North Korea: never at peace - Paul French

Paul French

North Korea has become an abberation of history, although currently a pretty dangerous one. Historian Paul French explains at the BBC how the isolated country has become a global liability. 

The BBC:

As the 1980s ended with the fall of the Soviet Union, the loss of Soviet aid was a major blow. When China recognised South Korea in 1992, North Korea felt betrayed and increasingly isolated. 

"Its economy has been in freefall since the collapse of the Soviet bloc," said author and North Korea expert Paul French. 

"The economy failed, industry shuddered to a halt. Eastern bloc export markets fell away." 

"North Korean agriculture collapsed and the country descended into a famine in the mid-1990s." 

The country's nuclear programme, probably begun in the 1960s according to former ambassador John Everard, became increasingly important. "As the international environment turned against North Korea, its leaders came to regard the nuclear programme as the guarantee of its existence as an independent state." 

"The Korean War has still not finally ended. The old enmities remain, at least in Pyongyang's eyes" says Paul French. "Seoul has forged ahead economically and become a thriving democracy." 

"The North has remained as if in aspic since the mid 1950s, positioning its historical narrative in terms of victimhood, only now with a nuclear capability that means everyone must pay attention."

More at the BBC.

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.

China-North Korea: no policy change expected - Wendell Minnick

Wendell Minnick

Despite North-Korea's threat to start a nuclear war, new sanctions by the United Nations and heated debates in Beijing, a serious change of China's attitude towards its unruly neighbor seems not at the agenda, writes defense analyst Wendell Minnick in Defense News.

Wendell Minnick:

Chinese scholars and think tankers doubt there will be serious change in China’s policy on North Korea at a strategic level, although tactical changes are inevitable as North Korea continues to thumb its nose at its old friend. 

Street protests and a flood of angry media reports in China have demonstrated a sea change in China’s attitude toward its old comrades. 

“North Korea’s continuous provocations defying China’s demands, warnings and brazen neglect of China’s key strategic and security interests certainly drive many in China, both in the public and among elites, to ‘soul-searching’ on its North Korea policy,” said Wang Dong, director, School of International Studies, Center for Northeast Asian Strategic Studies, Peking University, Beijing. 

Despite the “soul searching,” it still appears unlikely that senior members of the Chinese Communist Party will do much more than tweak current policy guidelines on North Korea.

More in Defense News.

Wendell Minnick 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's relation with Africa is yet another important corner stone of the country's international politics. Not for nothing Xi Jinping will visit Africa as the first continent after becoming the country's new president. Last week the China Weekly Hangout discussed how China's media are paving China's way into Africa with Eric Olander of the China Africa Project, freelance journalist Lara Farrar and Fons Tuinstra, president of the China Speakers Bureau.

 This week, on Thursday 14 March, the China Weekly Hangout will focus on the media in Hong Kong. In the 1990s they were a beacon of hope, and Hong Kong one of few global news capitals. With Paul Fox of the HKU we will discuss the state of Hong Kong media. You can read our announcement here, or directly register at our event page. 

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North-Korea's failed investment zone - Paul French

Paul French

"At least when the Chinese say, 'This is going to be an investment zone,' they put in electricity and phone lines and sewers," tells author Paul French the BBC about the failed North-Korean investment zone at the China border. The China model did not work in North-Korea. The BBC:

"At least when the Chinese say, 'This is going to be an investment zone,' they put in electricity and phone lines and sewers," says Paul French, a China-based markets analyst and author of  North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula 

"The North Koreans just take some fields and say, 'This is going to be an investment zone' and expect it to look like Chicago in a few years."... 

[T]he ravaging of North Korea's economy in recent years has meant less and less left in the country to build from[, says Paul French]. 

"If you go to those border towns along the Yalu River, on the Chinese side, all you see is timber and copper wire and bits of old scrap metal that used to be machines. They're coming out of North Korea and being sold for pennies to Chinese scrap-metal dealers. You're looking at a wholesale 15-year process of asset-stripping the entire country." 

