Quotes of the Day:
"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience."
- Hyman Rickover
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something."
- Plato
"There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free."
- Walter Cronkite
1. Another bad harvest in hungry North Korea underscores root cause of food crisis
2. 42% of North Korea's population was malnourished between 2018-20, FAO report says
3. Eighteen Months After COVID-19, North Korea Hints at Opening Border
4. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls Spreads, Including 'Aid Relationships.' Authorities issued strict orders to eradicate it.
5. S.Korean drivers panic buy urea after China tightens supply
6. America’s diplomatic approach with North Korea is flawed. It’s time to change tack
7. Dallas Theater Center comedy enrolls Kim Jong Un at boarding school in ‘stinky cheese’ Switzerland
1. Another bad harvest in hungry North Korea underscores root cause of food crisis
A useful report on the dire situation in the north.
What is the root cause of the food crisis? Kim Jong-un.
Excerpts:
This is a crisis that has been years in the making, and the normally secretive government in Pyongyang has been warning its citizens of troubles for months.
...
In most years, the military would get 60 percent of the harvest and the farmers 40 percent, a resident from North Hamgyong province who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA.
But this year the army will take whatever it needs. Given the low crop yields, the soldiers will likely literally eat into the farmers’ share.
Keeping the military fed is so important to regime survival that Kim Jong Un has said he feels like he is “walking on thin ice,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported in late October.
...
Brown said the overarching problem with North Korea’s food system is that it relies on a collective farming system.
“Farming is very difficult work and there's a lot of risk-taking. You don't know what's the weather is going to be like. So, you need to be rewarded for risk-taking. And you need to be rewarded for working hard. And the North Korean collectives don't reward," Brown said.
North Korea’s government mobilizes the broader public for free farm labor, but the practice hurts agriculture production rather than helping it, Mun Song Hui, chief editor of the Japan-based weekly magazine Shukan Kinyobi, told RFA.
Another bad harvest in hungry North Korea underscores root cause of food crisis
A poor harvest in North Korea may raise the risks that the country will face a repeat of the devastating famine it suffered in the 1990s that left millions of citizens dead.
Sources said a number of factors have left North Korea on the brink of another disaster: devastating summer floods from climate change, compounded by a lack of effort in the country to meet the environmental threat; a trade ban with China that shut off its number one source of food imports; and an antiquated collectivist agricultural system that destroys incentives to produce.
Moreover, the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is likely to leave it largely ineligible for significant food aid from countries outside of traditional allies China, which resumed trade with North Korea on Nov. 1, and Russia.
This is a crisis that has been years in the making, and the normally secretive government in Pyongyang has been warning its citizens of troubles for months.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization projected in June that North Korea would be short about 860,000 tons of food this year, or the amount that the population of 25 million consumes in about two months.
With 40 percent of that population undernourished, according to World Food Program estimates, and with starvation deaths already reported this year, the autumn harvest had to go off without a hitch. It did not.
This file photo shows workers at a collective farm in North Korea. Photo Credit: Reuters
“Farming was not good this year” a collective farmer from the country’s northeastern province of North Hamgyong told the Osaka-based North Korea news service Asia Press, which contacted their source at RFA’s request.
“This year’s farming yields are worse than last year’s, so the farmers won’t be able to receive their proper rations,” the farmer told the Japanese outlet over text messages sent via a Chinese mobile phone illegally smuggled across the border.
News of the poor harvest has reached North Korean refugees who escaped and are now living in South Korea, many of whom still maintain contact with their families in the North.
“I don’t know how it is compared to last year, but I think it’s because they had no fertilizer. You can’t really farm without fertilizer,” a refugee identified by the pseudonym Han Young-sun, who lived on the outskirts of a city near the North Korean border until escaping last year, told RFA’s Korean Service.
The lack of imported fertilizer is the result of the decision by Pyongyang and Beijing to shut down their border and suspend all trade at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.
The move devastated the North Korean economy and caused food prices to skyrocket. Without imports from China, the gap between domestic food production and demand couldn’t be closed.
