North Korea - Results from #200

North Korean Nuclear Test - Rapid Reaction 2013

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 | 10:00 AM

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On February 12, 2013, North Korea conducted its third nuclear test in a show of defiance to the international community and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), David Albright; Executive Director of the Ploughshares Fund, Phillip Yun; and the Senior Director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for New American Security, Patrick Cronin addressed the significance of this nuclear test, North Korean nuclear advancement, and... Read More

Perilous Passages: North Korea, Human Trafficking and the Underground Railroad

Thursday, February 7, 2013 | 5:30 PM

About the Speaker Title: Perilous Passage: North Korea, Human Trafficking and the Underground Railroad
About the Speaker: 2013-02-07 17:30:00
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Event Link: Melanie Kirkpatrick is a writer-journalist based in Connecticut and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. She contributes reviews and commentary to various publications, including the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, for which she worked from 1980 until mid-2009. Her book, Escape from North Korea: The Untold Story of Asia’s Underground Railroad, is published by Encounter Books. At The Wall Street Journal, Melanie was deputy editor of the editorial page from 2006-2009 and a longtime member of the editorial board. As a deputy editor, she was responsible for the editorial page’s coverage of international issues and oversaw the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal in Asia and Europe, the Far Eastern Economic Review and the U.S. columnists on foreign affairs. She wrote editorials and op-ed articles on foreign affairs. Melanie spent 10 years in Asia, working for The Wall Street Journal Asia in Hong Kong and, prior to that, for a division of Time-Life Books in Tokyo. She received the 2001 Mary Morgan Hewett Award for Women in Journalism from the Friends of the East-West Center in Honolulu. The annual award recognizes a journalist who has demonstrated commitment, hard work and expanding influence throughout her career. She received a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a master’s degree in English from the University of Toronto. She was a Gannett Newspaper Foundation Fellow in Asian studies at the University of Hawaii. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; a trustee of Princeton in Asia, an internship program in Asia for young graduates of American universities; and a director of the America for Bulgaria Foundation. Ms. Kirkpatrick is married to Jack David, who is a senior fellow and trustee of the Hudson Institute.     Steven Kim is the founder of 318 Partners, a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to rescuing trafficked women in China. It’s named after Article 318 of the Chinese criminal code, the law under which Kim was arrested in September 2003 for trying to send nine North Korean refugees to South Korea through Vietnam. Mr. Kim is also the author of Fearless Passage, an autobiography about his time working with North Korean refugees in China.
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North Koreans escaping regime repression employ escape channels similar to those used by Harriet Tubman to help American slaves, says author Melanie Kirkpatrick. Explore the network of ethnic Koreans, brokers and missionaries who seek to aid those fleeing the North with Kirkpatrick and human rights advocate and U.S. businessman Steven Kim, founder of 318 Partners, an effort to rescue North Korean women trafficked to China. Chinese-North Korean Children North Korean Bride... Read More

