[Cankor] Report #208

cankor at cankor.ca cankor at cankor.ca
Sun Jun 5 17:39:39 CDT 2005


Dear subscriber,

Welcome to issue #208 of the CanKor Report.

For articles not original to CanKor, direct links are available in the
Contents section, should you wish to consult the originals on the internet.
If the links no longer function, you may refer to the full text articles
appended to the issue.

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The CanKor team

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CANADA-KOREA ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SERVICE

CanKor # 208

Friday, 3 June 2005

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A DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman offered rare praise to President Bush, 
saying that the fact that the US leader addressed the DPRK leader as "Mr. 
Kim Jong Il" improved the tone for talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs. 
This praise for Bush comes a day after the North labelled Vice President 
Dick Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast"' after he had called Kim Jong Il 
"irresponsible."



Defence analysts at an annual conference on cyber security at Korea 
University in Seoul claim that the DPRK has raised its cyber-terror 
capabilities to a level where it could seriously disrupt the US military. 
One expert claims that the Pyongyang Automated Warfare Institute has 
produced 100 cyber-soldiers per year since 1981, and currently runs a 
hacking unit of some 600 elite soldiers.



China's growing economic stake in the DPRK is complicating US efforts to 
eliminate the country's nuclear arsenal. Chinese investment in the DPRK has 
grown from $1.3 million in 2003 to $200 million last year. China therefore 
rejects economic sanctions and also opposes the Proliferation Security 
Initiative, two major coercive measures in the US diplomatic arsenal.



According to the website Reliefweb, the United Nations World Food Programme 
is conducting its first nationwide household food inspection in the DPRK. 
During 10 days WFP monitors will visit 300 family homes. This survey comes 
as food stocks from the previous harvest run dry and the country enters the 
lean season. The state's PDS rations are at 250 grams of cereals, half the 
daily survival requirement, and may be reduced to 200 grams in July.



Amid reports of another food crisis in the DPRK, a rare visit to the capital 
reveals slight improvements brought on by trade. Among numerous curiosities, 
the anonymous journalist finds more vendors who hawk their wares, more 
stylish clothes imported from China, and a new fleet of Chinese 
double-decker buses in a palette of pink, green, tangerine, and deep blue.



CanKor's OPINION section presents views on the (lack of) results of the NPT 
review conference and the prospects of next week's ROK-USA summit. Canadian 
military analyst Gwynne Dyer explains why he believes the situation is "less 
bad than it seems," even though the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review 
closed on 27 May without even a final document. Former New York Times Tokyo 
correspondent Richard Halloran writes that when the ROK President the US 
President in Washington on June 10, relations between the two countries will 
be so bad that the main question will be whether the deeply troubled 
alliance can be salvaged at all.

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Contents:

1.        AFTER CHENEY BLAST, RARE DPR KOREAN PRAISE FOR BUSH

www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=8686807

2.        DPRK HACKING CAPABILITY COULD DISRUPT US MILITARY

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200506/kt2005060218040011970.htm

3.        CHINA AND USA VIEW DPRK FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-06-01-china-us_x.htm

4.        WFP CONDUCTS FIRST NATIONWIDE FOOD INSPECTION

5.        DPRK FOOD STOCKS RUN DRY AS LEAN SEASON BEGINS

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/HMYT-6CZPS4?OpenDocument&rc=3&cc=prk

6.        PINK AND TANGERINE BUSES ON PYONGYANG'S STREETS

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0602/p07s02-woap.html



OPINION:

7.        NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: AS GOOD AS IT GETS

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050530/asp/opinion/story_4798333.asp

8.        WIDE GAP BETWEEN USA AND ROK AT JUNE 10 SUMMIT

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200506/03/200506032220076239900090109012.html

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1.        AFTER CHENEY BLAST, RARE DPR KOREAN PRAISE FOR BUSH

Reuters, Seoul, 3 June 2005



North Korea offered rare praise to President Bush on Friday, saying the US 
leader addressing the North's leader as "Mr. Kim Jong Il" improved the tone 
for talks on Pyongyang's nuclear programs.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush calling Kim "Mister" was 
a way "of politely addressing our headquarters of revolution," the official 
KCNA news agency reported.

