Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

1. DPRK Blast

Chosun Ilbo (“DIPLOMATS TOLD N. KOREA CARRIED OUT 2 BLASTS: AMBASSADOR”, 2004-09-16) reported that a DPRK official told diplomats from seven countries who visited the site of last week’s massive explosion in the country on Thursday that the DPRK had carried out two blasts for a hydroelectric project, the Polish ambassador in Pyongyang said. Wojciech Kaluza said in a telephone interview that the diplomats from Britain, the Czech Republic, Germany, Mongolia, Poland, Russia and Sweden were taken to a “huge construction site” during the one-day trip. According to Kaluza, the diplomats saw at least one part of an area that was blasted, and received an explanation from a manager of the project. The DPRK manager provided the diplomats with figures concerning the size of the site, the amount of explosives used and the amount of soil they had to remove after the blasts, according to Kaluza.

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2. DPRK Blast Inspection

The Associated Press (“AMBASSADOR TRAVELS TO N. KOREA BLAST SITE”, 2004-09-16) reported that Britain’s ambassador to the DPRK traveled Thursday to the site of a massive explosion to verify claims by the DPRK that the blast wasn’t caused by a nuclear test, an embassy official said. Slinn said Wednesday that he would be joined by diplomats from the Pyongyang embassies of Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, India and Mongolia. The diplomats were supposed to visit the site as early as Tuesday but Slinn said the trip was delayed by the difficulty of arranging travel to the remote area in the country’s northeast. According to Slinn, it required “a plane ride and a two- to three-hour trip” in an off-road vehicle. He said, however, that the DPRK’s Foreign Ministry “has worked hard and cooperated well on putting it together.”

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3. DPRK on Nuclear Talks

The Associated Press (“N. KOREA STALLING ON NUCLEAR TALKS”, 2004-09-16) reported that the DPRK said Thursday it will not join six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program until rival the ROK fully discloses the details of its secret atomic experiments. The DPRK “clarified its stand that it can never sit at the table to negotiate its nuclear weapon program unless truth about the secret nuclear experiments in South Korea is fully probed,” KCNA quoted the DPRK spokesman as saying. A senior US official said this week that the DPRK has decided to wait until at least after the US presidential elections to start talking again. The DPRK spokesman said his government clarified to Rammell that “it does not care who becomes US president and that it considers the US policy towards the (DPRK) as the only yardstick.”

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4. ROK on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Reuters (“SOUTH KOREA AIMING FOR EARLY OCTOBER ATOM TALKS”, 2004-09-16) reported that the DPRK ruled out on Thursday any multi-party talks on its nuclear weapons programs until the ROK’s recently disclosed past atomic experiments have been fully explained. But in an interview just before the DPRK Foreign Ministry comment, ROK Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon told Reuters Pyongyang was using the ROK’s non-military experiments as a pretext to dodge talks the ROK wants held by early October. He said the DPRK had “tried to seize on the South Korean extraction of nuclear materials” and was blaming the ROK. “We are concerned about that,” he said in an hour-long interview in his imposing new ministry in central Seoul. “But we will try to intensify our diplomatic efforts with countries concerned to materialize the fourth round of six-party talks as soon as possible, preferably in the early part of October.”

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5. IAEA on ROK Nuclear Disclosure

Washington Post (“IAEA PLANS TO RETURN TO S. KOREA”, 2004-09-16) reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency will conduct a second round of inspections at the ROK’s nuclear facilities next week, government officials in Seoul said Wednesday. The U.N. agency will begin new inspections Monday at the ROK’s main nuclear lab in Taejon, 100 miles south of Seoul, focusing on 295 pounds of uranium metal, officials said. The IAEA chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, who plans to visit the ROK in October, said Monday that the material had been produced at a previously undisclosed facility. ElBaradei has described the tests as matters of “serious concern.” ROK officials have played down their importance, insisting that they amounted to simple research tests.

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6. ROK Nuclear Disclosure

Chosun Ilbo (“S. KOREA CONDUCED DEFENSE-ORIENTED PLUTONIUM TEST: MONTHLY CHOSUN “, 2004-09-16) reported that the October edition of Monthly Chosun reported that the ROK government had extracted a small quantity of plutonium from early 1993 to the end of 1994 in the dimension of self-defense as the DPRK declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). This research is totally different from the extraction of plutonium already announced by the government, which was conducted back in 1982. Quoting a high rank official from the Kim Young-sam administration and scientist who participated in the research, the Monthly Chosun reported, “Known as the ’88 Project,’ it was intended to secure 86-87 percent of full nuclear weapons development technology in order to prepare for any contingencies. The plan was, however, wiped clean in 1994.” In an interview with Monthly Chosun, the official testified, “A research team of the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) reported its plan to develop nuclear technology just after North Korea withdrew from the NPT around March 1993. I told them to proceed with it according to the scientists’ judgment.”

