What Happens Now the Dear Leader has Gone to Hell?

[Guest fountainhall]

Well, now the cat is really among the pigeons again!

 

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has died. When there are periods of uncertainty in the North, tensions inevitably mount around the region, as it tends to use its muscle to disguise any perceived weakness. Kim’s designated successor is his little known third son, Kim Jong-un, but the concern must be what the army generals, who seem to have accepted him up to now, really feel about him, and whether he has the strength of character to command the power apparatus at his disposal. If he is seen to be weak, expect the unexpected.

 

Personally, I would not wish to be in South Korea at this time. There will be a lot of concern (although not of the nuclear kind, I think). The South's stock market is down this morning by about 4%, and other Asian bourses are also heading south.

[Bob]

Yes, a time of concern. If I had my way, there would be a huge power fight in the north, all of the top leaders would kill each other off, a moderate would emerge and would lead North Korea into the 20th century (I didn't say 21st on purpose!), and a peaceful reunification and reconciliation would occur.

 

But, then again, I believe in Santa Claus....

[Guest fountainhall]

a moderate would emerge and would lead North Korea into the 20th century (I didn't say 21st on purpose!), and a peaceful reunification and reconciliation would occur

This is what the South has been hoping for and preparing for for at least a couple of decades. It is said there is a large secret government agency in South Korea doing little but make plans for the development of the North. Like East Germany's absorption into the greater unified Germany, the costs will be humungous. No doubt the South has been salting away reserves for just such an eventuality.

 

In the North, however, instability is likely to reign for some time, as Kim Jong Il had three sons, a son-in-law and brother-in-law, all at one time presumed his successors. There is also an army general with eyes on the top job, O Kuk-ryol. Given Kim Jong Un's relatively tender years, there must surely be manoeuvres of Machiavellian proportions now underway.

 

Government leaders in China, too, will be scurrying to hastily called meetings. The last thing they want on their doorstep is yet greater instability in their already unstable neighbour.

 

On a more flippant note, it's rather funny, I think, that another board dealing with often gay thailand matters has given the news of Kim's death with a quote lifted in its entirety from an early BBC web page. It refers to Kim Jong Un by his old name, Kim Jong Woon, and it illustrates the problems that can often arise when a poster takes the easy route by simply cutting and pasting the entire content of another website (legally questionable in view of copyright issues!) without any checking or updating - and no original comment. Even if a link is provided, it's surely somewhat embarrassing when the text on that original site is later updated, as in this case

 

Why is that funny? Because ask any South Korean - and, for that matter, millions around the region - who is Kim Jong Woon, and they will immediately recognise him as one of the four lead singers of the mega-popular boy band named Super Junior

 

Apparently, Kim (the North's leader, that is) has been given the name "Yŏngmyŏng-han Tongji" (영명한 동지) which loosely translates to "Brilliant Comrade." Perhaps a change to "Super Junior" might make him more popular!

[KhorTose]

Apparently, Kim (the North's leader, that is) has been given the name "Yŏngmyŏng-han Tongji" (영명한 동지) which loosely translates to "Brilliant Comrade." Perhaps a change to "Super Junior" might make him more popular!

 

No one look at him and I too believe in Santa Claus. While much of North Korea may be facing starvation, he looks like he feeds on a more then a regular basis. Maybe you Pattaya regulars can get your picture taken with him at YAYA bar.

[Guest fountainhall]

No doubt his state-run propaganda section will say he feeds on grass and bamboo shoots to give him that panda-like appearance, only so the dear people can have more rice to eat

[KhorTose]

No doubt his state-run propaganda section will say he feeds on grass and bamboo shoots to give him that panda-like appearance, only so the dear people can have more rice to eat

 

That is probably not a joke. North Korea is the actual 1984 that Orwell prophesied. Yes Panda-like appearance is the perfect description of this "great leader"..

[Guest]

I hope this ends up in a transition to a unified Korea, along the lines of the German model.

 

Obviously some deal would need to be reached that includes no US troops in the North & perhaps a token reduction in the south.

