NK Leadership

Poetry from Pyongyang // 平壤诗歌

By | January 12, 2012

Rodong Sinmun yesterday carried a number of foreign language items, as well as a plug (in Korean) for foreign language education in the DPRK.  A positive sign? At the very least, an opportunity for two English-language students at Kim Il Sung University to get an important translation on their respective resumes of a collectively-composed poem, […]

Songun, Tangun, Son of Paektu, etc.: Kim Jong Un Documentary

By | January 09, 2012

With thanks to Rue89 Chinatown in Paris for the tip, a one-hour special on (North) Korean Central TV about Kim Jong Un and, among other things, his links to the Mount Paektu legend and his military bona fides.  Songun policy references abound.  The young Kim is, in the eyes of KCNA, nothing less than the […]

Sunday Reads, Chinese Audibles

By | January 09, 2012

– This rather slight yet nevertheless astonishing shift in emphasis on nothing less than Kim Jong Il’s last on-site inspection: the supermarket visited on December 15 was in fact a joint venture with China. A blockade on this particular fact had existed since the Dear Leader’s death, with nothing less than a CCTV crew going […]

Party Leadership Transitions and China’s Relations with North Korea

By | January 06, 2012

What impact do the inner-Party workings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have on the formation and execution of China’s North Korea policy? This question forms the basis of the following essay by SinoNK’s Analyst for Chinese Geostrategy, Nicholas Miller.  Miller is presently a postgraduate student at the Bush School at Texas A & M […]

Foundations (2): Kim Jong Il on Inheritance

By | January 06, 2012

Preface: Although a handful of more orthodox PRC intellectuals have remotely encouraged him to make his mark in print, Kim Jong Un has virtually no paper trail to speak of.  Analysts, however, are fortunate to have access to a huge body of work by his two predecessors.  If one thing has been made clear since […]