I. NAPSNet

1. DPRK, US on Counterfeiting, Six Party Talks

Chosun Ilbo (“N. KOREA-U.S. MEETING MAKES LITTLE PROGRESS “, 2006-03-08) reported that US and DPRK officials on Tuesday failed to agree on the DPRK’s alleged counterfeiting activities and a resumption of stalled six-nation talks. “Our unwavering position is that we cannot resume six-party talks under constant pressure from the U.S,” the DPRK Foreign Ministry’s US Affairs Bureau chief Li Gun told reporters after a meeting between the two sides in New York. Li said there had been “sufficient” discussion in the meeting on issues of mutual concern. He said Pyongyang proposed a “method” by which Washington’s allegations of counterfeiting and circulation of US dollars can be resolved. The US “says the counterfeiting issue and the six-party talks are unrelated, so we can continue deliberations, but we cannot return to discussions under this kind of pressure,” he said. Asked whether the US delegation offered evidence of the DPRK’s dollar forgeries, Li said, “We’re not at the meeting to be interrogated. It was a place where both sides explained their respective policy positions.”

(return to top)

2. Japan on Six Party Talks

Kyodo News (“JAPAN URGES N. KOREA TO RETURN UNCONDITIONALLY TO NUKE TALKS “, 2006-03-08) reported that Japan urged the DPRK on Wednesday to return unconditionally to the six-way talks on its nuclear ambitions, following the DPRK’s freshly voiced refusal to do so due to financial sanctions imposed by the US. “North Korea should return to the six-nation talks unconditionally,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said at a press conference. “There is no way other than returning to the six-party talks and resolving the nuclear issue for North Korea to be accepted by the international community,” he said. “Unless North Korea understands this, the current difficulty won’t be solved.”

(return to top)

3. DPRK Fires Missiles

Associated Press (“REPORT: NORTH KOREA FIRES MISSILES”, 2006-03-08) reported that the DPRK reportedly fired two surface-to-air missiles near its border with the PRC. Japan’s Kyodo news agency cited a “security source” in the PRC as saying the missiles were fired by mistake in the direction of the PRC during a military drill and apparently landed inside the DPRK. The agency also cited a “Western military source” as saying the short-range missiles were test-fired in an eastern direction from the DPRK’s eastern coast, toward the Sea of Japan. At least one of the missiles landed in the sea about 100 kilometers (62 miles) northeast of the launch site, Kyodo said, citing a Japanese defense official. Japan’s Defense Ministry said it couldn’t confirm the report, and officials in the ROK who monitor the DPRK also said they didn’t have any information on the reported launches.

(return to top) Reuters (“NORTH KOREA CONDUCTED NEW MISSILE TESTS, U.S. SAYS”, 2006-03-08) reported that the DPRK fired two short-range missiles on Wednesday. “Indications are that North Korea launched two short-range missiles. The regime has conducted similar tests in the past,” White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement to reporters travelling with President George W. Bush in Mississippi. “We have consistently pointed out that North Korea’s missile program is a concern that poses a threat to the region and the larger international community,” he said. A senior Bush administration official said in Washington the two missiles were launched from the DPRK and landed in the country. “They did not leave North Korean territory,” he said. (return to top)

4. US Army Deserter on DPRK Missiles

Kyodo News (“JENKINS SAYS N. KOREA HAD MISSILES AIMED AT JAPAN, S. KOREA: REPORT”, 2006-03-07) reported that US Army deserter Charles Jenkins, who spent nearly four decades in the DPRK until 2004, said the DPRK had missiles aimed at Japan and the ROK, the British newspaper The Independent said Tuesday. Jenkins, 66, who now lives in Japan, said in an interview with the newspaper, “Close to my house was a mountain and Russia put missiles in there. Everybody knew that. Nobody goes up there or talks about it, but they’re all aimed at Japan and South Korea.”

