North Korea: an obsession

Peking into Pyongyang

We’ll probably never know how many people were killed in the collision of two trains loaded with explosives in Ryongchon, North Korea this week.

First reports in the South Korean and western media suggested at least 3,000 dead. Then, out of nowhere, the Red Cross released the figure “at least 54”.

According to KCNA, North Korea’s official mouthpiece, the accident never happened (because nothing bad ever happens in a utopian nation like the People’s Republic of North Korea). There was no official mention of the disaster. Reuters reported that in Pyongyang TV stations were broadcasting their usual primetime mix of military songs and repeated images of a strange man wearing large, dark spectacles, a military uniform and platform shoes, while sporting a whopping great bouffant. Essential slogans such as “Let us endlessly glorify the glorious revolutionary history and immortal achievement of Great Leader Comrade Kim Il-sung [deceased] who dedicated his whole life for the fatherland and nation!” rang out across the land. (BBC Monitoring).

Somewhat bizarrely, “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il was secretly passing through Ryongchon station only nine hours before the blast. Seems as if his ego-convoy held up traffic and likely caused the disaster.

Kim – who, lest we forget, was born on top of Mount Paektu as a bright star and a double rainbow appeared in the sky – is scared to fly. He travels only by his specially-armoured train – a gift to his father from his hero Uncle Joe Stalin.

The gift from the gods (Kim) was returning home from a secret visit to China. That too remained unmentioned by KCNA (and therefore unofficial), until news of the trip leaked around the world and even Chinese television couldn’t contain its excitement, broadcasting some footage of Kim and former Chinese president Jiang Zemin hugging like long-lost lovers after exiting a Peking duck restaurant just off Tiananmen Square – strangely reminiscent of the embrace between Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and East German dictator Erich Honecker during the cold war.

By the time KCNA came around to announcing the visit, it couldn’t talk about anything else. The official announcement included the statement: “Hu [Jintao, China’s big cheese] noted that the Party and the people of the DPRK have achieved great successes in the building of a great prosperous powerful nation overcoming manifold difficulties in the spirit of self-reliance and fortitude and made steady and fresh achievements in the aspect of improving the external environment in recent years under the leadership of Kim Jong-il, adding China sincerely rejoiced over them.”

It was Kim’s first visit to China for three years (as far as we know, of course). China – more than, say, the US – exerts considerable influence over North Korea, and is seen by Washington as the key to unlocking the region’s ongoing nuclear crisis. The whole trip was so shrouded in secrecy that China continued to host an official summit with Cambodia while Kim was in town.

So, why now? A good bet is last week’s visit to the region by US Vice-Prez Dick Cheney. Dick took in China and South Korea on his typically bellicose tour. Addressing an army base fifty kilometres from the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea, Cheney compared and contrasted the two nations. “It’s the difference between a government sustained by freedom and tolerance and one that thrives on terror,” he said. “It’s the difference between an economy that lifts people up and one that reduces its citizens to starvation.”

Cheney then went on to cunningly compare the situation with pre-war and post-Saddam Iraq. Will North Korea meet a similar fate?

In China, Cheney had warned his hosts that time was running out to bring North Korea into line. He urged a tougher, more aggressive stance (as is his habit). Pyongyang responded by calling Cheney “mentally deranged” and his desire to see North Korea’s nukes dismantled “disgusting”.

Typical North Korean diplomacy.

There is talk of a third round of multi-party talks kicking off before the end of June 2004 and the establishment of a permanent forum for discussion within the next few weeks.

The crisis, as regular readers will know, is a bit of an obsession with the Diary. Writing in the New York Times this week, Nicholas D. Kristof urged America to wake up to the immediacy of the North Korean threat, liking the complacency to pre-9/11 ignoring of intelligence. Unfortunately, Kristof wrote, both sides are stalling before November’s US presidential election. By then, North Korea may have ten nukes in its arsenal.

Editing, not censoring

Of course, when it comes to press censorship, China’s record is almost as impressive as that of North Korea.

In recent weeks, Chinese provincial courts have sentenced several senior executives of the respected and outspoken Southern Metropolitan Daily on the dubious charge of embezzlement.

