International Crisis Group

N. Korea urges foreigners in South to evacuate | AFP

By Park Chan-Kyong 

Last week’s warning to embassies in Pyongyang was also largely dismissed as rhetoric, with most governments making it clear they had no plans to withdraw personnel.

“It’s almost comic,” said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert with the International Crisis Group.

“They want to rattle the investment market, create pressure and make people nervous.

“But it’s just not working. It’s as if they didn’t get a rise out of the embassies in Pyongyang, so they’re just moving on to the next target,” Pinkston said.

FULL ARTICLE (AFP)

Photo: Devid Andriyano/Flickr

Why is North Korea Risking the Closure of the Kaesŏng Industrial Complex?

from Crisis Group’s blog on Korea, “Strong & Prosperous”

by Daniel Pinkston

After five days of restricting access to the inter-Korean Kaesŏng Industrial Complex (KIC), Pyongyang ordered suspension of operations pending a review on the future of the project. KIC was established in accordance with an agreement reached during the June 2000 inter-Korean summit and remains one of the few symbols of inter-Korean cooperation. The project is home to 123 South Korean firms that employ about 53,000 North Korean workers who produce labour-intensive manufactured goods that are losing competitiveness in South Korea’s increasingly high-wage economy. For Pyongyang, KIC is an important source of hard currency, given that both the country’s export competitiveness and its foreign-exchange sources are very limited.

The North Korean government receives about $90 million per year for KIC labour services, but workers see only a portion of this, which they receive in North Korean wŏn at the official exchange rate. Former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and supporters of the “sunshine policy” envisioned that KIC would be a transformative project that would draw North Korea out of its isolation. It offered an opportunity for North Koreans to see the subversive reality of an alternative economic system; this was in turn expected to encourage reform and opening. Instead, North Korea has operated KIC as if it were a hermetically sealed space station. South Korea has supplied electricity, water and waste-water treatment, heating oil, construction materials, and components and material inputs for the manufactures. The only things North Korea has supplied are the land and labour.

Given that the North succeeded in sealing off KIC, why would the Pyongyang leadership now risk losing it? There are two possibilities, neither of which is reassuring for the future of the Korean peninsula.

FULL POST

Photo: Uriminzokkiri

Is Asia on cusp of space race? | CNN

By Ramy Inocencio

Hong Kong (CNN) — The United States and Russia defined the world’s first space race, but following South Korea’s successful orbital rocket launch this week, it appears Asia — particularly North Asia — is the world’s new epicenter for space rivalries in the 21st century.

“In some sense we are already there,” says Daniel Pinkston, North East Asia Deputy Project Director for International Crisis Group in Seoul, South Korea. “The Chinese have been very active… (also) Japan, North and South Korea. It’s quite a competitive atmosphere.”

FULL ARTICLE (CNN)

Photo: Gang Lee/Wikimedia Commons 

The New South Korean Missile Guidelines and Future Prospects for Regional Stability

By Daniel Pinkston

On 7 October (Seoul time), in the middle of a long U.S. holiday weekend and when most American attention was turned to the November elections, the Republic of Korea (ROK or South Korea) announced new missile guidelines (NMG) that extend the range of ballistic missiles to 800km with a 500kg payload.  The NMG also increase the payload of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from 500kg to 2,500kg.[1] The South Korean government says it will be able to deploy ballistic missiles with the extended range within five years.[2] The increased UAV payload will give the ROK an opportunity to develop a high-altitude UAV with enhanced intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capacity to support its expanding capability to strike deep into the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea).

FULL POST (Strong & Prosperous)

US, Seoul agree on longer range missiles | Today Online

Currently, all of South Korea as well as US military installations in Japan and Guam are within the range of North Korean missile attacks, according to South Korean government data.

Mr Daniel Pinkston, an analyst at the International Crisis Group in Seoul, said the latest deal on missiles increased the chances of an aggressive gesture from North Korea, such as a ballistic missile test.

“Anyone who thinks the North Koreans won’t respond is either naive or foolish,” he said.

