CONTENTS
1. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Freeze Offer
2. US on DPRK Attack Deterrence
3. DPRK Defector
4. DPRK on US Aegis Air Defence System
5. ROK Political Corruption
6. Taiwan Ultra-high Frequency Early Warning Radar Requests
7. PRC Espionage
I. United States
1. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Freeze Offer
Agence France-Presse (“SOUTH KOREA SAYS NORTH KOREA MUST CLARIFY NUCLEAR FREEZE OFFER,” 03/31/04) reported that the ROK’s Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon said a DPRK proposal for a nuclear freeze would be unacceptable unless the hermit state shuttered all its nuclear facilities. Speaking after returning from visit Beijing where he met with his PRC counterpart Ban said, “The North should clarify its position on what it means exactly when it talks about a freeze and the extent of such a freeze.” The DPRK has offered to freeze its nuclear facilities in return for concessions from the United States including its removal from the US blacklist of terrorism-sponsoring nations. However, Ban said the offer would be “unacceptable” if the DPRK’s nuclear freeze means simply going back to a 1994 deal under which it agreed to mothball its facilities that could be used to produce nuclear weapons based on plutonium. “It must be something more than the 1994 deal in Geneva. All nuclear-related facilities must be frozen,” Ban said.
2. US on DPRK Attack Deterrence
Agence France-Presse (“US CAN DETER ANY NORTH KOREAN ATTACK, SAYS US MILITARY COMMANDER IN SKOREA,” Washington, 04/01/04) reported that the US is capable of repulsing any swift attack from the DPRK in the Korean peninsula, the US military commander in the ROK confidently told a congressional hearing. General Leon Laporte said 70 percent of the DPRK’s ground force of almost one million active duty soldiers were currently deployed south of Pyongyang, capable of attacking its southern neighbor with “little tactical warning.” The size, firepower and proximity of the DPRK’s conventional forces to Seoul — coupled with their lethal asymmetric threats — give the DPRK the capability to inflict “great destruction and casualties if they chose to attack,” he told a hearing on military construction under the House Appropriations Committee. Questioned by Florida Representative Allen Boyd whether US-led forces in the ROK were prepared “if a situation in North Korea occurred today,” Laporte said: “I am very confident today that we have adequate forces to deter a North Korea attack. “I am also very confident that our forces on the peninsula are trained and ready,” he added in the same breath. Laporte said that aside from US and ROK troops, he was confident that US forces in the Pacific, including from Japan, would reinforce the military capability against the DPRK if the situation warranted. The United States has 37,500 soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines and 5,700 civilian defence serving in the ROK.
3. DPRK Defector
BBC (“DEFECTOR RETURNED TO N KOREA,” 04/01/04) reported that a DPRK man who leaked evidence that chemical weapons were tested on prisoners has apparently been handed back to the DPRK by the PRC. Kang Byong-sop, detained in the PRC in January, appeared at a press conference in Pyongyang with his family, according to the PRC’s Xinhua news agency. He said the evidence he supplied, which was first reported by the BBC, was in fact faked by his son, Xinhua said. Before his return, rights groups said Kang could face torture or death. The evidence provided by Kang, a so-called letter of transfer, appeared to authorize chemical weapons testing on political prisoners. The letter was featured in a BBC documentary broadcast in February, whose allegations were dismissed by the DPRK as US-inspired propaganda. Kang, 58, was stopped in January in the PRC’s Yunnan province as he tried to cross into Laos, according to human rights activist Kim Sang-hun. At the Pyongyang press conference, Kang said his eldest son, who had escaped abroad, had faked the transfer document in order to make money from human rights organisations. Kang and his family said they felt sorry that the fake materials were misused by foreign media “to attack the fatherland,” Xinhua reported.
4. DPRK on US Aegis Air Defence System
Agence France-Presse (“N.KOREA SLAMS PLANNED US AIR DEFENCE DEPLOYMENT AS PREPARATION FOR WAR,” 04/01/04) reported that the DPRK condemned a US plan to deploy a destroyer equipped with the high-tech Aegis air defens system off the Korean coast this year as a preparation for war. The DPRK will boost its nuclear deterrent force to protect itself against war, a foreign ministry spokesman said in an official Korean Central News Agency report. The US plan “is the most outright hostile act against the DPRK as it is a system to wage a war against the DPRK and, furthermore, a part of its unchallenged attempt to dominate the Asia-Pacific region,” the spokesman said.
5. ROK Political Corruption
Agence France-Presse (“PROBE OF FORMER ROH AIDES WRAPS UP WITH ONE INDICTMENT,” 03/31/04) reported that a team of special prosecutors wrapped up a three-month graft probe of former aides to President Roh Moo-Hyun by indicting one ex-official and clearing two others of any wrongdoing. The team of 70 investigators empowered by parliament in December to open the investigation charged Roh’s former presidential secretary for general affairs, Choi Do-Sul, with accepting 491 million won (425,200 dollars) in illegal funds ahead of the presidential election in December 2002. The probe cleared two others, Lee Kwang-Jae and Yang Gil-Seung. Both Lee, Roh’s one-time secretary for information and policy monitoring, and Yang, a former personal secretary, were accused of accepting bribes from businessmen. Choi had already been indicted and jailed on separate charges of receiving 1.1 billion won in illegal political donations from a business conglomerate, the SK Group, just after the election.
6. Taiwan Ultra-high Frequency Early Warning Radar Requests
The Australian (“TAIWAN WANTS $2.5BN MISSILE RADARS,” 04/01/04) reported that the US Pentagon has said Taiwan has requested the sale of two ultra-high frequency long-range early warning radars capable of detecting ballistic and cruise missiles. It said they were worth nearly $2.5 billion. Pentagon officials said the announcement had no connection with China-Taiwan tensions in the wake of the re-election in Taipei of President Chen Shui-bien. “This request was under discussion well before 2001 when the arms sale package was approved for Taiwan,” a defense official said. “Nothing should be read into the timing of this announcement.” The request for the radars was made by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States. “These radars will assist the recipient to identify and detect ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and air breathing target threats,” the Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.
7. PRC Espionage
The Associated Press (“PAPERS: ALLEGED SPY GAVE DATA TO CHINA,” Los Angeles, 03/31/04) reported that a woman accused as a double-agent for the PRC who had an affair with an FBI agent talked with a Chinese government official and shared secret information about other agents, according to court papers. Recent briefs filed by prosecutors reveal new details in the government’s case against Katrina Leung and now-retired FBI agent James J. Smith. Leung was a longtime FBI source of PRC intelligence for the FBI but also began working for the PRC Ministry of State Security around 1990, supplying information about her FBI employers, federal prosecutors allege in the recent briefs. The court documents refer to three documents found at Leung’s home during a December 2002 search. One document was a seven-page report, labeled secret, from the FBI’s legal attache in Hong Kong, dated June 12, 1977, the court papers say. Prosecutors said it contained information from a source about the PRC’s intelligence-collecting capabilities and surveillance tactics, and details about the operations of the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security. Another document recounted eight conversations Leung allegedly had with her handler at the Chinese agency in 1990 and 1991. Leung is accused of taking classified documents from Smith’s briefcase to benefit a foreign nation and could face up to 14 years in prison if convicted. Both have pleaded innocent. Defense attorneys John D. Vandevelde and Janet I. Levine have maintained that Leung was a double-agent loyal to the United States, not China. They issued a statement saying they couldn’t comment freely because of court restrictions on the case.
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