Pyongyang waiting for springtime

Winter in Pyongyang
"What for Washington is a matter of how to stop a nuclear-weapons program and/or overthrow a strange and distant dictator, for other countries in the region is a much more essential problem which lies so much closer to home: how to bring North Korea first into the community of Northeast Asia and then into the larger global community. In Washington’s view, North Korea is simply troublesome, lunatic, or evil, and there can be no truck with it; as its Asian neighbors see it, North Korea's demand for security, however shrill, contains within it something that, from their own histories, they recognize as essentially just. The six-sided forum, despite the present impasse, is probably still the best, perhaps even the only way forward, providing as it does a forum for regional powers to exert pressure not just on North Korea but on the United States as well. It offers just about the only hope for overseeing the inevitably protracted process of detente leading to resolution."

I just recieved Gavin McCormack's latest article from Japan Focus, it looks good, I don't know if I have time to read it today, but for those you who aren't familiar with McCormack's work I suggest checking him out. He seems to be one of the few people writing in english who seems to know what going on in terms of that regime. He's also got some good ideas to resolve some of the international issues involving NK, and these involve allowing the Northeast Asian community the diplomatic leaway to find a solution. Anyways, that's all I can say about this at the moment until I read it. Matt should really be posting on this issue, he is the closet NK expert anyway. Oh, there's also a film today at UBC by a Japanese director on the NK nuclear issue. Apparently it was the first video documentary made a Japanese director to show on South Korean television, an impressive and hopeful feat in itself in that represents more cooperation and less ideology in dealing with some pressing regional issues. Here's some info on the film and on Gavin McCormack:.

Daisaku Higashi라고 하는 일본 NHK기자가 있습니다. 이 기자가 만든 '북핵 위기--한미북한의 상호입장'라는 다큐멘터리가 있는데, NHK에 방영되고 한국KBS, 중국방송에도 방영되었다고 합니다. 이 비디오를 보고, 현재의 북핵문제 및 6자회담 등에 대해서 토론하는 모임이 있다고 합니다.
대단히 유명한 기자라고 합니다. 이 기자의 다큐가 한국에도 2-3차례 방영되엇다고 합니다. 책도 한국에 번역 중에 있고요. 현재는 UBC정치학과 박사과정에 와 있습니다.

"A Struggle to Avert a Nuclear Conflict" (Director: Daisaku Higashi) was broadcasted on August 2, 2003 in Japan through NHK (Japan Public TV Station) Channel 1. After the showing in Japan, the South Korea Public TV Station, KBS, purchased the film and broadcasted it in its main channel on September 3, 2003. This was a breaktrough moment as it was the first time a South Korea TV network had broadcasted a documentry film produced by a Japanese filmmaker. The film itself was introduced in news articles in both Japan and South Korea as an inventory incident forthe history of two countries with a sensitive past.

Gavan McCormack is a professor of the Australian National University and visiting professor at International Christian University in Tokyo. He is the author of many works on modern and contemporary East Asia, including Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, Nation Books, 2004. Email: gavan@icu.ac.jp