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7. Inter Korean Economic Cooperation

Asia Pulse (“SEOUL TO OK BUSINESS PLANS FOR LOCAL COMPANIES IN N. KOREA COMPLEX”, 2004-09-16) reported that the ROK is scheduled to endorse plans soon by four local companies to move into the pilot site of a huge industrial park being built just across the DMZ. The imminent approval will increase the number of ROK firms that will operate in the DPRK’s border town of Kaesong to 11. Fifteen ROK firms are scheduled to move into the demonstration complex, which will be partially opened later this year, and begin producing goods. Earlier this month, Unification Minister Chung Dong-young visited the US and elicited support from top US administration officials for the Kaesong project, saying that the cross-border venture will contribute to peace and stability on the peninsula. The industrial complex is to be used by hundreds of ROK garment and other labor-intensive companies that want to relocate facilities there to use cheap but skilled DPRK labor.

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8. DPRK Economic Reforms

Yonhap (“PYONGYANG’S CONSUMER MARKET BUSTLING WITH SHOPPERS”, 2004-09-16) reported that Pyongyang’s first state-run consumer market is thriving one year after opening, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper in Japan said on Thursday. Choson Sinbo, the organ of Chongryon, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, carried photographs and news about the market and the people there on its latest Internet edition.

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9. DPRK Human Rights

Yonhap (“U.N. HUMAN RIGHTS RAPPORTEUR CALLS FOR DIRECT ACCESS TO N. KOREA “, 2004-09-16) reported that a global human rights expert leading a UN investigation on the DPRK called on the state Thursday to allow him access into the country, stressing his probe will be “fair, objective and independent.” Vitit Muntarbhorn, 51, a Thai professor who was named as “special rapporteur” on the DPRK’s human rights situations, also indicated that he would deliver such a request to DPRK officials in Geneva later this month. “I’m going to Geneva in two week’s time…and I hope to seek constructive dialogue with North Korean counterparts,” he said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency. Muntarbhorn is tasked with investigating the DPRK’s human rights situations and alleged rights violations and reporting his findings to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

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10. DPRK Defectors

Korea Times (“UN URGES CHINA NOT TO REPATRIATE NK DEFECTORS”, 2004-09-16) reported that the United Nations’ top human rights official urged the PRC to take more action to protect DPRK defectors rather than sending them home to face harsh punishment. “In particular, countries that ratified the 1951 convention on refugees have an obligation to protect persons who are in a vulnerable position,” UN Human Rights Commissioner, Louise Arbour said during a press conference at the Foreign Ministry building in Seoul Thursday. Arbour’s remark came in response to a question regarding whether she was willing to press the PRC not to repatriate DPRK defectors holed up in the PRC and seeking passage to the ROK or another country. The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, which the PRC joined in 1982, clearly stipulates the non-refoulement principle: all member countries should not expel or forcibly return refugees to those territories where their life, freedom or physical integrity would be threatened.

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11. DPRK on UN Command

Yonhap (“N. KOREA CALLS FOR DISBANDING OF UNC, WITHDRAWAL OF U.S. TROOPS “, 2004-09-16) reported that the DPRK on Thursday reiterated its call for the dissolution of the US-led United Nations Command (UNC), which oversees a half-century armistice on the Korean Peninsula, claiming that not a single UN troop was dispatched to the 1950-53 Korean War. The DPRK accused the UNC of being an organization fabricated by the US without appropriate authorization from the United Nations.

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12. DPRK on Religious Freedom

Yonhap (“DEFECTORS SAY U.S. REPORT EXAGGERATES N. KOREA’S RELIGIOUS “, 2004-09-16) reported that DPRK defectors in the ROK said Thursday that a US State Department report was “exaggerating” when it cited an example of the DPRK’s oppression of religious freedom. A day earlier, the US State Department designated in its annual report eight violator countries, including the DPRK, accusing them of continuing to violate their citizens’ religious liberty.

