NAPSNet Daily Report Tuesday, June 28, 2005

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NAPSNet Daily Report Tuesday, June 28, 2005

NAPSNet Daily Report Tuesday, June 28, 2005

I. Unites States

Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. Unites States

1. DPRK Return to Six-Party Talks

Interfax (“PYONGYANG PREPARING FOR NEXT ROUND OF SIX-NATION TALKS – SOURCE”, 2005-06-28) reported that the DPRK has begun preparations for the forth round of the six-nation talks, which may resume in the second half of July, a DPRK diplomatic source told Interfax on Tuesday. The source said that positive tendencies have appeared recently in the US’s hostile policy regarding the DPRK and its leadership. “Therefore, the decision was made to put the six-nation talks back on track. The DPRK Foreign Ministry has been instructed to get prepared for the fourth round of the talks in the second half of July,” the DPRK diplomat said.

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2. DPRK Defector on Six-Party Talks

Yonhap News (“N.KOREA TO CONTINUE 6-WAY TALKS UNTIL BUSH REPLACED: TOP DEFECTOR”, 2005-06-28) reported that the DPRK will return to stalled six-way talks but will prolong the multilateral dialogue using a “delaying tactic” until the current US administration is replaced, a former top DPRK official claimed Tuesday. “The North, at the end of its delaying tactic, will seek to extract more concessions from South Korea than it did during the government of former president Kim Dae-jung,” the defector said Saturday in a meeting with visiting US human rights activists.

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3. US Nuclear Strategy Experts on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Yonhap News (“NONPROLIFERATION EXPERTS URGE U.S. TO SEEK OTHER STRATEGY ON N.K.”, 2005-06-27) reported that US nuclear nonproliferation advocates, naming the DPRK as a major threat, raised concerns Monday that the Bush administration lacks the right strategy to deal with potential “nuclear terrorism.” Discussing weapons of mass destruction at a conference headed by Timothy Roemer, head of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the US, one participant claimed the DPRK are providing the world “with a new path to nuclear terrorism.”

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4. ROK on DPRK Collapse

Yonhap News (“SPY AGENCY SAYS N.KOREA UNLIKELY TO COLLAPSE IN NEAR FUTURE”, 2005-06-28) reported that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il regime will not likely collapse soon despite some signs of social and economic unrest, the nation’s top intelligence agency said Tuesday. “Although there are some factors of economic and social instability the possibility of the North Korean regime collapsing is almost non-existent,” a senior official of the National Intelligence Service said.

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5. ROK on US-DPRK Relations

Reuters (“SEOUL LOOKS TO SOFTEN CHENEY’S N.KOREA VIEWS-PAPER”, 2005-06-28) reported that the ROK’s unification minister will try to convince Vice President Dick Cheney to soften his stance toward the DPRK, a newspaper said on Tuesday. Chung, who will be in Washington until Saturday, is expected to meet senior US officials, but his schedule has not been fixed. Chung was hoping to meet Cheney, officials said.

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6. ROK PM Visits DMZ

Yonhap News (“LEE VISITS FRONTLINE GP BARRACKS TO BOOST MORALE”, 2005-06-28) reported that ROK Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan on Tuesday urged soldiers at guard posts in the DMZ to stand firm against possible attack from the DPRK, despite recent moves toward inter-Korean rapprochement. “We can expect a lot of changes in the frontline as inter-Korean relations gradually improve,” Lee told a group of soldiers at a GP in the DMZ. “However, we’ve not yet reached that stage and, therefore, you should guard the DMZ thoroughly for your country,” Lee said.

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7. Inter-Korean Talks on POWs

The Korea Times (“SEOUL SEEKS TO DISCUSS POWs WITH NORTH IN AUG.”, 2005-06-27) reported that Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said Monday that the ROK would enter into earnest discussion with the DPRK in August over the issues of ROK POWs and the civilian abductees believed to be living in the DPRK. In a meeting of the National Assembly’s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee, he said the ROK government would do its best to address the humanitarian issues in accordance with the inter-Korean agreements.