Googling North Korea

Thursday, January 10, 2013 | 5:00 PM

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Event Link: Scott Thomas Bruce serves as Project Manager for the Partnership for Nuclear Security at CRDF Global. He is also an Associate at the Nautilus Institute and the East-West Center. Scott specializes in nuclear non-proliferation and East Asian security issues. Before joining CRDF Global, he was a POSCO Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawai’i where he analyzed the impact of cell-phones and information technology in North Korea. Prior to that he was the Director of US Operations for the Nautilus Institute in San Francisco where he managed projects on non-proliferation and energy security. Scott studied history at the University of California and Queen’s University Belfast and has master’s degrees in international business and Asia-Pacific Studies from the University of San Francisco. Scott has been interviewed in numerous media including the San Francisco Chronicle, Public Radio International, ABC Radio News, the Washington Times, Agence France-Presse, the International Herald Tribune, Reuters, and many more.
Podcast URL: Googling North Korea Thursday, January 10, 2013 SPEAKER: Scott Thomas Bruce Project Manager for the Partnership for Nuclear Security at CRDF Global Moderated by Stephen Noerper Senior Vice President, The Korea Society     STEPHEN NOERPER (Moderator): Welcome to Studio Korea and welcome to The Korea Society. Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson, and Jared Cohen of Google Ideas returned from a four-day visit to North Korea. While at Beijing Airport on January 10, Schmidt is quoted as saying:       "As the world becomes increasingly connected, [North Korea's] decision to       be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world,       their economic growth, and so forth; and it will make it harder for them to       catch up economically...We made that alternative very, very clear." Speaking with us today is Scott Thomas Bruce, Project Manager of the Partnership for Nuclear Security at CRDF Global. In addition to his role at CRDF Global, Scott is an associate at the Nautilus Institute and the East-West Center. Scott is a specialist in non-proliferation and East Asian security issues, and author of AsiaPacific Issues, Brief No. 105 (October, 2012) by the East-West Center, "A Double-Edged Sword: Information Technology in North Korea." Scott is here to help us analyze the "Google visit,” as it's referred to by the North Koreans. Scott, welcome to Studio Korea. What is your take on the Google visit? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: Well, I think it's a very significant visit. I do not expect Google to be opening a Pyongyang office anytime soon, but I think the message that Eric Schmidt sent to North Korea is very important. Currently, one of North Korea's biggest priorities is to attract foreign direct investment as part of its plan to build a stronger and more prosperous country. The number one complaint from investors doing business there (including the Chinese) is that you can't bring a cell phone to North Korea, and you're can't access the Internet at all. Mr. Schmidt was in a unique position to deliver the message that by closing down the Internet, not allowing mobile phones, and restricting the use of information technology; North Korea is impeding its own ability to attract foreign investment, and therefore build a more robust economy. STEPHEN NOERPER: How does that sync with the New Year's message of Kim Jong-un emphasizing the development of North Korea's science and technology sectors? And how has the visit been represented by the North Korean media? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: The visit has been played out in North Korea as a showcase; as a great opportunity. Look at these groups from the outside world coming here. They took Mr. Schmidt to some of the universities in order to show him how North Korea uses an "Intranet" and other information technology systems. Of course, these systems are not nearly as widespread as they were projected to be. However, we should consider this in the broader context of North Korea's current goals. Last year Kim Jong-un stated that he wanted North Korea using tools such as the Internet in order to seek development information from the rest of the world. The biggest priority mentioned in the New Year's address was development of the economy and the science and technology sectors. The use of information technology is very much in line with North Korea's goals. The important thing to remember, though, is that North Korea's main concern remains control over the domestic population. That means making sure North Koreans have as little information as possible about the outside world, as that information is considered to be corrosive. The North is walking a tightrope between its attempt to leverage information technology (particularly cell phones, which have really expanded there in the last five years) and its desire to maintain control over its population while preventing any sort of outside media coming in and having a disruptive impact on its population. STEPHEN NOERPER: Just what type of access does the average North Korean have to either the Intranet or mobile phones? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: A North Korean defector published a couple of papers on the subject, and he stated that North Korea doesn't have an Internet. It has a "mosquito net." It has a system that is designed to allow access to certain materials to a very privileged elite, but its main goal is to protect its population from potentially corrosive foreign information. If you're wealthy, you might be able to afford a Koryolink mobile phone. These phones can only make calls within North Korea. If you're a student or part of an even more elite class, you might have access to the North Korean Intranet, which is a closed network. It's not like the Internet we know. It's populated with documents that have been approved by the North Korean government. Its message boards and bulletin boards are very closely monitored by North Korean authorities. What the North Koreans have done is created a system where the population that has access to information technology, cell phones, and the Intranet are the most wealthy and the most elite within North Korea. The regime is calculating that the wealthiest members of the population have the biggest stake in the survival of the state as it exists today. They're making sure that those who have access to this technology are those that would be the least likely to use it to undermine the regime at any point in time. STEPHEN NOERPER: Interesting. In your brief published last October, you referred to the burgeoning interest in information technology by the North Korean state as a "double-edged sword." What degree of risk is there to opening up North Korea? Can you identify a critical point where the free flow of information will become a challenge to the regime? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: Absolutely. We're already seeing changes. The availability of cell phone networks along with the Intranet (even if they can only be used domestically) are very new developments in North Korea. One of the interesting things we discovered is that those North Koreans who do have cell phones (which is about 5 percent of the country and about 1 million people out of a population of 20 to 22 million) use their phones as much as their cousins in South Korea. It's just that a much smaller percentage of the North Korean population has that access. This means there are far more conversations being held in North Korea than the state security mechanism can track at this stage. That's a very new development. Traditionally, the State Security Department was able to keep track of every conversation being held on landlines in the North. Secondly, the development of the Intranet is turning North Koreans into consumers of information. They're going "online" looking for information they can use. This is a very big shift for a population that has been trained over many decades to not ask questions and not draw attention to themselves. We are seeing a systematic shift in North Korea. At the same time, these technologies are being adopted in a country that has one of the most rigid social hierarchies of any country on earth. You basically have a caste system where social welfare provision of good jobs, access to health care, and access to education is tightly controlled—only available to those who are considered good citizens and denied to those who have a negative history within the country. So, it's very limited in terms of who's going to have access to it, and the social control mechanisms are very rigid. We're not looking at a situation that's going to lead inevitably to some sort of Jasmine Revolution within North Korea; but we are seeing seeds that have been planted within the North that over a very long period of time (perhaps a decade or so) could have a potentially transformative impact on the state. STEPHEN NOERPER: Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google, made note of the fact that Orascom, the Egyptian company, was able to put a million cell phones in the hands of North Korean users (one would think mainly in the Pyongyang area) and questioned why that couldn't lead to the use of the Internet. He also made note that the remaining 23 million North Koreans did not have access to the Internet. Supposedly, Google has been invited for return visits. What do you make of his observation that the majority of the population doesn't have access to the Internet? What opportunity do you think lies ahead for Google and other companies to engage with North Korea to provide information technology? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: Well, I think there is now an open door for companies like Google to engage with North Korea, noting that it has to be in line with the goals of the regime. Working with the North is business diplomacy on behalf of Google. In terms of the availability of access, the North Koreans will allow greater access to the Internet and information technology to the extent they believe they can control its impact on the population. What you saw at a certain point was a picture of the head of Orascom meeting with Kim Jong-il (who was alive at the time) and in the background was the head of the State Security Department. The meaning behind that picture was that the state security mechanism had blessed the introduction of mobile phones into North Korea. They wouldn't have done that unless they believed they could control their impact. So, there is potential to expand the use of this technology, and North Korea is certainly interested in that. It would provide productivity gains for the state. It could also be a tool for bringing in foreign direct investment from the outside world. Most importantly, it could be a blessing—a domestic system where government controls can be used to crack down on some of the rogue systems using Chinese cell phones near the border. This is becoming a problem in the North. That being said, these systems are only going to be allowed in the North as long as the North believes it can control the repercussions of these systems on its population. We really have to moderate our expectations as to how much the North can do. I think there's also opportunity here (since the use of the Internet has been blessed by the North Koreans as a way of bringing in information about development) for NGOs and others to try and engage with these groups in the North. It gives them the ability to feed relevant development information into the system; and to try and engage the North through research education networks, virtual science libraries, and other tools that would allow the North to control access to this technology. NGOs could build on the use of it within the North to possibly help steer the North in a positive direction developmentally. That would hopefully lead to better relations with the outside world that would be seen as more of an incentive than a threat to the regime. STEPHEN NOERPER: I have one final question, Scott. We have both the least wired and the most wired countries in the world sharing the Demilitarized Zone. Do you see the potential for North-South cooperation, especially with the incoming Park Geun-hye administration? Is the potential to share information technology between Pyongyang and Seoul through her suggestion of liaison offices a possibility? SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: I believe there is an opportunity to explore whether North-South cooperation is possible under a new government in the South. It remains to be seen what sort of traction that's going to get; but there's been many ideas along this line that have been explored in the past. One idea was that of virtual family reunions. Many families have been divided between the North and the South for sixty years. Were there to be some way to set up video conferences or something similar at controlled locations between the North and the South, that would be a tremendous opportunity for these divided families; one that would be very meaningful to the Korean people on both sides of the border. It also opens up the possibility for the South to consider outsourcing IT to North Korea. They speak a common language, are fairly close geographically, and the cost of labor in the North would be very affordable. So, there's a lot of grounds that could be built upon in terms of IT cooperation and inter-Korean relations. It just remains to be seen what sort of traction they're going to have, and how much will be encouraged in the midst of so many other issues on the agenda between the North and the South, such as the divided maritime boundaries, the nuclear program, and rocket launches. STEPHEN NOERPER: Scott Thomas Bruce of CRDF Global, thank you very much. SCOTT THOMAS BRUCE: My pleasure.
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The Korea Society’s Dr. Stephen Noerper interviews Scott Thomas Bruce of CRDF Global on the Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt’s recent trip to North Korea. Mr. Bruce discusses the significance of Eric Schmidt’s visit, the implications of North Korea’s possible opening to information technology, opportunities for NGOs to engage with the the DPRK, and future potential inter-Korean cooperation in the field of information technology. Eric Schmidt’s Visit? A Double-edged Sword? NGO... Read More