The praise for Bush comes a day after the North labelled Vice President Dick 
Cheney a "bloodthirsty beast"' after he had said Kim Jong-il was 
irresponsible and runs a police state.

"If Bush's remarks put an end to the scramble between the hawkish group and 
the moderate group in the US, which has thrown the Korean policy into a 
state of confusion, it would help create an atmosphere of the six-party 
talks," the spokesman said. "We will closely follow if his remarks would not 
change day and night, as this happened in the past," the spokesman said. 
(...)

On Tuesday, Bush said there were still diplomatic options available to 
persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions without having to 
resort to a military strike.

"And so it's a matter of continuing to send a message to Mr. Kim Jong Il 
that if you want to be accepted by the neighbourhood and be a part of those 
who are viewed with respect in the world, work with us to get rid of your 
nuclear weapons program,"' he said.

Bush's comments marked a change in tone, after he called the North's leader 
a "tyrant" and "a dangerous person" in April.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman repeated Pyongyang's demand that Washington 
withdraw comments made by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, calling the 
North "an outpost of tyranny," which the spokesman said was an obstacle to 
the six-party talks. (...)

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2.        DPRK HACKING CAPABILITY COULD DISRUPT US MILITARY

by Jung Sung-ki, Korea Times, 2 June 2005



North Korea has raised its cyber-terror capabilities to a level capable of 
seriously disrupting the US military, a defence expert said Thursday. In an 
annual conference on cyber security at Korea University in Seoul, Byun 
Jae-jung, a researcher at the Agency for Defence Development (ADD), said 
Pyongyang's computer hacking capabilities have reached the level of those of 
the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Defence Information Security 
Conference was co-organized by the Defence Security Command, Korea 
Information Security Agency (KISA) and Korea University.

"A series of cyber simulations have proven that North Korea's increased 
hacking capabilities could disrupt command and control elements of the US 
Pacific Command,"' Byun said. He said the North currently runs a hacking 
unit of some 600 elite soldiers. Its military academy has been producing 100 
cyber-soldiers every year since 1981, he said. Graduates of Mirim College, 
also known as the Pyongyang Automated Warfare Institute, are skilled in 
everything from writing computer viruses to penetrating network defences and 
programming weapon guidance systems. North Korea changed the institute's 
name to "Kim Il Military University" in the early 1990s and opened a 
computer college at Kim Il-sung University in 1998.

North Korea is also collecting information from South Korean institutions 
and research facilities through a total of 39 wiretapping devices, while 
waging a cyber war against other countries, including the USA, Byun said. He 
did not elaborate, citing security reasons. Byun called on the government to 
increase the budget for the build-up of the core capability needed to cope 
with advanced scientific and information warfare, especially for the 
protection of information.

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3.        CHINA AND USA VIEW DPRK FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES

by Barbara Slavin, USA Today, 2 June 2005



China's growing economic stake in North Korea is complicating US efforts to 
isolate that country as it continues to build a nuclear arsenal.

Chinese investment in North Korea has jumped from $1.3 million in 2003 to 
$200 million last year and continues to grow, says Sung Wook Nam, a 
professor at Korea University in Seoul. Nam, interviewed by telephone 
Wednesday, says China is investing in entertainment projects, hotels, 
restaurants and light industry and is taking advantage of lower North Korean 
labour costs and recent changes that have opened the North's economy to 
private enterprise.

China is also North Korea's biggest trading partner and provides its fuel 
and much of its food. Nam estimates that trade with China amounted to half 
of North Korea's commerce with the outside world in 2004.

