Pyongyang puts the Ikea in "North Korea missiles"

Remember last year, when their Chinese benefactors sent the North Koreans on a Capital Mystery Tour of the United States so they could learn how a market-driven economy operates? Well, recent news suggests they were especially taken by their trips to a certain Sweden-based do-it-yourself furniture chain.

Thè ëlëtrønícs iŋ Ikea, 
like thìs big sçréèn TV, àre åll fåké. 

You see, it seems that some experts believe that the parade of ICBM missiles and weaponry we've seen at post-missile launch parade in Pyongyang are fake. Like the electronic props you see when you walk through an Ikea showroom.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves and start depicting North Korea as a paper tiger. There is, after all, a whole host of artillery that could do an incredible amount of damage if it were to rain down wrath onto Seoul (my home) and its northern suburbs of P'aju, Ilsan, Munsan, etc (which themselves have over a million residents). And let's not forget that our friends in China seem to be surreptitiously helping them out with their missile ventures. (Would a fake Ikea store in China contain real electronics? Ooh, wrap your head around that one!)

Nevertheless, this accusation of missilery fakery has been fodder for late-night comics, including this bit on Conan O'Brien (HT to DA):



That was funny. The Korean used in the Conan bit was amusing, translating “Camera-1” as “카메라 하나” (sort of like "one camera"). And the North Koreans would never refer to themselves as 북한 (Puk'an, the South Korean word for North Korea) and their language as 한국어 (Han•gugǒ, also the South Korean word). North Koreans would say Chŏson and Chosŏnŏ or Chosŏnmal.

Nevertheless that semi-earnest effort on their part just makes it even funnier.

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Another threat by North Korea

Anybody know where I can get an accurate accounting of how many times North Korea has threatened to turn the entire country, the capital, some outlying island, a military base, or in this case the Blue House, into  "a sea of fire"?

It may literally be in the hundreds.

At any rate, I'm fairly certain that it would look something like this (imagine Diamond Head is Mt Kwanaksan):

Massacre on the Han

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Ain't misbehavin'... much

According to the Chosun Ilbo, North Korea has actually committed far fewer incursions over the Northern Limit Line*, the de facto border since the end of the Korean War which Pyongyang has been adamantly disputing as of late:

North Korean violations of the Northern Limit Line, the de-facto maritime border, have decreased to one-sixth the frequency of last year since January.

According to data the Joint Chiefs of Staff submitted to Future Hope Alliance lawmaker Song Young-sun on Tuesday, violations of the NLL by North Korean patrol and fishing boats grew from 21 in 2006 to 95 times in 2010. But there have been only 16 so far this year.

North Korean patrol boats crossed the NLL 11 times in 2006 and 13 times in 2010 but only five times this year.

I guess the Lee Myungbak's limp-wristed response to the sinking of the Ch'ŏnan and the shelling of Yŏnpyŏng-do is working!

(Oh, by the way, I was being sarcastic.)

* Do not go here for a map of the NLL. It's the blue line in the graphic above, but the Norks insist on the red line. For a translation of the Korean text in the graphic, go spend two hours learning the frickin' alphabet. 

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Holy backfiring North Korean hijinks, Fatman!

So, North Korea sinks a South Korean vessel, and then later bombs Yŏnpyŏng-do, killing military and civilians... The end result may be US troops stationed on the forward-situated "Five Islands of the West Sea" (서해오도):

South Korea plans to build barracks for US troops on an island near the tense sea border with North Korea in case of emergency or military drills, according to the defence ministry.

The barracks will be built on Baengnyeong, a front-line island and flashpoint in the Yellow Sea, a ministry spokesman told AFP.

"US soldiers will use the barracks during joint military drills or in case of emergency," he said, declining to give details.

The South will start building the barracks capable of housing some 160 US soldiers next year and construction will be completed by 2013, Yonhap news agency said.

This makes me happy. North Korea needs to see consequences for its actions, and if its outbursts over the NLL are met with a bolstering of US and ROK defenses, that's great.

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AFP video: "North Korea seeks foreign help for controversial resort" at Mt Kumgangsan

It's all in the video, which focuses a lot more on English-speaking Malaysian tourists walking around and looking at things than it does offering any news that would support the title they offered up.



