In July 2006, I wrote about the potential for an East Asian arms race. One possibility mentioned at that time was of Japan also going nuclear if a reunified Korea chose that option. A recent Congressional Research Service report, “Japan’s Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and U.S. Interests,” (PDF) 19 February 2009, has [...]

As a former immigrant, I revere America’s car culture. Automobile, to me, means freedom — to go where one wishes, rather than to be limited by the rail tracks or bus routes that the government determines. This freedom of mobility might increase in China as more Chinese buys cars, including foreign cars. This is certainly [...]

Though the mechanics are obviously different than the Sino-Soviet Dispute, the outcome is similar enough to be compared; North Korea is in the middle of the re-emerging Chinese great power and the world’s only superpower (for a detailed explanation this, see Suh Dae-sook’s book). Bush’s change from a hard-line to La-La Land policy on [...]

The left-wing government of President Roh has waged war on “the rich” in South Korea; the result is rather predictable:
South Korea slipped in the global gross domestic product (GDP) rankings last year. It is now the 13th largest economy after Russia and India as of 2006, falling one notch from a year earlier.
According to World [...]

Daily Chosun says:
Taliban killed another Korean hostage in Afghanistan after the latest deadline for negotiations expired on Monday. Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for the Taliban, told the Chosun Ilbo, AFP and AP by phone, “’Finally tonight at 8:30, we killed one of the Koreans named Sung Sim with AK-47 gunshots.” He claimed the [...]

[Update: July 26, 2007] This is what I mean by “metro-elite propaganda” (h/t my former boss). The article begins well enough, but then sneaks in the following:
Some devout Christians are calling the abductees martyrs, evoking the self-glorification of extreme Islamist jihadists.
This is the kind of anti-Christian moral equivalence that bugs me. On the one hand, [...]

As soon as I go on a vacation, things go badly! Market crash in Asia, Bush 43 folds on Iran…
But first, here is a strange coincidence. I crossed paths with Ambassador John Bolton at the men’s room (!) of the United Airlines Red Carpet Lounge at Dulles on my way out of town [...]

Below are photos of just a few of the items I recovered from WWII Japanese shipwrecks in the Pacific.

↑ That’s me, about 90’ down, around the mast of a cargo ship.

↑ A sake cup (front and back, from a set) with a poem on one side, and a crossed rake and broom on the other. [...]

Thaiku is a restaurant in Seattle (where I lived previously). But that’s not what’s in the news:
Thai army leaders deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a longtime ally of President Bush, using tanks and soldiers to seize the capital Tuesday night without firing a shot. The coup was the first in 15 years in a country [...]

Earlier, Joshua presented an open letter about the North Koreans held in Thailand.
Suzanne Scholte of NKFC forwarded us the following:
Dear Friends:
In response to the recent seizure of 185 North Korean refugees by Thai authorities from a safe house in Thailand, the North Korea Freedom Coalition sent the following letter this morning to the Thai Ambassador [...]