Archive for December, 2011:

China’s Great Power Strategy Can Help North Korea to Demilitarize: Chinese Scholar

By | December 30, 2011

A rough translation of an editorial in Huanqiu Shibao that encapsulates a bit of possible self-delusion in China: the notion that North Korea is about to undertake a “peace dividend,” settle down and fundamentally reorient its economy away from military-first politics: Sun Xingjie, “大国要给朝鲜安全感 / A Great Power Will Give North Korea Feelings of Security,” […]

New Threads

By | December 30, 2011

SinoNK editor Adam Cathcart has a dispatch up at Foreign Policy; A few recent rumors from Pyongyang are relayed via translation from the Chinese media; And China has to deny reports that it sent PLA troops into North Korea to help with vague notions of stability.  

Two Chinese Visions of Post-Kim Jong Il North Korea: Translations

By | December 28, 2011

A much more extensive Sino-NK Document Dossier is in the works, gathering up a number of sources in translation for a more comprehensive look at Chinese views of the North Korean transition, but in the meantime two translated editorials will suffice: 1. Sun Xingsong [孙兴杰] “Severe Challenges Facing the Kim Jong Eun Era [金正恩时代面临重重挑战],” Huanqiu […]

Watching Rason

By | December 28, 2011

There should be a great many more posts here about Rason, the northeasternmost port in North Korea which has been the object of such massive amounts of Chinese largesse and great-power fantasy, but for the time being, this essay by the folks at Chosun Exchange (via The Diplomat, HT @nepotism) provides a wonderful and credible primer.

Chinese Homage in KCNA: A Compilation

By | December 27, 2011

A longer document dossier is in the works on the Chinese response to Kim Jong Il’s death, but the North Koreans, in the meantime, have decidedly been kind to the PRC in their various ways in the dispatches of the Korean Central News Agency. It may be a touch ragged, but the full text of […]