COMMENT
Blair's Christian 'challenge' to the East
Former British premier Tony Blair, who recently converted to Catholicism, apparently believes his or other Christian faiths should underpin the West in meeting the challenges from the East. But people such as Blair should start taking the "East" more seriously, and the coming Group of Eight summit in July could be an opportunity for Europeans to start calling democratic Asians "we" rather than "they". - Masayuki Tadokoro
(May 14, '08)

China, Korea: More nationalist than thou
South Korea got an up-close view of China's new-found nationalism when Chinese protesters came out en masse for the Seoul leg of the Olympic torch relay. South Korea had its own patriotic upsurge ahead of the 1988 Games, but the neighbors continue to brand the other's acts as more excessive and upsetting. - Sunny Lee
(May 14, '08)



Koreas not eye-to-eye on Vision 3000
South Korea's no-nonsense new president, Lee Myong-bak, has released his alternative to the Sunshine policy of his predecessor towards the North. "Vision 3000, Denuclearization, Openness" is a carrot-and-stick plan that promises a windfall of assistance should North Korea surrender its nuclear weapons. But its feasibility is likely to remain academic: Vision 3000 has not the slightest chance of being accepted by Pyongyang. - Andrei Lankov
(May 13, '08)

North Korea gives a lot, expects more
Washington is likely to decide that North Korea's delivery of 18,000 documents on its nuclear program suffices to ask the US Congress to remove Pyongyang from an international terrorist list and lift sanctions. Yet the papers are not expected to reveal anything new, and the US's response risks cutting South Korea out of the loop of negotiations with the North. - Donald Kirk (May 12, '08)

     Negroponte in China for N Korea talks (AFP)

South Korea's Sunshine policy strikes back
Since President Lee Myung-bak took office two months ago, South Korea's Sunshine engagement policy towards the North has been eclipsed by tough talk directed at Pyongyang. Now proponents of the concession-based, carrot-laden approach are fighting back, and they have released statistics they believe will make Lee see things in a different light. - Sunny Lee (May 6, '08)

South Korean beef overcooked
Young South Koreans are taking to the streets in their thousands in protest against the lifting of a ban on beef imported from the United States. Their broader aim is to scuttle a free trade agreement with the US, but their actions could have serious repercussions all the way to North Korea. - Donald Kirk (May 5, '08)

     S Korea to resume US beef imports (AFP)

North Korea stoic in the face of famine
In North Korea, the food situation is deteriorating fast. And if the shortage of South Korean fertilizer damages this year's harvest, a famine is inevitable. Still, Pyongyang appears supremely confident, unwilling to appeal for food aid or acknowledge the potential for starvation and death on a scale with the "Great Famine" that killed as many as 1 million North Koreas between 1996 and 1999. - Andrei Lankov(Apr 29, '08)

Back to the hard line on North Korea
The US White House's revelations on North Korea's apparent collaboration in building a nuclear reactor in Syria indicate a move by George W Bush administration hawks to hold Pyongyang to account, just as the State Department was poised to let the country off with a face-saving memorandum. Seoul will be pleased. For North Korea, it's time to rattle its sabers. - Donald Kirk (Apr 25, '08)

Bush and Lee talk T-bones and bombs
It was all smiles after two days of talks between US President George W Bush and South Korea's Lee Myung-bak, and if secret deals are being hammered out between US and North Korean nuclear envoys, mum's the word. For public consumption, the leaders tackled issues ranging from an impending free-trade agreement to the US troop presence in South Korea - and beef. - Donald Kirk (Apr 21, '08)

Bush, Lee and that North Korea problem
This week the first meeting of US President George W Bush and South Korea's President Lee Myung-bak will be remembered not for small talk and trade agreements but for whatever joint strategy emerges for engaging North Korea. History will judge Lee on how he handles the most compelling national task of his era. And Bush still has time to carve out a true North Korea legacy for himself. - Sung-Yoon Lee (Apr 14, '08)