 

Time the West put pressure on the Chinese. After all, if they want free access to our markets and to be seen as a responsible global player, then propping up evil regimes like this should not be accepted.

[Guest fountainhall]

Time the West put pressure on the Chinese. After all, if they want free access to our markets and to be seen as a responsible global player, then propping up evil regimes like this should not be accepted.

I am pretty certain the West has been putting a great deal of pressure on China over the years, but it will not budge.

 

China's overriding concern is of stability in its own country. If North Korea implodes, countless millions of refugees will spill across its border and destabilize a relatively prosperous part of its north east. That scenario and a South Korean take-over also throws up the possibility of American forces being stationed right on China's doorstep. I don't think China would ever permit that - under almost any circumstances. If the South were to annexe the North, I am sure the leaders in Beijing will insist that US forces are removed from the peninsula. After all, there would no longer be a state of war across the divide, and so no longer a need for foreign troops.

 

I don't see that China has done much propping up of the North Korean regime in recent years; merely that it has tolerated it, provided it with some aid and not done anything to rock a very unstable boat.

 

“At this moment, China might provide the best chance of stability,” said Robert Carlin, a former State Department official and fellow at Stanford University who travels to North Korea.

 

“They want to be the best informed and have a modicum of influence and have people consulting with them at this moment,” Mr. Carlin said. “The rest of us are deaf, dumb, blind and with our arms tied behind our backs.”

 

John Delury, a scholar of China and the two Koreas at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, said: “Chinese diplomats are the only ones who can pick up the phone and talk to North Korean counterparts about what is going on, what to expect. This reveals the fatal weakness in Washington and Seoul’s over-reliance on sanctions over the past three years.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/world/asia/china-moves-to-ensure-stability-in-north-korea.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

[Bob]

China's overriding concern is of stability in its own country.

 

Yes, I understand that but, for some reason, they perceive any type of criticism from the outside as undermining that effort and what they constantly call an interference with the domestic affairs of another nation. Perhaps, as you note, it's simply that they are worried about losing stability due to outside influences (and my guess is the concept of the "Arab Spring" has been of substantial concern to them along with the potential political hostilities emerging in their big neighbor to the north).

 

And, to protect themselves from any of this criticism or agitation, the Chinese have adopted and exercised an extreme view that no nation is allowed under almost any circumstances to criticize or even comment upon what another nation does within its borders. And this twisted view has led to the world being unable to affect the internal brutalities of North Korea and Burma. I sometimes wonder how many of the millions of North Koreans who have starved over the last decade would have been saved had China a more realistic and/or moral attitude about what a nation state ought to be allowed to do to its own citizens.

[Guest fountainhall]

they perceive any type of criticism from the outside as undermining that effort and what they constantly call an interference with the domestic affairs of another nation

You are absolutely correct. It is a statement that is rolled out constantly and, in China's case, is no doubt overdone. But then, let's face it, other nations also make such comments, including the USA. Perhaps not the President, but senators and congresspeople are frequently to be heard talking about other nations minding their own business. I can think of instances when Britain, France and other so called developed states have used the phrase when it suited them, despite their support for freedom of expression.

 

But I think it is then a huge - and indeed an inaccurate - leap to suggest -

 

this twisted view has led to the world being unable to affect the internal brutalities of North Korea and Burma

Let's face it, it's not only China which has held back over North Korea. Its other neighbours have been none too active in that department. The US which stations about 30,000 troops near the border looked as though it was getting somewhere towards the end of the Clinton years, but then George Bush stopped that process and insisted on six-party talks. And look where that got everyone! Not only nowhere; everything actually reversed course and nuclear devices were finally produced and launched! So much for the achievements of South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the USA! Not only those of China, let’s remember.

 

I know I seem always to be the apologist for China on this Board. But I do think it gets a raw deal in becoming some other nation's whipping boy in far too many instances. As I have said many times, you cannot view present day China without considering its history over the past 200 - 250 years - a time when it was rotting from within causing monstrous destabilization, humiliated by the great western powers who stole great chunks of its territory, and then all but ruined by its mad communist dictator, Mao Tse Tung, and his crazed campaigns, "The Great Leap Forward", "Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom" and then the worst of the lot, the "Cultural Revolution". We should never forger that only four decades ago - four decades! - that country was virtually at ground zero.

