Kim Jong-il
China’s “Soft Power” Goes Global: Li Keqiang, S.B. Cohen, and North Korea
China’s “Soft Power” Goes Global: Li Keqiang, S.B. Cohen, and North Korea by Adam Cathcart Much attention has been paid, and rightly so, to the “Korea wave” (韩流) and its impacts on North Korean culture. But what about China’s efforts at “soft power” expansion? How, if at all, are these perceived in the DPRK? And […]
Stable Transition or Fumbling Majesty? : When Kim Jong Un Met the Chinese VP
SinoNK.com, in collaboration with NK Leadership Watch, is currently concluding a major investigation of North Korea’s relations with China in the last two months of Kim Jong Il’s life. This process will culminate with the release of a substantial database and analysis, which we are including as third in a series of China-North Korea Dossiers. […]
In My Father’s House There Are Many Bunkers: Assessing the Kim Jong Un Speech
Kim Jong Un’s pre-centennial speech to the WPK, admonishing the functionaries to hold his grandfather and father — now the eternal General Secretary of the WPK — in high esteem, occurred in what are anything but thriving times. In North Korea, such behavior is the continuation of an old tradition.[1] The April 15 speech, analyzed […]
Upstaging Dystopia: Adam Johnson and Suk-Young Kim on North Korea’s Performance Culture
Along with some fine displays of military bravura and a notable speech by the new North Korean leader-commissar (before he retired to enjoy a smoke), April was a month during which foreigners shone their bright talents as entertainers for the Pyongyang elite. Now those musicians and jugglers and PLA singers (no true jesters were allowed, […]
Hydrological Engineering,Coastal Land Reclamation and the Multifunctional Paradigm in the DPRK
As any student of ancient Chinese history can tell you, historically speaking, there is nothing more fundamental to political legitimacy in East Asia than the ability of a regime to harness, control, and regulate water both as agricultural resource and danger. In both guises — sustainer and potential destroyer — water politics appear repeatedly in […]
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