KCNA’s China Prism: Analyzing North Korean Media
We are pleased to bring to readers KCNA File No 2 – December 10-17, 2011, a complilation of KCNA’s China-related news in the week prior to Kim Jong Il’s death. Having such data as a baseline is helpful in understanding how, if at all, North Korea’s receptiveness toward China is changing in the “Kim Jong Un […]
Gen. Guo Boxiong at the DPRK Embassy, Dec. 20
China’s head of state and the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Hu Jintao suprised at least a few people by showing up at the North Korean embassy in Beijing the morning after Kim Jong Il’s death was announced. Although Hu could not meet the DPRK Ambassador to China (more about that in tomorrow’s […]
Links for 2 January 2012
NPR has a nice round up from Dandong, with some Ming dynasty analysis adding value to the standard border walk and a stunning picture; Rodong Sinmun publishes an upbeat song on page 1 of January 1, 2012, indicating that the next 100 years of the Juche era are going to be energetic; A new story […]
Documenting Chemical Weapons Facilities Along the DPRK’s Northern Frontier
As documented on this website, recent changes in the DPRK have prompted renewed assertions by Chinese think-tank intellectuals that now is the time for North Korea to back away from the “military-first” policy which had so distinguished – some might even say marred — Kim Jong-Il’s reign. While the public justification for this recommendation in […]
Breaking Down Signals in North Korean New Years Editorials: Tweet Barrage
There will be ample time to discern and dissemble whether or how North Korea is taking what China continues to urge (e.g. the path of “reform and opening up” and a reduction in military expenditures) but there are all manner of clues present in the New Years Editorials posted at KCNA yesterday. The editorials can […]
Updated KCNA-China File
Here is the most updated version of the KCNA coverage of Sino-North Korean interactions in the period after Kim Jong Il’s death: KCNA File No 1 – December 19-26, 2011. Some further analysis of the data is forthcoming, but the following trends seem evident in the materials: – The families of revolutionaries connected to Kim Il […]
China’s Great Power Strategy Can Help North Korea to Demilitarize: Chinese Scholar
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
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
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 […]
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