Plenty of beef on the menu
Strengthened with a majority for his party in Wednesday's parliamentary elections, new President Lee Myung-bak travels to the United States to convince President George W Bush he is different from South Korea's two previous presidents, both left-leaning. The leaders have a lot to beef about, both literally and figuratively, and as always, the North Korean problem looms large. - Donald Kirk (Apr 10, '08)

Renewed urgency to rein in North Korea
In a firestorm of the stormiest rhetoric to emanate from North Korea in more than 10 years, neither the United States nor South Korea is giving up on bringing the North to terms over its nuclear program. Yet behind Washington's and Seoul's elusive quest for a breakthrough with Pyongyang, the sense is growing that time is running out and some kind of crisis is inevitable. - Donald Kirk (Apr 4, '08)

Pyongyang shoots itself in the foot
North Korea's media machine provides a virtually unparalleled supply of comic tales, outrageous lies and self-parodied propaganda. Yet, in its latest efforts to vilify Japan and demand that justice be done for Tokyo's "crimes against humanity" last century, Pyongyang shows the way for it, too, to one day be made accountable for its decades of misrule. - Sung-Yoon Lee (Apr 4, '08)

Lee stumbles out of the starting block
Early missteps and bitter party infighting have lowered expectations for the new administration of South Korea's Lee Myung-bak ahead of next week's legislative vote. The degree to which this will hinder Lee's promises to improve South Korean policy and transform its economy depends on how well the conservative factions can work together after the election. - Bruce Klingner (Apr 3, '08)

North Korea sends a missile warning
After weeks of increasingly acrimonious verbal sparring between North and South Korea, Pyongyang on Friday fired a volley of short-range missiles off South Korea's west coast. Seoul quickly dismissed the incident as routine, but few are falling for that: the nuclear deal with North Korea is coming undone. - Donald Kirk (Mar 28, '08) 

Flight, pain mark latest China revolution
Small-time foreign investors in China are closing their factory doors and catching the next flight home, leaving debts and unpaid workers behind, as they fail to keep pace with the country's changing industrial focus. Taking their place on incoming flights are better-heeled investors, more fully equipped to survive in the fast-modernizing economy. (Mar 27, '08)

Pyongyang cashes in on US row
Just how "welcome and wanted" US forces remain in South Korea will depend to some extent on whether Seoul is prepared to pick up the tab for an extra US$10 billion in connection with the relocation of a US base in the country. The issue goes to the core of the US military presence in South Korea, something North Korea has been quick to exploit. - Donald Kirk (Mar 20, '08)

Olympic clock ticks for unified Korean team
The two Koreas, which by their very rationales are involved in a highly-charged competition for legitimacy with their other "part-nation", the Olympic Games have been a particularly potent arena for political posturing. As they try to out-do each other in the runup to the Beijing Games over the possibility of a joint Korean team, China has a role to play. (Mar 19, '08)

Seoul marks the dawn of a new era
South Korea's new approach of pragmatism rather than "Sunshine" has begun, with Seoul challenging Pyongyang on its nuclear foot-dragging and human rights. The shift comes as the six-party process for getting North Korea to give up its nuclear program reaches what may be a make-or-break stage. - Donald Kirk (Mar 12, '08)

Serenading North Korea
Be it South Korean pop stars or the New York Philharmonic Orchestra playing in North Korea, such feel-good events are just that; they don't change the dynamics of politics. Just recall the American sportsmen wielding table tennis bats in Beijing many years ago. - Sung-Yoon Lee (Mar 12, '08)

A blow to the Korean soul
It was with much horror and deep shame that South Koreans watched their 610-year-old "National Treasure Number One", Namdaemun (Great South Gate), burn to the ground last month. The venerable edifice was for many the embodiment of the spirit of the Korean people, and the resulting national trauma says much about the psychology of what the Korean nation has been, how it views itself today and how it aspires to seen by the outside world. - Sung-Yoon Lee (Mar 6, '08)

