Preceding NAPSNet Report

I. United States

(return to top)

1. US on DPRK Blast

Reuters (“US: BLAST CONSISTENT WITH N.KOREA EXPLANATION “, 2004-09-14) reported that the DPRK’s explanation that a blast last week was demolition work for a power project rather than a nuclear explosion squared with what the US saw, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday. The US assessment should help quell speculation the blast was related to military activity in the reclusive state as has been widely discussed among analysts and the media in neighboring ROK. “The information they gave is consistent with what we saw, that it might have been demolition work for a hydroelectric facility,” Powell told Reuters.

(return to top)

2. ROK on DPRK Blast

Reuters (“SOUTH KOREA WANTS TO PIN DOWN NATURE OF NORTH BLAST”, 2004-09-14) reported that the ROK is seeking independent verification on the nature of a huge blast in the DPRK last week, which its communist neighbor has said was linked to a hydroelectric scheme, government officials said on Tuesday. Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-woong said the ROK would use its intelligence channels and satellite images to check on the source of the blast in a northern region of the DPRK that was big enough to raise concerns it might be a nuclear test. “The weather is clear, so we should be able to take satellite images today and tomorrow and analyze them,” Yoon told pool reporters ahead of a cabinet meeting on Tuesday. “We should be able to confirm the site of the explosion,” he said.

(return to top)

3. DPRK on Blast

The New York Times (“NORTH KOREA OFFERS TO SHOW SITE OF BLAST TO DIPLOMATS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the DPRK will show foreign diplomats as early as Tuesday the site of a mysterious explosion that it said was intended to blow up a mountain for a hydroelectric dam, British journalists reported Monday night from Pyongyang, the DPRK capital. “It was no nuclear explosion or an accident,” said the DPRK’s foreign minister, Paek Nam Sun, according to a BBC correspondent in Pyongyang who was traveling with Bill Rammell, a minister with the British Foreign Office. “It was a deliberate, controlled detonation to demolish a mountain in the far north of the country.” In a pool report received by Reuters, Mr. Rammell said the British ambassador in Pyongyang, David Slinn, could visit the site near the PRC border as early as Tuesday.

(return to top)

4. US on US – DPRK Relations

Agence France-Presse (“US TOP ENVOY ‘DISAPPOINTED’ WITH NKOREAN STALLING TACTICS ON NUKE TALKS”, 2004-09-14) reported that James Kelly, the top US envoy on the DPRK, expressed disappointment with Pyongyang’s stalling tactics on talks aimed at solving the nuclear standoff. “We remain ready and anxious to return to the six-party talks and we are disappointed with the reasons the DPRK has given for stalling,” Kelly said in a statement issued by the US embassy. However, with just two weeks to go, the DPRK appears increasingly reluctant to attend a new round of talks, citing ROK scientists’ nuclear experiments as one reason.

(return to top)

5. DPRK – US Relations

The Associated Press (“N. KOREA: U.S. WAGING CULTURAL INVASION”, 2004-09-14) reported that the DPRK on Tuesday accused the US of sending midget radios and “impure” publications into the country to destroy the isolated communist state with “rotten imperialist reactionary culture.” The DPRK government has reportedly tightened surveillance in recent months, out of fear that some of its hunger-stricken people were receiving smuggled tiny transistor radios capable of receiving outside news. Some US-based Korean groups seeking democratic change in the DPRK have attempted to send small radios carried by balloons into the DPRK. “The US imperialists are now bent on their moves to send midget radios and TV sets into (the DPRK) in an effort to break up the single-hearted unity there and degenerate and disintegrate it from within,” the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun said. “Out of the same motive, the US imperialists are trying to send impure publications.”