(return to top)

5. Inter-Korean Economic Relations

Korea Times (“MORE TROUBLES LOOM FOR KAESONG “, 2006-03-07) reported that government officials appear worried over what may turn out to be yet another blow to business prospects for the inter-Korean Kaesong industrial complex. According to Unification Ministry officials Tuesday, the DPRK recently requested a four-percent salary raise for its workers employed at factories run by ROK companies in Kaesong. It was the first such demand since the first ROK company began factory operations there in December 2004, the officials said.

(return to top)

6. Australia on Seized DPRK Ship

Sydney Morning Herald (“QUESTIONS OVER NORTH KOREA AND PONG SU”, 2006-03-08) reported that a question mark remains over what the DPRK knew about a ship used to import 250kg of heroin into Australia, Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty says. The 3,500-tonne DPRK Pong Su has been berthed in Sydney since it was seized in April, 2003 after a four-day chase by Australian military, federal police and customs officers. “There was a political officer on board. A ship like that, of that size and capacity, delivering 250kg of heroin just doesn’t happen by accident,” he told ABC TV. “There was a political officer on board travelling on a political passport, who was a member of the Korean workers’ party.” “There has to be some question marks about the knowledge or otherwise of the North Korean government in that shipment of the heroin that came here.”

(return to top)

7. Kim Dae-jung on DPRK

Reuters (“SOUTH KOREA’S KIM SAYS NORTH NEEDS EMERGING MIDDLE CLASS”, 2006-03-08) reported that give the DPRK a PRC-style emerging middle class and reforms will take care of themselves, former ROK President Kim Dae-jung said on Tuesday. “There is no way to change communism,” Kim said, noting Cuba had not yielded to US pressure for decades and urging ROK firms to invest their unutilized capital in the DPRK. “If the country can make money, the economy will develop, a middle class will develop and people will voice their opinions,” he said. This was what had happened in PRC, he said, where the economy was booming and the middle class was becoming increasingly influential.

(return to top)

8. USFK Troop Realignment

Joongang Ilbo (“U.S. GENERALS HINT AT MORE FORCE CUTS HERE”, 2006-03-08) reported that in testimony before the US Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday, General B.B. Bell, commander of US Forces Korea, noting that Seoul is seeking to regain wartime control of its military forces, forecast that if that happened, US forces would play what he called a “supporting role” in defending the ROK. He said he believed the ROK military was capable of taking on an independent combat command and said, “In the future, to support the Republic of Korea where our ally is exercising independent combat command, I envision US military contributions to the alliance to be air- and naval-centric.”

(return to top)

9. ROK Middle East Diplomacy

Korea Times (“ROH BOOSTS TIES WITH ARAB WORLD”, 2006-03-08) reported that President Roh Moo-hyun, on a trip to three African countries, met Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa Wednesday to discuss ways to promote relations between the ROK and Islamic countries. Meeting in Cairo, where the organization is headquartered, Roh and Moussa shared the view that the ROK and Arab countries should expand economic cooperation.

(return to top)

10. Japan on UNSG Post

Donga Ilbo (“JAPANESE FOREIGN MINISTER WILL CONSIDER SUPPORTING BAN”, 2006-03-08) reported that the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday that Yoo Myung-hwan, vice minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, met Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso to ask for support for ROK Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, who has declared he will run for the UN Secretary General post. The newspaper said that Aso declined to make a clear response, saying, “It would be nice if the next Secretary General is from Asia. But we’ll review a little bit more because many countries are running candidates.”

(return to top)

11. Japan on East Sea Gas Dispute

The Associated Press (“JAPAN TURNS DOWN CHINA PROPOSAL ON GAS “, 2006-03-08) reported that Japan said Wednesday that it has rejected the PRC’s proposal to jointly develop gas fields near disputed islands in the East China Sea, extending a long-running feud over territory claimed by both of the Asian heavyweights. The PRC reportedly proposed joint exploration of separate gas deposits during two days of talks in Beijing this week. But Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said Tokyo would not go along with that idea.

