Found a couple of great pictures of the Kaesong ’skyline’ on Flickr today. Taken very recently too, so we can be in no doubt that the city’s old town is still very much intact and looking in better shape than the remnants of Seoul’s Pukch’on district, at least from a distance anyway (more on Seoul’s traditional buildings here and here).
Anyway, here’s something to enjoy while we wait with baited breath for Jamie’s account of his visit to Kaesong.
Original uploaded by pinkie girl.
Yes, I’ve been in hiding again. Actually I was in France, but maybe that amounts to the same thing, except with more cheese and wine.
Anyhow, readers may be interested to know that my translations of three interesting pieces by Kim Ha-yong and Han Kyu-han on North Korean history are available at the ISJ website in newly revamped form with fancy footnotes and stuff. I’m also working on translating another piece by Kim Ha-yong giving a Marxist/state capitalist analysis of North Korean economy and society since the Korean War which was originally published in The Radical Review (진보평론) a while back. Obviously I’ll link here when it’s done.
North Korea seems to be a little conflicted in its attitude to the Korea-US FTA.
Editorial from North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun (February 2007):
The FTA in question is a catastrophic document which would intensify the U.S. domination and economic subjugation of south Korea and worsen the economic crisis, thus bringing unemployment, poverty and social confusion and driving people’s living to the bottom of misery.
The United States has imposed unbearable misfortunes and sufferings upon the people while occupying south Korea for over 60 years. Now it is going to rob south Korea of everything and its people of their elementary right to live by binding it to such unequal and shackling yoke as the FTA.
Still more intolerable is that the pro-U.S. conservative forces in south Korea including the Grand National Party of south Korea captive to flunkeyism toward the U.S. are trying to abuse the struggle of the people against the FTA for grabbing power, crying over “people’s living” and “economy.”
The south Korean people cannot get rid of misfortunes and pain by leaving alone the U.S. which is tightening the noose of looting around the neck of south Korea, regarding it as a chunk of fat.
The south Korean authorities should stop the FTA negotiations without delay as demanded by the people.
North Korea has welcomed the just-signed free trade agreement between the South and the United States on Monday, seeing its possible role of promoting an inter-Korean industrial complex in its territory, Pyongyang’s management body of the complex said.
In the trade pact, the two sides agreed to hold further negotiations on goods produced in the Kaesong industrial complex, which Seoul wants to be treated as made in South Korea.
Pyongyang sounded upbeat that the pact has left room for the inclusion of Kaesong goods in the trade deal.
“We welcome sincerely (the fact) that the South Korea-U.S. FTA agreement has prepared the foundation for the goods from the Kaesong industrial complex to be treated as made in South Korea,” the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, which oversees the joint project between South and North Korea.
Of course, it is worth remembering that the North Koreans have been trying to attract serious foreign investment since at least the mid-eighties, it’s just that Kaesong is the first time it’s actually worked - and that’s largely due to the favourable political situation in the South since the late nineties.
More FTA stuff: Andy at the Marmot’s Hole looks at how the various presidential candidates line up on the FTA question, Jamie at Two Koreas continues his in-depth coverage of the deal and Hankyoreh provides an overview of what’s in the deal.
Predictably enough, considering that it had to be agreed for George Bush’s convenience by April Fool’s Day, the Korea-US Free Trade Area Agreement was, er… agreed by April 1 in the face of popular and even mainstream political opposition. Of course it could still be stymied at the ratification stage, but somehow that seems unlikely.
I wonder if this agreement will have the same miraculous effects that NAFTA achieved for the Mexican economy? The prognosis can’t be great considering that the US is desperate to find any way it can to combat China’s competitive advantage and increasing economic influence while South Korea’s economy seems to be suffering a prolonged crisis of accumulation that the FT last week misidentified in its usual style as a largely political and ‘cultural’ problem.
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