Wall Street Journal (May 14)
“Even a regime as murderous as North Korea’s can’t execute every discontented officer and minister. Applying maximum international pressure could exploit the fissures and possibly turn the discontent into regime change.”
Tags: Change, Discontent, Execution, International pressure, Murder, North Korea, Regime
Washington Post (May 11)
“China has shown signs of exasperation with North Korea’s enigmatic leader, Kim Jong Un, and if China possesses about 250 nuclear weapons, then its leaders should be unsettled to hear from their own experts that North Korea is ramping up to 50 or even 100 in the next decade. Certainly, China—and only China—has the leverage to halt North Korea’s steady climb to becoming a nuclear power.”
Tags: China, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Nuclear weapons
Wall Street Journal (April 23)
North Korea’s nuclear arsenal may be larger than previously thought,” as many as 40 warheads by the end of next year, according to Chinese nuclear experts. “A well-stocked nuclear armory in North Korea ramps up security fears in Japan and South Korea, neighboring U.S. allies that could seek their own nuclear weapons in defense.”
Tags: Allies, China, Defense, Experts, Japan, North Korea, Nuclear arsenal, Security, South Korea, U.S., Warheads
Washington Post (February 22)
“There is a danger that as other pressing concerns about North Korea accumulate — nuclear weapons, missiles, cyberattacks — the world will lose interest in the human rights disaster.” Ideally, “North Korea’s leaders should be held accountable” and referred “to the International Criminal Court for investigation of crimes against humanity.” At present, however, a Security Council referral looks doomed to veto by China or Russia. For the time being, the UN must continue “to investigate human rights abuses in North Korea, with an eye toward identifying who in the regime’s leadership is responsible for the horrors so that they can eventually be held to account.”
Tags: Abuses, Accountable, China, Crimes against humanity, Cyberattacks, Disaster, Human rights, International Criminal Court, Investigation, Leaders, Missiles, North Korea, Nuclear weapons, Russia, Security Council, UN, Veto
The Economist (January 10)
“North Korea’s strange juggling act is becoming ever more precarious. The hubbub over The Interview has attracted unwanted attention. “Just because Mr Kim runs a paranoid, delusional despotism, does not mean that the outside world is not out to get him.” In fact, it increasingly seems “the comforting calculation for North Korea’s regime—that, painful though its existence is to its people and the outside world, its collapse would be worse—may not hold for ever in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington.”
Tags: Beijing, Collapse, Delusional, Despotism, Kim, North Korea, Paranoid, Regime, Seoul, The Interview, Tokyo, Washington
Washington Post (January 6)
North Korea’s regime is incomprehensible to many Americans. “There is something about the harshness and the evil nature of the North Korean regime that defies imagination: It’s so bizarre that it makes us laugh rather than cry.” It shouldn’t. North Korea “imprisons whole families for generations. When food is short, it quietly allows thousands to die off.” Under the rule of Kim Jong Un, reality is stark: “people die of starvation and torture.”
Tags: Bizarre, Evil, Harshness, Imprisons, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, Starvation, Torture, U.S.
Wall Street Journal (December 24)
“The serious threat posed by North Korea far transcends cyberspace. Only one approach is commensurate with the challenge: ending North Korea’s existence as an independent entity and reunifying the Korean Peninsula.”
Wall Street Journal (November 20)
“The United Nations rarely leads on human rights, so the General Assembly deserves credit for condemning North Korea on Tuesday. Its Human Rights Committee voted to endorse a report on the North’s abuses issued in February. That report uncovered stomach-turning evidence of atrocities, much of it based on eyewitness testimony.”
Tags: Abuses, Atrocities, Condemn, Eyewitnesses, General Assembly, Human rights, North Korea, U.N.
Los Angeles Times (October 26)
“North Korea is, by all accounts, on the brink of enormous change. It is a failed state, isolated and mostly reliant on foreign aid. It exists in an ideological reality that is anachronistic and contradictory. Discontent is growing.” Yet those of us in the west often remain ignorant of how deep the discontent runs because the media presents an inaccurate picture of the hermit kingdom.
Tags: Anachronistic, Change, Contradictory, Discontent, Failed state, Foreign aid, Hermit kingdom, Isolated, Media, North Korea
US News & World Report (July 1)
Supporting “collective self-defense efforts with other countries…. is a modest and legitimate step for Japan that can enhance its own security and foster deeper alliance integration with the United States. The only loser in the decision could be North Korea, since it will face a more capable coalition allied against it.”
Tags: Alliance, Coalition, Collective self-defense, Japan, Legitimate, North Korea, Security, U.S.