Lee begins his North Korean gambit
New South Korea President Lee Myung-bak faces important decisions about how to approach Pyongyang and its nuclear weapons program. A critic of the engagement policy of his predecessors, he's pushing his own "Vision 3000". But he risks slowing down the peace process because it might be excessively expensive to implement. - Leonid Petrov (Mar 6, '08)

Russia lays new tracks in Korean ties
The new administrations coming into the Kremlin in Moscow and Seoul's presidential Blue House, together with a new generation of leaders in Pyongyang, can radically change the political climate in the region and help resolve the peninsula's nuclear problem. - Leonid Petrov (Mar 4, '08)

Taliban can't stop Korean missionary zeal
The Taliban's abduction last year of 23 South Korean Christian volunteers shocked their country and prompted the leader of the missionaries' church to say there would be no more work in Afghanistan. Now, he's singing a different hymn and plans to send more people to the same area once his government lifts a travel ban. - Sunny Lee (Feb 29, '08)

A sour note in Pyongyang
The music was great, but the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's performance in the North Korean capital this week was overshadowed by those who did not attend. Dear Leader Kim Jong-il and his chief nuclear negotiator were conspicuously absent, sending a message that is reverberating in the echo chamber of negotiations over Pyongyang's nuclear program and the future of US relations on the Korean Peninsula. - Donald Kirk (Feb 28, '08)

What would Jesus do to North Korea?
As South Korea's new President Lee Myung-bak, a devout Christian, formulates his strategy for the Korean Peninsula he may want to speak with Reverend Kim Shin-jo. Forty years ago, Kim was part of a North Korean death squad caught in a bloody assassination attempt on the South's president. Today, he's a successful pastor with unique perspectives on North Korea, Christianity and communism. - Sunny Lee (Feb 26, '08)

Getting North Korea to change its tune
Monday's inauguration of Lee Myung-bak as president of South Korea and Tuesday's performance of the New York Philharmonic in North Korea are sure to be followed by a chorus of diplomatic chatter. Even if US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice skips the orchestra, there's hope US relations with Pyongyang will hit their highest note in years. - Donald Kirk (Feb 25, '08)

China puppet-play a plus for Koreas
The prospect of a Chinese takeover of North Korea will horrify many onlookers. Yet little could be done to prevent such action and the benefits would be widespread for all parties, including the South. - Andrei Lankov (Feb 20, '08)

Another Korean 'war' casualty
The question of how soon South Korea would assume authority over all troops in the event of a "second Korean war" has forced the premature retirement of a top US military commander. General "BB" Bell was pushing for Seoul to assume the leadership role faster than it was ready to do, and now the US has assented to a later date. - Donald Kirk (Feb 15, '08)

Asian arms race gathers speed
In Northeast Asia, the United States, China, Japan, Russia and North and South Korea are investing in war, spending staggering amounts of money in new weapons systems and offensive capabilities. From China's ambitious naval program to South Korea's state-of-the-art fighter aircraft, this buildup on the land, on the seas and in space undercuts all talk of peace and sustains an ever-growing global military-industrial complex. - John Feffer (Feb 13, '08)

Pyongyang waiting to pounce
Though it's a one-ton gorilla in the room, no one in the US presidential campaign - much less President George W Bush - acknowledges North Korea's failure to comply with the six-party nuclear agreement. What is sure, though, is that Pyongyang is working towards extracting maximum concessions from whoever takes over the White House. - Donald Kirk (Feb 8, '08)

Chillin' at a North Korean karaoke bar
While Pyongyang nightlife may be beyond most curious tourists' reach, North Korean restaurants and karaoke bars in China provide a rare chance for foreign guests to experience the real deal and, if not paint the town red, perhaps brush it a tasteful beige. - Sunny Lee (Feb 7, '08)

