Denuclearisation will only come when bridges have been built with Pyongyang and it feels firmly set on a new economic course

Negotiations over the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula look set to resume. Sadly, they are unlikely to end soon. Talk of a "grand bargain" remains just that – talk.

Trust between North Korea and the US, South Korea and Japan is almost non-existent. While all leaders – including North Korea's Kim Jong-il – remain committed to denuclearisation in public, none appears ready to risk much in terms of domestic politics to achieve that end. So the best the world can currently hope for is revived dialogue, an agreement to freeze activity at the north's Yongbyon nuclear plant and perhaps a moratorium on further missile and nuclear tests.

To speed the process, a new long-term strategy aimed at the underlying factors at work in North Korea – and in relations with its rulers – is needed. Simply put, the US and other powers need to pursue constructive economic engagement with North Korea to help the regime achieve "strength and prosperity" through economic transition and integration with the global economy.

Constructive economic engagement will benefit ordinary North Koreans, who have suffered as much as any people on earth since the cold war's end. The root cause of North Korea's economic difficulties is its isolation from the forces of globalisation, from which east Asia in particular has profited.

In the late 1990s, as China and Vietnam were posting rapid GDP growth, North Korea was ravaged by one of the worst famines in modern history. Today, North Korea is a deindustrialising, near-subsistence economy. The best hope for most North Koreans is the subterranean market economy that fills the gaps in the state's planned economy and public distribution system. Trade with China is keeping those market forces supplied with goods and business opportunities across the border.

Rather than pressure China to shut down the cross-border flow of fuel and food in order to "teach Pyongyang a lesson", the US and its allies must find ways to support North Korea's economic integration with the region. More effective than freezing accounts and barring travel by officials with ties to the missile and nuclear programmes would be to work with North Korea's younger technocrats, banking and financial officials, and economic advisers to improve their expertise in managing North Korea's economic transition.

Of course, economic engagement will not solve the nuclear conundrum in the short term. Nothing will. The Korean peninsula will most likely achieve "complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation" only when North Korea is already moving in the direction of economic growth and integration.

Before North Korea abandons its nuclear programme, the regime will need to see evidence that a secure, prosperous, non-nuclear development model is available to it. So, as nuclear talks proceed, the US and its partners should help North Korea lay the foundations for a new political economy based on international commerce, investment, and co-operation, as an alternative to the current model predicated on a hostile security environment. We should think of North Korea's economic transition process as a prerequisite for full denuclearisation, rather than simply holding out the promise of a big assistance package as a quid pro quo.

Of course, some of the big-ticket items in an economic engagement policy will remain contingent on progress in security arrangements and peninsular denuclearisation. But North Korea and the international community can already take some substantive steps.

These include opening diplomatic and official channels in order to improve mutual understanding and the general climate for exchanges; promoting US-North Korea economic dialogues and workshops; encouraging US universities, research institutes, and non-governmental organisations with expertise in economic transition and development to initiate and develop contacts with North Korean counterparts; and permitting the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank to increase North Korean participation, with the ultimate goal of membership.

During the recent visit of a high-level North Korean delegation to the US, there were encouraging signals that its rulers would welcome increased economic contacts, including with international financial institutions. Moreover, North Korea is actively courting foreign investment. The UN Development Programme recently reopened its office in Pyongyang, another positive sign of the regime's readiness to work toward common development goals.

Of course, new sources of growth in North Korea could threaten vested interests, leading to institutional rivalries, factional tension, or a conservative backlash. And the regime will not want the process of economic opening to get too far ahead of security agreements and political normalisation. After all, the main lesson that North Korean leaders take from China's success is that security (Mao Zedong's rapprochement with the US) precedes economic transition (Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening policy).

Constructive economic engagement will be a tough sell outside North Korea. In the US, North Korea is seen mostly through the prism of nuclear non-proliferation, and the new administration is wary of being tricked into giving its rulers anything without getting fissile material in return. In South Korea, President Lee Myung-bak's political base wants to roll back, not reinvigorate, the Sunshine Policy, and there is a widespread (though by no means universal) weariness with engagement.