The question now, he says, is this: "If you went down there [to North Korea] and signed a contract, is there anyone left sitting there with a factory who could switch the lights on and start the machines running again? I doubt that very much now."

More in the BBC

 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 for


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Kim Jong-un well prepared for his task - Paul French

Paul French

North-Korea's new leader Kim Jong-un has been prepared for his new job, probably better than most observers know, says historian and research Paul French, author of the North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula: A Modern History, Second Edition in Channel 4 news.

Channel 4 news:

Unlike his fellow North Koreans, Kim Jong-un has been exposed to the world outside the communist state after attending school in Switzerland, where he is said to have learned English, German and French, as well as developing a fondness for basketball. 

He may be his father's youngest son, but Paul French, author of North Korea: The Paranoid Peninsula, points out that it was not much of a contest: the oldest son tried to visit Disneyland in Tokyo on a false passport, while his brother is known to have been gambling in Macau, China. "Or you can have the quiet one who has been at a Swiss finishing school," he told Channel 4 News... 

Paul French says that being part of the central military command has been a crucial part of his training. "That is where a lot of the decision-making takes place, and similarly to China and Russia, it's where the Communist party, the state and the army come together. He has been involved in real decision making," he added.

More in Channel 4

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.

China, US cannot reverse N-Korea nuclear program - Wendell Minnick

Wendell Minnick

North Korea is likely to launch a third nuclear test, based on highly enriched uranium (HEU), writes Wendell Minnick in the Defense News, based on a book by Jonathan Pollack. China nor the US can stop the country's nuclear program.

Jonathan Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, launched his book at the Shangri-La Dialogue on June 3 in Singapore. From Defense News:

North Korea conducted two underground plutonium bomb tests in 2006 and 2009, and has been developing advanced long-range ballistic missile capabilities that could someday threaten the continental U.S.

Pollack looks at why North Korea disregards United Nations censure and openly circumvents sanctions by selling weapons and technology to other pariah nations to fund its nuclear program.

North Korea is more of a traditional Korean dynasty and not a communist state, Pollack said. The Kim family has successfully ignored efforts by China and the U.S. to influence it to abandon its nuclear program and adopt capitalist reforms. Instead, the Kim family has created an "impregnable fortress" that protects the family dynasty.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and China's push towards improved relations with South Korea during the 1980s and 1990s, North Korea became concerned that its traditional protectors would abandon it. The only course of action was to create a mechanism that guaranteed its survivability. Nuclear weapons have clearly served that purpose well, he said.

More details in Defense News.

Wendell Minnick is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch.

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Time to understand N-Korea - Shaun Rein

"Not insane" via Wikipedia

North-Korea is moving very calculated and it is weird both the US and South-Korea do not treat it accordingly, says Shaun Rein in an analysis in Forbes.
Shaun Rein:

They are coolly calculated measures to gain power. If North Korea didn't attack and appear crazy, no one would care about it, and it would become forgotten, similar to smaller countries like Laos. Instead Kim Jong Il plays the part of the loose cannon and thereby gains attention and clout for his country, pressures China to give more aid, and even gets visits from former American presidents like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, all of which makes him appear more powerful to North Korean citizens.

The West wrongly assumes North-Korea is insane, while they act pretty calculated, says Shaun Rein. But there are more myths on North-Korea:

The second myth is that the U.S. has the means to pressure China into forcing North Korea to stop its nuclear initiatives. If anything, the more frustrated America gets about North Korea, the better it is for the Chinese, because all that tension helps to create a buffer against American hegemony...

Finally, the third myth: Increased economic sanctions, as many are calling for now, will not cause the Kim regime to be more cooperative or be replaced. If anything, economic sanctions, though they further impoverish ordinary North Koreans, bolster the power of Kim and his close coterie of family and friends. Sanctions are a tenet of American diplomacy that should be shelved--permanently.

Much more in Forbes.

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Shaun Rein by Fantake via Flickr

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. When you need him at your meeting or conference, do get in touch.

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