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Tue, December 18, 2018 | 03:55

Opinion > Columnists > Donald Kirk >

Waving all those flags

The sight of the American Stars and Stripes among the Taegukgi held high by loyalists to Park Geun-hye is a reminder of the historical depth of ties among mostly aging Koreans to the country that rescued the South from annihilation by North Korea and China in the Korean War. Some Americans, seeing their country’s flag held high by Koreans, respond with bemusement. Many of them, scholars, teachers, researchers, would not dream of flying an American flag at home. To them, the notion of waving the national flag and singing patriotic songs is antithetical to their liberal creed - identification,...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-23 16:59

Alliance under assault

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, dispensing pledges like a jolly Santa Claus pulling Christmas presents from his sled, arrives today (Friday) in Seoul from Tokyo and flies tomorrow to Beijing. After vowing undying U.S. support to Korea and Japan, he’ll assure China that THAAD presents no threat and beg the Chinese to get their North Korean friends to abandon their nuclear program. Tillerson may mean well, but his mission arouses skepticism for reasons that have nothing to do with his undoubted sincerity. Fact is, Tillerson does not have much influence over President Donald Trump’s fore...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-16 17:15

Escalating dangers for Korea

Suddenly the outlook for keeping the peace on the Korean peninsula has taken an alarming turn for the worse. We’ve long been accustomed to the threat of Korean War II, but now it’s looking like more than a scary mirage. China is up in arms over the arrival of the first elements of the dreaded THAAD counter-missile system in South Korea. North Korean missile test-shots are getting more sophisticated while Pyongyang plays tough and mean with a minor Southeast Asian country with which it had had shockingly good relations. And South Korea is roiled by a political crisis that’s dividing the popul...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-09 17:49

For accurate story in NK, wait until reunification

To the rest of the world North Korea is an enigma. No one knows what’s happening among the elite who govern the country. There’s no telling what people are really thinking and saying on the streets of Pyongyang and other cities in the country, much less in remote regions. All we get as journalists writing about North Korea are clues. We see reports via Pyongyang’s Korea Central News Agency. We get snippets of cellphone conversations via two or three websites purporting to cover North Korea. We hear accounts of harrowing experiences from defectors. We occasionally go to North Korea on careful...

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-06 15:43

[ROUNDTABLE] Trump to force N. Korea to choose: nukes or survival

North Korea's biochemical menace

The poisoning of the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un should make everyone painfully aware of a category of “weapons of mass destruction” that’s overlooked in the controversy over nuclear devices.

Donald Kirk | 2017-03-02 17:55

Fake news and false flags

The assassination of Kim Jong-nam promises to go down as one of those weird acts of terrorism that North Korea, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, will forever deny having perpetrated. The prevarication and obfuscation in this case would appear a little more ornate than North Korea’s unending denials of having anything to do with anything. Forget about the sinking of the Cheonan in the Yellow Sea nearly seven years ago that killed 46 sailors, or the explosion over the Indian Ocean in 1987 of a Korean Air flight that sent 115 aboard to their deaths, or the bombing in the Burmese cap...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-23 16:23

Brotherly love lost

Kim Jong-nam showed the warm and human face of North Korea’s dynastic family. You had to like the guy, judging from sightings in the gambling enclave of Macao, across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong off China’s southeastern coast. One time he was spotted in a Macao bus. Another time he was seen at a doorway with a funny little smile on his face. Then, for a while, he dropped out of the news. Speculation was he’d been told to keep his mouth shut and stay out of sight after making disparaging comments about his younger half-brother, “Respected Leader” Kim Jong-un. He had had the nerve t...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-16 18:42

Brotherly love lost

By Donald Kirk Kim Jong-nam showed the warm and human face of North Korea’s dynastic family. You had to like the guy, judging from sightings in the gambling enclave of Macau, across the Pearl River estuary from Hong Kong off China’s southeastern coast. One time he was spotted in a Macao bus. Another time he was seen at a doorway with a funny little smile on his face. Then, for a while, he dropped out of the news. Speculation was he’d been told to keep his mouth shut and stay out of sight after making disparaging comments about his younger half-brother, “Respected Le...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-16 17:15

Trade wars looming

President Donald Trump’s most fearsome offensive on the world stage has nothing to do with immigration reform, or building that wall all along the U.S. border with Mexico, or defense or treaty alliances or the North Korean nuke-and-missile threat. It’s all about U.S. trade relations with the rest of the world. When you come right down to it, all that other stuff may be good for headlines but isn’t going to affect most Americans directly. The hassle over letting refugees into the U.S. doesn’t faze people too much on a personal level. Sure, Trump may be raising suspicions - and prejudices - ag...

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-09 17:34

Trump's vision of 'Fortress America'

Donald Trump has bumped into a global donnybrook with his order banning entry into the U.S. for people from seven Muslim countries. No doubt, after the initial cries of rage and indignation, bureaucrats in the swamp of Washington will regularize ways for enforcing his order in the face of legal challenges and attempts at evasion.

Donald Kirk | 2017-02-02 17:07

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Santa is everywhere