In mid-October, authorities told citizens food scarcity problems could last through at least 2025. North Koreans previously had been warned shortages could be worse than during the 1994-1998 famine that killed, according to some estimates, as much as 10 percent of the population.
North Korean farmers work in a field of a collective farm in the area damaged by summer floods and typhoons in South Hwanghae province, North Korea in this file photo. Photo credit: Reuters
But as the government warns its citizens to conserve as much as they can, leaders are still promising to keep the nation’s soldiers as adequately fed as possible.
“They are saying that the rations from the farms are going to be short by about a month or two because the rice put aside for the military is the main priority,” the farmer told Asia Press.
In most years, the military would get 60 percent of the harvest and the farmers 40 percent, a resident from North Hamgyong province who requested anonymity for security reasons told RFA.
But this year the army will take whatever it needs. Given the low crop yields, the soldiers will likely literally eat into the farmers’ share.
Keeping the military fed is so important to regime survival that Kim Jong Un has said he feels like he is “walking on thin ice,” South Korea’s National Intelligence Service reported in late October.
To that end, authorities have bolstered surveillance of collective farms to prevent smuggling. Asia Press’ source said that farmers this year were unable to hide private gardens they use to supplement their official food sources, as they have in other years.
“From the farmer’s point of view, it’s hard to make a living by working on the farm, so they have been privately farming on small land in the mountains for extra food,” said Jiro Ishimaru, Asia Press’ chief editor.
“Our sources said that all of them were included in the farm crop calculation,” he said.
RFA reported recently that citizens mobilized for free farm labor during the harvest were subject to being frisked by guards to ensure they were not hiding grains of rice in their clothing.
Official statistics on the North Korean harvest have not yet been released, but figures are expected once the harvested rice is completely dried a threshed, a process that can take weeks.
Climate, coronavirus share blame
The North Korean government has blamed the current food crisis on many outside factors—the pandemic, U.S. and U.N. sanctions aimed at choking off its nuclear weapons program, and bad weather.
In the two summers since the pandemic began, severe flooding from heavy rains and a series of typhoons destroyed farms and crops in many parts of country.
Climate change is seen as the cause for the unusually wet summers. But a professor at South Korea’s Kyung Hee University told RFA that North Korea’s lack of environmental protection compounded the damage from the flooding. For years, North Korea’s landscape has been stripped of vegetation that would have held up some of the water.
“Starting from the Arduous March in the mid-1990s, people have gone to the mountains to find food, procure firewood, build terrace fields in the mountains, and export timber overseas to earn foreign currency,” said Kong Woo Seok, using the Korean term for the mid-1990s famine.
“Damage from meteorological phenomena coincided with the forests being destroyed,” he said.
Meanwhile, the trade ban with China imposed as a protection against the coronavirus left North Korea without a significant source of its food. The two countries resumed rail freight on Nov. 1, but the almost two years that the moratorium has been in place have taken a toll.
“North Korea is always short of food based on its own production, so it must import food. Humanitarian aid is needed if they cannot meet demands based on trade. But they are not procuring adequate imports or assistance this year,” Kwon Tae Jin, director for the Center for North Korea & Northeast Asian Studies at GS&J in South Korea, told RFA.
Kwon noted that from January to August, North Korea imported 4,000 tons of grain, a mere fraction of the 110,000 tons it imported during the same period last year, which included some months before the pandemic shut the border.
“Even if they import as much food as they can, they will still be short on food next year. They will have to ask the international community for humanitarian assistance,” said Kwon, who was interviewed before trade between China and North Korea resumed.
The international community is, however, wary of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and therefore unenthusiastic about providing Pyongyang with more food aid, Georgetown University’s William Brown told RFA.
“Until about four or five years ago, they steadily received food aid from the World Food Program, UN agencies and elsewhere, but in recent years since the sanctions came into effect, they have actually received very little food aid [except] some from China and Russia," Brown said.
Han Yong Hui, the leader of the Soa-Ri collective farm walks through a village in the area hit by floods and typhoons in South Hwanghae province, North Korea in this file photo. Photo credit: Reuters
No incentives
Brown said the overarching problem with North Korea’s food system is that it relies on a collective farming system.