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8. Inter-Korean Cultural Exchanges

Joongang Ilbo (“AUTHORS PLAN TO MEET IN NORTH KOREA”, 2005-06-28) reported that novelists and poets from the two Koreas will meet next month for the first time in 60 years, following contact between the ROK and DPRK writers at a celebration earlier this month for the fifth anniversary of the 2000 inter-Korean summit. The Association of Writers for National Literature, a ROK literary group, said yesterday they received a fax Sunday from their northern counterpart, the Korean Authors Union, agreeing to hold the event. Around 100 writers and performing artists from the ROK and the DPRK and 20 ethnic Korean writers from abroad will participate in the North and South Authors Rally, set for July 20 to 26. The event, according to the ROK group, aims to celebrate the 2000 South-North Joint Declaration.

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9. ROK Aid to DPRK

Yonhap News (“SEOUL DRAWS UP SEVEN SPECIFIC ECONOMIC AID PROJECTS FOR N.KOREA”, 2005-06-28) reported that the ROK has drawn up seven specific projects to help rebuild the DPRK’s economy in case the state agrees to give up its nuclear program, a government report showed Tuesday. They call for providing energy assistance, modernizing railways and ports, establishing joint farming complexes and organizing tours to the DPRK’s highest peak of Mount Baekdu, according to a Unification Ministry report.

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10. Defector on DPRK Human Rights

Associated Press (“AP INTERVIEW: DEFECTOR WHO COUNSELED BUSH CALLS FOR PRESSING NORTH KOREA ON HUMAN RIGHTS”, 2005-06-28) reported that an interview with a DPRK defector, Kang Chol Hwan, has him calling on the international community to press the DPRK to improve their human rights record. Kang, who held a meeting with President Bush last week, urged Bush to press the PRC to stop forcefully returning DPRK refugees, who Beijing views as illegal economic migrants. He also pleaded with Bush to raise the issue of prison camps in the DPRK, where the US State Department estimates between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held for political reasons.

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11. Japanese Emperor Visits War Memorial

The New York Times (“VISITING SAIPAN, JAPAN’S EMPEROR HONORS DEAD”, 2005-06-28) reported that standing at the top of Banzai Cliff, Japan’s emperor bowed deeply on Tuesday in memory of hundreds of Japanese civilians who threw themselves into the Pacific rather than surrender to American soldiers at the culmination of a World War II battle. In a summer of war anniversaries, Emperor Akihito came here in his first visit to an overseas battlefield, choosing this tropical island where mass suicides took place out of devotion to his father, Emperor Hirohito. On Tuesday, he and Empress Michiko changed their schedule and stopped at the Korean memorial.

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12. DPRK on Japanese Abduction Issue

Kyodo News (“N.KOREA LINKING ABDUCTION ISSUE TO 6-WAY TALKS”, 2005-06-27) reported that the DPRK’s official media on Tuesday said the issue of Japanese abducted to the DPRK is settled and has “nothing to do with” six-way talks. The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea, was quoted as saying that if Japan truly seeks the settlement of the nuclear issue and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, it should “not peddle such irrelevant ware as the ‘abduction issue’ at the six-party talks.”

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13. Sino-Japanese Economic Relations

The New York Times (“CHINA’S ECONOMIC BRAWN UNSETTLES JAPANESE”, 2005-06-28) reported that in the last five years, the PRC economic boom overshadowed the political risks for the Japanese. But in May, export growth to the PRC stalled. New polls of Japanese investors show a growing reluctance to make further investments in the PRC. The immediate catalyst for the changed attitude was a wave of anti-Japanese protests in PRC cities in April. But those protests, tolerated by the PRC’s leaders, sent out a broader message: the PRC would not object if its people, or its business executives, demonstrated their nationalism on the streets or in corporate boardrooms. It was a stark reminder to investors and politicians around the world of the PRC’s willingness to play the nationalist card. And it amounted to a bucket of cold water for many Japanese investors who had assumed that they were secure in the PRC because they were providing jobs and quality products.

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14. PRC Seizure of Japanese Textbooks

The Associated Press (“BEIJING SEIZES JAPAN TEXTBOOKS FOR CONTENT”, 2005-06-28) reported that textbooks headed for a Japanese school in PRC were seized by customs officials who objected to the way maps in the books depicted the PRC mainland and rival Taiwan, an official said Tuesday. The maps showed the mainland and the island in different colors, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, indicating that Beijing was concerned this might make Taiwan seem like a separate country. “The Japanese textbooks showed China and Taiwan in different colors,” Liu said at a regular news briefing. “The ‘one-China principle’ is paramount, so it is legitimate for China’s customs to handle this according to the law.”

