China struggling to become a diplomatic force - Paul French

Paul French

China is not only struggling to manage its unruly financial markets, North-Korea´s latest nuclear test shows that international diplomacy is not yet one of its strong point, says political analyst Paul French in America Magazine. Managing North-Korea from Beijing is no longer possible.

America Magazine:

North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006. Wednesday’s test registered as a 5.1 earthquake, which analysts say makes the bomb larger than anything the rogue nation has exploded before, but not large enough to be a true hydrogen bomb, which is many times more powerful than a simple atomic bomb. 

Regardless of the bomb’s size, the damage to relations to North Korea’s relationship with China, upon which it still relies for food and numerous basic raw materials, is clear. “Since the last test in 2013 China has cooled considerably in its friendship with North Korea. Now, after the fourth test, they are clearly mad as hell with Kim and Pyongyang. Many in the Chinese leadership feel the regime in Pyongyang is blackmailing them with nuclear tests in return for increased aid. China is focused on its economic downturn and doesn't need a troublesome neighbor,” Paul French, the author of North Korea: State of Paranoia, told America via Facebook Messenger. 

While its management of North Korea was once a regional bargaining chip for Beijing, its lack of influence there is instead a growing problem. 

“Whilst China is an economic superpower it has not yet emerged as a diplomatic superpower. This is an opportunity for them to step up, reconvene and lead a new round of Six-Party Talks and, at the same time, work closely with America to find an Iran-style solution to North Korea. They could play this as a win, get international kudos and work closely with the US. So far it seems they will fume in private, be mealy-mouthed in public and squander another chance to seriously take the lead in regional and world affairs,” French said.

More in America Magazine.

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Happy New Year from Pyongyang - Paul French

Paul French

North-Korea´s lastest nuclear test came not really as a surprise, writes Pyongyang-watcher Paul French. And they might most likely get what they wanted: a resumption of the 6-party talks, led by China, he writes for Reuters.

Paul French:

Last year was a tough one for North Korea’s economy and people. With world attention focussed on the Syrian crisis the UN reported that aid donations to the North were 50 percent down on previous years. Not just food but also fuel, fertilizer and pharmaceuticals. Keeping the lights on and people fed has been tough. After the last nuclear test in 2013 Pyongyang called for a resumption of the Six Party Talks, but it never happened. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, on a visit to Beijing, agreed with the Chinese that talks should be resumed, though this may be interpreted as a reward for bad behavior on Pyongyang’s part. Traditionally the resumption of the talks has been matched with resumed higher levels of aid shipments. Hungry people are unhappy people and probably the biggest single potential threat to Kim Jong-un’s regime. Resumed and increased food aid shipments would ameliorate this threat somewhat.
So Kim Jong-un’s bomb – whether it turns out to be an H-Bomb or not – has got our attention. The United Nations will meet to consider new sanctions against the DPRK but it’s hard to see what new sanctions they can impose. It’s equally hard to see a stubborn Pyongyang caring. The more interesting part of the equation after this test is China. President Xi Jinping has noticeably not had that much to say about North Korea and, though the North often ignores Beijing, it doesn’t like being ignored by the bigger neighboring one-party state. China consistently, and again today, says it wants a “stable” North Korea. Beijing analysts have been watching the mass of Syrian refugees trudging across Eastern Europe towards Germany with some alarm. It does not want an unstable or totally collapsed regime in North Korea sending millions across the Yalu River seeking sanctuary in northeast China. Beijing is quite open about not wanting a refugee crisis on its borders.
It seems likely that the Six Party Talks process may be resumed now, led by Chinese diplomatic efforts. China, for one, can live with a nuclear enabled North Korea but it does not want to countenance an unstable state next door. 

More in Reuters.

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Did Pyongyang attack Sony? - Paul French

+Paul French 

High-end cyber unites, attacks on Sony, threats with nuclear weapons. North-Korea has not been short of themes for Hollywood new movies, but Pyongyang watcher Paul French doubts whether Kim Jong-un likes recent movie releases, he writes for Reuters.

Paul French:

It seems Kim Jong-un doesn’t like the new Seth Rogan movie, The Interview. Not surprising really, it’s a comedy about a fictitious plot to assassinate him. Now Sony Pictures has been the subject of a massive cyber-attack disrupting the company’s communications system and leaking upcoming movies – no more rogue DPRK nukes to keep us awake at night, but rather illicit downloads of a new version of Annie! 