 

We now tend to think that Deng Xiao Ping changed all that and that China is now one happy capitalist society with Chinese socialist leanings. As a fascinating documentary on Deng on the History Channel last Sunday made very clear, even today the reformers nurtured by Deng are still fighting rearguard actions within the senior echelons of the party. Like the US, the country’s leaders are still divided with factions unhappy with what the top leadership is doing - in China's case to dismember Mao’s ideals.

 

China does what is best for China, and that too will continue, I’m sure. But there have been times when it has indeed responded to international ‘requests’. For example, it was praised by the US and other countries when it decided not to devalue its currency during the Asia economic crisis of 1997 – 2000, despite the fact that all neighbouring countries did so by 20% and more (bar Hong Kong whose currency is tied to the US$).

 

As Bismark once said, politics is the art of the possible. If the efforts of the US, Japan, Russia and South Korea in conjunction with their ally China have totally failed to make any progress with the regime in North Korea, blaming China alone for the repression in the North is outrageously far-fetched in my view! Had the Bush-Cheney regime continued with Cllinton's more open-door policy, who knows what progress might have resulted, and of how much misery the population in that blighted country might have been relieved?

[Guest fountainhall]

There is an interesting article in today’s Guardian. Written by a man named Robert Willoughby, author of the Bradt Guide to North Korea, it is admittedly one-sided. I don't agree with much of the content, nor with the way it omits mention of all those slaughtered by the regime and tends to throw responsibility for what has been happening in North Korea on to the shoulders of other nations. But it does provide some balance to the sabre rattling that goes on whenever that nation is mentioned.

 

What North Korea does best is survive, and it will continue to do so under the 20-something Kim Jong-un.

 

We were told that the regime, under the aegis of a madman, put its own survival first and directed resources primarily into the military. But what else would it do, when it's not at peace with either South Korea nor the hyperpower US? For all that, the west must realise that threats and throttling sanctions just don't work and take this chance to leave all the blame for the past with the dead man and his personality cult, and offer aid, trade and peace with the North Koreans, nukes or not.

 

It's not a question of "rewarding Pyongyang's bad behaviour", nor appeasing the regime, nor need the efficacy of any existing structure monitoring any dealings with dangerous arms or nuclear components be compromised by peace . . .

 

It should be remembered that the north reprised its nuclear bomb programme following claims that it had already done so from George W Bush neocons, who had already reneged on a long-standing deal for North Korea to mothball its nuclear reactors in exchange for light-water technology and fuel oil from the US. They listed the north on the "axis of evil", and didn't even bother to produce a dodgy dossier about Pyongyang's bomb-making, while invading the Middle East on lies. You'd be crazy not to make a bomb in the face of such aggression.

 

But worse was that the whole atomic fracas did so much damage to years of diplomatic and economic progress in bringing North Korea in from the cold and in touch with the world, first and foremost with South Korea and the US. During the 1990s, South Korea under Kim Dae-jung, with the blessing of the Clinton administration, offered the north the "sunshine policy" of rapprochement and investment, and the north, under Kim Jong-il, eagerly took it up. Pyongyang's nuclear bomb programme stopped. The anti-US propaganda stopped. Diplomatic and trade relations were founded with the EU and the UK. The North Korean people . . . genuinely believed a new age of peace was burgeoning before the Washington neocons dashed the lot.

 

Yet, amid the ensuing sabre-rattling, billions of South Korean won were still invested into building factories and tourist facilities in North Korea. Parts of the world's most heavily fortified frontier, the de-militarised zone, have been de-mined and tourist buses have crossed south to north where tanks fear to trundle. As it is, hopes are that South Korea's free trade deal with the EU will be cemented by rail links running via Pyongyang. And just last week, officials from the US and North Korea met to talk about the US delivering food aid, with no strings attached to the north's bomb programme. Add peace to the bargain, and let Obama end the war with North Korea as well as Iraq.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/19/north-korea-peace?intcmp=239

 

I wonder how many do not realise that in 1953 only an armistice agreement was signed between the North and the US, not a peace treaty. That armistice did not include South Korea which therefore remains in a permanent state of war with the North. Fighting involving any of the three nations can resume at any time. A full peace treaty between North, South and the US is surely a priority for all nations, especially those which could be hit by a North Korean nuclear missile.