(return to top)

12. US on Cross Strait Relations

Agence France-Presse (“FORMER TOP US OFFICIAL TO MEET CHEN AMID CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS “, 2006-03-08) reported that a former top US official said he would hold talks with Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian on cross-strait issues, amid rising tension with the PRC after Chen scrapped a unification body. “I’m sure the president and I will discuss this. I’m looking forward to it,” former US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage told reporters upon his arrival.

(return to top)

13. US-PRC Military Cooperation

Agence France-Presse (“US COMMANDER CALLS FOR STEPPED UP MILITARY TIES WITH CHINA “, 2006-03-08) reported that the commander of US forces in the Pacific called for increased military engagement with the PRC despite concerns over Beijing’s continuing increases in military spending. “There is a tremendous potential for good here in this relationship between the two countries,” Admiral William Fallon told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “We have many, many common interests.”

(return to top)

14. US on PRC Human Rights

Agence France-Presse (“US BLASTS CHINA, IRAN IN ANNUAL HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT”, 2006-03-08) reported that the US blasted the PRC and Iran for alleged gross human rights violations, branding them among the “most systematic” rights violators in an annual rights report. The two were among seven countries including the DPRK, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Cuba and Belarus that allegedly subjected their citizens “to a wholesale deprivation of their basic rights,” according to the report which reviewed the rights record of countries across the globe in 2005.

(return to top)

15. PRC Rural Poverty

The Associated Press (“CHINA PROMISES CRACKDOWN ON LAND SEIZURES “, 2006-03-08) reported that the PRC officials promised to crack down on seizures of farmland for redevelopment that are fueling unrest, saying as many as 1 million farmers lose their land each year and are paid too little for it. Officials are trying to defuse mounting anger in the countryside, home to some 800 million people, by promising to spend more on rural schools, health care and other aid to try to narrow the gap between the PRC’s rich and poor.

(return to top)

16. PRC Internet Control

The New York Times (“THE WILD WEB OF CHINA: SEX AND DRUGS, NOT REFORM”, 2006-03-08) reported that while the PRC’s huge Internet police force is busy deleting annoying phrases like “free speech” and “human rights” from online bulletin boards, PRC entrepreneurs who started out brazenly selling downloadable pirated music and movies from online storefronts have extended their product lines — peddling drugs and sex, stolen cars, firearms and even organs for transplanting.

(return to top)

II. CanKor

17. Report #239

CanKor (“CURRENT EVENTS”, 2006-03-08) The much-anticipated military talks between North and South Korean generals, aimed at preventing further bloody clashes in the West Sea, ends without agreement on the long-standing dispute over the Koreas’ maritime border. The Northern Limit Line, drawn up by the United Nations Command at the end of the Korean War, has never been accepted by the DPRK. The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 stipulates that DPRK nationals may seek asylum in the USA. However, the extensive investigations required by the federal Department of Homeland Security have meant that not a single DPR Korean applicant has yet been granted refuge. Under instruction from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, officials say they are ready to process up to 200 applications this year. Japan creates a subcommittee under the abduction task force in the Prime Minister’s office to restrict the illegal flow of people, commodities and money between Japan and the DPRK. Comprised of senior government officials from various government ministries, the subcommittee will use existing legal means to increase inspection and police investigations of commercial and financial transactions, and clamp down on illegal exports and smuggling.

(return to top) CanKor (“FOCUS”, 2006-03-08) Both the USA and Canada are currently in Free Trade negotiations with the ROK. One sticking point has been whether to allow tariff-free imports of goods produced by South Korean firms in the DPRK’s Kaesong Industrial Complex. This week’s CanKor FOCUS, “Kaesong — made in which Korea?” examines the emerging inter-Korean relationship on the shop floor of the industrial park. (return to top) CanKor (“BOOK REVIEW”, 2006-03-08) In CanKor’s BOOK REVIEW, “Assimilation or Exclusion,” R. Mark Frey presents a book by Sonia Ryang entitled “North Koreans in Japan: Language, Ideology and Identity.” This review originally appeared in the Korean Quarterly. (return to top)