North Korea has, unsurprisingly, been accused of mounting the attack and, equally unsurprisingly, denies it. But they may be on shaky ground. Last summer, when the movie’s plot was first announced, Pyongyang immediately responded, called on the U.S. government to ban the film and threatening a “merciless and resolute” response. In what may be a first for the United Nations, the secretary general was personally informed, by the DPRK’s ambassador, that a rom-com was an ‘act of war.’ The UN has declined to get involved in debating mild comedy... 

So they don’t like The Interview at all, they don’t like Seth Rogen much, and it won’t be playing at the regional multiplexes in Manpo, Hamhung or Wonsan because no American films will be playing in these towns and there are no multiplexes anyway. But do they hate it enough to cyber-attack Sony Pictures? 

Pyongyang says no, but there’s a lot of reasons to think yes. North Korea certainly has substantial cyber-warfare resources developed both in-house and, probably, with the help of the Chinese military and helpful hackers. As South Korea’s technical capabilities, brands and software engineering have become world class, so the North has had to try and keep up. While this has not meant a computer in every home (or even more than a handful in every town), a broadband nation or any North Korea conglomerate the equivalent of an LG or a Samsung, it has meant a highly developed military cyber-attack unit. The North is constantly prepared for war with the South and rendering Seoul electronically “dark” is a vital component of this. Additionally, cyber warfare suits the economically distraught DPRK – hi-tech cyber warriors with laptops don’t need masses of gasoline the way tanks, warships and fighter jets annoyingly do. That Sony is the American entertainment subsidiary of the Japanese parent may well have encouraged any decision to do a little cyber mischief making – Pyongyang remains in a state of insult slinging and perpetual tension with Tokyo. An American company with a Japanese parent embarrassed and rendered impotent electronically – a double whammy for the North.

More at Reuters.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

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Debunking myths about North Korea - Paul French

+Paul French 

Getting a grip on North Korea is hard for the outside world. Paul French, author of North Korea: State of Paranoia: A Modern History tries to debunk some common misunderstandings in an interview with VOA.

VOA:

FRENCH:  Well, I think the biggest myth, or at least the most dangerous myth that I wanted to deal with in my book, as someone who has sort of visited North Korea on a number of occasions - which is not necessarily an easy thing to do, particularly for Americans of course – is to try and show the ordinary North Korean people and the daily life that they have as difficult and highly politicized and highly regimented and with a lot of surveillance, but that they are essentially normal people. I think that a lot of the North Korean government, we almost see like this robotic nation, the few images we get are always of military parades or something like that, but these are people who get up in the morning and kiss their kids goodbye and go off to work, and the kids go off to school, and so on.

STEVENSON:  North Korea is opening up a little bit in terms of tourism, in terms of hard currency. What do tourists see as normal when they visit Pyongyang and other locations within North Korea?

FRENCH:  It is a little bit like going to Disneyland in a sense, in that, you see exactly what the corporation that runs North Korea wants you to see and nothing else. And anyone that tries to sort of look behind the stage set, or actually talk to the ordinary people if you like, someone will try and stop you from doing that. So they very much want to handle you, they want to guide you around; they don’t want you to have ordinary conversations with people. So in that sense, there is an odd sort of feeling that you’re in one big sort of theme park when you’re there.

STEVENSON:  What prevents the regime in North Korea from reforming while retaining power when it can clearly look over next door at China and see a 35 year blueprint for progress?

FRENCH:  Well, this is becoming more and more of an issue, I think, now as more and more North Koreans, not just the elite, start to see just how wide the disparity has become between North and South Korea. This is way beyond anything we ever saw in – the example that’s always used, East and West Germany – the disparity of course being between Seoul and Pyongyang is almost unimaginable, they’re essentially now two completely different nations.

But again, their response to it has not been to emulate what has gone on in the South, or even to emulate what has gone on in China, which is a good example for them – a lot of market reforms, a lot of more money moving around the system, but [with] the authoritarian party staying in place, [or] regime survival, that they don’t seem to be able to do that. Their response has been to try and lock down and stop people knowing what’s going on outside.

More in the VOA.

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How contraband is changing North Korea - Paul French

+Paul French 

Paul French, author of North Korea: State of Paranoia: A Modern History explains in the Deutsche Welle, North Korea is slowly changing, against the will of its ruling elite. Its citizens know more than ever what is happening in China and South Korea.

Paul French:

It has changed over time. When I first went, there was a bit of [being treated like an] alien. But over time, things have changed. There is now an awful lot of contraband and pirated information, particularly from South Korea, and from China as well: soap operas, films on DVD. I've also seen a lot of memory sticks coming into the country that have whole editions of television series, magazines and books downloaded on them. So, compared to a decade ago, most North Koreans have much more of an idea of what life looks like in South Korea as well as in China. Of course that has political implications, because now they are aware of the fact that things are perhaps not quite as good as their leaders told them they were.

