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There is a pattern of North Korea exploiting the detention of American citizens—often as a result of their own naïveté, we should add—to secure visits from high-ranking special envoys. It is much less clear what benefits North Korea has managed to reap from this ritual. The visit of Google’s Erik Schmidt is an example: the [...]
The absence of freedom of religion and or belief in North Korea and the severity of punishment for those practicing Christianity is well-documented. But a story in the February Vantage Point contained information that was new, to me at least. (Sorry, but I cannot find the piece on the web to hyperlink.) The report begins [...]
A few items came to our attention that warrant bundling into a “count your blessings” post for the holiday week. First up, UNICEF has issued a press release—but not the full report—on its recent nutrition survey. The survey is national in scope, and was a joint venture between domestic agencies and UNICEF, the World Food [...]
Melanie Kirkpatrick, who had a long and successful career at the Wall Street Journal, including as Deputy Editor of its editorial page, has written a lively and engaging book called Escape from North Korea: Asia’s Underground Railroad. The link to the American underground railroad is explicit; for Kirkpatrick, this is a story of an exodus [...]
Once in North Korea I got my minder alone in a place in which our conversation could not be monitored and proceeded to have a wide-ranging multi-hour conversation. At one point he mentioned in passing that Kim Il-sung was God. “I’ll grant you that,” I replied, “but what about Kim Jong-il?” “Seventy-five percent God” came [...]
This past week the House International Relations Committee held hearings on “ Religious Freedom, Democracy, Human Rights in Asia: Status of Implementation of the Tibetan Policy Act, Block Burmese JADE Act, and North Korean Human Rights Act.” Witnesses on the first panel were the Honorable Robert King, Ambassador, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights [...]
Welcome home, Jun Young Su aka Eddie Jun. The Korean-American businessman and pastor reportedly confessed to spreading Christianity, a crime in North Korea. Major kudos to Ambassador Bob King, with KCNA crediting evangelist Franklin Graham, whose mother Ruth Bell Graham grew up in Pyongyang, and whose father, the legendary Billy Graham, was a confidant of [...]
We have reported on North Korea’s stated interest in attracting foreign direct investment. But an equally important question is what responsibilities investors have given the abysmal human and labor rights record of the country. Our reflection on this question was triggered by running into John Ruggie at a recent conference at Wharton. Ruggie, a Professor [...]
Not-so-strange bedfellows: Eritrea has wonderful people, fantastic architecture, great food, and one of the world’s most repressive governments. Now NATO has reportedly intercepted a North Korean ship bound for Eritrea carrying 15 tons of heavy weaponry worth $15 million in contravention of UN sanctions. Illicit arms trade is not all the two countries share in [...]
The recent controversies over Executive Order 13570 have refocused attention on the web of regulations that constrain economic exchange between the United States and North Korea. Beyond the issues associated with direct bilateral trade, US economic diplomacy toward North Korea is conditioned on a variety of laws which use restrictions on economic relations as an [...]