Well, I guess they do have Kim Kwang-yun, director of the Mt Kŭmgangsan International Tourism Leadership Bureau, giving some sort of pitch to the Malaysians, starting at 1:47. But we don't hear him say much, as the AFP video editor seems to be afflicted with ADD. I'm guessing Mr Kim had offered a free trip if the Malaysians agreed to hear a pitch on Kŭmgangsan time-shares.

And who wouldn't want to invest in a North Korean tourism project? After all, it's only on rare occasion that the North Korean soldiers who patrol the place shoot and kill your customers, and the infrastructure is already there, built by and then stolen from the previous investors, so all you have to do is come (and bring hard currency)!

For something more solidly newsy, we have AP instead of AFP, in a separate article, saying North Korea is "looking to China" in a "drive to boost trade and investment":

Chinese travel agents, potential investors and foreign journalists recently traveled into the North to get a look at the special economic zone Pyongyang is promoting in Rason. It lies in the far northeastern tip of North Korea, 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from Pyongyang, but will be about an hour’s drive from China once the road is completed. ...

The market, a 13-year-old experiment in small-scale capitalism, has been so successful that the Chinese managing company, the Tianyu Group, is planning to expand the jam-packed 54,000-square-foot (5,000-square-meter) market to 320,000 square feet (30,000 square meters), Tianyu vice director Zheng Zhexi said.

The AP article is heavily focused on construction of the Chinese highway to North Korea's Rasŏn/Rajin industrial port development, which is a key part of incorporating North Korea into China's Northeastern Provinces, part of what I call the Manchurianization of North Korea.

Back to the video above. The AFP short film does offer a taste of why the Malaysians have come to this part of North Korea: secrecy. Several of them state that they're curious about secretive North Korea because they want to figure out why it's so secret. I guess if I were from a country billed as "truly Asia," then I'd be darned uncomfortable if I didn't know what all the other Asians were up to. 

And maybe North Korea really can rescue Kŭmgangsan with foreign tourists. Stick an affordable ski resort up there, make sure skiing accidents outnumber shooting incidents, and cash-carrying nouveau-riche Southeast Asians will come in droves (that sounds disparaging to the newly rich SE Asians, but I don't' mean it as such; good on them for starting to do well).

And in the end, if Pyongyang decides that it can rescue rural North Korea by replacing South Koreans with Southeast Asians, they're simply copying what Seoul has been doing for years in rural South Korea.  

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Kim Jong-un's "Tora! Tora! Tora!" moment?*

The Chosun Ilbo would have us believe that Kim Jong-un, the young general who supposedly is poised to take over for Dad when he kicks the bucket, is the one who ordered the attacks on South Korea over the past year:

A North Korean document supports the conclusion that North Korea attacked the Navy corvette Cheonan and Yeonpyeong Island last year to whip up domestic support for the succession of leader Kim Jong-il’s son, Jong-un.

The document, which the Chosun Ilbo obtained from a source in China on Tuesday, claims that Kim junior was deeply involved in both attacks. Titled “Lecture Materials,” the document was apparently drawn up for military propaganda officers early this year.

According to its wording, Kim Jong-un told military leaders that the inter-Korean situation “will become very tense in February and March.” He made the comments around the end of January last year, two months before the attack on the Cheonan. The document claims South Korea and the U.S. “concocted a plot about the sinking of the Cheonan, but it failed.”

The source, who claims to do frequent business with trading companies under the North Korean Workers Party, said that propaganda officers have been indoctrinating North Korean soldiers to show absolute loyalty to Kim Jong-un based on those materials. “They even have to take a test after their indoctrination classes,” he said.

As I noted at ROK Drop, I'm a bit curious about the date. The “2010년 1월” stands out as odd when one sees that in North Korean news sources the “Western” date is typically hand in hand with the 주체 date (주체 99년 or some such). I wonder if anybody who has familiarity with actual North Korean documents could provide insight about whether the above is a reason to find this document suspect.

Of course, dear reader, you may already be aware that I am deeply suspicious of the mountain of evidence, eagerly printed up in the Chosun Ilbo and repeated uncritically in the Japanese and Western press, that comes from what could be described as an Evidence Mill™ run by people who make money and/or enhance their stature from supplying this stuff. While I think most defectors/refugees are genuine people who can give us valuable insight into current attitudes in the regime, it seems to me that a handful of folks might be looking for personal gain à la that Iraqi guy who supplied all of the information used back in 2002 and 2003 to justify going to war against Saddam Hussein.