A breach in North Korea's iron curtain
South Koreans are now allowed to visit the North Korean city of Kaesong. Although the historic area is located just 60 kilometers from Seoul, the journey is as if into a different world. North Korean guides - read secret police - do their best to keep the "locals" away from the curious southerners, who pay handsomely for their sightseeing. But ultimately, these cross-border exchanges will breach the information blockade that Pyongyang imposes on the hermit nation, and the results could be devastating. - Andrei Lankov (Feb 6, '08)

PYONGYANG WATCH
North Korea: The Columbus complex
Entrepreneurs beware when it comes to exploiting the virgin commercial ground of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Others from Hyundai to Thai conglomerate Loxley have gone before; all suffered. Still, there's a sucker born every minute, and an Egyptian telephony giant may be the next in line. - Aidan Foster-Carter (Feb 1, '08)

A 'God-given' president-elect
President-elect Lee Myung-bak occupies Seoul's Blue House soon, amid concern over his "house of the Lord" Christian faith. Many South Koreans fear he may pack his cabinet with members of his church's congregation, at the expense of Buddhists and non-believers. - Sunny Lee (Jan 31, '08)

Seoul rethinks US's marching orders
An unusual envoy - arguably South Korea's richest man - was in Washington recently at the behest of president-elect Lee Myung-bak to kick-start new relations with the White House. But just as US defense planners want to downsize the military relationship, Lee wants to go into reverse. - Donald Kirk (Jan 29, '08)

China's 'Olympic' approach to refugees
China is taking a two-system approach to North Korean refugees as the Summer Olympics draw near. In hopes of making the capital a "refugee-free city", Beijing is quickly issuing exit stamps for North Koreans who've found diplomatic shelter, while also cracking down hard on those who aren't behind embassy or United Nations walls. - Sunny Lee (Jan 25, '08)

North Korea dragged back to the past
North Korea's leaders have used the opportunities presented by aid from its neighbors to attempt to turn back the clock and re-Stalinize the country. The attempt may further wreck the economy, but the other option is their own demise. - Andrei Lankov (Jan 23, '08)

North Korea falls off the tracks
Pyongyang's willingness to live up to the terms under which it gives up its nuclear program is growing increasingly unlikely. This is illustrated by delays in repairing a vital railroad to the Chinese border. The foot-dragging sends a warning message to the incoming conservative government in South Korea, as well as to the US. - Donald Kirk (Jan 22, '08)

Sundown for Seoul's Korean policy?
South Korea's incoming conservative leadership raises the issue of whether the country's 10-year reconciliation policy with Pyongyang can survive the transition. North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's skillful and duplicitous handling of his regime's nuclear interests is a major factor - just ask former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright. - Donald Kirk (Jan 15, '08)

A president on the psychologist's couch
Outgoing South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun can forget about the "unexamined" life. For years bona fide therapists and armchair analysts alike have provided unsolicited "couch time" for the ex-human rights lawyer who once blurted, "What's wrong with anti-Americanism?". To some he's quick-tempered and short-sighted. Others say he calculates every move. Either way, there's no shortage of South Koreans trying to get into Roh's head. - Sunny Lee (Jan 14, '08)

Inflation haunts Lee's poll pledge
Lee Myung-bak, after winning South Korea's presidential election on the back of pledges to get more people into work, is having to trim his economic growth target for this year even before taking office as inflation concerns mount. (Jan 14, '08)

Caution: Bumpy times for the Koreas
In South Korea, president-elect Lee Myung-bak faces an uphill battle amid allegations of financial irregularities and a challenge to his popular mandate in April's parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, North Korea has stumbled over its nuclear program and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il has health problems and a fossilized economy. - Aidan Foster-Carter (Jan 8, '08)

A chance for change in North Korea
Apparently headed forever down a one-way street to terminal decline, North Korea has tried numerous variations to its core economic model as the world about it has changed. Recent advances in its international relations may create space for some within the country to have a greater influence in introducing changes amid a less-hostile environment. But a market economy is far from likely. (Jan 7, '08)