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13. PRC on Religious Freedom

The Associated Press (“CHINA REJECTS U.S. CRITICISM OF ITS RELIGIOUS RECORD”, 2004-09-16) reported that the PRC on Thursday rejected US criticism of its record on religious rights and called on Washington to stop telling other governments what to do. The US State Department said in its annual report on religious freedom this week that the PRC intimidates, harasses and detains Christians and believers of other faiths who don’t register with the government. It listed the PRC among “countries of particular concern” which could be subject to US sanctions because of religious intolerance. The PRC “firmly opposes the U.S. practice of interfering in the religious affairs of other countries,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan said at a news briefing. Freedom of religious belief is protected by China’s constitution and other laws,” he said.

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14. US – ROK Relations

Korea Times (“SEOUL REJECTS CLAIMS OF INTELLIGENCE BREAKDOWN”, 2004-09-16) reported that Seoul on Thursday rejected concerns that the US has been reluctant to share intelligence with the ROK government over last week’s mysterious explosion in the DPRK’s Ryanggang Province. “We are closely cooperating with the U.S. on the North Korea issue,” Ban Ki-moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade, told reporters during a briefing. Responding to criticism that the government was slow to react to the explosion and elicit help from the US in determining its cause, Ban said the two allies are exchanging intelligence freely. “After noticing signs of something going on in the North, we provided our information to the US, and Washington also gave us their intelligence reports,” he said.

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15. ROK – US Military Alliance

Korea Times (“ROH STRESSES TIGHTER ROK-US POSTURE”, 2004-09-16) reported that President Roh Moo-hyun on Thursday called on the top active-duty military officer to make every endeavor to transform the half-century ROK-US military operation in a forward-looking manner, according to deputy presidential spokesman Kim Man-soo. While briefed by Gen. Kim Jong-hwan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), about the military’s defense readiness, Roh said, “As head of state, I will give my best to help the military maintain a watertight security posture.” “The establishment of a direct conversation channel between the head of state and the highest sitting military commander can play a pivotal role in strengthening the teamwork of the military as a united body and keeping the president keenly informed about defense readiness,” said a Chong Wa Dae official.

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16. ROK – Russian Relations

Donga Ilbo (“PLANS TO DEVELOP SIBERIAN GAS FIELDS BACKFIRE “, 2004-09-16) reported that the ROK’s plans to partake in the development of Siberia’s gas fields are on the verge of vaporization. The reason for this is because the Russian government recently started to limit and control its energy sectors from international access, which will make the incident a topic that will inevitably be discussed during President Roh Moo-hyun’s visit to Russia next week. Yuri Trutnev, minister of the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources, announced on September 15, “The foreign company BP-TNK’s rights to develop the Kovytka gas fields near Irkutsk could be withdrawn.” BP-TNK is a conglomerate of both Great Britain’s British Petroleum and Russia’s fourth largest civilian oil corporation TNK and had plans to construct a 4,900-kilometer pipeline from Kovytka to the PRC and then finally to the Yellow Sea. The projected completion date for the project is 2008, when the pipeline natural gas (PNG) will be supplied to the PRC and ROK.

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17. Japan UNSC Bid

Agence France-Presse (“NOW OR NEVER FOR UN SECURITY COUNCIL BID: JAPANESE FOREIGN MINISTER”, 2004-09-16) reported that it is now or never for Japan’s bid to win a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Japan’s foreign minister said, a week before Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi speaks at the UN General Assembly. “Since the United Nations was founded, a long time has passed and every country has large doubts about whether it reflects the current environment,” Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told a news conference. “This is a good opportunity to reform the United Nations and for Japan to become a permanent member of the Security Council,” she said, referring to Japan’s long-held ambition to join the powerful veto-wielding club. “If we don’t make use of this opportunity now, we feel our chances may get further away,” she said. Japan argues that the size of its economy and financial contributions to the UN– second only to the US– make it a legitimate candidate, and it wants to expand its leadership role internationally.

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18. Jenkins Case

The Associated Press (“ACCUSED U.S. DESERTER IN ARMY HOUSING”, 2004-09-16) reported that accused US Army deserter Charles Jenkins and his family have settled in to base housing pending his expected court martial for allegedly abandoning his unit in 1965 and defecting to the DPRK, US Army officials said Thursday. No date has yet been set for the counsel’s return or for the court martial, said Maj. John Amberg, an Army spokesman. Since his surrender, officials have been reprocessing Jenkins for active duty as they investigate the charges against him and prepare for the court martial. Until a verdict is rendered or charges dropped, he is being treated like any other sergeant. He receives a monthly paycheck and can use all base facilities. He is not under arrest or confinement but cannot leave the base without special permission.

