Archive for the 'Economics' Category

More Cars in China

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

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 […]

Kim Yong-nam to Visit Uganda

Monday, March 17th, 2008

From Reuters:
North Korea’s number two leader is expected to sign trade and defence deals with Uganda where he is due to make a rare visit this month, Uganda’s international affairs minister said on Sunday. Kim Yong-nam, the president of the presidium of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly, is expected to start a three-day visit […]

North Korea and Russia Conclude Khasan-Rajin Railway Deal

Sunday, March 16th, 2008

North Korea and Russia have reached an agreement to renovate the 55 km Khasan-Rajin railway, which will link North Korea’s port city of Rajin (Najin) to Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad. Some reconstruction is required as the two countries use different rail gauges, and North Korea’s portion likely is in varying stages of disrepair.
Though it will […]

Air Koryo Prepares Russian TU-204-300 Airliner for Service

Saturday, February 23rd, 2008

Late in 2007 Russia delivered “its most advanced long-range jet,” to North Korea’s Air Koryo (h/t GS). A variant of the Tupolev TU-204 twin-engined medium range Russian airliner was purchased, the TU-204-300:
It is a shortened, longer range and more efficient derivative of the Tu-204. It is about 6 meters (20 ft) shorter than the […]

North Korea Reneges, Again: Broken Window Theory Revisited

Monday, February 18th, 2008

If ever there was a time to drop the hammer on North Korea for habitually reneging on nuclear deals, now would be the time:
Speaking to reporters in Beijing Saturday, [Sigfried Hecker] said North Korean officials have told him they will not provide a full declaration of the country’s nuclear programs until other countries provide […]

Rumors: If I Were Part of the North Korean Elite…

Tuesday, February 12th, 2008

The power of rumors should not be underestimated. Recently two rumors should be of great concern to the elites of the Kim regime. Last month there were reports that Kim Jong-il had ordered, “all of the regime’s institutions [to] reduce their bureaucracies and the number of senior officials by 30 percent.” Now we hear […]

Assessing North Korea’s Cooperation: Slowly but not Surely

Thursday, January 24th, 2008

Last Thursday, while addressing at the American Enterprise Institute, Jay Lefkowitz, President Bush’s Special Envoy for Human Rights in North Korea, stated that, “North Korea is not serious about disarming in a timely manner,” and “It is increasingly likely that North Korea will have the same nuclear status one year from now that it […]

Paper on the U.S.-ROK Alliance, Past and Future

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

Update: Some timely comments on the problem of Roh and the effect on the U.S.-ROK alliance.
Original post: The Brookings Institution North Korea page has a new paper (h/t Kevin) on U.S.-ROK relations, “Looking Back and Looking Forward: North Korea, Northeast Asia and the ROK-U.S. Alliance,” (full paper-PDF) by Dr. Park Hyeong-jung, a Senior Fellow […]

Must Read: Winning the Information War inside North Korea

Tuesday, January 8th, 2008

The latest edition of the Military Review, a publication of the US Army’s Combined Arms Center located at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, has an excellent paper on, “Finding America’s Role in a Collapsed North Korean State.” (PDF) An excerpt:
American military and political thinkers today are focused on creating policies to govern stability operations, but this […]

Another Kind of Student Radical

Saturday, December 22nd, 2007

About two years ago, I wrote about South Korean President-elect Lee Myung-Bak’s “student radical” days and how he came to get his chaebol job despite his prison record, on the now defunct blog The Korea Liberator (archived here).
This episode is fairly well-known in South Korea, but I reproduce much of the original post below […]