In Japan, fear of North Korea's nuclear threat and anger over the abduction of Japanese citizens generates powerful political pressure against engagement. China is the one place that quietly implements a constructive economic engagement approach. Instead of pressing Beijing to cut off North Korea, the US and its allies should further develop their own efforts to draw North Korea out of its insularity.

• John Delury is associate director of the Asia Society's Centre on US-China relations and teaches at Columbia University. He is also director of the Asia Society/University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Co-operation's task force report North Korea Inside Out: The Case for Economic Engagement.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2009.

]]> http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/RokDrop/%7E3/Nhwkd1buLiU/ http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/RokDrop/%7E3/Nhwkd1buLiU/ http://www.topix.com/world/north-korea/2009/11/learning-to-live-with-nuclear-iran?fromrss=1 http://www.topix.com/world/north-korea/2009/11/learning-to-live-with-nuclear-iran?fromrss=1 "It will be just like Syria," said the strategic scholar just back from Israel and speculating about the much-debated question of whether Israel eventually will bomb Iran's nuclear installations.

The workshop will focus on research methodologies in Korean studies through the examination of documentary and digital resources. The two-week comprehensive program consists of morning lectures and afternoon seminar discussions on subjects such as art, classical and contemporary literature, pre-modern and modern history, Contemporary Korean issues, sociology, Confucianism, and Buddhism.

All lectures will be conducted in Korean, and reading materials and handouts as well will be in Korean. Participants will also have the chance to present their initial research findings or discuss research strategies in an informal presentation session. Also, participants will be able to consult with the lecturers on their research, and other assistance may be provided if needed (e.g. in preparing presentations).

The registration fee for the workshop is USD $500; a limited number of fee waiver grants and travel grants are available. For more information and to download the application form, please click on the link below or contact icks [at] snu.ac.kr

http://plaza6.snu.ac.kr/~icks/KOR/summer_workshop/summer_workshop.php

*Important Dates* 

Application Deadline: February 28, 2010
Announcement of acceptance: March 31, 2010. 
Final Registration Deadline: April 30, 2010

Program Coordinator
International Center for Korean Studies
Seoul National University
599 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul 151-742
Tel: 82-2-880-9378
Fax: 82-2-883-3305

BBC's Newsnight program spoke to Korean defector Joo-il Kim, who says he was an anti-tank battalion commander in North Korea's army for seven years until he fled the country in 2005.

According to Mr Kim, Pyongyang's lack of access to enough new conventional weaponry is what drives its controversial nuclear programme.

"Conventional weapon-wise, North Korea is better equipped than South Korea. But most of the weapons are outdated and so, to make up for that weakness, the North concentrates on missiles and nuclear arms development."

North Korea is believed to have more than 800 ballistic missiles, including long-range missiles.

"Officially the North Korea armed forces number 1.2 million - these are the official numbers," Mr Kim said. "About 100,000 people are conscripted annually and they serve for 10 years," he added.

Obama's Asia tour ends with stop-off in Seoul, where he announces push for return to bilateral talks on de-nuclearisation

Barack Obama and his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak pressed North Korea to end provocation and return to dormant nuclear talks, as the US president wrapped up his Asian tour with a brief visit to Seoul today.

Lee said the two countries were offering a "grand bargain" of political and economic incentives in exchange for Pyongyang's irreversible de-nuclearisation.

Obama added that his special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, would travel to North Korea early next month for bilateral talks aimed at reviving the stalled six-nation discussions.

The north has been pushing for direct negotiations, but Washington says it is only holding them in the hope of resuming the multi-party talks. Pyongyang claims those discussions, which also included South Korea, Japan, China and Russia, infringed its sovereignty.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Lee, Obama told reporters: "The thing I want to emphasise is that President Lee and I both agree we want to break the pattern that existed in the past, in which North Korea behaves in a provocative fashion, and then is willing to return to talk ... and then that leads to seeking further concessions."

North Korea conducted its second nuclear test earlier this year as well as test-firing a series of missiles. Neighbours also regarded a rocket launch as a test of its long-range missile technology, although Pyongyang said it was merely launching a satellite.

