Category: North Korea

Of course North Korea is going to use child and slave labor, they will just be smart enough to not use it front of the cameras to give them plausible deniability.  The more slave labor they use, the more money that will be pocketed by the Kim regime to fund their nuclear program and extravagant lifestyle: 

North Korea’s economy – and construction industry, in particular – is built on slave labor. For decades, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are dragooned into dolgyeokdae, literally “stormtrooper,” work crews for little or no pay, barely fed enough to survive and often forced to sleep in makeshift housing they built themselves, according to rights groups and reports by the State Departmentand others.
Today, South Korean President Moon Jae-in is talking boldly of building road and railway links inside North Korea as a first step toward European Union-style regional economic integration.
In September, Moon took his country’s business elite, including the head of the national railway company, to Pyongyang to persuade North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the South was ready to invest as soon as U.N. sanctions are lifted.
But human rights activists are asking: Could Moon’s ambitious plans help undermine North Korea’s entrenched system of forced labor? Or will they inadvertently fuel and encourage that system?
“The South Korean government and companies chomping at the bit to get into North Korea need to consider the kind of reputational damage they will suffer if it’s found their investments are being supported by forced labor,” wrote Phil Robertson, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division. “South Korea has so far been shamefully negligent in doing real due diligence on labor rights grounds for proposed projects in North Korea.”

Washington Post

You can read more at the link.

This probably should be considered a good thing that the Trump administration is not in a hurry to cut a deal with North Korea for little to nothing in return:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. is “in no hurry” to negotiate with North Korea.

On Twitter, Trump wrote that “many people have asked how we are doing in our negotiations with North Korea” and that he “always reply by saying we are in no hurry.”

Trump added there is “wonderful potential for great economic success” for North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-un “sees it better than anyone and will fully take advantage of it for his people.”

He maintained an optimistic outlook, saying “we are doing just fine.”

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link.

If North Korea is threatening to go to a Plan B, I imagine the Trump administration’s Plan B would involve Secretary Mattis: 

North Korea could decide to live under sanctions, rather than seeking rapid economic growth through a nuclear deal with the United States, if Washington insists on keeping sanctions until Pyongyang’s denuclearization, a former unification minister said Friday.
Lee Jong-seok made the remark during a conference in Seoul, saying North Korean leader Kim Jong-un wants to rebuild the country’s economy and that’s why he decided to pursue a nuclear deal with the U.S., but he’s unlikely to make “unilateral concessions” to the U.S. just for sanctions relief. 
“While I think the possibility is low for North Korea to break off from the denuclearization negotiations, I do think that it could prepare a Plan B,” Lee said, warning that the nuclear talks could be trapped in a long-term deadlock.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The US State Department is saying the hard truth that many do not want to hear about North Korea:

North Korea’s humanitarian crisis is entirely the fault of the regime, a U.S. State Department spokesperson told Voice of America on Monday.
The spokesperson said there will be no substantial humanitarian aid without denuclearization, despite the UN Security Council’s recent decision to permit civic groups to give some medical aid to the North.
Asked by VOA to comment on the UN’s request for funding for humanitarian aid to the North next year, the spokesperson said, “The regime can fully meet the 2018 United Nations humanitarian appeal’s request for $111 million by redirecting its funds and resources from its nuclear and weapons programs.” 
On Dec. 4, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said it needs $111 million to support 6 million starving North Koreans next year.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I think the US State Department is sending a message to South Korea and others that there will be no possibility of circumventing sanctions by calling projects in North Korea humanitarian assistance. 

This news is not going over well with the Kim regime: 

The outlook for a second Washington-Pyongyang summit is dimming amid an escalation of diplomatic tit-for-tat, after the U.S. imposed sanctions on three ranking North Korean officials Monday. 

The U.S. Treasury Department cited “serious human rights abuse and censorship” as reasons for the sanctions on the North’s de facto No. 2 figure, Choe Ryong-hae. The two others are State Security Minister Jong Kyong-thaek and Pak Kwang-ho, director of the Workers’ Party’s propaganda department.

The decision drew a strong backlash from the North, as this is the first time the U.S. has imposed human rights sanctions against the regime since the leaders of the two countries met in June to discuss peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

Korea Times

You can read the rest at the link, but as expected the North Korean state controlled media is blasting this decision to sanction the three regime officials.  

I think these sanctions are just a further warning to the Kim regime that the Trump administration is losing patience with their denuclearization delay games.  

If it was in fact a ruse it seems disclosing that fact now is not a good idea in case the President has to return to fire and fury rhetoric:

Outgoing United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley said she used President Donald Trump’s unpredictability and bellicose rhetoric to persuade other world leaders they had to crack down on North Korea or the U.S. would take military action.  
“I bounced it off the president’s rhetoric, saying, ‘I can’t stop him. I’m not gonna be able to control him. We’ve gotta get this done,'” Haley told The Atlantic magazine in an interview published Friday. 
“The president had really strengthened his rhetoric at that point,” Haley said, presumably referring to Trump’s threat to unleash “fire and fury” on the North Korean regime.
“All of that was very, very helpful, because I would say, ‘You know, I don’t know what he’s gonna do,'” she recounted. ” … I said, ‘He very well could use military action.’”
Haley said she knew Trump’s harsh rhetoric was a ruse. Asked if the U.S. was really close to war with North Korea, she said no.
“Having said that, if they had launched something, if it had come near the U.S., the president totally would have. But at the time, were we gonna instigate something? No,” she told The Atlantic.

USA Today

You can read the rest at the link.

As I guessed would happen, the fate of upcoming exercises will be tied to any upcoming summit between Kim Jong-un and President Trump.  It makes too much sense to use these exercises as bartering chips if needed:

Seoul and Washington will make a decision on whether to conduct its annual Foal Eagle joint military exercise scheduled for next spring taking into consideration a potential second North Korea-U.S. summit, according to multiple military sources Thursday. 

“The United States is paying great attention to advancing North-U.S. relations,” a South Korean government source said. “Our military and government is also responding to the U.S. stance and having discussions taking into consideration the security situation on the Korean Peninsula.” 

U.S. President Donald Trump recently said that he is planning to hold his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in January or February, making the suspension of the South-U.S. drill more likely. 

Another government source here said, “What it means to make a decision to hold the drills linking it to the North-U.S. summit is that, in the case that North Korea does not come to the negotiating table, the Foal Eagle may be conducted.”   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Yes, their own people. https://t.co/YawX9VorHi

— Edward Oh 🇺🇸 (@EdwardHBOh) December 5, 2018

It is starting to become pretty clear that sanctions will ultimately be dropped before North Korea denuclearizes based on the new rhetoric coming from the White House:

ohn Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser, said Thursday that Washington will remove sanctions when it sees “performance” from North Korea and advocated a second summit between the two countries’ leaders.

In an interview with Washington-based National Public Radio (NPR), Bolton discussed a second summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and said it will be possible “sometime after the first of the year.” 

Through a second North-U.S. summit, Bolton said Trump “is trying to give the North Koreans a chance to live up to the commitments they made at the Singapore summit” and has “held the door open for them.

“They need to walk through it,” Bolton continued. “This is one more chance for Kim Jong-un, who is the only decision maker that matters in the North Korean system, to deliver on what he said in Singapore.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Luckily that is less than the North Korean regime spent on luxury goods last year. Problem solved. https://t.co/Cr1KpECemX

— Bruce Klingner (@BruceKlingner) December 5, 2018