Just cuz this shouldn’t go unnoticed — Japan Just Lost to NK in Soccer


First NK shuns Japan at the 6-party talks, now their soccer team is making Japan look like a bunch of fancy boys. I gotta say, the North Koreans sure know how to make someone feel unwelcome:

Japan stunned by N. Korea at E. Asian c’ship

Monday, August 1, 2005 at 07:38 JST
DAEJEON — Japan’s hopes of lifting their first east Asian championship title suffered an unexpected blow on Sunday after a shock 1-0 defeat to North Korea on the opening day of the four-team tournament in South Korea.

Kim Young Jun capitalized on some poor defending to strike the decisive goal in the 27th minute at Daejeon World Cup Stadium as North Korea avenged their recent 2-0 defeat in the Asian zone qualifying competition for next year’s World Cup finals.

I couldn’t find any pictures from the game but this was linked on Xinhua’s site:

Yowzer!

Racist Korean Commercial


When looking for an example of “krumping,” some kind of new dance style, I came across this interesting, if a little long, cell phone commercial from Korea (set in Australia apparently). While watching, try and notice:

1. The cool dancing — there’s a lag in the middle but when they dance it’s good.
2. The group of “black people” who try and shoplift merchandise from the supermarket where the heroine works and then later feebly chase and attack her for no reason (only to be heroicly rescued by the hero on a motorcycle — how daring!). Is black people stuffing duffel bags full of merchandise really a problem in Korean supermarkets in Australia? I was under the impression that there wasn’t even much of a black population there.
3. The random panel of white people she’s auditioning for at the beginning and the end of the video. I guess auditioning for the white people makes it that much more dramatic than if she were trying to get in a Korean music video or something.

I mean, I guess you can’t avoid the use of quick symbolism in a short, silent film such as this. But “blacks = thugs, whites = rich and powerful record executives” seems a little too convenient. (Thanks to Kancoma for the link)

Six-party talks were Japan’s idea, says former Assistant Secretary of State James A. Kelly

From Asahi:

Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs for the US Dept. of State James A. Kelly, who acted as head representative of the US for the 6-Party talks dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue, revealed that the creation of the 6-Party Talks was Japan’s idea. When then-Secretary of State Colin Powell visited Japan, China, and Korea in 2003, the Japanese government presented the structure of the talks to him. He then proceeded to China, where he persuaded then-Premier Jiang Zemin to go along, succeeding in forcing North Korea, who had wanted a bilateral solution between NK and the US, to deal with the issue multilaterally.

According to an interview with Kelly from his residence in Hawaii, in 2003, the year in which North Korea worsened the nuclear problem by restarting the nuclear facility at Yong Byong, the US was considering multilateral talks that included the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, Japan, South Korea, the EU, Australia and others using multiple combinations.

The Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) presented the idea of either 5-party talks including North and South Korea as well as the US, Japan, and China, or 6-party talks including Russia as well, when Powell visited Japan, South Korea, and China on the event of South Korean President Roh Mu Hyun’s inauguration in February of the same year. The proposal was based on the frustrating experience of being left out of the “4-party talks” between the US, China, and North and South Korea.

“Powell presented the idea as coming from the US, since he thought it would be easier for the Chinese to agree than if he said it was Japan’s idea,” Kelly explained. China was initially hesitant, saying, “The nuclear problem is between the US and North Korea,” but America was insistent. After a three-party talk in April, the first six-party talks started in Beijing in August 2003.

Kelly said, “The six-party talks are the best framework to induce North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. North Korea isn’t responding because it doesn’t like to feel ganged up on 5 to 1.” Expressing his desire to see the talks reopened, Kelly added, “The six-party talks aren’t dead.”

【和訳】北朝鮮に関する米政府の最近の発言 Just because: Stuff American officials have said about North Korea (Japanese ONLY)

If you care about this stuff, go to the White House (boring and patriotic), State Dept. (elegant and easy to navigate), and Defense Dept. (slick and expensive-looking) websites. It’s all there in English.