Earlier this month it said it had produced more weapons-grade plutonium. Its navy also exchanged fire with the south's for the first time in seven years, with each side accusing the other of violating a disputed sea border.

Relations on the peninsula deteriorated sharply after Lee took power last year and ended his predecessor's policy of free-flowing aid to the north, angering Pyongyang. At one time, aid from the south equated to around 5% of the north's estimated $17bn (£10bn) a year economy.

This morning he stressed that his government was willing to provide substantial amounts in aid if the North renounced its nuclear ambitions.

"I hope that by accepting our proposal, the north will secure safety for itself, improve the quality of life for its people, and open the path to a new future," he said.

Thousands of cheering South Koreans lined the streets of the capital to watch Obama's motorcade drive by – giving him the warmest welcome of his four-nation tour of Asia.

Obama and Lee also agreed to push for progress on a stalled free trade deal, which analysts say could increase their bilateral trade by about $20bn. It currently stands at around $83bn.

]]> http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/news/int/search/news%252Bsport/north+korea/-/sport2/hi/football/internationals/8087418.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/news/int/search/news%252Bsport/north+korea/-/sport2/hi/football/internationals/8087418.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/news/int/search/news%252Bsport/north+korea/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8367585.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/news/int/search/news%252Bsport/north+korea/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/8367585.stm http://grantmontgomery.blogspot.com/2009/11/irreversible-dismantling-of-north.html http://grantmontgomery.blogspot.com/2009/11/irreversible-dismantling-of-north.html

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says he and President Obama have agreed to offer North Korea a "grand bargain" aimed at ending the North's nuclear program.

Speaking at a joint news conference with Obama, President Lee Myung-bak said the deal would be similar to his proposal for a package of political and economic incentives in exchange for the one-step, irreversible dismantling of North Korea's nuclear program.

Lee's grand bargain proposal stems from concerns that North Korea would continue to backtrack on promises after winning concessions in negotiations.

Obama said his envoy on North Korea, Ambassador Stephen Bosworth, will travel to the country early next month for the first bilateral talks with the communist regime since he took office.

North Korea has been pushing for bilateral talks with Washington to discuss the standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program. The U.S. has agreed to the talks but has stressed they must lead to the resumption of six-nation disarmament negotiations.

President Barack Obama arrived late Wednesday in Osan Air base, near the city of Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province, kicking off a two-day visit to South Korea.

During his stay in Seoul, which is to last less than 24 hours, Obama will meet with his South Korean counterpart Lee Myung-bak for a summit early Thursday in a bid to strengthen bilateral ties and to find ways to break through various regional and global issues.

North Korea's nuclear problem will top the agenda.

Obama will then head home late Thursday after visiting a US military base to meet American servicemen there.

Excerpts of a letter to President Obama from Timothy Peters, Founder/Director of Helping Hands Korea:

Mr. President, we continue to grieve over the extraordinary human rights violations suffered by the North Korean people, including a prison system that begs comparison to the gulags perpetrated by Josef Stalin and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. This is not an abstraction nor hyperbole; more than 20 survivors of the gulag system have made their way to freedom to tell their heart‐rending accounts of prisons in the North. Accounts of three generations of family punishment for judicial sentences that never saw the light of a courtroom abound. Human experimentation of biological and poison gas agents are at times carried out on prisoners who have dared to embrace the Christian faith or express the slightest criticism of the all‐powerful Kim Jong‐il family regime.

Some North Korean citizens, as you know, flee out of desperation to neighboring China to escape the suffocating vacuum of human rights even in the ordinary society of their native land. China, although a signatory of the 1951 Convention for the Protection of Refugees, has for the past 13 years, turned a blind eye to the obligations of this international human rights instrument. By systematically repatriating North Korean refugees to the DPRK government security apparatus, China continues to subject innocent men, women and even children to harsh interrogation, torture, extended imprisonment. In the cases of some trafficked refugee women who are pregnant with children fathered by Chinese men, we hear a drumbeat of testimonies to the horrific nightmare of forced abortion.