 

Another point is that whilst the US forces on the peninsula were originally there to defend the South from possible attack, in 2006 the role of these US forces changed -

 

from a defensive posture against North Korea towards a more flexible, mobile, and rapidly deployable force for the wider Asia-Pacific region. The United States, which is primarily concerned with containing the rising power of China, points to the military standoff with North Korea as justification for its continued presence on the Korean peninsula. This, in turn, serves to bolster the military hawks in North Korea

http://endthekoreanwar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13&Itemid=6

 

As has been seen in recent weeks with Myanmar, the carrot may yet yield some results where the stick has failed.

[Bob]

I know I seem always to be the apologist for China on this Board. But I do think it gets a raw deal in becoming some other nation's whipping boy in far too many instances.

 

If, as it appears, you're suggesting that the west or the US alone is responsible for the situation in North Korea (and/or, better put, has been involved in persuading other nations to leave the North Koreans alone and to not criticize what's happening within that country), I'd elevate "apologist" to "fantasist." The same label in my view would apply to those that think that talking sweetly to the Burmese or the North Koreans (or Khadafi or Assad or a myriad of other horrible leaders throughout history) would had have any appreciable effect.

 

But, when we have rogue regimes like those in North Korea and Burma supported by countries such as Russia and China, the world effectively loses its ability to force change through isolation and penalties. So, yes, I absolutely believe that the situations in both of those countries have persisted due to inappropriate support from China and Russia. Had Russia and China desired to see things change there and cooperated with the west in methods to force that, a lot of the horrible history of both North Korea and Burma wouldn't have happened. At least that's my view.

 

Your analogy of the carrot of the stick is interesting. We could debate that issue back and forth and likely neither of us would be able to definitively prove anything. But I'd love to hear what Aung Suu Kyi might have to say in private* about what she thinks about the topic (i.e, whether she's appreciated the actions/condemnations of the US and a few other western countries and/or whether she's appreciated the support China and Russia have provided to the thug generals). [i say "in private" on purpose as I'd hate to see her penalized again for the next 20 years for simply speaking her mind.]

[Guest]

We have to remember China has benefited hugely from access to western markets, whilst at the same time fixing their currency at an advantageous level and taxing imports. Tolerating this should be regarded as an option, at the prerogative of the west.

 

We shouldn't let support for Burma & North Korea continue.

[Guest fountainhall]

If, as it appears, you're suggesting that the west or the US alone is responsible for the situation in North Korea (and/or, better put, has been involved in persuading other nations to leave the North Koreans alone and to not criticize what's happening within that country), I'd elevate "apologist" to "fantasist."

I don't think anything in my posts indicates any suggestion that any outside nations are responsible for the horrors that have been endured by the North Korean people. That is the sole responsibility of the North Korean leadership, plain and simple. Kim Jong Il belongs to that pantheon of monsters like Stalin and Mao, a murdering, kidnapping piece of evil who started on that road long before he assumed power. The 1983 Rangoon bombing which wiped out several members of the South Korean cabinet – but failed to kill then-President Chun Doo Hwan – was just one of his many early crimes.

 

And my bringing other nations into the discussion was merely to highlight the Bush administration's absolute insistence on six-party talks, not bilateral talks as requested by the North Koreans (to which I refer below).

 

What concerned me in Bob’s post was the finger-pointing at China (and later also Russia) as the sole nation/s which could – and should - have been doing more to influence North Korea. I am pretty certain China could indeed have exerted more influence. The point I was attempting to make is that any greater role for China (and Russia) was largely dependent on its partners in the US-led six talk coalition. Frankly, it was also dependent on North Korea being a willing partner. But, as history has shown us that North Korea was a ruthless single-minded dictatorship quite prepared to see large swathes of its own enslaved population die in pursuit of military goals, who can now say that any pressure brought by those two countries would in fact have been successful?