ブッシュ大統領
5月31日の記者会見にて

Q:イラク戦争の前にあなたは「イラク戦争は他の国のWMD開発の抑止となる」と言っていたが、実際はイランや北朝鮮では何の抑止にもなっていないじゃないか。

A:北朝鮮は2000年以前にも隠れた兵器プログラムを持っていた。我々は北朝鮮と2カ国協約を結んでいたが、北朝鮮はそれを破った。それで、私は政策を変えて、北朝鮮が核開発プログラムを廃止するように他の国の参加を呼びかけた。
中国が「責任のある国家であれば、兵器プログラムを廃止しろ」と我々と同じことを言っていることが重要だ。 日本、韓国、ロシアも同じことを言っていることも重要だ。
北朝鮮の件で問題が山積みであるがやめるわけではないし、責任のある国家として扱って欲しいなら、参加している5カ国を聞かなければならないとはっきり分からせることに努力を続けるつもりだ。

Q: 今朝あなたは北朝鮮を扱うのに外交がベストな手法だと言っていたが、失礼だけど、「外交は何の成果を果たしておらず、むしろ北朝鮮核開発を進歩させたじゃないか」と言う人がいる。
A: はい。
Q How do you — what do you say to them? そういう人にたいしてどう言い返すか。
A: さて、考えよう。もし外交が間違った方法であれば、次は軍事だ。それは私の考え方、外交か軍事かだ。私は外交に賛成である。だから、あらゆる提案は検討中だが、外交で解決する機会がある。

チェイニー
先週:チェニー「金正日は無責任」とののしったことに対して、北朝鮮の報道はCHENEYのことを「血に飢えた獣性」と言い返した。

ライス国務大臣

5月26日・BLOOMBERGとのインタビューにて

Q:アメリカと中国にとって今年でもっとも重要な成果とは何か。

A: 色々な面で米中関係が強くなったので、全体的に米中関係は強くなっている。江沢民の完全なる引退をゆえに実力を固めた胡錦涛大統領はとてもいい関係を確立している。北朝鮮の核問題で協力と調整を維持している。未だに解決されていないが、アメリカと中国が、特に北朝鮮と近隣国家である中国が受ける大変なプレッシャーを受けているにもかかわらず、外交を通じて「非核の朝鮮半島」に関して継続的に取り組んでいることはかなりの成果だと思う。
対テロの面でも協力を強くなっており、ほぼなんでも正直に、そして露骨に話せるような関係を作った。

Q:中国が6カ国協議において役立っていると言っているが、中国は米国が(北朝鮮と)もっと実質的な2カ国協議を行って欲しいと言明している。なぜアメリカは2カ国協議をしないか。

A: それは、既にその道で1994年に協約を結んだが、違う手段で核開発を図ってそれをすぐ破ったからだ。
アメリカは北朝鮮と2カ国協議を行うと、NKがケチを言って米朝間の問題にすることができる。しかし、米朝間の問題ではない。地域はどんな形になるのかや、核を持った北朝鮮は朝鮮半島に存在するのかという問題で、それは日本、韓国、中国、ロシア、それからアメリカの安保にとってどんな意味を持つかという問題だ。
6カ国協議の本当の成果は何かというと、いまだに北朝鮮問題を解決していないが、核を持った北朝鮮はアメリカの問題だけじゃなく、北朝鮮の近隣国全部にとって問題であることをハッキリさせたことだと思う。その枠組みを維持しなければならない。我々は(北朝鮮と)はなしている。コミュニケーション目的(交渉目的じゃない)でニューヨークを通じて(北朝鮮と)はなしている。6カ国協議の形でも話している。北朝鮮と話すことが怖いわけではない。ただ、その会話がどんな形を取るかという問題だから、その形が米朝の二カ国関係についてであれば、話すことはあまりない。

Q:この5年で核技術を拡大してきたのにかかわらず、それに対する罰は極めて軽かった。そのまま続けないと思わせる理由はあるか。

A: 罰は軽かったとは思わない。機会費用ならいっぱい費やしているに違いない。1999,2000,2001年には、ロシアと拡張的な関係について協議があった。ルーチンは北朝鮮を訪れた。日本と外交正常化についても協議があった。南北対話も大きく進歩していた。我々も2002年に北朝鮮に対して「大胆なアプローチ」という政策を準備していた。それはリビアに対するアプローチとよく似ており、アメリカや地域全体にももっと改善した関係への道でもっと正常的な関係につながるはずだった。

ラムスフェルド防衛大臣
6月4日・International Institute for Strategic Studiesにて

Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, Saturday, June 4, 2005.

