Sino-NK

Here is a quick round-up of recent SinoNK staff activity and a video tribute to Corea del Norte. – Steven Denney, Assistant Editor

Understanding the Trade-Security Nexus in the KORUS FTA | Economics does not live on an island, she co-habitats with security in a realm known otherwise as Northeast Asia. Assistant Editor Steven Denney and Analyst for Refugee Issues Brian Gleason argue in this recent publication at the London School of Economics website for East Asian issues that the recently concluded Korea-US FTA (KORUS FTA) is part of the US and Korean strategies to use trade policy as a means to advance broader political and strategic goals in the region–namely balancing against China. For more on how trade is an issue of pertinence to economic reform in North Korea and China’s efforts at regional integration, see “The Political Economy of Economic Reform: Using Trade to Keep the Debate in Bloom,” a recent publication here at SinoNK that discusses issues in Northeast Asia along a similar trade-security nexus theme.

“The Political Economy of Trade Policy in the KORUS FTA”

North Korea International Documentation Project (NKIDP) Working Paper | Managing Editor Charles Kraus, as an acknowledged reader and commentator, was an integral part of the  NKIDP’s latest release: “China and the Post-War Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-1961” (Working Paper #4), by Zhihua Shen (East China Normal University) and Yafeng Xia (Long Island University). A brief synopsis reads as follows:

‘China and the Post-War Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-1961’ is the first paper in English to systematically assess the extent and significance of Chinese assistance to North Korea after the Korean War. In addition to examining North Korea’s development following the armistice, Professors Shen and Xia rely on their expertise of Sino-Soviet relations to draw larger conclusions about North Korea in the Cold War and how the DPRK navigated both the honeymoon period and subsequent schism between China and the Soviet Union.

“China and the Post-War Reconstruction of North Korea, 1953-1961”

Refugee Discourse | SinoNK’s own Editor-in-Chief Adam Cathcart argues in this recent piece at the DailyNK (click the image below for the Korean version) that China is renewing its efforts to crack down on illegal foreigners across the country, particularly in the northeast region of Yanbian, with significant implications for North Korean defectors residing China. In an ironic twist, he also finds that the discourse within China is now giving a voice to the once subaltern class of defectors living in one of China’s border provinces. Cathcart argues that China “has, overall, made great strides since March in unleashing powerful and even sympathetic discussions of North Korean refugees within its borders. The phrase ‘defector’ (‘talbukja’ in Korean) has finally entered the Chinese official press lexicon (replacing the ‘illegal border crosser’, if usually only in quotation marks), and there has been a great widening of the parameters of the defector issue in Chinese.”

中 탈북자 단속 강화와 인식 개선의 양면성 | “Cracking Down and Opening Up”

More Answers to “28 Questions” | Adam Cathcart has also updated a recent SinoNK write-up of his on the hostage situation that took place between May 9-May 21 in Chinese fishing waters in the “northern trenches of the Yellow Sea.” Cathcart has promised an answer to 28 questions (one per fisherman) by using cross-section analysis. As of today, he has 8 more fisherman’s worth of questions to go.

Let Jeremy Lin “assist you” to Cathcart’s questions.

Did Kim Jong-il Tango? | A good video to sign-off with for the week is this bizarre performance by Cuban women singing praises to Kim Jong-il. The late Kim’s personality cult may not be all that popular outside of the North, but apparently Cuba found him inspiring enough to send a small troupe to sing praises to his name.