Surprise! No candor from North Korea
North Korea missing the deadline for "full disclosure" of its nuclear stockpile comes as no shock to all observers, though the US State Department seems officially sanguine. But while the Bush administration is no longer playing hardball, South Korean voters and their president-elect Lee Myung-bak are increasingly sounding like US conservatives in their ire over Pyongyang's trademark stalling. - Donald Kirk (Jan 4, '08)

SPEAKING FREELY
Goodbye chaebol, hello small business
President-elect Lee Myung-bak appears to breaking with Korea's past by looking to small and medium-sized businesses to re-energize an economy long-dominated by conglomerates such as Samsung and Hyundai. Yet the change in emphasis, which carries political risks and the prospect of considerable rewards, shows Lee standing by the country's tradition of government interference in business. - Van Jackson
(Jan 4, '08)

The hard part starts for Seoul's new man
President-elect Lee Myung-bak, a pragmatic conservative, says he will vault South Korea's economy to the next level of global competitiveness. He will also risk sending North Korea into a rhetorical paroxysm by raising the issue of its human-rights record. The test will come when Lee gets a dose of Pyongyang's response, which could undermine the six-party talks on its nuclear program. Before getting to this stage, however, Lee must beat opposition moves to have him removed from office. - Donald Kirk (Dec 20, '07)

SPEAKING FREELY
Promises undermine democracy
A popular rags-to-riches candidate made grand promises of jobs, growth and renewal, and won the presidency. But South Korean reality, and history, suggest the rare political euphoria may be misplaced. - Van Jackson (Dec 20, '07)

Clouds over South Korea's president-to-be
Business-friendly Lee Myung-bak is clear favorite to end 10 years of liberal if not leftist leadership in South Korea when the country goes to the polls next week. All the same, the widespread perception remains that Lee has a lot to hide. But at least North Korea has softened towards him.- Donald Kirk  (Dec 13, '07)

The paradox of East Asian peace
North Korea is hard-pressed to give up its nukes. The United States is reluctant to give up its hegemonic position in East Asia. These are the dilemmas posed by the strongest and the weakest powers in the six-party talks. The middle powers - China, Russia and South Korea - are the most supportive of a potential regional peace and security mechanism, leaving Japan as the wild card. - John Feffer (Dec 13, '07)

At least he didn't call him 'Dear Leader'
George W Bush had to wrestle with etiquette while crafting his first personal letter to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Rather than "Dear Dear Leader", Bush settled on "Chairman" - a reconciliatory gesture designed to tempt Kim with an end to sanctions and even normalizing relations, in return for abiding by his agreement to full disclosure of the country's nuclear program. Whether Kim takes the bait will partly depend on who wins South Korea's elections. - Donald Kirk (Dec 7, '07)

North Korean 'progress' stopped dead
The policy of the George W Bush administration on North Korea has moved from hardline, as epitomized in Bush's "axis of evil" speech in 2002, to a soft line, but the bottom line remains the same. And that line - full verification of Pyongyang's nuclear intentions - has still not been met. The goodwill over North Korea is fast evaporating. - Donald Kirk (Dec 6, '07)

China casting wary eye on North Korea
Formerly cozy relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have chilled following North Korea's pledge to abandon its nuclear programs - a move that some Chinese analysts see as hurting China's interests. North Korea's traditional strategy is to play larger nations against each other and after decades of being extremely reliant on China, Pyongyang is likely to pit that country, the US and South Korea against one another to see who can be of most use. - Ting-I Tsai (Dec 4, '07)

OPINION
US shunts Japan at its own peril
As Washington continues to warm up to Pyongyang over the denuclearization issue, the Japanese government is beginning to quietly fume over the United States' failure to hold North Korea accountable for its abduction of Japanese nationals. It would behoove Washington to make the kidnapping issue a high priority and take measures to divert Tokyo's growing urge to go nuclear by offering Japan non-nuclear military hardware to counter Pyongyang's threats. Otherwise, Japan risks becoming a wild card. - Masahiro Matsumura (Dec 4, '07)