(return to top)

6. US on Relations with DPRK

Agnece France-Presse (“US CAN WELL SPY ON NUCLEAR NORTH KOREA: POWELL”, 2004-09-14) reported that Secretary of State Colin Powell said there was enough US intelligence and satellites capability to spy on nuclear DPRK, citing last week’s huge blast in the DPRK, which sparked global concern. He particularly credited an intelligence-gathering network within his department for helping him conclude confidently that the blast was not a nuclear explosion. He said that “within a short period of time” INR was able to provide him all the information he needed to make a judgment on the DPRK explosion. “I felt confident in going on television yesterday morning, on talk shows, and saying, “No, it was not a nuclear explosion,” Powell said.

(return to top)

7. DPRK Talks and the US Elections

Beijing (“NORTH KOREA TALKS MAY BE VICTIM OF U.S. ELECTION”, 2004-09-14) reported that hopes for a September round of six-party talks on the DPRK nuclear crisis were evaporating on Tuesday as Pyongyang hinted it was awaiting the outcome of the US presidential race. Rammell said the US election in November had featured in his talks and the DPRK was weighing whether it would have to deal in future with President Bush, who early in his tenure declared the isolated state part of an “axis of evil” alongside Iran and pre-war Iraq, or Democratic candidate John Kerry. “I made clear to them my view that whoever wins the presidential election — whether it’s President Bush or Senator Kerry — North Korea will be faced with broadly the same strategic policy from the United States, and this isn’t just about the United States,” Rammell told a news briefing after returning from Pyongyang. “All of us in the international community have got real concerns about North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability and we want it resolved.”

(return to top)

8. PRC on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Kyodo (“CHINA HOPES 6-WAY TALKS WILL BE HELD IN SEPT. AS PLANNED”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC hopes that the six-way talks on the DPRK’s nuclear programs will be held by the end of September as planned, and that participants will make efforts to make that possible, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday. “We have difficulties but we hope that parties will be able to display a spirit of pragmatism and flexibility and overcome these difficulties and push forward so that the meeting can be held as planned,” spokesman Kong Quan said at a press conference. “Time is running out, so that takes more efforts from all parties,” he said. Wu, who is widely expected to chair the six-party talks, and Kelly, the chief US delegate to the meeting, also reaffirmed the need to achieve the goal of a nuclear weapons-free Korean Peninsula, Kong said.

(return to top)

9. Russia on DPRK Nuclear Talks

Kyodo (“6-NATION TALKS UNLIKELY THIS MONTH: RUSSIAN OFFICIAL”, 2004-09-14) reported that a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official said Tuesday that the next round of six-nation talks on the DPRK’s nuclear arms ambitions is not likely to be held within this month, according to the Russian Information Agency. Alexander Alexeyev, Russian deputy foreign minister in charge of the Asia-Pacific region, made the remarks after meeting with ROK Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo Hyuck. But the six parties share the view that they must hold the next round of talks in the near future, Alexeyev was quoted as saying.

(return to top)

10. Russia on Inter-Korean Summit

Yonhap (“RUSSIA READY TO HOST INTER-KOREAN SUMMIT – ENVOY”, 2004-09-14) reported that a Russian envoy said on Tuesday 14 September that Moscow would host a three-way summit meeting involving leaders of the two Koreas and Russia to help resolve the standoff over the DPRK’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Russia’s envoy to Seoul, Teymuraz Ramishvili, said in an interview with Yonhap News Agency that “Russia is ready for the role of a hospitable host if the corresponding offers will be given by North and South Korean sides.” The Russian envoy said that as far as he knew, there was no concrete plan for an imminent visit to Russia by DPRK leader Kim Jong-il, but added it will be possible for President Roh Moo-hyun to have a three-way summit with Kim Jong-il and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok or any other Russian city if the two Koreas make an offer to that effect. Roh will make a four-day visit to Moscow Monday.