How such barbaric practices could continue year after year without a profound challenge from the United States America, not to mention other mature democracies of the world, is simply beyond belief. By ‘profound challenge,’ we do not mean mere speeches, or resolutions or special envoys, but decisions at the highest level of government that indicate that our cherished ideals of human dignity transcend our short‐term economic strategies.

Sir, in the waning months of 2004 your predecessor signed into law the North Korean Human Rights Act that had passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress in October of that year. Despite the overwhelming support for this piece of legislation and the authorization by Congress of resources for NGO’s to help the highly vulnerable North Korean refugees in China, actual inclusion of the authorized funding was never, to our knowledge, included in subsequent national budgets submitted by the George W. Bush Administration.

Given the extraordinary plight of the North Korean refugees in particular, we cannot remotely imagine what justification could be offered for this silence and inaction in the face of an overwhelming Congressional expression of the national will to act.

Mr. President, we earnestly and respectfully encourage you, during your trip to China, to speak out in an uncompromising manner to demand that the Chinese leadership immediately halt the forcible repatriation of North Korean refugees in China.

Chinese President Hu Jintao greeted U.S. President Barack Obama in China's capital on Tuesday, with trade and the thorny issue of North Korea expected to be on their agenda.

China is North Korea's closest ally and has played a key role in the six-party talks aimed at convincing Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear weapons program.

China is an important player in the diplomatic showdowns over nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and holds one of five permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council.

阅读中文 | Read this in Chinese

Barack Obama introduced himself as America's "first Pacific president" as he launched his four-nation tour of the region, vowing to deepen ties with Asia and arguing that China's rise should be welcomed rather than feared.

Kicking off his visit in Tokyo, he also sought to thaw the chill in relations with his hosts, America's closest allies in the region. The new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, has vowed to make Japan less dependent on the US, but the two men agreed to put off the issue of resolving the future of US forces in Japan.

However, police in China are reported to have detained dozens of dissidents in a crackdown ahead of Obama's arrival there today. Human rights campaigners said that at least 30 activists who were expected to apply for the right to hold protests directed at the Chinese government during the US president's visit were arrested.

Reformers worry that Obama will play down China's poor human rights record in order to maintain good relations on issues such as the economy. "We get the impression Obama doesn't want to talk about human rights on this trip, but it is precisely because of his visit here that these people are being rounded up and detained right now," Ai Weiwei, a Beijing-based artist and social commentator, told the Financial Times.

Speaking yesterday during the first stop on his nine-day Asian tour, Obama told an audience of 1,500 in the Japanese capital: "I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home."

American officials have portrayed the trip as an opportunity to develop relationships and make progress on non-proliferation, climate change and the economy, and are playing down expectations of any agreements.

As in his previous foreign affairs speeches, Obama emphasised his personal ties in the region – referring to his birth in Hawaii, time in Indonesia and boyhood travels in Asia – and the administration's break with unilateralism.

"We welcome China's efforts to play a greater role on the world stage – a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility," he said. "Power does not need to be a zero-sum game and nations need not fear the success of another."

He held out a hand to North Korea again, calling for it to denuclearise; and to Burma, if it undertakes democratic reform and frees political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Burma's prime minister will be present at the president's meeting with Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean) leaders in Singapore.

Obama also announced that the US will sign up to a trans-Pacific free trade agreement. That may help to deflect accusations of protectionism, which are likely to be aired throughout his tour. He stressed the need for "balanced" growth and said Asian countries should not be dependent on exports to the US.

The economic crisis has underlined the interdependence of "Chimerica" in particular and the trade imbalance that has left China with vast US dollar holdings. Washington wants the Chinese currency, the yuan, to appreciate further; Beijing will repeat its concerns that US debt could endanger its dollar holdings.

But Obama's Chinese visit is about more than money. The world's two largest carbon emitters are meeting just weeks away from the Copenhagen climate-change conference.

China's influence on North Korea and Iran are central to Obama's non-proliferation agenda. Its handling of Afghanistan and Pakistan will also be high up in discussions.

