as a child sex wife… Currently, I'm right now actually fighting for freedom even in America."
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending a meeting. (STR/AFP via Getty Images)
"A lot of people in America who are born into freedom, they never had to fight for their freedom… I had to fight for freedom… I fought for it… So I think it gives me unique perspective and unique appreciation for what I have here," she said.
Park is raising her 4-year-old son in Chicago and says she is concerned about the indoctrination in the daycare she sends him to. "It's really worrisome because… I cannot afford not to work and… do homeschooling. I have to have him [in the] public education system."
"[In America,] it's all about this hierarchy of victimhood. And I see that my son... [is] learning their school, who is privileged, who is guilty," she said.
Park added that Ibram X. Kendi's antiracist socialism, whose concepts are taught in many U.S. schools, terrifies her. She recalls how North Koreans gave up their land and rights for the sake of equality and ended up getting nothing in return.
Ibram X. Kendi visits Build to discuss the book ‘Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You’ on March 10, 2020 in New York City. (Michael Loccisano)
"This is where it keeps me up at night. I never knew that I was going to be waking up at night and terrified being in America. I did that tons of nights in North Korea and China," she said.
"The definition of socialism means giving all the power to the government – they decide the means of production. They despise every aspect of our lives… In North Korea, they say, 'Okay, we're going to make sure everybody is equal... So give us all your land.' So we gave the regime all the land, so they abolish[ed] private property. Nobody could own anything. State owns it. And that is when they took everything, did not give anything back to us. And then when we gave all our rights, they didn't give anything back… That's a reality of socialism," she said.
North Korean defector Yeonmi Park speaks with Fox News Digital about her fears of socialism in the U.S. (Fox News Digital)
Park added that those who promote the ideology fail to study history.
"That's why we keep repeating it. We have seen how this plays a role, a playbook for dictators. There is a playbook for this elite… to seize power from people. And this brainwashing is a seed of that like making sure that everybody [is]… brainwash[ed] to believe this is a way to get to that paradise. And the paradise doesn't exist," she said.
Park is currently working on a book, which will be released in 2023, called "While Time Remains: A North Korean Defector's Search for Freedom in America" that explores the parallels between some trends in the U.S. and North Korea, such as speech censorship and demonizing groups of people for the purpose of exploiting power.
Hannah Grossman is an associate editor at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent on Twitter: @GrossmanHannah.
De Oppresso Liber,
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation
Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy
Editor, Small Wars Journal
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
Phone: 202-573-8647