Of course, from Kim Jong-il not being at death's door, to Ling and Lee having willingly entered North Korea, to Kim Jong-un's coronation not being imminent, my views on North Korea have others viewing me at first as crankily contrarian and out of touch and then later as eerily prescient.

But that doesn't mean I could be wrong on this. Always my caveat.

* And yeah, I know that "Tora! Tora! Tora!" is Japanese. My theory is that a Korean pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy on that fateful day in December 1941 had a bit of prescience himself and had gotten on the radio to warn everybody to turn around. 

North Korea has abducted 180,000 people over the past several decades?

We all know about the abductions of dozens of Japanese and hundreds if not thousands of South Koreans, but a report by a US-based rights group says the real numbers go much further, with far more countries affected.

From BBC:

The Committee for Human Rights in North Korea says more than 180,000 people from 14 countries have been taken. The vast majority of these cases are not typical abductions.

They involve prisoners not returned after the 1950-53 Korean War and Japanese who settled in North Korea but were never allowed home.

Other reports highlight North Korea's foreign operations - including a Japanese college student and his girlfriend snatched from a beach in Japan by North Korean agents.

The figure includes more than 3,000 South Korean fishermen forcibly towed into North Korean waters and students in European cities - including London, it says - lured to the secretive state with the promise of jobs and then denied permission to leave.

In one such case at a London language school in 1983, a North Korean agent, Megumi Yao, was operating undercover, targeting Japanese students for abduction.

She promised them good jobs in North Korea, and introduced one of the students to her contacts in Denmark. A few weeks later, the student boarded a flight to Pyongyang and disappeared.

Not to make light of such situations, if true, but it would be hella hard to pull a midnight run in North Korea.

Who in their right mind would go to North Korea, you ask? Lots, potentially. I mean, nowadays English teaching in global backwaters is Xtreme Working for the college set, and I can imagine more than a few wanderlusters tired of the daily grind back in Seattle, Saskatoon, or Sheffield heading for Sariwon, only to find that the DPRK is one big Hotel California.

Among people I know personally, I've heard some of the adventure seekers — including my ex — say they'd consider teaching English in the Great Fright North, but this report, if true, would certainly make me think twice. (I myself had thought it would be interesting to temporarily teach public health at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology once I'm done with my grad studies.)

Then again, is a lack of regular Internet access being chalked up to an "abduction"?

Perhaps the most dire claim (and most believable, as in you'd better believe it) is this:

Some abductions, they say, are apparently a bid to train its intelligence agents, but the report also cites more recent claims that North Korean agents are targeting those in China's border areas who are suspected of helping their people escape the closed state.

Indeed, this is one more reason my hat is off to those people — often driven by religious conviction — who risk their safety, their freedom, and sometimes their lives to ferry people out of North Korea.

If some messianic would-be Moses like Robert Park or Aijalon Mahli Gomes really wants to do something worthwhile instead of setting oneself up as a bargaining chip, go and do that.

But cut your hair first (@Robert Park, because seriously you look like a Myŏngdong street preacher circa 1986).

Or grow some (@Aijalon Mahli Gomes).

Whoops. Too far.

Blogger down and crawling its way back up,More news on Seoul Station attack

I do not know what was up with that, but for most of the day yesterday it was impossible to post anything. Also my user name temporarily changed, as did my location.

Anyway, it appears to be up. While I'm obviously able to post this right now, my most recent posts, including lengthy one I wrote about the explosion of gas bombs that occurred at Seoul Station and Kangnam Express Bus Terminal, has dissipated into the ether (Blogger says they're aware of that and working on it). I guess it could be worse: Brian in Chŏllanam-do appears to have lost all but one post over the last month (I kid! I kid! Enjoy Pennsylvania with your new bride! I have no social life.).

Meanwhile, we're getting police reports that authorities believe the devices were set up by a disgruntled attention-seeker (i.e., the "Namdaemun model"), which was one of three possibilities I'd assumed. (The other two being a hastily planned terror attack in the wake of Osama bin Laden's sudden demise and North Korean fifth columnists; I made a better case for them in the longer post).

From the Joongang Daily:

Seoul police said yesterday that the explosives that went off in Seoul Station and the Express Bus Terminal on Thursday were homemade devices that could be made with a “high-school grasp” of knowledge and that the parts used could easily be bought at large supermarkets.

