I can’t believe this, the Namdaemun burnt down! I really wanted to go see it, too, when I got the chance to visit Korea. It is always tragic when a historical monument like this is destroyed. I’ll just have to play SimCity 3000 to fill the whole in my heart… (Because it’s one of the monuments you can build in your city, for all you people who don’t play SimCity 3000…)
So… I guess this is what happens when you let the government think up ways to commemorate a historic visit to your neighbor up north… In some parallel universe, Kim Jong-il and Roh Moo-hyun are holding hands right now…
Also, that tree in the first skin has many items a North Korean will never see: plasma TV, cellphone, grapes, Charlie Brown shirt…
travel, of course! There have been murmurings of late about a possible sojourn in the Far East next year. Granted, I’ve been back Stateside a whole, what, month now? But, you can’t prepare too far ahead! I just hope Ken picks a big enough apartment to host us all…
Bearing all this in mind, I’m keeping an eye out for interesting sites to see on our potential visit. The Changgyeonggung Palace in Seoul looks quite exquisite. Hopefully by that time Ken will have seen enough cool things to (potentially) take us to. No pressure. And if we get to Tokyo I can finally visit Tokyo Tower! Don’t you love living in a place for five years and never visiting one of its main attractions?
So, with images of Cyprus still freshly burned into my memory, I already have visions of Korea and Japan dancing before my eyes…
An interesting article over at GI Korea about the US government axing a deal to sell the ROK Global Hawk UAVs for fear that the technology may be leaked to North Korea. Also important to note is that a similar deal with Japan was OK’d. What I found interesting is the last paragraph, where he talks about how South Korea’s policies toward the North are giving the Japanese a reason to further normalize (read: create an official military). I have never really thought of it this way, but I can see how Japan must be saying to itself, “Well, if the South isn’t going to get tough with the North, we will.” Another variable in the whole normalization equation…
Why is it that every time I read about a trade agreement that concerns South Korea, I inevitably end up reading about rioting farmers? Do these guys ever farm? Or are they too busy protesting capitalistic attacks against their proud way of life?
Also, I loved this quote:
Opponents in South Korea - including farmers and labour groups - say any deal will lead to cheaper US imports, while critics in the US say an agreement will threaten American jobs.
They can’t both be right. And, coincidentally, I think they’re both wrong! What ever happened to healthy competition? Oh, right. You have to work hard if you’re competing. And who wants to do that?
So, last week, whilst Americans such as myself were celebrating the Fourth of July, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was firing off some fireworks of its own. The reaction in the region was, needless to say, negative, with even the Republic of Korea suspending shipments of food aid to the DPRK, a big move, I assure you. Yet, despite President Bush’s best efforts, the world is not speaking with one voice over the missile tests. China and the ROK are not in the mood to further raise the DPRK’s ire. Reading about all of this, I asked myself, how long can a broken state last? A country like the DPRK, where the government seems much more interested in developing weapons than feeding its own people, and which has to resort to counterfeiting and laundering money for foreign currency is indeed broken. But how long can the system last? For years now we’ve been hearing about how the DPRK is on the brink of collapse. However, this has yet to pass, in part due to aid from China and the ROK, and such economic projects as the Kaesong Industrial Region (although its contribution is surely limited).
So what now? The Taepodong-2, which was the one failed missile test, would put all of Asia’s major economies within range of DPRK weapons. There is too much at stake to allow the DPRK to continue with its missile and nuclear programs. Besides being a threat to the region, it is also exporting its missile technology for lucre. How can the world engage the DPRK in such a way to better integrate it with the world community and stop it from developing WMDs? This is a very difficult question that really we’ve been wrangling with for years. The Bush administration I think is taking the right approach by insisting on the six party talks. And, it seems, the missile tests have been a reminder to the administration that it has some unfinished business. But speaking with one voice will take a lot of negotiation with China and the ROK. Is the administration up to that challenge? For the good of the region, I hope so.
Another thing is that these missile tests have piqued my interest in the so called “Gap Theory” expounded in Thomas Barnett’s “The Pentagon’s New Map.” I have yet to read it, but I think that is what I will tackle next. From what I understand, the Gap has been popping up all over the news, from the DPRK to Somalia. So, it will be interesting to read his take on the matter, and perhaps get to thinking a bit more deeply about broken states.