Last December, for the record, the paper reported a re-emergence of the Sars epidemic – news the Chinese authorities were trying to keep unreported.

Payback time.

Meanwhile, following what the New York Times called “weeks of intensive negotiations”, the Chinese authorities agreed before Cheney’s high-profile visit that they’d let the Veep “speak, live and uncensored, to the Chinese people.”

CCTV-4, China’s all-news channel, broadcast Cheney’s speech to students at Shanghai’s Fudan University live and direct. It was 10am.

The broadcast was neither advertised nor repeated. As Cheney’s last snarl still hung in the air, the People’s Daily prepared an alternative transcript of the speech that was distributed to websites and the newspapers across the country. All references to political freedom, Taiwan and North Korea mysteriously disappeared.

In the words of the NYT: “Where Cheney praised ‘rising prosperity and expanding political freedom’ across Asia, the official Chinese transcript refers only to rising prosperity. It drops his statements that the ‘desire for freedom is universal’ and that ‘freedom is indivisible’.”

Also cut were references to how “the war on terror must not be used as a pretext to suppress ‘legitimate dissent’.”

An editor at the People’s Daily website denied to the NYT that any censorship had taken place, attributing the missing references to speed of editing.

Easing tension?

“From the very beginning of the crisis, Iran tried to help ease tension.”

This is the official Iranian description of their nation’s response to the situation in neighbouring Iraq, as voiced by foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi this week.

Hmm…

Anyway, Iran has decided now’s the time to speak out against US policy in the region. Washington was accused of exercising a “iron fist policy”, a result it’s “lack of knowledge about the region and the Iraqi people”.

Ouch!

In case you hadn’t heard, President Bush this week nominated his replacement for Paul Bremer as the new US envoy in Iraq. The lucky candidate is none other than John Negroponte. Remember him, anyone?

Somewhat oddly, Iran’s outspoken criticism comes at a time when the nation is getting chastised by – of all places! – France.

That’s right. Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi met with President Jacques Chirac in the Elysée Palace on Wednesday, part of a European tour. Chirac decided, against type, to shake Iran down on the nuclear issue. Europe’s celebrated deal with Iran last October to allow IAEA inspections is being held-up (or worse) by suspicious Iranian activities, doubletalk and secrecy.

Said one senior French official to the New York Times: “We are seeing a pattern of Iran making promises and then trying to find ways around them. The Iranians are fighting us trench by trench. They are very clever cheaters.”

Oh la la!

The Iranians – those clever cheaters! – hit back by blaming the Europeans (a tactic they must’ve nicked off their pals Bush administration). “We have been trying to fulfil whatever we are committed to do,” Kharrazi said, somewhat meaninglessly. “Contrary to that, the European side has not exercised all its commitments.”

Figures of the week

$900 billion
Annual global spending on defense

$300 billion
Annual global support for the world’s richest farmers

$56 billion
Annual global development assistance for the poor

Quotes of the week

“My friend Tony Blair knows exactly why he’s done this and will certainly ensure it’s done successfully for the benefit of Europe.”
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder on British prime minister Tony Blair’s promise this week to hold a referendum on the proposed EU constitution.

“He has worked for McDonald’s for nearly thirty years. As they say, ketchup runs in his veins.”
A line from a note to clients written by Mark Kalinowski, an analyst at Smith Barney, about Charles Bell, the new chief executive and president of McDonald’s. James Cantalupo, former chief McDo’s, died of a heart attack on Monday. He was 60 years old (and had ketchup running through his veins).

“With this decision, Spain has fallen into line with our position. The divide that prevented Europe from having a common position is being overcome.”
President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, on the Spanish government’s decision to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

“Never has the United States of America been held in as low regard internationally as we are today. We are not trusted and this administration is not loved.”
US Democratic presidential hopeful, Senator John Kerry

“In some ways, it seems like it would be too good to pass up for them.”
US national security advisor Condoleezza Rice on the possibility of al-Qaida launching an attack on the US in the run-up to the US elections.

Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net