Defectors

Chinese Intellectuals, the CIA, and Defector Memoirs in the 1960s

By | January 18, 2024

Newly declassified documents shed light on a CIA operation to extract high-level intellectuals as defectors from the People’s Republic of China. We also look at defector accounts of meetings with Mao Zedong.

55 Remnants of Conflict: The Korean War Prisoners Who Chose Brazil

By | May 23, 2019

At the end of the Korean War, 88 North Korean and Chinese POWs decided to gamble on lives in third countries, eschewing South Korea and Taiwan. 55 were resettled in Brazil. These are their stories.

Volcano on the Horizon: Thae Yong-ho and the Politics of Speech

By | March 29, 2017

Christopher Richardson looks at the case of Thae Yong-ho and just what it says to us about the politics of speech.

One Dystopian Korea: A Review of Our Aspiration is War by Jang Kang-myung

By | January 11, 2017

Sino-NK doesn’t review many novels, but that doesn’t mean fiction is irrelevant. Quite the opposite. Here, Robert Lauler reviews the latest book by “Because I Hate Korea” author Jang Kang-myung, in which he sketches out a disturbing, dystopian portrait of a future unified Korea.

Yongusil 86: AKS Colloquium and Sources of Identity Change in South Korea

By | August 25, 2016

On August 26, Steven Denney presents preliminary findings based on his survey research on the sources of national identity change in South Korea at the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) colloquium for overseas scholars studying Korea.