Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

The sudden death of Kim Jong-il changes North Korea, in Donald Rumsfeld’s useful phrase, from a known unknown to an unknown unknown.

With Kim senior we knew where we were — to some extent: the old trickster liked to keep us guessing. But his son is a blank — so far. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

After three and a half years of a hard line with nothing to show for it except worsened inter-Korea relations, Lee Myung-bak is at long last executing a U-turn. Not openly and without fanfare of course; but the signs are clear.

In a speech in New York on 20 September, Lee sounded a note both old and new. As ever he stressed denuclearisation, but in a way which suggests this may no longer be a first step and precondition for progress. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

August found Kim Jong-il on the road again. Travelling only in his trademark armoured train, due to a fear of flying, restricts his choice of destinations considerably.

His previous three trips had all been to China, so it was time for a change. On August 20 Kim’s train crossed the border at Khasan into Russia. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

Pyongyang’s angry disclosure in early June of secret talks about a summit with Seoul, with accusations of bribes offered and threats to publish transcripts, marks a new nadir in inter-Korean ties.

North Korea has signalled unambiguously that it wants no further truck with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, increasingly a lame duck now that his term of office is two-thirds over.

Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

What was billed as April’s main event in North Korea turned out to be a damp squib.

Former US president Jimmy Carter paid his third visit to Pyongyang; this time on behalf of ‘The Elders’, a group of elder statesmen founded by Nelson Mandela. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

As they say about London buses: you wait for ages, and then two come along at once.

Hard on the heels of Drew Thompson’s comprehensive report on Chinese investments in North Korea, we are now privileged to a fascinating account of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) minerals sector by Edward Yoon. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

‘We are ready to meet anyone, anytime, and anywhere … We propose discontinuing to heap slanders and calumnies on each other and refraining from any act of provoking each other.’

This is not the kind of language we are used to hearing from Pyongyang lately. Yet that was the offer apparently made on 5 January — but by whom, exactly? The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) referred to a joint meeting of the ‘government, political parties and organisations.’ None of the latter were named. That seems a bit vague. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

On November 22 a leading US nuclear scientist reported seeing facilities which suggest that Pyongyang has got much further in enriching uranium than had been thought. As if that were not bombshell enough, next day North Korean artillery without warning shelled military and civilian targets on Yeonpyeong: one of five South Korean islands in the Yellow Sea, close to North Korea. Two marines and two civilians were killed, 18 persons were injured. The won fell and stock markets in Seoul remained volatile for the rest of the week, but did not plummet.

Anger and disarray in Seoul

The political fallout went deeper. There was fury that the South yet again seemed impotent against Northern aggression. This also had an air of déjà vu, six months after Seoul accused Pyongyang of culpability for sinking the Cheonan. Then as now the South threatened to strike back – next time. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

Even by its own eccentric standards, North Korea is erratic when it comes to due process. Until the past week, it is not clear if the WPK Central Committee (CC) had even met since Kim Jong-il succeeded his father in 1994. A micro-manager when his health allows, the dear leader sits spider-like at the centre of a vast web of state, Party and military bodies, all reporting ultimately only to him.

Yet even in Pyongyang there comes a time when naked absolutism does not quite cut it. If North Korea were an actual rather than merely an aspirant monarchy, King Jong-il could simply anoint Prince Jong-eun as his heir. But successions are the Achilles’ heel of dictatorships. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

Kim Jong-il headed to China at the end of last month less than four months after his last visit. This timing was the more surprising since it meant he missed Jimmy Carter. The former US president arrived in Pyongyang to secure the release of a US prisoner Aijalon Mahli Gomes: a 30 year old black Bostonian, who had taught English in South Korea and was arrested in January when he apparently walked into North Korea from China to preach the Gospel. For this act of trespass the DPRK Central Court sentenced him on April 6 to eight years’ hard labour and a fine of 70 million won (about US$490,000 at the official rate). In July Gomes had reportedly attempted suicide.

There is a double déjà vu here. Gomes seemed to be copying his friend and fellow Christian human rights activist Robert Park, a Korean-American who pulled the same stunt a month earlier on Christmas Day 2009. The DPRK unexpectedly released Park after only 43 days. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

June 2010 saw two major anniversaries on the Korean peninsula. On June 25 sixty years ago the Korean People’s Army (KPA) invaded the South launching a bitter three-year war. North Korea still denies culpability, claiming it was repelling a Southern invasion; despite overwhelming evidence, now backed by Soviet archives, that it was the aggressor. No less mendaciously Pyongyang nonetheless celebrates the July 27, 1953 Armistice which ended open hostilities as a ‘brilliant victory in the Fatherland Liberation War’ — even though this left the North bombed and napalmed to ruination.

China still formally backs the North’s version, but this year some brave soul decided to take seriously the late Deng Xiaoping’s instruction to ‘Seek truth from facts.’ The International Herald Leader, an affiliate of Xinhua news agency let the cat out of the bag. It featured interviews with Chinese historians telling the true story, and a timeline stating that ‘The North Korean military crossed the parallel on June 25 1950 and Seoul was taken in four days.’ Naturally, the article rapidly vanished from the web. But many Chinese now are openly critical of the DPRK, and embarrassed that Beijing continues to toe Pyongyang’s line. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

Succession is the Achilles’ heel of dictatorships, for obvious reasons. In extreme cases, such as North Korea, even contemplating the mortality of the leader is seen as lese-majeste, as if this somehow threatens the quasi-monarch’s vaunted omnipotence and implicit immortality.

Yet such an ostrich attitude only makes matters worse. There aren’t many certainties about North Korea, but the fact that Kim Jong-il will die is one of them. Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

Last year saw two spectacular own goals. Missile and nuclear tests were a weird way to greet a new US president ready to reach out to old foes. The predictable outcome was condemnation by the UN Security Council, plus sanctions on arms exports that are biting.

Domestic policy is just as disastrous. December’s currency ‘reform’ beggars belief. Did Kim Jong-il really not grasp that redenomination would not cure inflation, but worsen it? Read more…

Author: Aidan Foster-Carter, Leeds University

The past month saw both Chairman and Premier Kim doing something almost unheard of in Pyongyang. Apparently they both said sorry, although some reports got the two muddled up.

On February 1, Rodong Sinmun, daily paper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), reported Kim Jong-il as lamenting his failure to fulfil his late father Kim Il-sung’s pledge, to which he had also alluded shortly before on January 9, that all North Koreans would eat rice and meat soup (everyday fare for even the poorest South Korean, be it noted). Read more…