FULL ARTICLE (Today Online)

Photo: United States Navy/Wikimedia Commons

The Korea Times | Seoul dismisses US push for tactical nuclear deployment

By Kim Young-jin

Seoul is rejecting a push by U.S. lawmakers to redeploy U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea. 

“We have not discussed the matter,” a senior defense official said Monday on condition of anonymity. “South Korea is a country making efforts for non-proliferation and as such it would not be appropriate to do so.”

An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade added that neither South Korea nor the U.S. administration of Barack Obama have changed their stances on the issue and that Seoul was “watching” how the debate would unfold in Washington. 

The debate heated up last week when the Republican-dominated House Armed Services Committee approved an amendment to the 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill calling for the reintroduction. That was echoed here by conservative heavyweight Chung Mong-joon, who is bidding to become the ruling Saenuri Party’s presidential nominee. 

The U.S. lawmakers cited the failure of China, the North’s main ally, to convince Pyongyang to stand down as a reason for the redeployment, as well as Beijing’s “selling (of) nuclear components to North Korea.” A missile launch vehicle suspected to be of Chinese origin was spotted at a military parade in Pyongyang last month. 

But the calls have been met with skepticism as some believe the move would do little to bolster the allies’ capabilities and may increase risks during conflict. 

Baek Sung-joo, a military analyst with the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, said Seoul’s 1991 deal to denuclearize the peninsula - after which Washington pulled its forward-based nuclear weapons off the peninsula - made the move politically difficult. 

FULL ARTICLE (The Korea Times)

Photo: Presidential Press and Information Office

Voice of America | N. Korea Threatens South with Special Military Action

North Korea is escalating its war of words against the South Korean government over what the North perceives as insults by the South. Pyongyang is now threatening to turn the heated rhetoric into action, threatening to take “quick action” against South Korea.

Senior newscaster Ri Chun Hee, interrupting regular programming on North Korea’s central television station early Monday afternoon, forcefully read an unusual announcement from a unit of the army’s supreme command.

The announcer said a special operation would reduce to “ashes in three or four minutes” the supporters of South Korea’s president and their bases utilizing “unprecedented peculiar means and methods.”

Pyongyang blames President Lee Myung-bak for insulting the North at a time when the country was mourning its late leader, Kim Jong Il, who died in December, and then during this month’s celebrations marking the centennial of the birth of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung.

North Korea often uses belligerent language and threatens violence against South Korean leaders. But some analysts who closely monitor the North’s bombastic rhetoric say the latest message may presage some sort of attack.

Daniel Pinkston, the senior analyst in Seoul for the International Crisis Group, says while there is no indication of a mobilization of North Korea’s military, the announcement from Pyongyang is puzzling and worrying.

FULL ARTICLE (VOA) 

VOA | US Military: Official’s Statement ‘Mischaracterized’ by S. Korean Media

U.S. military officials say South Korean media took out of context a comment made Tuesday at a Seoul news conference by the new head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear III.

“Numerous reports following the event have mischaracterized his comments regarding U.S. response to possible future provocation of a nuclear test by North Korea, speculating that the U.S. is considering specific responses,” according to a release issued by the U.S. military in South Korea.

During a news conference with South Korean reporters from the Ministry of National Defense press corps, Locklear was asked whether the United States would again consider “surgical strikes” against North Korea if it is evident the country is preparing to conduct a third nuclear test. Such strikes reportedly were considered at the time of a nuclear test in 1994.

The release quotes Locklear as saying, “I don’t think it would be appropriate to comment on how we would pursue any further military operations, but I can tell you that, with
the alliance, that we are continually looking at all options.”

Shortly after the briefing, South Korean media - including the widely viewed cable network YTN, the semi-official Yonhap news agency and newspaper web sites - quoted the four-star admiral differently.

“If North Korea tries a third nuclear test, we’ll consider all possible measures, including precision strikes on North Korea’s nuclear test site,” was how MBN television reported what Locklear said.

Other South Korean media also said the head of the U.S. Pacific Command had indicated surgical or precision strikes are an option.

Senior analyst Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group expresses concern such misquotes give North Korea a pretext for military strikes. The misquotes “play right into their narrative,” he said.

FULL ARTICLE (VOA)