Could this also be the beginning of the end of this system, if citizens are getting a glimpse of what is actually happening outside of North Korea?

That certainly seems to be a fear that many people have. A document was recently leaked showing that both the Chinese and the South Koreans are at the moment ramping up preparations for what they perceive could be a very sudden change, which is mostly thought of as a political coup followed by a period of complete economic collapse, which will cause all sorts of problems.

Kim Jong-un, who is rather young and not that experienced, has taken over from his father, Kim Jong-il. Despite some pretty heavy purging, including his uncle, and trying to put his stamp of authority on the government in the way that his father and his grandfather - the first leader of North Korea, Kim Il-sung - did, it hasn't really worked. He hasn't managed to consolidate power. There have always been tensions between the Kim family and the military, and it seems that both Beijing and Seoul, who know the place best, are worried that there could be some sort of catastrophic incident, a coup or something, that could plunge the place into chaos.

More in the Deutsche Welle.

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North Korea: nobody´s puppet - Paul French

+Paul French 

The Guardian reviews author Paul French´ extensively researched book North Korea: State of Paranoia: A Modern History. French deals with many subjects, including the country´s relationship with China.

The Guardian:

French points out that North Korea's leadership is nobody's puppet. During the Sino-Soviet split following Stalin's death, Kim Il-sung, the country's long-serving leader, first tried to keep in with both sides but then broke both with Khrushchev's revisionism and Mao's Cultural Revolution. Mao's Little Red Bookwas blocked from circulation.

Forty years later, China still protects North Korea diplomatically from outside pressure, but there is no ideological affinity between Pyongyang's command economy and China's increasingly capitalist one. Russian relations with Pyongyang cooled severely when Soviet communism collapsed and Boris Yeltsin cut cheap fuel supplies and other subsidies, dealing a sudden and massive blow to the North Korean economy.French provides a comprehensive account of the controversies surrounding North Korea's nuclear programme. A period of genuine promise emerged in 1994 when the US and North Korea reached an Agreed Framework thanks to the diplomacy of former President Jimmy Carter whom Bill Clinton had appointed as a special envoy. Kim Il-sung was to halt his nuclear programme in return for US support in providing "proliferation-resistant" light-water reactors to develop the country's civilian energy production. It was a good compromise but South Korea and Japan were to shoulder most of the cost and these two countries started to raise objections. When George W Bush came to power and cited North Korea in his "axis of evil" speech in 2002, the deal fizzled. In spite of sporadic negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington to find a new agreement, with China, Japan, Russia and South Korea also involved at the table, there has been no breakthrough for the last dozen years. None is expected.

Much more in the Guardian.

 Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´request form.

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A day in the life of Pyongyang - Paul French

+Paul French 

Author Paul French publishes this month his next book on North Korea, North Korea: State of Paranoia: A Modern History. In the Guardian an extract where he describes a normal day in the life at its capital Pyongyang.

Paul French:

6am The day starts early in Pyongyang, the city described by the North Korean government as the "capital of revolution". Breakfast is usually corn or maize porridge, possibly a boiled egg and sour yoghurt, with perhaps powdered milk for children.

Then it is time to get ready for work. North Korea has a large working population: approximately 59% of the total in 2010. A growing number of women work in white-collar office jobs; they make up around 90% of workers in light industry and 80% of the rural workforce. Many women are now the major wage-earner in the family – though still housewife, mother and cook as well as a worker, or perhaps a soldier.

Makeup is increasingly common in Pyongyang, though it is rarely worn until after college graduation. Chinese-made skin lotions, foundation, eyeliner and lipstick are available and permissible in the office. Many women suffer from blotchy skin caused by the deteriorating national diet, so are wearing more makeup. Long hair is common, but untied hair is frowned upon.

Men's hairstyles could not be described as radical. In the 1980s, when Kim Jong-ilfirst came to public prominence, his trademark crewcut, known as a "speed battle cut", became popular, while the more bouffant style favoured by Kim Il-sung, and then Kim Jong-il, in their later years, is also popular. Kim Jong-un's trademark short-back-and-sides does not appear to have inspired much imitation so far. Hairdressers and barbers are run by the local Convenience Services Management Committee; at many, customers can wash their hair themselves.

More in the Guardian.