世界で最も自由と圧制の違いがはっきりと現れているところは朝鮮半島と言えよう。
私は「夜で見る朝鮮半島」の衛星写真を机の上に飾っている。DMZの下、南の半分にはほとんど光に覆われている。それは電力、活発している経済、それから生き生きしている民主主義のある国家を意味している。そして、DMZの北をご覧になれば、ピョンヤンのわずかな光を除いて暗闇しか見えない。北でも南でも同じ国民で、同じ資源を持っている。その違いは自由だ。政治的自由と経済的自由。
現場に行けばその対象がさらにハッキリして、意味深いである。大韓民国は自由な国民と自由な市場における活力(DYNAMISM)の一例である。
比較すると、北朝鮮におけるスターリン主義政権を考えてみてください。あそこでは:
反体制の人の子供や孫が強制労働をさせられる
逃れた難民が外国から拉致される、それから
飢餓に遭っている国民が一粒のご飯を見つけるために荒地を探す。

北朝鮮で数ヶ月子供の医療をしていた欧州の医者はこう言った。「北朝鮮では二つの世界がある。ひとつは軍事高官・高層の人たちの世界と、もう1つはそれ以外の人たちのための生き地獄。
北朝鮮の「核の野望」は地域の安保・安定の脅威となり、拡散の前科からみれば世界の脅威ともなる。ブッシュ大統領や後の4カ国の首脳は6カ国協議に戻るよう促している。
それから、アメリカは近隣国の成長を支援してきた開放性と自由を抱くよう促している。
北朝鮮が6カ国協議に戻るのに大きな役割を果たせる国家といえば、その国は中国である。
アメリカや多くの国々は外交、経済、世界の安保など多くの場面で中国と協力したい。多くの国々は平和的で豊かで自由な地域という目標を促進させるようなアジア太平洋構造作りに賛成的である。他国間の取り組みは重要である。中国はその協力に大きな役割を果たせる。

Pagishikinda! Pagishikinda!

Outpost Gallifrey reports:

“Pagishikinda! Pagishikinda! Now the Daleks take on Doctor Who in Korea. In the first deal of its kind, BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, has concluded a contract with Korea’s biggest public television station, KBS, for the smash hit BBC One series, Doctor Who.

This is the first time a UK drama series has been sold to a Korean public station, and KBS will launch Doctor Who on KBS 2 in a primetime, two-hour slot on Sunday 5 June. Viewers will be introduced to ‘Dacter Who’ (Doctor Who), his companion Rose, and enemy, the Daleks, who blast, ‘Pagishikinda!’ (‘Exterminate!’). KBS will broadcast two episodes per week, and the series will be dubbed for the Korean audience.

Russell T. Davies, writer and executive producer of Doctor Who said, ‘The Doctor has travelled far and wide and knows no boundary and now the programme is doing much the same! We are delighted that Korea has embraced this wonderful adventure.’

Jungwon Lee, Executive Director, KBS Media, said: ‘We are very excited to launch Doctor Who on our network. For the first time in a primetime weekend slot, we are bringing the latest hit BBC drama to our Korean audience and anticipate a great reaction from all age groups.’

Linfield Ng, Korea and Taiwan Territory Manager, BBC Worldwide (Asia) added: ‘We are delighted that one of Asia’s largest public broadcasters, KBS, is supporting one of the most recognised BBC brands. We thank KBS for being so ambitious in launching Doctor Who in such a great time slot.'”

Doctor Who has been my favorite television program since I was about eight years old, and I can’t wait to hear what Daleks sound like dubbed into Korean. Still though, I find it infuriating that the Doctor will be shown on Korean TV while no American station has yet decided to purchase airing rights to the series. It was reported that Scifi channel turned it down before the premiere of the new Doctor Who series, which after having seen the ten episodes so far I find utterly unfathomable. The show is fantastic, and has had some of the highest viewer ratings and media reviews in UK television history, and they had better be kicking themselves hard for having passed it up.

More on North Korea protest videos

Since totally scooping major media outlets with links to footage of a public execution in the DPRK a while back, I haven’t been keeping up with NK news nearly as much as I should. But one thing never changes about Kim Jong Il’s North Korea — it sucks the big one.

Case in point: this report from the LA Times on the recent video footage trickling out of North Korea It’s apparently the work of NGOs and intrepid, possibly entrepeneurial, refugees smuggling cameras over the border. A quick excerpt:

videos have emerged from inside North Korea of a public execution, children begging at a train station and humanitarian aid from the United Nations being sold at a market.

These videos have created a perverse market in which footage of atrocities in a gulag is the “most coveted” and Japanese TV stations will pay thousands of dollars to those who can deliver. In Japan these videos are a sideshow — the news stations are broadcasting them during “golden time” (prime time in America) and garnering huge ratings. Hell, they’re a sideshow on this site, too. We ended up getting linked to by ogrish.com, a site devoted to showing grotesque footage of suicides, assassinations, or anything else gruesome enough to satisfy 14-year-old boys’ bloodlust. I can’t blame the North Koreans for trying to make money. In North Korea people have to do whatever they can to survive.

