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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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Collaborative Research and the New North Korean Social History
The writing of North Korean history is a difficult, exciting, contested, and increasingly social endeavour. Research networks and sharing of sources of ideas are more important than ever. Charles...
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North Korean Purges and Scuttlebutt
A few days after publishing a 2500-word analysis of the Hyon Yong-chol purge aftermath (an abbreviated version of which was published by the Guardian), I spoke with Steve Miller of the Asia News Weekly...
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Data Points from a Summer of Ambivalence in Chinese-North Korean Relations
As summer gets underway in earnest, China’s new Ambassador to North Korea is getting to work in Pyongyang and surrounding points. While Chinese academics fulminate at the lack of coordination offered...
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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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On Kim Jong-un’s ‘Achievements’ and the North Korean-Chinese Relationship
This past December, many observers of the scene in northeast Asia had questions about the ‘three-year mourning period’ which was coming to an end, ostensibly, in North Korea. Since Kim Jong-il had been...
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Meth, Road-Tripping, Drought, Aid, and Forbidden Love: Five North Korea...
Microblogging in English or Chinese continues to present limits on and challenges for academics who ‘watch’ Northeast Asia. Certainly, in the process of gathering information about the region, it has...
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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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The Moranbong Band and Regime Consolidation in the DPRK
Today, media in Beijing announced that the Moranbong Band, the all-female ensemble associated closely with Kim Jong-un, will be travelling to China for five days of performances. An academic paper I...
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Comrades in Crisis: Chinese-North Korean Relations in War, Occupation, and Today
On 25 March 2016, I will present the following paper at Yonsei University in Seoul, thanks to an invitation from John Delury and the Yonsei Underwood International College International Studies...
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Bypassing Beijing? North Korean Foreign Relations in April and May
Responding with appropriately prepared shock to the 15 April rocket launch, assessing the crescendo to the big Party Congress in early May in Pyongyang, adding to the noise over the defection of “the...
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China and the North Korean Workers’ Party Congress
The following is the full text of an interview I recently gave, excerpts from which will be appearing in Liberation, the quintessential Parisian daily. Q. Do we expect any senior CCP official from...
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Reading and Writing Chinese-North Korean Cold War History
Tian Wuxiong, a Ph.D. candidate in modern history at Peking University, has produced a nicely nuanced view of the withdrawal of the Chinese People’s Volunteers from the North. Tian has a good grasp of...
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Why the Sky is Not Falling for Koryo Airlines
A recent UPI headline found a form of success with a big claim: “North Korea’s Air Koryo suspended operations again.” Good heavens! I thought. This could be a major blow to Kim Jong-un, who has...
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The Fifth North Korean Nuclear Test: Impacts on the US and China
On 9 September, North Korea (the DPRK) set off a nuclear test, its fifth. I was in London for an academic conference, but managed to write an op-ed for CNN international. I also shared some thoughts...
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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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