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19. Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant

The Associated Press (“RESIDENTS’ LAWSUIT TO BLOCK NUCLEAR FUEL-REPROCESSING PLANT REVIEWED BY JAPANESE COURT”, 2004-09-16) reported that an appeals court began reviewing Thursday a lawsuit filed by residents in northern Japan who are opposed to a government-backed program to reprocess radioactive waste at a plant nearby, a lawyer said. The residents sued the Japanese government in early 2002 to stop Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. from operating its plant in Rokkasho village, in northern Aomori prefecture (state). But the Aomori District Court quickly dismissed the case and residents appealed. The plant is at the center of Japan’s hopes of using an experimental reprocessed nuclear fuel – known as mixed oxide, or MOX – in nuclear reactors as a way of boosting the nation’s energy self-sufficiency. The plant’s opening, now scheduled for 2006, is years behind schedule following a radioactive water leak there in 2002, and protests from local residents and officials.

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20. PRC Succession

Los Angeles Times (“CHINA CAREFULLY WATCHING JIANG”, 2004-09-16) reported that the Central Committee of the Communist Party will begin four days of meetings today amid speculation that former PRC President Jiang Zemin, 78, will step down from his powerful military post and cede full authority to President Hu Jintao. PRC watchers say Hu and his No. 2, Premier Wen Jiabao, have adopted a slow, steady strategy to counter Jiang. This involves building up their political capital with the public through a series of populist gestures, adopting a more down-to-earth style and kinder-gentler policies until they have enough clout to nudge Jiang off the stage. “There are a huge number of conflicting signs coming out,” said Stephen Green, head of the Asia program at Chatham House, a London research institute. “One thing we can be sure of, though: The tension within the leadership and the fraction lines seem a lot clearer.”

Reuters (“CHINA COMMUNISTS MEET AS SUCCESSION RUMORS SWIRL”, 2004-09-16) reported that the PRC’s Communist Party opened a four-day, closed-door meeting on Thursday that will decide whether military chief Jiang Zemin completes a leadership succession by passing on his last post to party chief Hu Jintao. Behind-the-scenes rivalry between Hu, 61, who succeeded Jiang as party chief in 2002 and president in 2003, and his aging but still influential predecessor and their allies has emerged subtly into the open in recent weeks. But analysts said the rivalry was unlikely to blow up into a full power struggle because both see stability as indispensable to sustainable growth in the world’s seventh-biggest economy.

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21. PRC on Democratic Reforms

The New York Times (“FOR CHINA, ONE PARTY IS ENOUGH, LEADER SAYS”, 2004-09-16) reported that the PRC Communist Party chief, Hu Jintao, said Wednesday that Western-style multiparty democracy was a “blind alley” for the PRC and that the one-party state would fight “power abuse and corruption” by policing itself better. In a nationally televised address ahead of a high-level party meeting that opens on Thursday, Mr. Hu laid the groundwork for what some analysts say may be modest experiments with checks and balances and elections inside the party. But the speech also showed Mr. Hu’s reluctance to embrace broad changes to address official graft and the misuse of authority, which have fueled widespread popular discontent that some officials say is weakening their hold on power.

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22. Hong Kong Elections

Reuters (“CHINA INVITES MODERATE DEMOCRATS TO MEETINGS -PAPER”, 2004-09-16) reported that the PRC has invited four newly elected pro-democracy lawmakers for talks in a conciliatory gesture after weekend legislative elections, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday. The four are from the Article 45 Concern Group, which is dominated by lawyers and is seen as more moderate than parties that fought the election with more emotive democratic slogans. The party also fills a gap between the Democratic Party and pro-Beijing parties. “I will also raise the issue of universal suffrage in 2007 and 2008,” the newspaper quoted group member Alan Leong as saying of his planned talks at the liaison office. The group wants Hong Kong’s democracy to be expanded to allow all voters in the city of 7 million to elect directly the chief executive in 2007 and all lawmakers in 2008.