Obama's China policy is essentially his predecessor's; the relationship is increasingly amicable. But some fear attempts to broaden it could mean less meaningful engagement.

"Bush's approach was: you are rising in the international system and need to take on more responsibility," said Victor Cha, director of Asian affairs in the National Security Council under George Bush and now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "Obama is heaping on all these very, very high expectations – on issues like climate change and currency – and I think they are expectations that China cannot possibly meet."

China sees itself as a vulnerable developing country as well as a rising power. And shared anxieties – such as those over proliferation – do not equal identical interests. "China's own interests in those hot spots [North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan] make it deeply conflicted about playing a larger role on the world stage," said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group. "While the United States frames China in terms of its growing responsibilities as a major power, China continues to think primarily in terms of its own interests."

To some observers, the administration is also too keen to please Beijing, wasting leverage rather than smoothing the path to greater gains.

Obama's decision not to meet the Dalai Lama last month – aides say he will do so in future – "doesn't send a signal that the US wants to work with China; it sends a signal they have basically got us," said Cha.

]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/12/obama-japan-china-visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/12/obama-japan-china-visit

President's tour to strengthen ties with region comes as longtime ally Tokyo looks to end subservience to Washington
阅读中文 | Read this in Chinese

The message from the White House is upbeat: the US is a Pacific nation determined to strengthen its ties with Asia. But Barack Obama will face tough challenges over the economy, trade and Japan's alliance with Washington from the moment he arrives in Tokyo tomorrow at the start of his first presidential visit to the region.

Until recently, the US could depend on Japan – its closest Asian ally for 50 years – to smooth its path into trickier diplomatic territory nearby. But the recent election of a centre-left government in Tokyo intent on ending Japan's subservience to Washington is threatening to weaken what a former US ambassador to the country described as the most important bilateral partnership in the world.

South Korea, another old ally, will push hard for progress on a stalled trade agreement, though administration officials have played down hope of a breakthrough.

Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their most amicable for years. But some observers question whether closer ties will bring measurable results, and the friendship is not without its problems: today it emerged that Obama may ditch his sole meeting with the Chinese public unless Washington and Beijing can resolve disagreements over its format.

In an interview with Reuters this week, Obama described China as a "vital partner", but warned of "enormous strains" if economic imbalances between the country and the US were not corrected.

Trade tensions have already been felt, with China attacking US tariffs on its tyres and steel pipes. But Beijing hinted today that it might allow appreciation of the yuan. American manufacturers complain the Chinese currency is kept artificially low.

Obama's nine-day, four-country tour will also see him putting the case for the release of Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to Burma's prime minister, Thein Sein, and other south-east Asian leaders in Singapore.

But Obama's priority will be addressing the rift with Tokyo – caused by a 2006 agreement to reduce the American presence on the southern island of Okinawa, home to more than half the 47,000 US troops in Japan.

The US is keen to push ahead with the deal – 12 years in the making – which would see the Futenma military base relocated from the crowded city of Ginowan to a remote site off the east coast. The move would also presage the transfer of 8,000 marines to the US Pacific territory of Guam.

Japan's new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, took office promising to review the agreement. His apparent preference is for the base to be moved out of Okinawa altogether, possibly to a location overseas. "There are many issues that President Obama is concerned about and issues that Japan is concerned about, so we would like to discuss each theme," he told the Japanese parliament. "I am convinced it will be a meaningful trip."

Obama says he expects Japan to abide by the $10bn (£6bn) agreement to relocate Futenma to a new offshore location. "It is perfectly appropriate for the new government to want to re-examine how to move forward," he said in an interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK.

"I am confident that once that review is completed that they will conclude that the alliance we have, the basing arrangements that have been discussed, all those things serve the interests of Japan and they will continue."

Hatoyama's unenviable task will be to reconcile Washington's demands with opposition to the US presence on Okinawa. At the weekend more than 20,000 people protested against the US presence, a show of force that coincided with the arrest of an American soldier accused of killing a Japanese man in a hit-and-run incident.

Attempts have begun to get the leaders' meeting off to an auspicious start, with Japan's pledge on Tuesday of 5bn yen in aid for Afghanistan over five years.

