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Fireworks from the Bunker: North Korea’s Role in Borderless Tourist Zone...
Everything about this Reuters piece about a possible breakthrough in Chinese-North Korean cross-border tourism is great, until: “The [tri-national] zone is the latest push by North Korea to transform...
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Toward understanding North Korean state fears of Dandong
On March 26, the Korean Central News Agency reported at length on a truly remarkable press conference. I say “remarkable” because it dealt with a topic that, if even half of the allegations stated were...
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Bubble at the Summit: Insecurities in Kim Jong-un Itineraries
Is Kim Jong-un staggeringly confident, or do his behaviours and travel itineraries betray personal neuroses and structural fears? The short answer is that it depends on the issue under discussion....
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Full Comment on the North Korean Execution Rumours
Adam Taylor at the Washington Post was kind enough to get in touch with me for a piece he wrote about some recent and rather grisly execution rumors stemming from new satellite imagery as interpreted...
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On the PRC Ambassador in Pyongyang, ‘Comfort Women’ Activists, and the Women...
This morning I turned on my computer and immediately became wrapped up in a somewhat quixotic quest to find the origins of a rumor. The rumor being that the Chinese Ambassador in Pyongyang ‘had yet to...
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The Perils of Reporting on North Korean Workers in China
On the last day of the wondrous month of May, Brice Pedroletti, the Le Monde correspondent in China, was in the city of Tumen, along the northernmost point of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea....
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From Hyesan to London: Hyeonseo Lee and the New North Korea Defector Memoir
Hyeonseo Lee has produced an excellent memoir, a text which, along with John Sweeney and Emma Graham-Harrison, I will be discussing with her at an event organized by The Guardian in London tomorrow...
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Dandong Discourse: China-DPRK Trade Fair, and Rumblings in Xinchengqu
Historians have surely seen better days between the Chinese Communist Party and the Kim-centric Workers’ Party of [North] Korea, but business continues apace today in the borderland. The main item seen...
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Occupying North Korea, Witnessing Massacre? Military Sources and the Question...
The North Korean state claims that US troops arrived in Sinchon, Hwanghae province, on 17 October 1950 and promptly began butchering civilians, culminating in over 35,000 dead by the time of their...
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North Korean Forestry Purge Rumors, and the China Angle
John Power, writing at The Diplomat, asks how credible the latest rumour is from South Korea. Was Choe Yong-gun killed for disagreeing with the Supreme Leader on forestry policy? He (the journalist,...
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Trains, Trade, and Corruption: Dandong Data Points
While analysts were surely right to parse the dynamics of the 3 September parade in Beijing, the work of assessing the state of Chinese-North Korean relations needs to go well beyond seating charts,...
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Blueprints and Rumors in Sinuiju and Dandong
Last week Christopher Green and I assessed the outlook for concerted Chinese-North Korean development in the critical corridor for trade between Dandong (PRC) and Sinuiju (DPRK). Using the October...
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Corruption, Sanctions, Dandong
In two essays which I anticipate publishing this week (in NK News and CPI Analysis, respectively), I question the connection between Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption activity and the implementation of...
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Chinese Aid to Flood-Hit Areas in North Korea
The PRC’s National Day (1 October) celebrations were muted in Pyongyang, but they did provide an opportunity for Li Jinjun, the Chinese Ambassador to North Korea, to make a few remarks. Reading the...
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Chinese Patterns of Response to North Korean Disasters and Collapse
On 29 September, I presented a paper at the Korean National Diplomatic Academy in Seoul. In addition to conversations with members of the ROK Foreign Ministry (my hosts), I also had a chance to meet,...
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Borderlands in Asia and Beyond: Readings
Moving toward a text dealing with the Chinese-Korean border region, I have been catching up on my borderlands studies literature readings, some of which I aim to share in this post and update from time...
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Border Consolidation in Liaoning: From Chen Yun to Xi Jinping
For presentation at Leiden University lecture series “Borders: Life on the Edge of Area Studies“, 28 February 2017: For the Chinese Communist Party, the northeastern province of Liaoning today inhabits...
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Recent Op-eds and Media Work
The last three weeks have been particularly intense for analysts of North Korea, China, and Sino-North Korean relations. Amid the struggle to get two of my normal scholarly research articles submitted,...
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Wise Words and Wishful Thinking on China’s Relationship with North Korea
The most recent wave of analysis emerging out of North Korea’s test of an apparent Intercontinental Ballistic Missile has once again brought minds back to focusing on China’s ability to pressure North...
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Evaded States: Security and Control in the Sino-North Korean Border Region
Adam Cathcart, “Evaded States: Security and Control in the Sino-North Korean Border Region,” in Routledge Handbook of Asian Borderlands, Alexander Horstmann, Martin Saxer, Alessandro Rippa, eds.,...
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