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Hither and Yon

South Korea’s Park rains on Kim Jong Un’s coronation parade

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
Kim Jong-Un celebrates his “coronation” in Pyongyang Friday while forgetting about one unpleasant reality that deepens North Korea’s isolation in an already hostile world.
He presides over North Korea’s biggest-ever party, the Seventh Workers’ Party Congress, while Iran, his longtime partner in nuclear  Read More 
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Conflicting U.S. views on conflict resolution with N. Korea: What if there is no solution?

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
Donald Gregg, U.S. ambassador to Korea as the country was making the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, did not take kindly to my column [A former U.S. diplomat’s inexplicable defense of Kim Jong-Un] in which I quoted him, accurately, as  Read More 
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South Korean president walks tightrope on North-South strategy, left-right domestic politics

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
President Park Geun-Hye is pursuing a fight-talk strategy.
On Monday, South Korean gunners staged a live-fire exercise in waters well within hearing range of North Korea’s southwestern coast. Next, North and South Korean negotiators were planning to meet at Panmunjom.
The contrast between military  Read More 
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Asian summitry roars to a climax: With so much talk, what could go wrong?

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
It’s the season for summits with heavy overtones for Northeast Asia. After President Park Geun-Hye met President Barack Obama in Washington and President Xi Jinping in Beijing, after Xi met Obama in Washington, after President Putin saw Obama at the United Nations and Xi  Read More 
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Asian summitry roars to a climax: With so much talk, what could go wrong?

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
It’s the season for summits with heavy overtones for Northeast Asia. After President Park Geun-Hye met President Barack Obama in Washington and President Xi Jinping in Beijing, after Xi met Obama in Washington, after President Putin saw Obama at the United Nations and Xi  Read More 
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LAT Op-Ed: A textbook war divides South Korea

Donald Kirk
SEOUL — For years, the South Korean government and private Korean organizations have objected to Japanese textbooks that convey a rather sunny version of Japan's imperial and colonial history. Now a textbook controversy is turning Koreans against Koreans, and exposing deep divisions in Korean life.

All sides acknowledge that young South Koreans need  Read More 
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China’s loud signal to North Korea reminded Kim Jong-Un he’s not his own man

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, EastAsiaIntel.com
Conflict with South Korea is a gambit that North Korea cannot afford.
Much as leader Kim Jong-Un may have yearned to humiliate the South by ordering gunfire against the mega-loudspeakers broadcasting music, news and invidious commentary into the North from below the Demilitarized Zone, he  Read More 
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South Korea and Japan struggle to move beyond bitter history to address China threat

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com
It’s a time for anniversaries and memories of the tragedies that have afflicted Northeast Asia over the past century.
On Tuesday, the Japanese remembered the horror of the single worst battle in Asian history, the three-month struggle for Okinawa. The battle ended with the  Read More 
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2 tough Asian leaders will be rememered longer than nicer mediocrities

Special to WorldTribune.com
By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com
When it comes to judging the performance of deceased national leaders under the icy glare of historical research, strongmen go down in collective memory as tough guys who defeated their enemies and built up their countries. Weak leaders are often regarded as mediocrities, especially if  Read More 
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Three Wise Monkeys: Ties that Bind -- Weighing the Sewol Tragedy

The anguish over the April 16 sinking of the Sewol ferry will never go away. That’s because almost all of the 304 victims were high school students  Read More 
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