(return to top)

11. IAEA on ROK Nuclear Experiments

Chosun Ilbo (“IAEA TO SEND INSPECTION TEAM TO KOREA, RAISES SIX SUSPICIONS”, 2004-09-14) reported that officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday that they would soon send an inspection team to the ROK to conduct intensive inspections concerning nuclear experiments. Related to this, IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei said another nuclear test that hasn’t been reported yet had been conducted in South Korea. Officials didn’t say when the inspection team would be sent to Korea, but they did say the IAEA hoped to begin inspections as soon as possible, and accordingly, would like inspections to take place following the conclusion of the current IAEA Board of Governors meeting. The board meeting will continue until Friday. Should inspection take place, it is predicted that interviews would be conducted with the scientists connected to the successive experiments in the 1980s, followed by inspections into the level of government involvement.

The Los Angeles Times (“NUCLEAR PATTERN SEEN IN S. KOREA”, 2004-09-14) reported that the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency said Monday that he was “seriously concerned” about covert nuclear experiments conducted by ROK scientists dating back to the 1980s and promised to investigate further. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described a pattern of repeated violations by the ROK over the years. Others familiar with the agency’s investigation said ROK researchers had tried to block inspections and cover up the evidence of nuclear experiments before finally admitting to them this year. Among the most damaging charges in a report ElBaradei made to a meeting of the IAEA board of governors was that the ROK had three undeclared nuclear facilities, one of which was used in the 1980s to produce more than 330 pounds of uranium. The ROK has admitted that its scientists enriched a small amount of that uranium in 2000. South Korean officials maintain that all these experiments were conducted on a laboratory scale by a handful of scientists without approval from the government.

(return to top)

12. ROK on Nuclear Experiment

Agence France-Presse (“SOUTH KOREA PLAYS DOWN UN WATCHDOG’S CONCERN ABOUT NUCLEAR EXPERIMENTS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the ROK has admitted it produced uranium metal at undeclared sites but played down the UN nuclear watchdog’s concern about its controversial nuclear activities. Science and Technology Minister Oh Myung said Tuesday he found no problem with new revelations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that ROK scientists produced 150 kilograms (330 pounds) of uranium metal in the early 1980s. Oh described ElBaradei’s remarks as standard comments. “We don’t see any reasons why it should be a problem. It was done 20 years ago and all the facilities are gone,” he said in a cabinet meeting, according to a pool report. “The term (serious concern) is one commonly used when things of this kind occur.”

(return to top)

13. DPRK and the US Elections

The Associated Press (“N. KOREA EMERGES IN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN”, 2004-09-14) reported that in a presidential race dominated by national security, what some see as the world’s biggest nuclear danger – the DPRK – is only now emerging as a hot political topic. Moreover, both parties are vulnerable to criticism on their handling of the DPRK threat. President Bush has said that he will not tolerate nuclear weapons in the DPRK. Yet the DPRK, long believed to have possessed one or two nuclear weapons, has restarted its weapons program and could soon have several more, if it doesn’t have them already. Multinational negotiations appear to have produced little. Republicans argue actions of the Clinton administration led to the current standoff. They say a 1994 agreement for the DPRK to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for food and energy assistance lacked safeguards to prevent cheating. That allowed the DPRK to develop a secret uranium-based weapons program, they say, even while the older plutonium program was stopped as promised.

(return to top)

14. Bush on DPRK Nuclear Issue

Reuters (“BUSH AVOIDS ISSUE OF IRAN, N.KOREA ON CAMPAIGN TRAIL”, 2004-09-14) reported that as he campaigns on a platform of having made America safer, President Bush usually does not talk about nuclear disputes with the DPRK and Iran that show no sign of resolution. Bush did not mention the two countries, once branded by him as part of an “axis of evil,” in his recent Republican Convention address and he has not made them a campaign staple. Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the Strategic Research Department at the Naval War College, said even though Vice President Dick Cheney and others have admitted time is running out for curbing the DPRK’s ambitions, Bush has displayed no sense of urgency and set no deadlines for acting. “After years of wheels spinning on this issue in this administration, you don’t get a sense that there is a clear executive level decision or understanding about what we should do,” he told Reuters.