Paul French is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

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China's North Korea dilemma - Michael Justin Lee

Michael Justin Lee

North-Korea is raising its stakes at the Korean peninsula, putting pressure on its supposed ally China. But China's dilemma in dealing with its unruly neighbor might offer also opportunities, writes China expert Michael Lee Justin in ChinaUSFocus. It might be a unique chance for China and the US do draw closer.

Michael Justin Lee:

[I]f we play our cards right, this unfortunate situation may well provide the United States with a rare opportunity to draw closer to China on military matters. 

Some observers believe that China and North Korea remain comrades-in-arms. This conclusion is at least thirty years out of date. 

In actuality however, there is absolutely no love between the two communist neighbors. Any slight comity between the two countries ended when former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and North Korean founder Kim Il-Sung died. Both were experienced war fighters and absolutely instrumental, for better or worse, in the creation of their countries. So they bonded. But the dauphins in charge of North Korea since the elder Kim’s death have merely been using up their supply of rapidly diminishing Chinese goodwill. 

North Korea is not some annoying pain-in-the-butt little brother to China as some think. Actually, North Korea is one of the world’s two or three greatest threats to international security and China knows it. This is not the kind of kid brother anyone cops to. ... 

But it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Leader, who is known unaffectionately in China as Fatso Kim the Third (Dad and grandpa were Fatso Kim the Second and Fatso Kim the First, respectively. We are a plain speaking people.), goes “too far.” We don’t know exactly where that point is. But it would be best if the lines of communication between the Presidents of the United States and the China remained free. 

It would be an irony of truly historic proportions if two of the enemy combatants of the Korean War were to ally on the Korean peninsula. But let us hope it comes to that.

More in ChinaUSFocus.

Michael Justin Lee is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch of fill in our speakers' request form.

China Weekly Hangout

How successful can president Xi Jinping be in rooting out corruption, the +China Weekly Hangout is going to ask on Thursday 31 October. How committed is the Xi/Li team to real change? You can read our announcement here, or register for the event here. 

Last month, at the +China Weekly Hangout , +Steve Barru, +李洛傑 and +Fons Tuinstra wrapped up the news on Shanghai's Free Trade Zone, and end in a not-so positive mood about what this new zone is actually going to do.

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North Korea: bad business for China - Michael Justin Lee

Michael Justin Lee

Signs are strong that North-Korea is preparing for another rocket launch. And although that is bad news, suggests Michael Justin Lee in the Washington Times, it might help China and the US to get closer to each others. China is not as close with North-Korea as some thing, he says.

Michael Justin Lee:

For his part, Kim Jong Un, the current Supreme Leader (that actually is his title, along with Chairman of the Central Military Commission and Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army. You believe the ego of that guy?), doesn’t feel very positive toward China either. True, North Korea would starve if not for China’s food aid. Yet the old saying about a receiver hating a giver certainly applies here. There’s no reason to think that the Supreme Leader would listen to China now. His father and grandfather weren’t particularly subservient either. 

So why does China aid North Korea? China’s giving should not be seen as charity as much as realpolitik. Another old saying applies, the one about the devil you know versus the devil you don’t. China’s leaders may detest North Korea’s, but they can see what true anarchy looks like in post-war Iraq. The ramifications of a starving country collapsing next door, particularly one with nuclear capabilities, are considered far, far worse than the cost of supplying them with some food. For now. But it is only a matter of time before the Supreme Leader, who is known unaffectionately in China as Fatso Kim the Third (Dad and grandpa were Fatso Kim the Second and Fatso Kim the First, respectively. We are a plain speaking people.), goes “too far” with his delusionary behavior. We don’t know exactly where that point is. 

But it would be best if the lines of communication between the Presidents of the United States and the China were kept open despite the Federal government shutdown here. 

It would be an irony of truly historic proportions if two of the enemy combatants of the Korean War were to ally on the Korean peninsula. But let us hope it eventually comes to that.

More in the Washington Times.

Michael Justin Lee is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

China Weekly Hangout

Last Sunday China opened its Shanghai Free Trade Zone. At the +China Weekly Hangout of October 3 we will explore some of the directions of China’s new policies, despite a huge amount of ambiguity in the current rules. You can read our initial announcement here, or register here for the event.

Are the cyber wars a new cold war in a new coat, the +China Weekly Hangout asked on June 27? Joined by media lecturer +Paul Fox from HKU, security consultant +Mathew Hoover from Hong Kong and China-Africa scholar +Winslow Robertson from Washington DC. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, of the China Speakers Bureau, from Lausanne, Switzerland.

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