What troubles me is that we get off on watching the videos from the comfort of our TVs and PCs. The tragic situation in North Korea is not some car crash on the side of the road. Watching idly and wondering if everyone’s OK is unacceptable because we know exactly what’s being done to the North Koreans. Think before you watch.

I sincerely hope that the tragedy of North Korea will end soon, and perhaps this small propaganda outlet can get the message out in some small way.

Here’s an excerpt of the story for those too lazy to click:

Secret N. Korean Footage Suggests Nascent Dissent

BANGKOK, Thailand — With shaking hands, the North Korean climbed onto the shoulders of a buddy to reach the underside of the bridge. As another accomplice stood guard, he hung up a banner denouncing North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in bright red paint.

Then he took out a video camera, disguised to look like a carton of cigarettes, and filmed his handiwork for posterity.

Today, the North Korean who says he shot the video on behalf of a group called the Freedom Youth League lives in hiding in Thailand under an assumed name. A small, wiry man in his 30s, he smoked L&M cigarettes nervously as he recalled his daring feat against the totalitarian government.

Everything had to be done with the utmost secrecy, he said, to the point that he and his associates communicated by means of notes passed in sacks of potatoes. He didn’t dare tell even his wife.

“If we were caught, everybody would be dead,” said the man, who goes by the name Park Dae Heung.

The 33-minute tape has created a sensation in Japan and South Korea, where it has aired repeatedly. South Korean human rights advocates say it is the first evidence of a nascent dissident movement inside North Korea.

Besides the banner hung on the bridge, the video shows an anti-government banner in a factory restroom and has one particularly eye-catching scene in which the camera pans over an official photograph of Kim Jong Il defaced with graffiti as a man denounces him off-camera.

The video is one of a series of samizdat videos that provide a rare glimpse of life in what may be the most secretive country in the world. Since the beginning of this year, videos have emerged from inside North Korea of a public execution, children begging at a train station and humanitarian aid from the United Nations being sold at a market.
Continue reading More on North Korea protest videos

Jenkins obtains a U.S. passport

Charles Jenkins, who spent nearly 40 years in North Korea after deserting his U.S. Army unit in 1965, has been issued a U.S. passport, the embassy in Tokyo said Tuesday.

Jenkins, who served 25 days in a U.S. military brig last year after his court-martial, is believed to be planning a trip to the United States to visit his ailing mother.

Jenkins, 65 and frail, has said he has no plans to return permanently to the United States but would like to visit his home in North Carolina with his family.

His wife, Hitomi Soga, was kidnapped by North Korean agents when she was a 19-year-old student and taken to the reclusive state in 1978.

She married Jenkins soon afterward but was only allowed to return to Japan in 2002 when North Korea reversed years of denial and admitted it had kidnapped 13 Japanese in the 1970s and 1980s. Jenkins and their daughters left North Korea and joined Soga last July.

Earlier this year, he told reporters he wants to see his 91-year-old mother as soon as possible. She lives in a nursing home in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.

The Japan Times: May 18, 2005

Attention Saru and Adam- North Carolina isn’t all that far from DC. Think you can manage to track down Jenkins for an interview when he comes to visit? I can’t wait to read the long version of this guy’s autobiography.

WP: North Korea’s decreasing isolation

The Washington Post has an interesting article about closer ties between North and South Korean businesses and the South Korea’s increasingly positive attitude toward their brothers across the border. Some interesting points:


Despite U.S. Attempts, N. Korea Anything but Isolated

Country’s Regional Trade Boom Hints At Split Between Administration, E. Asia

North Korean housewares are the rage these days. The Lotte department store sold out its first shipment of North Korean pots and pans last December and followed up with a bigger sale in January, when another 7,000 pieces of cookware were carted off by eager shoppers. Lee, 39, is now working on the store’s largest North Korean venture yet: New lines of cutlery and frying pans go on sale within the next two weeks.

South Korea, China and Russia have increased their trade with the North, boosting its tattered economy. Fueled by imports of energy and manufactured goods, and exports of minerals, seafood and agricultural products, North Korea’s foreign trade increased 22 percent in two years, from $2.9 billion in 2002 to $3.55 billion in 2004; these levels are the highest since 1991, according to KOTRA, a South Korean government organization that monitors North Korean trade.