“Based on our experts’ opinions, we feel that the suspect does not have professional knowledge of explosives and we strongly believe that this was a person who had ill feelings against society or wanted attention,” said Lee Sang-jeong of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. “After analyzing the evidence found, the brands of the hiking backpack and timer batteries from the two locations matched.”

The JAD article then goes on to tell you exactly how to make such a device. You know, just in case you are a disgruntled attention-seeker who decides to take it out on my 'hood.

"Homefront" scenario fuels negative views of Koreans and other Asians?

Writing in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, slam poet and "relatively dedicated gamer" (read: unemployed basement dweller) Bao Phi worries that the new first-person shooter video game "Homefront," which depicts an invasion of the United States by a unified Korea in 2027, à la Red Dawn, will cause Americans to get a skewed view of Koreans as violent, inhuman, anti-American, and really tall.

I have just two things to say to Mr Phi and his alarmism over the prospect of a new "yellow peril."

First, anything that erodes the image of Asian men as nothing but wimpy computer geeks and study nerds with spaghetti arms and physiques like that of an eight-year-old girl suffering from anorexic bulimia is probably a good thing.

Second, there is no way even "Homefront" can topple the two dominant stereotypes of Koreans as liquor store owners and massage parlor hos.

And speaking of construction in North Korea...

It looks like a couple buildings are in the works at the controversial Yŏngbyŏn [영변/녕변/寧邊; Nyŏngbyŏn] nuclear site.

From AFP:

North Korea is restoring facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the source of weapons-grade plutonium in the past, South Korea's defence ministry said Tuesday.

"North Korea is restoring nuclear facilities and continuing maintenance activities at Yongbyon," a spokesman quoted Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young as telling parliament on Monday. "It is engaged in new construction and large-scale excavation."

The foreign ministry said the South is closely monitoring the work.

"There are some activities going on but we have no information on what these are for," said spokesman Kim Young-Sun. "The government is watching closely the activities there and exchanging information with other countries."

An unidentified government official was quoted by Dong-A Ilbo newspaper as saying that two rectangular buildings were being built next to the site of a cooling tower demolished in 2008.

My money's on two competing Starbucks, but I've been wrong before. Maybe they're blowing stuff up and then rebuilding it just to keep the economy going.

An unprovoked North Korea shoots artillery into Yellow Sea; marine life debate putting DPRK back on Terrorism List

Really, is this the political-diplomatic equivalent of punching a hole in the wall or what?

Now if any of them shells really did land on the South Korean side of the Northern Limit Line, as was reported, that's a very serious matter, and I expect some very angry words from President Lee. Of course, North Korea may be driving home the point that they don't accept the NLL to begin with.

"Take that you... fishes!"

South Korean boat held by North Korea

I guess if the US is cracking down on your financial resources abroad and hold joint military exercises with South Korea aimed at stopping your subs, then I guess the best course of action is to kidnap some South Koreans and try to extract concessions from the ROK.

From BBC:

Authorities in the boat's home South Korean port of Pohang said the Daeseung had stopped sending signals after a fishing trip in the Sea of Japan, known in Korea as the East Sea, on Saturday.

The South Korean coastguard said in a statement: "We have found out that our fishing vessel is being investigated by North Korean officials in the presumed North Korea exclusive economic waters in the northern East Sea.

"The South Korean government, according to international law, wants the swift resolution to the matter and the safe return of its vessel and its fisherman."

The vessel has four South Koreans and three Chinese on board.

Media reports in the South say the Daeseung is being towed to the Northern port of Songjin.

North Korean media has so far made no comment on the latest reports.

The story is also in Yonhap, the New York Times, the Washington Post, AP, the Christian Science Monitor, and even Xinhua (since the North Koreans are also holding a few Chinese).

In the past, South Koreans held by the North (as in Kaesŏng workers or Korean War POWs) were largely forgotten by the media, which wouldn't bode well for the crew of the Taesŭng (Daeseung). But this may have changed, ever since President Lee Myungbak bowed deeply to the nation for the sinking of the Ch'ŏnan and discovered a pair of cojones while he was looking down.

While the South Korean media is only slightly more predictable than their counterparts in the North, if I were a betting man, I'd wager that this incident will be highlighted to some degree in the press, if only because it drives home the point that the North Koreans are still up to no good.