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15. Arms Sales to the PRC

Washington Post (“CHINA SCOLDS U.S. FOR BLOCKING ISRAELI ARMS SALE”, 2005-06-28) reported that accusing the Bush administration of “carping” and “outside interference,” the PRC issued a sharp complaint Monday after Israel cancelled a controversial Israeli-PRC arms deal under pressure from the US. The Israeli decision halted the sale of drone aircraft capable of seeking out radar installations. The PRC Foreign Ministry, reacting Monday to reports of the cancellation, said cooperation “in every respect” between Israel and the PRC was good not only for the two countries involved, but also for the prospect of peace and stability in the Middle East.

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16. Arms Sales to Taiwan

Reuters (“TAIWAN SAYS U.S. ARMS DEAL WILL FEND OFF CHINA”, 2005-06-28) reported that Taiwan risks losing its military edge over ideological foe the PRC — and support from the US — if parliament fails to approve a US$15 billion arms budget, a senior defense ministry official said. The US offered the package of advanced weapons in 2001 in what would be the biggest arms sale to Taiwan in more than a decade. Taiwan has since cut its budget for the arms from $18 billion to $15 billion. “Failure to pass the arms purchase bill means our fighting power cannot be improved at a time when Communist China’s defense spending is growing at double-digit percentage points every year,” Hu Chen-pu, director-general of the General Political Warfare Bureau, told Reuters late on Monday. “As the gap grows wider and wider, we are in fact encouraging them to attack.”

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17. Sino-Vietnamese Grid Interconnection Project

Xinhua (“TRANSNATIONAL POWER TRANSMISSION PROJECT OPERATIONAL IN S. CHINA”, 2005-06-28) reported that South China’s Yunnan Province Tuesday put its second transnational power transmission project into operation and expected to send an annual 400 million kwh of electricity to Vietnam. It is the country’s largest transnational power transmission project, said sources with the Yunnan Power Grid Corporation, adding that it will inject vitality into Vietnam’s economic and social development. The electricity is generated and sent from the Maomaotiao Hydropower Station, located in the Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, through the 28-km-long power transmission line.

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18. PRC Bird Flu Issue

International Herald Tribune (“LACK OF INFORMATION SLOWS BIRD FLU INVESTIGATION IN CHINA “, 2005-06-28) reported that World Health Organization officials said Tuesday that efforts to determine the extent of a bird flu outbreak in western PRC were being hampered by a lack of information from the PRC government. Julie Hall, a WHO expert investigating the outbreak, said that a PRC government lab had analyzed virus samples from infected birds in Qinghai Province, but that the PRC government had yet to share that information with the organization or with other countries. “Our understanding is that the virus has been isolated and sequenced,” she said. “However, at this stage we do not have access to the sequencing information, so we don’t know if the virus has changed.” That information is crucial to understanding if this outbreak, reportedly the first among migratory birds, was caused by a “more pathogenic” variation of the virus, she said.

(return to top) Agence France-Presse (“UN EXPERTS CALL FOR URGENT FLU TESTING OF MIGRATORY BIRDS IN CHINA”, 2005-06-28) reported that United Nations experts called for the urgent testing of a flock of migratory birds in the PRC after they found an outbreak of deadly avian flu was more lethal than previously thought. A total of 5,000 birds have died in a bird sanctuary in northwest PRC’s Qinghai province, five times more than previously reported, according to officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) just back from visiting the area. “This is the first time we’ve seen large numbers of migratory birds dying from bird flu (in the world),” said Julie Hall, the WHO’s official in charge of communicable diseases in the PRC. “So the virus has obviously changed to be more pathogenic to animals. What it means to humans we don’t know,” she told reporters Tuesday. (return to top)

19. PRC Floods

Agence France-Presse (“CHINA SAYS 771 KILLED AND MISSING IN FLOODS, WARNS OF EPIDEMICS”, 2005-06-28 ) reported that the PRC raised the number of killed and missing in this year’s floods to 771, and warned scorching temperatures in previously inundated areas create “ideal” conditions for infectious diseases. A total of 607 are confirmed dead, and 164 remain missing, the Xinhua news agency reported, citing the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Nearly 2.9 million people have been evacuated because of the floods, while a staggering 21.5 million people have been affected to various degrees, according to the agency. As the water receded, the mercury started climbing, which was bad news for officials nervous about the outbreak of water-borne diseases.

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