Analysts say North Korea may be calculating that if the United States increases pressure, Pyongyang’s other benefactors in Asia may be willing to mend fences, even after a nuclear test.
Continue reading WP: North Korea’s decreasing isolation

Two interviews discuss Japan’s war apologies

The Asahi, one of Japan’s three major daily newspapers, has two contrasting Q&A format opinion pieces regarding Japan’s recent problems with China and Korea that some people may find interesting. The first is with a German freelance journalist Gebhard Hielscher, who was formerly Far East correspondent for the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Q: What was your reaction to the recent outrage against Japan in China and South Korea?

A: My impression is that all along, Japan has been deliberately not trying to face the past, and hoping that these issues would go away. Japan has been more concerned about its relationship with the United States.

Running away from the issue of compensation to the two countries that were the main victims of Japan’s aggression, the Japanese have had it (protest) coming for all these years.

Our (Germany’s) main victims, aside from the Holocaust, were the Soviet Union and Poland, and we have done a lot for them. I always leave out the Israel issue because it is not part of the comparison: Japan did not commit a Holocaust. But what we did in Poland, which is colonize it, can be compared to what Japan did in the Korean Peninsula.

Germany didn’t pay direct reparations to Poland, or the Soviet Union, but the Allied Forces took a lot of industrial property out of Germany as a form of reparation. Also, Germany gave up 24 percent of its traditional territory to these two countries, the two biggest victims. We saw that as one way to pay our moral debt.

The intreview given as a response to Herr Hielscher, which disagrees from what I would consider a rather moderate position, and not the extreme nationalist stance that has been irritating everyone, is by Keio University professor Tomoyuki Kojima an expert on Chinese and East Asian affairs.

Q: Do you think Japan has compensated enough for wartime aggression, compared with Germany?

A: In terms of state-to-state compensation, I would say Japan has done more through the process of normalizing relations with many of its neighbors.

While there are countries that did not demand compensation, for those countries that did, we have paid compensation.

In the case of China, both Taiwan, with whom Japan normalized relations first, and mainland China, declared they would forfeit claims for reparations.

Taking the example of forced labor, a court has ruled that the former employer of forced laborers from China and Korea pay damages. But the same court did not rule on whether the state was liable, as that issue has been settled through bilateral negotiations.

In the case of South Korea, for example, Japan agreed in 1965 to provide grants and loans to the country. There is a problem that it was not clearly referred to as “compensation,” but in reality both sides agree that is what it was.

There are individual issues pertaining to the war that remain unresolved, and that is undeniable. Definitely Japan must do something.

But my view is that it is not worthwhile to simply consider Germany a model and criticize Japan for lack of atonement for the past.

Christopher Hitchens, full of dogshit

The new installment of Christopher Hitchens’ column in Slate describes North Korea in the typical Hitchens fashion: a dose of humor, erudite writing, high-brow cultural references, but in the typical pundit tradition has no real insights and at least two extraordinarily glaring mis-observations.

He claims that he “tries to avoid cliché” and yet still tells us that “North Korea is rather worse than Orwell’s dystopia.” Is there anything more cliché than comparisons with 1984? I would be a fool to disagree with his assertion here, but it is one that is horrifyingly obvious to anyone who has read even a single article about the situation in contemporary North Korea, and one which takes absolutely no imagination to make.

He also mentions that he has even been to North Korea, although his claim that “North Korea is almost as hard to visit as it is to leave” is quite false. While it is rather difficult for Americans to get tourist visas for the DPRK, urban-dwelling Chinese can enter quite easily, albeit restricted to certain tourist friendly zones. Actually it is quite easy for civilians (with the possible exception of US citizens) to book a North Korea tour through agencies such as Koryo Tours, based out of Beijing. This one company, and there are others, has one special tour listed per month, and advertises that they can arrange special ones for groups. The only caveat is that the government apparently bans journalists. Their website tells us:

On meeting with us at Koryo Tours’ office in Beijing we will require you to sign a form stating that you are not a journalist and that you will not publish anything about your trip. We are sorry to have to insist upon this but at the present time Journalists are not permitted to enter the DPRK, if you are a journalist and are interested in travelling to the DPRK then please let us know and we will be sure to let you know of any future opportunities.

Just because Christopher Hitchens can’t easily get a visa doesn’t mean that everybody else is so restricted.

But I save the best for last.

I was reduced to eating a dog, and I was a privileged “guest.”

So he’s been to North Korea, good for him. But has he ever been to South Korea? If he had, he would know that dog is not a meat of last resort in Korea, but traditionally eaten as a source of virility and considered a delicacy by many. How is somebody who knows so little about Korean culture writing about the region?