The announcement was designed to assuage US concerns that Japan's commitment to the "war on terror" is wavering following its decision not to renew its refuelling mission in the Indian Ocean in support of the US and allied forces in Afghanistan.

The global economy and North Korea's nuclear programme will be a priority throughout Obama's tour, as will climate change, with the Copenhagen summit just weeks away.

His hosts will also want to explore China's growing influence in the region. With the country forecast to overtake Japan as Asia's biggest economy next year, concerns persist in Tokyo about the prospect of closer ties between Washington and Beijing.

"That idea sends shivers down Japanese spines," said Richard Samuels, a Japan security expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Obama's overarching message will be that "the US is here to stay in Asia", Jeffrey Bader, the president's top Asia adviser, said last week, vowing that "the US will be a player and participant on the ground floor, not a distant spectator".

In China, North Korea's nuclear programme, and that of Iran, will be high on the agenda, as will Afghanistan and Pakistan. But no major announcements are expected and the White House effectively dismissed the prospect of a climate change agreement between the world's two largest carbon emitters. US officials have said Obama will also raise human rights.

In his meeting this Sunday with the 10 members of the Association of South-east Asian Nations, Obama will press for the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi and more than 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma.

His new policy of engagement with the Burmese junta is already paying dividends. Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for east Asia, recently met Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon, while this week a senior Burmese diplomat suggested she could soon be released to play a role in elections planned for next year.

]]> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/asia/12korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/world/asia/12korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/asia/11korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/11/world/asia/11korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/10/us.north.korea.talks/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/10/us.north.korea.talks/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/KoreaReport/%7E3/acVifmQ8oFU/us-special-envoy-to-visit-north-korea.html http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/KoreaReport/%7E3/acVifmQ8oFU/us-special-envoy-to-visit-north-korea.html After ten months in the office, it looks like Stephen Bosworth (photo), the U.S. special envoy for North Korea, will be actually going to North Korea for diret talks there. This comes after ten months of what seemed like a circumvention of the problem -- holding consultations with all the parties involved with the Six Party Talks with the exception of North Korea, which did not bring a breakthrough in the stalled process towards nuclear disarmament and security guarantees. It is hoped that the Bosworth trip to North Korea, and President Obama's Asia trip, will bring some tangible progress on these issues.

On a related matter, columnist John Feffer argues for a secret negotiations for a comprehensive agreement between the U.S. and North Korea, sans media coverage that may derail the process.

]]> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/asia/04korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/world/asia/04korea.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/03/nkorea.nuclear/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/03/nkorea.nuclear/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/19/nkorea.hyun.korea/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/19/nkorea.hyun.korea/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/02/north.korea.us.talks/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/11/02/north.korea.us.talks/index.html%23cnnSTCText http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2009/11/have-you-read-outline-of-classical.html http://koreanlanguagenotes.blogspot.com/2009/11/have-you-read-outline-of-classical.html

"Poverty (苟且) steals (偸) peace (安)."

My translation makes much more sense because, generally speaking, peace and prosperity go together, but poverty tends to lead to unrest, which can be paraphrased as, "Poverty steals peace."

一僧寺 與餠茶粥醬以食之

A temple (一僧寺) gave (與) [us] rice cake (餠), tea (茶), rice gruel (粥) and soy sauce (醬) and had us eat them.

• 무엇 = 무어 = 뭐
• 무엇 = 뭣
• 무엇이 = 뭬
• 무엇을 = 뭘

Unfortunately, it is probably too late to save the 뭬 contraction because 뭐가 and 머가 have become so ingrained in the Korean language that it would be difficult to get rid of them now. I think I remember reading that sometime in the past 가 used to be the only subject marker in Korean, which may help explain why 뭐가 is so ingrained.

By the way, if you do use 뭬, do not add the subject marker 가 to it since its meaning already includes the subject marker. Some Koreans even add the object marker 를 to 뭬, which, of course, is also wrong since it would be like saying 무엇이를.

Clinton said he is not a policy maker and shouldn't be, but has an obligation to report to his government.

By Armen Hareyan