“Farming is very difficult work and there's a lot of risk-taking. You don't know what's the weather is going to be like. So, you need to be rewarded for risk-taking. And you need to be rewarded for working hard. And the North Korean collectives don't reward," Brown said.
North Korea’s government mobilizes the broader public for free farm labor, but the practice hurts agriculture production rather than helping it, Mun Song Hui, chief editor of the Japan-based weekly magazine Shukan Kinyobi, told RFA.
“It is not easy to farm rice and you have to gain this experience over a long time, right? However, these mobilized students, who have no experience farming rice, are put out there and are not doing it correctly,” said Mun.
“I have heard from a North Korean farmer that the actual farmers have to fix it again and it puts more pressure on them. Also, if these mobilized workers come to the farms from far away, the farmers have to provide the meals and lodging for them. It becomes a large burden for the farmers,” she said.
Reported by Jong Min Noh, Soram Cheon and Sooyoung Park for RFA’s Korean Service and Nawar Nemeh for RFA’s English Service. Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
2. 42% of North Korea's population was malnourished between 2018-20, FAO report says
42% of North Korea's population was malnourished between 2018-20, FAO report says
Last Updated: 5th November, 2021 18:29 IST
A UN report released on November 5, revealed that 42% of North Koreans have been malnourished in last three years as the nation faces extreme food insecurity.
Written By
Image: AP
A UN report released on November 5, Friday, revealed that 42% of North Koreans have been malnourished in the last three years as the nation faces extreme food insecurity due to prolonged pandemic and terrible weather conditions, exacerbated by international sanctions.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) Statistical Yearbook - World Food and Agriculture 2021, as many as 10.9 million North Koreans, or 42.4% of the population, were malnourished between 2018 and 2020.
According to the report, "the economic constraints, particularly resulting from the global impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, have increased the population’s vulnerability to food insecurity."
The percentage is higher than the comparable rate of 33.8% in 2004-2006, but lower than the rate of 42.6% in 2017-2019. The UN has explained undernourishment as "habitual food consumption being insufficient to provide the dietary energy levels that are required to maintain a normal active and healthy life."
Somalia, Haiti, the Central African Republic, Yemen, and Madagascar are the only five nations that recorded a higher frequency of undernourishment than North Korea in the report. In the 2018-2020 timeframe, the average dietary energy supply of a North Korean was 2,075 calories per day, which was lower than the global average of 2,950 calories and South Korea's 3,465 calories.
Undernourished North Koreans
At of the end of 2020, around one in every five children under the age of five in North Korea had stunted growth, indicating chronic or recurrent malnutrition. According to the report, the child stunted growth rate was 18.2%, or around 300,000 children under the age of five.
The ratio is better from 29% in 2010, but it is still high when compared to the rest of the world. The FAO had predicted that North Korea would be short roughly 860,000 tonnes of food this year, which equates to about 2.3 months of food for the country. FAO included North Korea on its list of 44 countries in need of food aid in its most recent Crop Prospects & Food Situation report.
North Korea has been designated as a country with widespread lack of access to food, with a considerable part of the population suffering from low levels of food consumption and a lack of nutritional diversity.
North Korea has been suffering from chronic food insecurity for years, but the problem was exacerbated by last year's flooding, which devastated the country's farming economy. The COVID pandemic has further aggravated the country's food problem, as it relies on China for food and other commodities, but has banned all trade with its key partner in order to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.
3.Eighteen Months After COVID-19, North Korea Hints at Opening Border
Will they reopen the border? Or is Kim still too worried about his control over the population? If the people do not have a safety valve if the public distribution cannot provide for them and since the Arduous March of 1994-96 the growth of markets has provided that.If Kim does not open the border and allow the markets to flourish, we have to anticipate the effects over time.
Excerpts;
In spite of North Korea’s alleged lack of coronavirus cases, the country has faced an increasingly challenging economic situation since the start of the pandemic. In spite of the country’s autarkic system, Pyongyang still relies on Chinese imports for goods it cannot produce itself, and Beijing has historically supplied it with agricultural goods and equipment. In addition to official employment, many North Koreans have depended on an illicit economy of black-market smuggling—an economy that has been decimated by the border closure.