Agence France-Presse (“WHITE HOUSE FIRES BACK ON NORTH KOREA”, 2004-09-14) reported that US President George W. Bush’s chief spokesman warned that Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry would, if elected, take “a failed approach” to ending the DPRK’s nuclear programs. “It would be the wrong approach to go down that road again,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, referring to former US president Bill Clinton’s approach of bilateral negotiations with the DPRK. “That failed policy allowed North Korea to dupe the United States,” which agreed to help the DPRK’s nuclear energy program in return for freezing its atomic weapons program, the spokesman said. “The president has all of North Korea’s neighbors actively engaged in six-party talks to achieve a diplomatic solution to North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The goal is the complete and verifiable end of North Korea’s nuclear program — not a freeze,” said McClellan.

(return to top)

15. Inter Korean Economic Cooperation

Yonhap (“ACTIVISTS URGE U.S. TO EASE RULES ON N. KOREAN INDUSTRIAL PARK “, 2004-09-14) reported that a total of 13 civic activist groups presented a written opinion to the US Embassy in Seoul on Tuesday, calling for the easing of restrictions on sending strategic materials to the DPRK’s Kaesong industrial park. “The Kaesong project is a symbol of South and North Korean reconciliation, peace and prosperity, and it is being built for peaceful economic cooperation,” said the letter, asking the US government to support the project.

(return to top)

16. DPRK Human Rights

Agence France-Presse (“N.KOREA ATTACHES LITTLE IMPORTANCE TO HUMAN RIGHTS: ENVOY”, 2004-09-14) reported that the DPRK’s rulers admitted human rights were not high on their list of priorities after being shown satellite images of prison camps, a minister said after returning from Pyongyang. “There was clearly a big philosophical divide between ourselves and the North Koreans,” Foreign Office Minister Bill Rammell told reporters in Beijing after a three-day trip to the state. “They actually were up-front and admitted that the North Korean regime attaches far less importance to human rights than we do within the European Union and elsewhere within the developed world,” he said Tuesday. Rammell said he showed his hosts satellite images of prison camps and received a “fairly non-committal” response when he raised the issue of Japanese kidnapped by the regime to help train spies.

(return to top)

17. Wiesenthal Center on DPRK Human Rights

Los Angeles Times (“WIESENTHAL CENTER TAKES ON NORTH KOREAN HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE”, 2004-09-14) reported that allegations that political prisoners and their families are being gassed to death in the DPRK prompted Los Angeles’ Simon Wiesenthal Center to host a daylong conference Monday and announce plans to send representatives overseas to investigate. The conference was prompted by a recent BBC documentary in which DPRK defectors alleged that political dissidents and their families were dying in gas chambers. “These are extraordinarily serious allegations. We don’t know yet for sure if they are totally reliable,” Cooper said. “But as you can imagine, an institution carrying the name of Simon Wiesenthal feels strongly enough that this is an issue that needs to be pursued.” Several DPRK defectors who spoke at the conference recounted alleged atrocities. Representatives from the Wiesenthal Center will go to Seoul in two or three months to talk to Kim and other potential witnesses, Cooper said.

(return to top)

18. US Troop Realignment

Joongang Ilbo (“NEW DETAILS RELEASED ON ARMS UPGRADE “, 2004-09-14) reported that the ROK officials said yesterday the US has provided details of its $11-billion weapons upgrade program for the ROK defense, which include the deployment of an advanced Global Hawk air reconnaissance system. The Pentagon has begun to cut a third of its 37,000 troops on the peninsula but has pledged to maintain deterrence against the DPRK by investing in advanced arms. The procurements, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2006, are focused on strengthening reconnaissance capabilities and the firepower of the US Forces Korea, Seoul officials said. Under the plan, the US forces will receive an array of weapons enhancements. The US will deploy the Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft that can remain aloft for extended periods. The system can identify a basketball-sized object on the ground from an altitude of 20 kilometers.