 

The facts are that the US, like it or not, is all but at war with North Korea. South Korea is at war with North Korea. China can do nothing to alter that. Only the three directly involved parties can. Whatever influence other countries might have had, North Korea wanted, so we are told, direct talks with the US so as to move beyond the fragile armistice and on to some form of peace – at least some form of non-aggression pact. Clinton was on that path and came bearing gifts. The South Koreans were on that path and came bearing gifts. But the Bush administration changed the ballgame and closed the door tight shut. In a state of war or shaky armistice, no country, in my view, can act on its own without the participation of the belligerents. The side with the massive force behind it wanted six-party talks. The side developing a few nukes wanted bilateral talks. End result: inevitable stalemate!

 

Diplomats know that North Korean negotiators are shifty, stubborn and implacable. Six-party talks did not work, yet the US kept on insisting. I doubt if any of us knows what was going on between Washington and Beijing (and Moscow) during the Bush years, and if in fact the US was asking China (and Moscow) to do more to coerce its evil neighbour? But you always have to come back to the fact China has absolutely no role the state of war that presently exists between the North and the South, nor with the lack of a formal peace treaty between the North and the USA.

 

Going back to the "fantasist" suggestion, like it or not, the present situation is indeed a direct result of non-Korean superpower shenanigans. In September 1945, the US and the Soviet Union along with their allies carved Korea into two blocks – without consulting the Koreans themselves! That was in direct contravention of agreements made by, amongst others, Roosevelt and Churchill, at the November 1943 Conference in Cairo. A later Conference on Korea held in Moscow in December 1945 once again excluded any Korean involvement! All most Koreans wanted was the right to live in freedom (surely an American ideal!) following its brutal occupation by Japan since 1910.

 

Thus Korea became a pawn in the Cold War, the first of the Asian dominos – what is now generally accepted as a theory inspired by a misguided fear of communist take-over in countries whose basic desires were freedom from colonialism rather than a specific aim to revert to communism.

 

Both the United States and the Soviet Union deserve blame for Korea's postwar division at the 38th parallel. Disregarding the desires of the Korean people, Washington and Moscow each believed that its security required a "friendly" Korea.

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/korpart.htm

 

Sadly, history sometimes reveals a habit of external powers turning "desires" into nightmares.

[Bob]

In my view, I have no doubt at all that China (with or without Russia joining in) could make a huge difference within North Korea (and/or Burma) simply by sitting them down and telling them they have two choices - dramatically change their ways or all political and economic aid will be immediately withdrawn.

 

In any event, just happened to check out the CNN news website and read the following article which is somewhat related to our discussion. That writer too is arguing in part for more pressure on North Korea:

 

Green article

[Guest fountainhall]

I don’t disagree in general with most of that article, although the Bush neocon bias is glaringly obvious. After all, Michael Green was Senior Director for Asia on the NSC during the Bush administration, so it would be really surprising if he trotted out anything other than the Bush party line – which was to slam shut the door Clinton had opened.

 

The key, though, is surely the point he makes about the regime being “built on fear”. What he does not mention is that that “fear” is only part of a much larger countrywide brainwashing of the population.

 

CNN aired a documentary about a year or so ago about refugees fleeing through China and Thailand before going on to South Korea. One young lady was so desperate about leaving the “Dear Leader” that despite everything she had been through in order to get to the South, she finally left her family and friends there to return to the North – and goodness knows what kind of future. Watching her was like watching a robot!

 

She is probably an example of 90+% of the population who, whatever hardships they endure, actually believe that they are as fortunate as they are told they are. China, the west and other nations can provide more food and Refugee Commissioners. But, in the event of eventual reunification, how on earth does one get a brainwashed population to understand about individual freedoms – even to accept that it has been brainwashed, like that lady who returned?

 

I must admit I cringed when Michael Green talks about “fear that border guards might catch you bringing a bible back from China!” If you know nothing about Christianity prior to a brief, but dangerous, trip across the border, how likely is it that a bible will be one of your priorities? If anything was written to appeal to a domestic US audience, that surely was!