The country has also faced poor weather conditions in 2020 and 2021, including a spring drought followed by midsummer floods, destroying much of its agricultural output. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in July that the country would fall short of its basic food consumption needs by nearly one million tons by the end of 2021.
Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un made a rare acknowledgment of the country’s problems last month, admitting in a speech that the country’s five-year economic plan had failed on account of COVID-19.
Eighteen Months After COVID-19, North Korea Hints at Opening Border
In addition to official employment, many North Koreans have depended on an illicit economy of black-market smuggling—an economy that has been decimated by the border closure.
During the initial COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, North Korea became one of the first countries in the world to seal its borders to outsiders, fearing that the virus could overwhelm the country’s crumbling health care system.
Nearly two years later, the border remains sealed, but there have been signs that the self-imposed quarantine might be loosening. South Korea’s spy agency told Korean lawmakers last week that Pyongyang had reportedly engaged with China and Russia, discussing the resumption of trains across the border that it shares with the two nations. The agency also reported that North Korea had already accepted aid shipments from China during the pandemic.
Data from the General Administration of Chinese Customs, which is publicly available, indicated that in spite of the border closure, trade between Beijing and Pyongyang had increased to nearly $70 million in September, nearly double its volume of the previous month but still far below pre-pandemic levels.
North Korean officials have claimed that no virus cases have yet been recorded in the country, although there is no way this can be verified (and it has been the subject of considerable doubt). Earlier in the year, North Korea rejected a Chinese offer of three million doses of Beijing’s Sinovac vaccine, claiming that they should instead be sent to a country that needed them more.
In spite of North Korea’s alleged lack of coronavirus cases, the country has faced an increasingly challenging economic situation since the start of the pandemic. In spite of the country’s autarkic system, Pyongyang still relies on Chinese imports for goods it cannot produce itself, and Beijing has historically supplied it with agricultural goods and equipment. In addition to official employment, many North Koreans have depended on an illicit economy of black-market smuggling—an economy that has been decimated by the border closure.
The country has also faced poor weather conditions in 2020 and 2021, including a spring drought followed by midsummer floods, destroying much of its agricultural output. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated in July that the country would fall short of its basic food consumption needs by nearly one million tons by the end of 2021.
Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un made a rare acknowledgment of the country’s problems last month, admitting in a speech that the country’s five-year economic plan had failed on account of COVID-19.
Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.
Image: Reuters
4. ＜Inside N. Korea＞ Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls Spreads, Including 'Aid Relationships.' Authorities issued strict orders to eradicate it.
Another scourge in north Korea.
＜Inside N. Korea＞ Sex Trafficking of Underage Girls Spreads, Including 'Aid Relationships.' Authorities issued strict orders to eradicate it.
(Photo) Dressed-up junior high school girls. The influence of foreign fashions is evident in this photo. Photographed in October 2013 in Hyesan City, Ranggang Province (ASIAPRESS).
◆ "The situation is more serious than I imagined."
In North Korea, the prostitution of underage and high-class junior high school girls (corresponding to high schools in Japan) is spreading in urban areas, and the authorities have begun to crack down on it through youth organizations. Our reporting partner in North Korea investigated this situation by meeting with the schoolgirl association (Kang Ji-won).
"The Youth League was instructed to intensify its crackdown on the sex trade of high school girls and other youths and to eradicate it once and for all. Once arrested, they will be sent to a juvenile reformatory. I was surprised to hear from neighbours and schoolgirls that it was more serious than I had imagined."
A woman from North Hamkyung Province in the north part of the country told me this at the end of October.
The Youth League is a mass organization under the Workers' Party of Korea that organizes Socialist Patriotic Youth League students from upper secondary schools and university students to working youths up to 30.
The domestic economy has been paralyzed by the Kim Jong-un regime's extreme measures against the new coronavirus, such as closing the border with China. As a result, everyone's cash income has been drastically reduced. This reporting partner knew that more and more women were turning to prostitution due to poverty and that the crackdown intensified. However, she didn't know that the prostitution of underage girls was becoming so severe that the Youth League was taking internal control.
