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Sun, June 24, 2018 | 15:47

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Russia's stake in North Korea

We hear so much about China and Japan competing on and for the Korean peninsula, now and historically, that we overlook one other great Northeast Asian power. That would be Russia, which has a 17-kilometer border with North Korea as the Tumen River flows into the sea. In the old days of the Soviet Union, trains crossed the river almost every day shipping oil into North Korea for almost nothing - that is, paid for in near worthless North Korean won. North Korean free-loading off Soviet largesse ended with the demise of Soviet rule in 1991, a happenstance that led to the famine that devastated...

Donald Kirk | 2016-10-20 17:02

Samantha Power's uphill battle

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is on a fast track, and that’s not just in terms of her hot-shot career. She’s up against a tight deadline. She’s got until January 20 to persuade the U.N. Security Council to strengthen what she says is already the toughest set of sanctions ever imposed by the U.N.

Donald Kirk | 2016-10-13 16:54

Remembering Don Oberdorfer

The late Don Oberdorfer would surely have had qualms with the award named for him and presented by U.S. Ambassador Mark Lippert to Noh Hyo-dong, the longtime diplomatic and Washington correspondent for Yonhap News Agency.

Donald Kirk | 2016-10-06 17:06

Double-talk on foreign policy

The exchanges between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their first debate left an uneasy feeling about U.S. foreign policy. While Trump worried about all the money the U.S. has been squandering overseas, Clinton came through with ritual affirmation of U.S. treaty commitments. Their words were empty, less than convincing - sure to provoke more questions.

Donald Kirk | 2016-09-29 16:43

Rushing to North Korea's aid

North Korea is truly a schizophrenic state. All in a day we hear about the need for generous foreign donors to come to the rescue of thousands of victims of flooding in the hard-scrabble northeast where life is tough in the best of times. Then, in the next breath, the North Korean propaganda machine is pumping out reports of another weird and wonderful missile and the North’s capacity for raining death and destruction on targets from Washington to Seoul.

Donald Kirk | 2016-09-22 17:16

North Korea against the world

You have to credit the North Koreans with chutzpah - the Yiddish word for “nerve,” brazen arrogance or insolence, all in untranslatable exclamation. The leaders of the world’s 20 strongest, most powerful nations were gathered in a solemn conclave in China, and in Pyongyang North Korea’s Supreme Leader did more than thumb his nose at them by ordering still more missile tests.

Donald Kirk | 2016-09-08 17:01

Loyal son's lonely crusade

Time slowly erases the traces of those held in North Korea. The longer they're there, the easier it is to forget them. Their families, reluctant to invest more psychic energy on those for whom they know the North Koreans have no mercy, give up the quest.

Donald Kirk | 2016-09-01 17:01

Korea on knife edge

U.S.-China relations are at their worst in years, and North and South Korean are not getting along either. In fact, relations between those two are at such a low ebb that two-way trade, once about several hundred million dollars a year, has almost ceased.

Donald Kirk | 2016-08-25 13:34

Missiles vs. missiles

The prospect of a missile war between North and South Korea poses a threat to regional stability that previously seemed unimaginable. Images of North and South Korean gunners firing ballistic missiles at one another from redoubts far north and south of the demilitarized zone are edging closer to reality while the North reinforces three tiers of short-, mid- and long-range missiles and the South acquires hundreds of its own.

Donald Kirk | 2016-08-18 16:54

Moving toward war

On the chessboard of Northeast, East and Southeast Asia, the players are inexorably arranging their pieces. A naval exercise, a warplane flyover, a flotilla of fishing boats, a missile launch - all such gestures, bloodless today, evoke the image of great powers maneuvering for bloody moves tomorrow. It’s as though we’re in a “phony war,” not enough to send civilians scurrying for cover or for armies to go on full alert but worrisome nonetheless.

Donald Kirk | 2016-08-11 17:13

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