This photo capture from the North’s Central TV on April 1, 2018, shows a clip from a movie filmed jointly by North Korea and China, whose title roughly translates to “Promise Made in Pyongyang.” The movie had not been run since it first aired in February 2014, but it was rerun on the day following North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing the previous week. The movie is about a Chinese dancer building a friendship with North Korean dancers during her travels through the North. (Yonhap)
Good luck trying to get the Kim regime to agree to this:
A complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) of the Korean Peninsula is what the U.S. government is pushing for, and that approach is “necessary” and “nonnegotiable” when it deals with the North Korea nuclear issue, the acting U.S. ambassador to South Korea said Monday.
Marc Knapper emphasized that the U.S. is “hopeful but realistic” in its expectations for the upcoming summits with North Korea, citing more than two decades of failure in making the North give up its nuclear weapons.
“Let me be clear. There has been no shift in our policy. We are willing to engage with North Korea but our purpose of any meeting first and foremost will be to emphasize the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It is necessary and nonnegotiable,” Knapper told a forum in Seoul. [Yonhap]
I have no idea whether the accusation that the South Korean K-Pop group Red Velvet is pro-Communism or not, but I just find it ironic that these performers are so eager to perform for a man that puts his own people into labor camps for watching South Korean entertainment. The hypocrisy on display is truly incredible:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, right, talks to Red Velvet members, left, after the Sunday performance at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater. / Yonhap
After the two-hour show at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater starting at 6:30 p.m., Kim met and shook hands with each musician, including four members of Red Velvet. The popular band from SM Entertainment was short of one member ― Joy, also an actress.
SM announced Saturday that she could not travel to the North because she was filming MBC’s TV drama “The Great Seducer,” in which she has a leading role.
Before its Pyongyang visit, the band had stirred controversy, with suggestions by some netizens that the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism had selected the band because it endorsed the North’s communism. Some suggested a parallel between communism’s symbolic color of red, the band’s name and one of its hits, “Red Flavor.”
Kim said after meeting the musicians, “many people had wondered whether I would come to the Sunday performance and watch Red Velvet.” The comment hinted that he knew about the Red Velvet controversy, but he did not elaborate. He said he had planned to watch the North-South joint performance on Tuesday, but had changed his schedule.
The band, the youngest stars among the troupe, performed dance numbers “Red Flavor” and “Bad Boy.”
Joy’s absence had divided fans. Some saw it as unacceptable because despite her busy acting schedule she had joined the band’s Tokyo concert on March 28-29. Fans wondered that if she had performed in Japan why she could not also have found time for Pyongyang.
A South Korean cultural critic said her absence from the North was “an example of the mass-narcissism evident among South Korean celebrities.” [Korea Times]
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and his wife Ri Sol-ju are surrounded by South Korean musicians after their joint concert at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, Sunday. / Joint Press Corps [Korea Times]
Youngsters are being sent to labor camps in North Korea after being caught secretly watching South Korean entertainment ― including movies and soap operas ― according to sources familiar with Pyongyang.
The sources said the authorities were cracking down on clandestine viewing of South Korean media amid fears that it will harm the Kim Jong-un regime’s “ideological purity.”
The young people still risk being sent to re-education labor camps for using illegal memory cards for entertainment.
“Those who are caught are sent to youth labor-reform centers and kept there for about a year for re-education,” a source said.
In his New Year’s address, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un underscored that “a vigorous struggle should be waged to tighten moral discipline throughout society, establish a socialist way of life and eliminate all kinds of non-socialist practices, so as to ensure that all the people, possessed of ennobling mental and moral traits, lead a revolutionary and cultured life.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but does anyone think that President Moon or anyone else in South Korea will speak out against this or just pretend it isn’t happening?
There is a number of very good books on this list, but one I was surprised was not included was the The Cleanest Race by B.R. Myers. This book I believe is a must read for anyone trying to get a deeper understanding of North Korea. You can read my review of this book at this link.
When I have time I will have to put my own North Korea book list together, but in the meantime do any ROK Heads have recommendations not on this list as well that they would like to make?
Kim Jong-un is continuing his charm offensive in the lead up to his summit with Present Moon Jae-in later this month:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) talks with South Korea’s culture minister Do Jong-whan during a performance by a South Korean art troupe in Pyongyang in this photo captured from a pool video on April 1, 2018. (Yonhap)
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and his wife attended a historic performance in Pyongyang by a South Korean art troupe on Sunday, the South Korean culture ministry said.
The couple was present for the concert by the 160-member South Korean art troupe at East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, a pool report said. The group included 11 Korean pop musicians such as Cho Yong-pil, Lee Sun-hee, Choi Jin-hee, Red Velvet and Seohyun of Girls’ Generation.
Kim became the first North Korean leader to attend a performance by a South Korean artistic group.
His appearance was somewhat expected as South Korean President Moon Jae-in attended the Seoul performance by a North Korean art troupe called “Samjiyon Orchestra” in February in celebration of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in the South.
A pool report said the North Korean leader’s sister Kim Yo-jong and the country’s nominal head of state Kim Yong-nam attended the performance as well.
The North Korean leader also insisted that the two Koreas should hold cultural performances more often, suggesting that there should be another event in Seoul around fall. [Yonhap]
This may be a blueprint that we may see played again by North Korea in upcoming talks to meet their goal of separating the ROK from the US:
In the late 1980s, North Korea proposed creating a neutral state on the Korean Peninsula that could serve as a buffer zone in the region, declassified diplomatic documents showed Friday.
Then Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev delivered the North’s secret proposal to then U.S. President Ronald Reagan during their summit in Washington on Dec. 9, 1987, according to the documents disclosed by the foreign ministry.
Under the plan, the North wanted to create a federation-style republic consisting of two different governments representing the two Koreas and declare it as a neutral state that could serve as a regional buffer zone, the documents said.
The North also called for the two Koreas to sign a nonaggression treaty and replace the current armistice with a peace treaty, while suggesting the new entity would join the United Nations under a single name.
In addition, Pyongyang sought to scrap all agreements or treaties reached with third parties deemed to be running counter to their pursuit of reunification, a demand interpreted as a way to put pressure on Seoul to walk away from its mutual defense treaty with the U.S.
The North suggested the two Koreas reduce the number of their respective troops to fewer than 100,000 as a step toward building a peace mood and called for the withdrawal of any nuclear weapons and foreign troops from the peninsula, apparently targeting U.S. troops stationed in the South. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this shows the Kim regime has long tried to separate the ROK from the US. Their nuclear weapons program is just the latest attempt to make this happen. Their nuclear weapons program that can threaten the US is being used as a bargaining chip to separate the US from South Korea and then seek a confederation on North Korean terms.