◆North Korea's version of "aid dating.'
To investigate the actual situation, our reporting partner began to conduct interviews. The following is the report.
"I knew a girl who was struggling to make ends meet, so I interviewed her. Her name is Jungmin, and she is 17 years old and a student at a high-class middle school. She told me that several girls around her sell their bodies daily to earn money. Some of them were receiving help from specific rich people."
It is North Korea's version of 'aid dating.'
"When I asked them how much money they received, they told me that they usually paid between 50 and 150 yuan in Chinese yuan, and sometimes 200 yuan if everything went well. With the younger kids, the rich and the executives probably pay a lot."
※10 yuan is about 1.56 USD
There are no love hotels in North Korea, and enforcement is strict. So how do they know where to go and how to keep it secret? Our reporting partner explains as follows.
"Since there are enforcement eyes on them, men often take the girls home with them. High school girls are still very naive and will often follow them home for money. Women who sell their bodies professionally will have a backup to protect them in case of a crackdown. Still, the girls will only have one friend standing guard outside. Prostitution is heavily policed as an 'unsocialist' activity, so these days, girls introduce their clients to each other."
◆The reason for the increase in prostitution is not only the deterioration of life.
Even schoolgirls are turning to prostitution because of the severe poverty of the ordinary people under the coronavirus situation. Our reporting partner recognizes this but focuses on the changing attitudes of the younger generation as well.
"Of course, everyone is struggling to make ends meet, and that is the main reason why prostitution is on the rise. Sometimes parents force their underage daughters into prostitution by telling them to 'go out and earn their own money.' But I think there is a big change in awareness. Some high school girls are making more money than adults by selling their bodies. This is probably because they are at an age when they have so many things they want to buy, but I think their perspective on sex and ethics has changed remarkably."
※ASIAPRESS contacts its reporting partners in North Korea through smuggled Chinese mobile phones.
※The title and part of the article were revised at 5:00 a.m. on November 1.
5. S.Korean drivers panic buy urea after China tightens supply
Chinese economic warfare or just Chinese domestic consideration? Is Russia really a good substitute?
Excerpts:
South Korea is heavily reliant on China for urea. About 97% of imports came from China between January and September, according to the trade ministry, up about 8% from a year ago.
China's customs announcement last month of inspection certificates to ship fertiliser and related materials like, a type of nitrogen mainly used as a fertiliser in agriculture, was considered a de facto ban on exports to assure supplies in its domestic market.
...
South Korea's presidential office on Friday set up a taskforce to ensure adequate supply of urea and initiate diplomatic consultation with producer countries like China, Park Soo-hyun, the presidential press secretary said in a statement.
Diversifying supply will not be easy as South Korea has become far too dependent on China, an official at a major South Korean urea suppliers told Reuters.
"We have signed contracts with Russia in October and it is only going to arrive in January. Yet again they are only about 10% of what we used to get from China," the official said. Inventory is likely to be depleted after November, he added.
S.Korean drivers panic buy urea after China tightens supply
By Sangmi Cha and Heekyong Yang
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean drivers are panic buying urea, an additive used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, after China tightened exports, prompting the president's office to set up a taskforce on Friday to negotiate supplies from producer states like China.
Diesel cars represent 40% of registered motor vehicles in South Korea as of August, government data showed, after South Korea in 2015 made it mandatory for diesel cars to use urea solutions to control emissions.
South Korea is heavily reliant on China for urea. About 97% of imports came from China between January and September, according to the trade ministry, up about 8% from a year ago.
China's customs announcement last month of inspection certificates to ship fertiliser and related materials like, a type of nitrogen mainly used as a fertiliser in agriculture, was considered a de facto ban on exports to assure supplies in its domestic market.
Prices of industrial urea in South Korea jumped more than 80% to $483 per tonnes in September from October 2020, said the trade ministry.
A barrel of urea solution that used to cost 10,000 won ($8.45) per 10 litre was now traded at as much as 120,000 won on online second-hand markets, local media reports said.
