Cultural Politics… Notes on North Korean Musical Exchanges and Internal Narratives 30 Mar 20186 Apr 2018 A lot of people seem to be interested in North Korean cultural diplomacy these days, so the (often peer-reviewed/probably badly flawed/usually enormously fun) work which I have been doing on…
Beijing… Media Blackout in Beijing: Reading the Empty Spaces during the Kim Jong-un Visit 30 Mar 2018 Among the dozens of subplots feeding into and out of the curious-but-necessary welcome by Xi Jinping of Kim Jong-un this week is the question of information access and what it…
Chinese communist party… Journalist Expulsions and Beijing’s Counterterrorism Narrative 26 Jan 2016 2015 was supposedly a triumphant year for the Chinese Communist Party, but the CCP seemed determined to end the year on a landslide of insecurity with respect to the foreign journalists…
history and memory… On the PRC Ambassador in Pyongyang, ‘Comfort Women’ Activists, and the Women Cross DMZ Reception 27 May 201527 May 2015 This morning I turned on my computer and immediately became wrapped up in a somewhat quixotic quest to find the origins of a rumor. The rumor being that the Chinese…
American Foreign Policy… Full Comment on Women Across the DMZ March 23 May 2015 As observers of current events on the Korean peninsula will be aware, a group of peace activists is presently in North Korea and will be crossing the DMZ tomorrow, from…
North Korea… The Interview: A Rare Glimpse into the Alternate Reality of CNN in North Korea 9 May 20159 May 2015 CNN's Will Ripley was recently summoned to Pyongyang, coinciding nicely with North Korea's announcement that the country had placed yet another American wanderer in custody for crossing the border illegally.…
history and memory… Comment on the Open Letter in Support of Historians in Japan 7 May 2015 Richard Lloyd Parry, Tokyo Bureau Chief for The Times (London), kindly alerted me to an open letter recently published by a large number of academics nicely timed to follow on the heels…
North Korea… North Korea Misinformation Bingo 9 Oct 20149 Oct 2014 When it comes to North Korea, there are an awful lot of hypotheses floating about the information spectrum these days. Whether or not these all have been encouraged, tacitly or…
Chinese communist party… Hong Kong, the UK, and Occupy Central 1 Oct 20141 Oct 2014 I spoke this evening to Phil Williams of BBC 5 Live about the protests in Hong Kong. While my brain was more than a bit muddled after a very full…
Environmental Politics in East Asia… Odyssey of Extortion: Chinese Press Coverage of the North Korean Boat Hijacking 25 Sep 2014 How is it that the world beyond Beijing and Pyongyang becomes aware of Chinese-North Korean fishing disputes in the Yellow Sea? North Korea remains silent on such matters, so information…
