Author Archive

Staring into the “Fog” of North Korea Reporting: Pyongyang’s January Lockdown

By | February 15, 2023

Sino-NK likes to look behind the scenes to the nuts and bolts of North Korea news-gathering. In this essay, Daily NK staffer Robert Lauler examines the details of a recent case: the Pyongyang lockdown.

COVID-19 in North Korea: A Mirror into the Soul of the South

By | March 19, 2020

An outbreak of COVID-19 in North Korea may, indeed, become the ending point of greater cooperation between the two Koreas for the time being, but the two Koreas were arguably never really that close in the first place. Robert Lauler explains.

Dual Perspective: Reading Thae Yong-ho

By | August 15, 2018

Thae Yong-ho’s memoir marks a bold attempt to push back the tide of South Korean public ambivalence toward North Korea, a sprawling 500-page narrative of his experiences in the DPRK diplomatic corps over twenty years and ending with his 2016 defection. Robert Lauler takes a look at this essential, if flawed, text.

Imagining a Sino-US Conflict: Review of Kim Jin-myung’s Novel “US-China War”

By | March 05, 2018

South Korean novelist Kim Jin-myung released the behemoth “US-China War” in December last year. Kim controversially alleges that Washington’s strategic goal may not “merely” be the demolition of the DPRK, but crossing the Yalu to destroy the rising China, too. Robert Lauler reviews this pertinent and testy work of political fiction.