 

He does raises the crucial issue, though –

 

American, Japanese and South Korean governments have all at one time or another decided that pressure on human rights might distract from diplomatic negotiations over the more dangerous threat from the North's nuclear weapons program --which is, of course, one of the reasons the North wants nuclear weapons

.

With all respect, I do think that rather seems to counter your earlier comment -

 

If, as it appears, you're suggesting that the west or the US . . . has been involved in persuading other nations to leave the North Koreans alone and to not criticize what's happening within that country, I'd elevate "apologist" to "fantasist."

That aside, having raised that threat, he has absolutely no answer to it. He suggests there are five things the US can do – “highlighting the North’s record in all diplomatic discussions,” “put more international pressure on China,” “increase the number of defectors the US accepts,” “not link food aid to political negotiations,” and “prepare for massive humanitarian assistance in the event of a collapse of the regime.” If that’s the best he can come up with after analysing the problem intensely over many years, it’s little wonder that the stalemate continued - until Obama reverted to one-on-one talks again.

[pong]

did youkow that:

1.indeed 10.000s if not yet more, NoKo's are working in China-to be exploited by both the Chinese and their own govmt that way?

2.that indeed a few 100 NoKo's slip via China to VNam and Thailand etc-to eventually rerach SoKo-but that many are caught underway? Even more dauting as the tipical Iranese etc longing for Australia?

3.That even in some EU countries-due to old contracts, there are NoKo's working in factoresi 'as slaves'' as the common description usually is, notable the Czech republic?

4. The best chance to opening that country IMHO is when even CHina reaches the ends of its rural labour reserves to man its factories and they need more unskilled labour. Plus they are the meekest sheep anyway due to their beloved regime dear leader with eternal skills born in a rainbow. BTW-the price level in China is a fair lot higher as here in TH-so I cannot understand why that country is always singled out as the culprit for the USA as being manipulating its exchange. VNam does it even more.

[Guest fountainhall]

BTW-the price level in China is a fair lot higher as here in TH-so I cannot understand why that country is always singled out as the culprit for the USA as being manipulating its exchange. VNam does it even more.

Interesting comment! I have posted before on what I consider the folly of western governments harping on about unfair exchange rates and I always cite the case of Japan. Japan was the favoured whipping boy of the Reagan administration which was hell-bent of getting the Yen upvalued. When I first visited Japan in mid-1981, I got around ¥260 for US$1. When I moved to Japan to work in late 1990, Reagan’s policy had worked and it was down to ¥157. Two years later it was at ¥120. Now it is around ¥77.

 

So the USA got what it wanted - and a lot of what it did not want. All the Japanese did was start transferring production offshore to countries like Thailand where manufacturing costs were vastly cheaper. They also concentrated more on manufacturing higher-value products. With their more valuable Yens in their pockets, they then opened up car factories in the US and started buying up movie studios and prime bits of US real estate like Rockefeller Center. The higher Yen has therefore had precious little benefit for the USA that I can see - apart from seeming to turn Hawaii into the holiday prefecture of Japan

 

China will not be forced into anything more than a gradual increase in the value of the Renminbi. Like Japan, as has already happened, it will begin to move production offshore and the value of its goods will effectively remain as before! But I frankly don’t see it moving into North Korea. When reunification finally comes – as I believe it will – it is the South Koreans who are desperate for that new, cheap pool of labour. For then they won’t have to move more of their own production offshore

[Guest]

Ah, but if China wants to benefit from "free" trade, it should allow the market to set the exchange rate, not fix it.

 

Going back a few decades, Japan built up an unfair & inappropriate share of global manufacturing, partially through advantageous exchange rates in the early years. That was not sustainable when exchange rates moved closer to a fair market level.

China is creating a much bigger distortion of global trade with the combination of fixed exchange rates and a very large population.

Having said that, even the Chinese are now opening up garment factories to benefit from cheap labour in Cambodia.