Desperate South Korean drivers looking for urea solutions, also known as diesel exhaust fluid, were sharing locations of gas stations that still had inventory, while those who had stocked up ahead were selling at steep markups.
Local broadcasters featured gas stations that put up signs that read "Urea solution SOLD OUT".
“I cannot move out my SUV... picnics can be cancelled, it's okay. But what if container trucks, fire engines, ambulances have to stop?” a diesel trader told Reuters.
“For my SUV, I can fill 15-20 litres of additive in one shot and can run 3,000-5,000 kilometres. But heavy duty vehicles consume more,” he said, adding this could mean a bigger problem in the heavy trucking sector. “It could decrease diesel consumption nationwide, if the situation goes worse.”
South Korea's presidential office on Friday set up a taskforce to ensure adequate supply of urea and initiate diplomatic consultation with producer countries like China, Park Soo-hyun, the presidential press secretary said in a statement.
Diversifying supply will not be easy as South Korea has become far too dependent on China, an official at a major South Korean urea suppliers told Reuters.
"We have signed contracts with Russia in October and it is only going to arrive in January. Yet again they are only about 10% of what we used to get from China," the official said. Inventory is likely to be depleted after November, he added.
($1 = 1,184.0900 won)
(Reporting by Sangmi Cha, Heekyong Yang; Additional reporting by Samanta Koustav in Singapore and Emily Chow in Shanghai; Editing by Michael Perry and Toby Chopra)
6. America’s diplomatic approach with North Korea is flawed. It’s time to change tack
It is frustrating to read these proposals and recommendations. Two things stand out. One, the authors always blame the US for failure and not the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime. And second, these recommendations depend on the assumption that Kim will in fact negotiate in good faith as a responsible member of the international community and actually wants peaceful coexistence.
America’s diplomatic approach with North Korea is flawed. It’s time to change tack | Daniel L Davis
America’s overriding primary objective on the Korean peninsula is to avoid unnecessary war. It’s going about it the wrong way
The Guardian · by Lt Col Daniel L Davis (ret) · November 6, 2021
Amid calls for increasing dialogue with Pyongyang from both Washington and Seoul, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, continues ratcheting up the pressure with missile tests. Diplomatic opportunities to de-escalate the situation on the peninsula should be pursued. Yet regardless of whether talks produce a breakthrough or not, the situation relative to US national security will remain the same: America is safe and North Korea is deterred.
Last Sunday, US envoy to North Korea, Sung Kim, called on Pyongyang to stop “provocations and other destabilizing activities” and “engage in dialogue”. On Monday, the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, said he would redouble his efforts to establish a “new order for peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula … through dialogue and diplomacy”. Up to this point, the North Korean leadership has been cool to the overtures. It’s not hard to figure out why.
While US envoy Kim called for dialogue on Sunday, he also reiterated one of Washington’s longstanding objectives that has obstructed any movement towards a diplomatic breakthrough. “Our goal,” the US envoy declared, “remains the complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” What remains to be explained, however, is how the Biden administration interprets that statement.
The Obama administration and eventually the Trump administration defined the “full and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” as meaning North Korea had to first give up its nuclear weapons and program before the US would grant any sanctions relief – a complete non-starter for Pyongyang.
The North Koreans are assessed to have at least 60 deliverable nuclear warheads. Kim Jong-un regards his nuclear arsenal as being the best guarantee against a US military attack against his country and regime. It would be irrational, therefore, to expect the North Korean leader to willingly hand over his only strategic deterrent in exchange for mere promises from Washington. It’s not going to happen.
The good news is US national security is assured regardless of what does or doesn’t happen diplomatically on the peninsula. The nuclear genie, so to speak, is out of the bottle, and we can never put it back: Kim has a credible nuclear option that effectively deters the US from launching any wars of choice or so-called “pre-emptive” wars.
In an even stronger way, however, the United States – with its 4,571 to 60 advantage in nuclear weapons – can deter Kim Jong-un indefinitely from ever using his nuclear arsenal in a war of choice against us. Yet there are plenty of actions Washington can take to reduce even the chances for accidents or miscalculations that could inadvertently lead to military clashes between the US and North Korea.