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23. Hong Kong Security Law

The New York Times (“HONG KONG HOLDS OFF ON STRICT INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS”, 2004-09-16) reported that Tung Chee-hwa, the chief executive of Hong Kong, today ruled out trying to pass internal security legislation any time soon, a strong sign that his backers in Beijing have decided to take a conciliatory stance here after legislative elections last Sunday. Emboldened, the two largest pro-Beijing parties said on Wednesday afternoon and this morning that they would support legislation against sedition, subversion, treason, the unauthorized disclosure of state secrets and other offenses if Mr. Tung reintroduced it. “We have no plans for the time being and will not seek to start afresh the process for legislating” on the security laws, Mr. Tung said, according to an official transcript released later. “We will consider the matter only after the community has reached a basic consensus on this question and after we have satisfactorily dealt with economic recovery, economic restructuring and constitutional arrangements. We will not consider the question now.”

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24. US – Taiwan Relations

Washington Post (“POWELL AIDE GAVE PAPERS TO TAIWAN, FBI SAYS”, 2004-09-16) reported that a former high-ranking State Department official who is one of the nation’s leading experts on the PRC passed documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents and was charged yesterday with concealing a trip to Taiwan, court papers say. Donald W. Keyser, who was elevated to principal deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs this year, made the trip last year, according to an FBI affidavit filed in UD District Court in Alexandria. Tailed by the FBI in recent weeks, Keyser and two Taiwanese agents conducted a series of covert meetings around Washington. At a meeting July 31 at the Potowmack Landing restaurant, the affidavit says, Keyser handed the Taiwanese two envelopes “that appeared to bear US government printing.” On Sept. 4 at the same Alexandria restaurant, on the Potomac River with a view of downtown Washington, FBI agents saw Keyser pass a document captioned “discussion topics,” the affidavit says. FBI agents stopped the three men outside the restaurant and took the six-page document, described in the affidavit as something “derived from material to which Keyser had access as a result of his employment with the Department of State.”

The New York Times (“STATE DEPT. OFFICIAL ARRESTED IN INQUIRY ON TAIWAN CONTACT”, 2004-09-16) reported that a longtime Foreign Service officer at the State Department, who until recently was a ranking official on East Asian affairs, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with concealing a trip to Taiwan, and is suspected of improperly passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents, law enforcement and intelligence officials said. The diplomat, Donald W. Keyser, appeared in federal court in Alexandria, Va., and was charged with making a false statement to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a government background check. A career foreign service officer, Mr. Keyser was a top advisor on the PRC to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell before resigning abruptly several weeks ago in the face of accusations that he had passed information to the Taiwanese, officials said.

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25. Cross Strait Relations

The Associated Press (“TAIWAN LOSES BID FOR U.N. REPRESENTATION”, 2004-09-16) reported that Taiwan lost its bid for representation in the United Nations for the 12th year Wednesday, with no country objecting to the General Assembly president’s call to reject a request from the island’s supporters to place the issue before the world body’s 191 member states. The rejection came hours after Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian argued that blocking his country’s bid for representation in the United Nations was tantamount to subjecting its citizens to “political apartheid.” Chen, speaking from Taiwan in a live video link broadcast to U.N. reporters, blasted the PRC for Beijing’s continuous efforts to stymie the island’s bid for official recognition.

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26. US Arms Sales and Cross Strait Relations

Reuters (“TAIWAN SAID SET TO BUY $15 BILLION OF U.S. ARMS”, 2004-09-16) reported that Taiwan’s lawmakers are expected to give their long-delayed approval next month to a special budget for US weapons purchases worth as much as $15 billion, Taiwan’s point man on PRC policy said on Wednesday. Taiwan’s parliament appears to have been persuaded partly by US warnings of a growing military threat from the PRC, said Joseph Wu, chairman of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council. As part of its effort to forestall any PRC military attack, Wu said Taiwan was also trying to increase “regional security exchanges, especially with Japan.” “But we want to do it in a more low-profile way, not to upset China too much, so that we can continue to work with Japan,” he said without elaborating.

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27. PRC Intellectual Property Rights

The Associated Press (“GROUPS ACCUSE CHINA OF ALLOWING ABUSES”, 2004-09-16) reported that adding to pressure for the PRC to stop rampant product piracy, two major US business groups complained Thursday that abuses are getting worse and warned that lack of patent and copyright protection is hurting high-tech investment. Some 90 percent of foreign companies responding to a survey said they see “virtually no enforcement” of intellectual property rights by the PRC, despite repeated promises to crack down, said Charles M. Martin, president of the China chamber. “We believe the IPR situation here not only is bad, it’s worsening,” Martin said at a news conference where the groups released a report on conditions for foreign businesses in the PRC.