(return to top)

19. Sino – ROK Trade

Donga Ilbo (“UNCONNECTED DIFFERENCES IN KOREA AND CHINA’S RICE NEGOTIATION “, 2004-09-14) reported that the fourth rice negotiation talks between the ROK and the PRC held yesterday at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) ended without much yield. MFAT’s Doha Development Agenda (DDA) Negotiation Ambassador Lee Jae-gil announced at a briefing after the convention, “There are some parts with improvement, but differences still exist, so the fifth round of negotiations will take place at the end of this month.” He added, “Regarding the improvements, I cannot say anything as we are still negotiating.”

(return to top)

20. DPRK on Koguryo Historical Revisionism

Chosun Ilbo (“NORTH KOREA TRUMPETS KOGURYO’S ‘INDEPENDENCE'”, 2004-09-14) reported that the DPRK’s state-run Korea Central Broadcasting reported Tuesday that, “Koguryo firmly adhered to its national independence in foreign relations, and it resolutely crushed any attempt to violate that independence… Koguryo was not a large country’s ethnic minority administration, regional administration, or tributary state, but a bold, independent nation.” This seems to be indirect criticism of PRC distortions of Koguryo history, in which the PRC has claimed that Koguryo was no more than a regional administrative division of the PRC. The broadcaster also said, “Koguryo was well known as dignified strong country because it consistently stuck to its independence seemingly unfamiliar with subservience… In particular, its use of its own chronological era system and independent foreign policy were proof positive of its independence.”

(return to top)

21. US – Japanese Relations

The New York Times (“A CRASH, AND THE SCENT OF PIZZATOCRACY, ANGER OKINAWA”, 2004-09-14) reported that some shrugged when one helicopter spiraled from the sky on Aug. 13, banging into a university building, its rotor gouging a concrete wall, its fuselage exploding into an orange fireball. Miraculously for this congested city of 90,000, no one was killed, and the only people injured were the three American crew members. But what really galvanized residents of this sultry tropical island were images of young American marines closing the crash site to Japanese police detectives, local political leaders and diplomats from Tokyo, but waving through pizza-delivery motorcycles. One month after the crash, that fast-food delivery image – part truth, part urban myth – was strong enough to help to draw about 30,000 people on Sunday for the biggest anti-base protest in Okinawa since those a decade ago protesting the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by three American servicemen.

(return to top)

22. Cross Strait Relations

The Associated Press (“CHINA LIKELY TO BLOCK TAIWANESE PRESIDENT’S VIDEO CONFERENCE AT UNITED NATIONS, OFFICIAL SAYS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC appears to have blocked a plan for Taiwanese leader Chen Shui-bian to hold an unprecedented video teleconference with journalists at the United Nations to explain his country’s bid for U.N. membership, a Taiwanese government spokesman said Tuesday. Chen had hoped to address U.N. reporters on Wednesday. But the global organization appears unwilling to approve the event, said Lin Chia-lung, head of Taiwan’s Government Information Office. “It looks like it will have to be held outside the building,” Lin told The Associated Press. Lin, who couldn’t confirm the new venue, said rival PRC has pressured the United Nations to block the Taiwanese president’s video conference with the U.N. Correspondents Association. “This shows how much China lacks confidence,” Lin said.

(return to top)

23. PRC Terror Alert

The Associated Press (“REPORT: CHINA DEPLOYS ANTI-TERROR TROOPS TO THREE GORGES DAM”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC has stationed anti-terror troops equipped with helicopters, tanks and bomb disposal robots to defend the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, a state newspaper said Tuesday. The troops are elite graduates of paramilitary People’s Armed Police training programs who specialize in counterterrorism, the newspaper Huaxia Times reported, citing state television. The deployment is the last step in a “comprehensive anti-terrorism network” that the PRC has constructed at major bridges, dams and power stations, the report said. The extra defenses are the PRC’s response to perceived threats both from terrorists and from other countries, the report said. It cited a “clearly rising threat from the United States” and a military buildup in Japan.