[Bob]

Ah, but if China wants to benefit from "free" trade, it should allow the market to set the exchange rate, not fix it.

 

No question about it. There are a lot of things China ought to be doing but, given it's economic might, nobody in the west seems to do anything more than talk about the issue. And, of course, there are those who argue that China is a special case and/or for some unknown reason shouldn't be held to any standards (for example only, the United Nations charter obligations such as those enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights).

[Guest fountainhall]

China is creating a much bigger distortion of global trade with the combination of fixed exchange rates and a very large population.

I agree about the population, but the exchange rate is not permanently fixed. Up till just six years ago, it is true it had been fixed for decades at around RMB8.30 to US$1. Since then, though, it has moved up to 6.33 today. A year ago it was 6.67. I wonder what rate the west will feel comfortable with?

[Guest fountainhall]

Even nature, the North Koreans have been told, has been mourning the death of the dear Leader.

 

A snowstorm hit as Mr Kim died and ice on the volcanic Chon lake near his reported birthplace at Mount Paektu cracked, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

 

Following the storm's sudden end at dawn on Tuesday, a message carved in rock - "Mount Paektu, holy mountain of revolution. Kim Jong-il" - glowed brightly, it said. It remained there until sunset.

 

On the same say, a Manchurian crane also apparently adopted a posture of grief at a statue of the late leader's father in the northern city of Hamhung.

 

"Even the crane seemed to mourn the demise of Kim Jong-il, born of Heaven, after flying down there at dead of cold night, unable to forget him," KCNA reported officials as saying.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16297811

 

Well, I guess that's not much worse than the visions of the Virgin Mary some misguided souls see from time to time in chocolate chip cookies!

[Bob]

I wonder what rate the west will feel comfortable with?

 

The answer to that is fairly obvious - a rate set by the free market versus one artificially established by the Bank of China. Not letting the currency float artificially keeps the price of exported goods low and keeps the Chinese economy humming along.

[Guest fountainhall]

Not letting the currency float artificially keeps the price of exported goods low and keeps the Chinese economy humming along.

In the absence of upvaluing its currency, increasing the cost of its exports is one thing China does appear to be doing. The BBC website today has an article about Sichuan Province increasing the minimum wage by 23.4% from January 1st. Most other provinces will raise the minimum wage by 13%.

 

This follows an average increase in 21 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of 22% for the current year. The article adds that authorities expect the average minimum wage to grow by at least 13% annually over the next five years.

 

The reason is partly a result of ”severe labour shortages” in Chinese cities. But the increases will also help boost internal domestic consumption with the aim of the country becoming “less export dependent” - clearly a priority in the present worldwide recession.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16311751

[Rogie]

In post #17 Pong mentions North Koreans effectively working as slave labour in China and Europe.

 

A recent syndicated (NYT News Service) article in the Bangkok Post informs us north and south meet in the unlikely setting of Siem Reap in Cambodia, where North Korean women double as waitresses and entertainers for a boggling crowd of southerners, jetted in on a package tour that includes dining at Pyongyang restaurant where wine goes for US$30 a glass with meals costing up to $100. Last year more than 260,000 southerners visited Siem Reap, accounting for 16% of all foreigners.

 

Clearly, it is the foreign currency that attracts the North to mount such a charade, and all payment is in crisp US dollar notes, but apparently the South Koreans lap it all up. Good luck to them I guess, but it smacks of nothing much more than goldfish-bowl curiosity to me.

 

By the way, anyone curious about seeing a few North Koreans out of their usual habitat, there's good news, there is a chain of such restaurants - Bangladesh, Dubai, Laos and Nepal are mentioned.

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On an entirely different tangent, it struck me North Korea is an imperfect metaphor for the fate of Kodak, who recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US. Despite the obvious failings of a formerly imperious system, communism, North Korea persists with it flying in the teeth of all logic. The comparison is an obvious one, but I will say it nevertheless, Kodak buried their heads in the sand against the onslaught of digital photographic technology in a vainglorious attempt to protect their once all-powerful ideology, their cameras and the 35mm roll of film, the latter ceasing production in 2009 after 74 years.