On Monday, South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy, Noh Kyu-duk, tried to breathe new life into the idea of declaring a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean war. Such an action – which is distinct from a peace treaty – could have the effect of serving “as a gateway for talks on achieving complete denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula”, Noh explained, “and the establishment of a permanent peace”.
If the Biden administration follows the failed playbook of virtually every other administration since the early 1990s and holds out for a complete denuclearization by North Korea as a prerequisite for progress, Biden will come up short as all those before him did.
But if he instead places denuclearization as an eventual aspiration – as, pointedly, both Moon and Kim Jong-un have done – featuring instead a step-by-step approach in which we make a number of progressively small steps matched by Pyongyang making steps of their own, the chances of even accidental war will continue to diminish and the prospects for peace rise.
For example, the United States can offer limited (and reversable) sanctions-relief for major steps by North Korea, such as nuclear freezes, the dismantling of major nuclear production facilities, and other meaningful concessions. But it is important to acknowledge that in order to get a major concession from North Korea, we have to be mentally prepared to give them something of value as well; no party will every negotiate away something important for nothing in return.
America’s overriding primary objective on the Korean peninsula is to avoid unnecessary war and preserve economic opportunity for our country. A maximalist policy that demands Pyongyang denuclearize before the US offers anything in return offers little maneuvering room for meaningful diplomacy. The US already has the military power to deter Pyongyang indefinitely. The administration should therefore do whatever it takes, in a diplomatic step-by-step process, to lower the tensions and increase the chances for peace.
Daniel L Davis is a senior fellow for defense priorities and a former lieutenant colonel in the US army who deployed into combat zones four times. He is the author of The Eleventh Hour in 2020 America. Follow him @DanielLDavis1
The Guardian · by Lt Col Daniel L Davis (ret) · November 6, 2021
7. Dallas Theater Center comedy enrolls Kim Jong Un at boarding school in ‘stinky cheese’ Switzerland
And now for something completely different.
Dallas Theater Center comedy enrolls Kim Jong Un at boarding school in ‘stinky cheese’ Switzerland
Playwright Don X. Nguyen’s world premiere of ‘The Supreme Leader’ was inspired by a rumor that the future North Korean dictator spent time in the ‘neutral country’ as a boy.
When he started doing research on Kim Jong Un not long after the North Korean dictator came to power, Don X. Nguyen didn’t find much information on the Internet. Kim’s ascension had been a surprise.
But there was one nugget that put in motion a journey that eventually spawned The Supreme Leader, now enjoying its world premiere at Dallas Theater Center: It was rumored that as a boy Kim had attended boarding school in Switzerland.
Nguyen ran with the idea, writing a fish-out-of-water comedy full of stinky cheese. He had been struck by the fact that the adult Kim was being mocked simply for how he looked. Growing up in Nebraska after his family escaped South Vietnam on the day Saigon fell, Nguyen could relate.
“It was a sensitive issue for me,” the 49-year-old playwright explains in a phone interview. “I don’t want to say I sympathize with him, but it was weirdly unfair.”
His research also led to a class photo of Kim. There was a girl in the picture. “Did they get along?” he wondered.
“As an exercise, I set out to write one scene. I put him in school in Switzerland. What happens when he meets a classmate for the first time? I was thoroughly surprised how much I was invested in these two characters and started to write more scenes.”
Oscar Seung (left) plays future North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un during his senior year at a Swiss boarding school in Dallas Theater Center's premiere of playwright Don X. Nguyen's comedy "The Supreme Leader." McKenna Marmolejo stars as his American love interest, Sophie Prescott.(Karen Almond)
At one point, he set the play in the present with boarding school as a flashback. But that approach became problematic. “He comes with a lot of baggage that the play shouldn’t take on,” Nguyen says. “It’s a Pandora’s box. So I decided it should happen before he does the things he does.”
The Supreme Leader had three developmental readings but no theater company would mount a full production. Nguyen questioned whether people were afraid.