(return to top)

24. Hong Kong Elections

The New York Times (“GLUM DAY FOR HONG KONG DEMOCRATS”, 2004-09-14) reported that a series of tactical errors, with peculiarities in the voting process, prevented democracy advocates here from winning as many seats as expected in the legislative elections on Sunday, politicians and political analysts said here on Monday. The big question now is how the PRC will react to the voting in this autonomous PRC territory. The election has been widely watched in the PRC as a test of the government’s tolerance for democracy. RTHK, a local radio station, reported Monday that a Beijing official had described the election as the most democratic in Hong Kong’s history, but there was little immediate reaction otherwise from the mainland. As the PRC assesses what worked and what did not, its response to Hong Kong in the coming days “will show us whether they’ll go for the hearts and minds or for the jugular,” said Richard Baum, a PRC specialist visiting here this week from the University of California at Los Angeles.

Washington Post (“AFTER HONG KONG ELECTION, CHINA FACES NEW CALCULUS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC government refrained on Monday from saying much about the results of Sunday’s elections in Hong Kong, but the country’s Communist leaders had reason to be pleased. Defying expectations, their allies, who support Beijing’s hard line against democratic aspirations in this former British colony, maintained a firm grip on the legislature. Pro-democracy candidates, who form the only opposition bloc on PRC soil, were limited to minor gains. And the threat of a potentially disastrous showdown over political reform in the territory has subsided. This is the argument that the territory’s largest pro-Beijing party, the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment of Hong Kong, has always used: If you want to persuade the PRC government to expand elections, don’t march in the streets or support government critics. Instead, vote for candidates loyal to the government in Beijing and show the Communist leadership that democracy in Hong Kong is not a threat.

(return to top)

25. PRC on Hong Kong Elections

Reuters (“CHINA SAYS HONG KONG POLLS SHOW PEOPLE WANT STABILITY”, 2004-09-14) reported that Senior PRC officials have welcomed Hong Kong’s election results in which the pro-Beijing camp retained a comfortable majority, saying people in the Asian financial hub voted for stability and prosperity. Pro-Beijing parties and candidates held their majority in the 60-member legislature in Sunday’s polls, capturing 34 seats. Pro-democracy champions made limited gains by taking 25 seats, up from 22, but fell far short of the near majority they had earlier said was their goal. Chen Zuo’er, a senior PRC official in charge of Hong Kong affairs, said the results showed the city’s people wanted to “protect stability, develop its economy and improve livelihood.” He hoped the new batch of lawmakers “would act responsibly toward the country and Hong Kong and do their bit to work for a “prosperous Hong Kong and stable Hong Kong,” the pro-Beijing Wen Wi Po newspaper on Tuesday quoted Chen, deputy director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office, as saying.

(return to top)

26. PRC Party Meeting

The Associated Press (“CHINA’S COMMUNIST LEADERS MEET”, 2004-09-14) reported that as the PRC’s communist leaders meet this week, observers and party members note a subtle uptick in tensions between President Hu Jintao and his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who remains chief of the armed forces. No major announcements are expected at the four-day closed-door gathering of the party’s 198-member Central Committee that begins Thursday. Nor is a showdown forecast between the two men, who share a balance of power within the party through their allies and proxies. While Hu, now 62, succeeded Jiang as president in March 2003, Jiang maintains a strong presence in national affairs as chairman of the commissions overseeing the military. Many see a problem in the incomplete transfer of power. “Jiang only wants Hu to be the general manager of China who will have to listen to Jiang, who fancies himself as the chairman of the board for China, the power behind the throne,” said Yu Maochun, a PRC scholar at the US Navy Academy in Annapolis, Md. But Hu is increasingly eager to express his willingness to take over the entire enterprise, Yu added.