North Korea Launch: Rapid Reaction from The Korea Society

Thursday, December 13, 2012 | 5:00 PM

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An Overview Consequences and Diplomacy? Capabilities, Legitimacy and Electoral Impact? Why Now and To What End? U.S. Responses and China’s Role? A Financial Sector Minute Diplomatic Shortcomings and Ways Forward? North Korea's Launch: The Day After The Korea Society's Rapid Reaction Podcast Recording - The Korea Society presents perspectives on North Korea's December 11, 2012 launch with The Korea Society... Read More

Woolly Mammoth Theater Pre-Performance Session on North Korea

Thursday, November 15, 2012 | 6:00 PM

About the Speaker Title: Woolly Mammoth Theater Pre-Performance Session on North Korea
About the Speaker: 2012-11-15 18:00:00
Event Name: For more information about viewing You For Me For You by Mia Chung
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The Korea Society shares pre-performance insights and tackles patron Q&A on North Korea as part of the world premiere of Korean-American playwright Mia Chung’s You for Me for You; Chung has been hailed as “one of the most imaginative young writers of her generation.” Directed by Yury Urnov, the production portrays two North Korean sisters who face starvation and bargain with a smuggler to flee to the United States. When one of the sisters is denied passage because she is too weak to make the treacherous... Read More

China-North Korea Relations: Fast Forward

Thursday, November 1, 2012 | 8:30 AM

In this latest installment of The Korea Society’s highly popular series on China-North Korea relations, Harvard University Belfer Center Associate and MIT Stanton Foundation Fellow John Park reviews new developments, with an eye toward regime consolidation in Pyongyang, party-to-party relations, and the evolution of Chinese-style economic zones in North Korea. Dr. Park previously worked at the U.S. Institute of Peace, in Goldman Sachs's public finance group, as project leader of the Harvard Kennedy School's... Read More

The Music of North Korea: Pathos and Passion

Thursday, August 2, 2012 | 6:30 PM

About the Speaker Title: Sonnet of an Innocent Flower: Music and Dance of the Choson Kisaeng
About the Speaker: 2013-01-17 18:30:00

The music of rare and exceptional artistic expression from North Korea will be showcased at the Korea Society as part of its Korean Traditional Music Series. Eun Sun Jung, an award-winning and talented young kayagŭm (12 and 25 string zither) artist from Seoul, Korea, presents some of the folk music of North Korea, selected for its vibrant folk music style and its contemporary interpretation of older traditions. This includes the well-known folk songs of Paek Toraji (White Bellflower)... Read More

Feeding North Korea: Food Security and Nutritional Assistance

Wednesday, July 18, 2012 | 6:00 PM

About the Speaker Title: Feeding North Korea: Food Security and Nutritional Assistance
About the Speaker: 2012-07-18
Event Name: $10 Members | $20 Guests
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Event Link: Claudia von Roehl-Bate (born 1955) is a German citizen and has served as the WFP Representative in the DPRK since October 2010. She has worked for the WFP in various positions since 1985, including as Secretary to the Executive Board in Rome (2005-2010), Country Director in Honduras (2001 to 2004), and Country Director in Nicaragua and Costa Rica (1992-1995). Claudia has developed major school feeding programmes, funded by host governments, the private sector and government contributions alike. She is fluent in English, Spanish, French and Italian in addition to her mother tongue German. Claudia holds a degree in Business Administration and Finance from the European Business School in Oestrich-Winkel, Germany.
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What is the current state of malnutrition in North Korea and need for food? How should the international community respond? What measures are in place to make certain that food goes to those in need? Should nutritional assistance come with progress in negotiations or other openings? This fourth and final installment of this summer’s Knowing North Korea series features the head of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in Pyongyang, Claudia von Roehl, who will address the fact and fiction... Read More

Reading North Korea

Thursday, July 12, 2012 | 8:30 AM

How does one analyze North Korea developments? Is it possible to get a clear read and, if so, in what areas? Is North Korea a “black box” or more knowable, especially with new openings? This third installment of this summer’s Knowing North Korea series features Dr. Sue Terry, Managing Director at Gerson Global Advisors, a strategic investment and advisory firm based in New York. In this role, she co-heads the Sovereign Advisory business and is primarily responsible for developing and managing the firm's... Read More

Knowing North Korea Book Event: Only Beautiful, Please: A British Diplomat in North Korea

Tuesday, June 19, 2012 | 6:00 PM

Event Time: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 | 6:00 PM
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What is it like to serve as one’s national representative in North Korea? How is one received, from leaders to ordinary North Koreans? How does one deal with the political fallout of a nuclear test soon after one’s arrival? How free is a foreign emissary to travel and see the “real” North Korea and its residents? The Korea Society welcomes as part of its ongoing Knowing North Korea series the Honorable John Everard, who served as Britain’s Ambassador to the DPRK from 2006 to 2008. Though stationed in Pyongyang, Everard... Read More