He had given up on it when he thought to send the play to Liz Frankel, the former literary manager of the Public Theater in New York who had run an emerging writers’ group he’d won entry to in 2008. He had one condition: “Tell me why no one wants to produce the play.”
Oscar Seung (left) stars as future North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and Albert Park plays his minder at a Swiss boarding school in the premiere of playwright Don X. Nguyen's comedy "The Supreme Leader" at Dallas Theater Center.(Imani Thomas)
Frankel, who had read an early draft, advised him that The Supreme Leader was a rom-com but was also trying to deal with North Korean politics. “Decide which way to go and go boldly in that direction.”
For a Star Trek fan like Nguyen — his first full length play to be professionally produced was called Three to Beam Up — the message was clear. “Her succinct notes unlocked something,” he says. “It’s an origin story.”
Frankel, director of new work at the Alley Theatre in Houston, put the revised play in the Alley’s 2019 reading series, where Dallas Theater Center artistic director Kevin Moriarty saw it.
It now takes place entirely at the Swiss boarding school during Kim’s senior year. Kim (Oscar Seung) and his American love interest Sophie Prescott (McKenna Marmolejo) don’t exactly meet cute. At first, she’s more intrigued by him than vice-versa. For starters, he wears a Chicago Bulls jersey and worships Michael Jordan.
His guard up in a foreign environment, he just wants to paint and be left alone. His minder (Albert Park) tries to enforce this separation from his classmates — the sons and daughters of diplomats — especially after his brother, the heir apparent, gets caught in a compromising position. Kim must prove he’s worthy of the title supreme leader.
Nguyen plays the back-and-forth between Kim and Sophie and with his minder and Sophie’s boyfriend Roger (Garrett Weir) for big laughs until The Supreme Leader takes a more serious turn near the end.
Switzerland becomes a character and Ikea takes a special beating. “It’s a great place to set a play because of its reputation as a neutral country,” he says. “It’s easy to make fun without insulting anyone: the cheese, the yodeling.”
From left, Garrett Weir, McKenna Marmolejo and Oscar Seung in Dallas Theater Center's premiere of "The Supreme Leader."(Karen Almond)
Though Nguyen flirted with playwriting in high school with short, funny scenes he believed people wanted, he didn’t catch the bug until college at the University of Nebraska. However, his preparation began years earlier.
His father had been a South Vietnamese naval officer. Nguyen was 3 when his family fled Saigon on April 30, 1975 — the day the communists took the city — first on a motorcycle carrying him, his parents and his sister to the docks. Transported by a U.S. ship to the Philippines and then to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas, Nguyen grew up in and around Lincoln, Neb.
He remembers the noise and chaos of their escape and his grandmother kissing him goodbye. She would not leave the country. At sea, he remembers the bright moon and his mother telling him they were headed to a new home. In Nebraska, he remembers, the roads paved with brick contrasted with the dirt streets of Saigon.
Despite the trauma, Nguyen didn’t feel different from the other kids until a nun at his Catholic school asked him if he knew what his father did for a living. He didn’t. She told the youngster his father was a businessman, though he worked at a bank. He later went on to study computer science and became a programmer, Nguyen says.
Oscar Seung (left) stars as future North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in Dallas Theater Center's premiere of playwright Don X. Nguyen's comedy "The Supreme Leader." Albert Park plays his minder during Kim's senior year at a Swiss boarding school.(Karen Almond)
The play that he eventually wrote about his father’s military experiences, The Man From Saigon, premiered in 2017 at a new play festival at Actors Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. An earlier draft had gotten him into the Public Theater’s emerging writers program and precipitated his move to New York.
But it had started way back when he was 20 and told his father he had decided to become a playwright. “It was so weird,” Nguyen says. “For the first time, he started to tell me about his life in Vietnam before the war. It was like a gift.”
Nguyen took notes and turned them into a short play. A teacher observed that he had found his voice. “I didn’t know what that meant,” he recalls, “but I realized I could write something deeper.”
Details
The Supreme Leader runs through Nov. 21 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. $17.50-$75. dallastheatercenter.org.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