(return to top)

27. Sino – US Trade Relations

Reuters (“U.S. NOT ASKING CHINA FOR TEXTILE CAPS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the US is not asking the PRC to voluntarily cap its textile exports as a way to avoid potential US curbs when long-standing quotas are lifted at the end of 2004, a top trade official said on Tuesday. But Washington could take action against PRC textile makers if the US industry can back up claims that it would be harmed by a flood of cheap PRC imports, Grant Aldonas, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, told reporters. US textile industry officials say they expect a surge of clothing imports from the PRC when a decades-old quota system expires next Jan. 1 under a 1994 world trade pact. To prevent what they say could be massive US job losses, they want the Commerce Department to pre-emptively restrict growth in many of the PRC’s clothing exports to the US to no more than 7.5 percent above 2004 levels.

(return to top)

28. PRC Trade Surplus

The Associated Press (“CHINA REPORTS $4.5 BILLION TRADE SURPLUS”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC’s trade surplus for August hit a record for the year, despite soaring imports of key commodities such as oil, machinery and electronics, state media reported Tuesday. The $4.49 billion surplus was expected to swing the PRC’s trade balance into surplus for the year, the state-run newspaper China Daily reported, citing the General Administration of Customs. China’s trade balance slipped into deficit toward the end of last year as imports of raw materials and industrial components soared. However, surging exports have reversed that trend in recent months. The report cited the Ministry of Commerce as saying the PRC expects to post a trade surplus of about $10 billion this year, compared with a surplus of $25.5 billion in 2003.

(return to top)

29. PRC on Intellectual Property Rights

Agence France-Presse (“CHINA OFFERS US FIRMS OPPORTUNITIES BUT MUST PROTECT COPYRIGHT: US OFFICIAL”, 2004-09-14) reported that the PRC’s booming market offers opportunities for US manufacturers but Beijing must crack down on copyright violations, US Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Grant Aldonas said. “What’s the barrier? The barrier is intellectual property rights violations,” Aldonas told reporters during a visit to the PRC to push for more exports and opportunities for US companies, especially small and medium size firms. “At the end of the day, that’s why the enforcement stuff is so important… for so many American manufacturers, solving problems like intellectual property actually help in terms of resolving the market access issues.” US firms hurt by copyright violations were not only losing out in the PRC market, but globally, Aldonas said. PRC officials were aware of the need for intellectual property rights (IPR) protection, Aldonas said, but added enforcement was the key.

(return to top)

30. PRC AIDS Issue

Washington Post (“CHINA’S ORPHANS FEEL BRUNT OF POWER PARTY THWARTS AIDS ACTIVIST’S UNOFFICIAL SCHOOL”, 2004-09-14) reported that the producers of “Face to Face,” one of the PRC’s most popular news shows, invited an earnest young AIDS activist onto the program. For years, Li Dan had labored to force the ruling Communist Party to address the country’s worsening AIDS epidemic, risking arrest in a nation where the authorities regard activism of almost any kind with suspicion. He described the plight of the hundreds of thousands of PRC peasants who had contracted AIDS through selling blood. He also told how he had opened a school here in central PRC for children who had lost parents to the disease. Nine months later, Li sat for an interview with an American reporter. This time, his face was bruised and his eyeglasses were broken, and he described how thugs had beaten him up in a government office. Others had run his volunteers out of town. Local officials had shut down his school, physically dragging away students and arresting some of their parents. And fellow AIDS activists had accused him of pushing the government too far.

(return to top)

31. CanKor # 180

CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE (“CanKor # 180”, ) A five-member delegation of the Canada-DPR Korea Association prepares to visit the DPRK, taking along four short films produced by the National Film Board of Canada, for screening in Pyongyang. A powerful explosion in the northern border region of the DPRK elicits speculation about a nuclear test, but is explained by DPRK authorities as a “planned demolition” related to the construction of a hydroelectric project. The CANKOR INTERVIEW features a conversation with human rights expert David Hawk about the process of writing “The Hidden Gulag,” his report on North Korean prison camps. http://www.cankor.ca