Those growing economic ties are frustrating US efforts to enlist Chinese 
help in persuading North Korea to return to talks about its nuclear program. 
The six-nation talks have been suspended for nearly a year; North Korea and 
the United states blame the other for their failure to make progress.

In February, North Korea declared that it has nuclear weapons. It refuses to 
resume talks unless the United States changes what North Korea calls a 
"hostile policy" toward the regime of its leader, Kim Jong Il. The 
International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring 
arm, estimates that North Korea has six nuclear weapons and could make 
several more this year.

President Bush, at a news conference Tuesday, urged North Korea to return to 
talks. He said it was "important to have China at the table ... saying the 
same thing that the United States is saying, and that is that, 'If you want 
to be a responsible nation, get rid of your weapons programs.' "

But any assessment of China's motivations must take into account its 
economic interests.

CHINA OPPOSES SANCTIONS

China wants to deal with North Korea's nuclear program "through dialogue and 
consultation rather than through pressure or sanctions," says Chu Mao Ming, 
a Chinese spokesman in Washington. "Normal trade should not be linked to 
other issues."

Richard Bush, a China expert at the Brookings Institution, a Washington 
think tank, says China ultimately needs to resolve the nuclear dispute to 
deter other nations, such as Japan, from acquiring nuclear weapons. In the 
short term, however, the stalemate keeps North Korea dependent on China.

China rejects economic sanctions on North Korea. It fears that sanctions 
would provoke an economic collapse in North Korea that would send an exodus 
of refugees into China. China also refuses to join the Proliferation 
Security Initiative, a US-led program involving more than 60 nations that 
attempts to intercept trade in dangerous weaponry and materials.

South Korea has also declined to participate in the initiative, which 
minimizes the program's chances of catching North Korean weapons exports. 
Such trade has been an important source of hard currency for North Korea.

South Korea is also increasing investment in North Korea, setting up 
factories in a special industrial zone near the border between the two 
countries, but it is inhibited by restrictions on the export of machinery 
with US content.

Many South Koreans think the Bush administration doesn't want a deal that 
could prolong North Korea's dictatorial regime, says Taik Young Hamm, a 
political science professor at Kyungnam University in South Korea. "The 
United States does not want a solution. It wants a North Korean surrender."

Bush has called Kim a "tyrant" in the past, but Tuesday he said US policy 
was to keep sending "a message to Mr. Kim Jong Il that if you want to be 
accepted by the neighbourhood and be a part of ... those who are viewed with 
respect in the world, work with us to get rid of your nuclear weapons 
program."

US CUTS LINKS

As the Chinese influence grows, the United States has cut its remaining 
links to North Korea:

  a.. It has offered no food aid to North Korea this year despite a record 
of contributing generously to relief efforts under the UN World Food 
Program. North Korea is sending millions of people from its cities to work 
on farms each weekend, an indication that the risk of famine is particularly 
high this year, a World Food Program spokeswoman said Wednesday.
  b.. Last week, the Pentagon suspended a decade-old program to find remains 
of 8,100 Americans still listed as missing in action from the Korean War. 
More than 220 sets of remains have been recovered. Bush said Tuesday that 
the program was being "reassessed" because of concerns about communicating 
with US personnel in North Korea. But a Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence DiRita, 
said last week that North Korea's refusal to return to the nuclear talks was 
a factor.
  c.. The Bush administration also decided not to renew the contract of 
Charles Kartman as head of the Korea Peninsula Energy Development 
Organization. It is not clear when or if Kartman will be replaced. The New 
York-based organization was set up as part of a 1994 deal in which North 
Korea agreed to freeze its nuclear program in return for energy aid.
Scott Snyder, a North Korea expert at the Asia Foundation, a group that 
promotes peace and prosperity in the region, says the administration, which 
also sent 15 stealth bombers to South Korea last week, is acting "out of 
frustration and concern that China will not deliver" North Korea back to the 
table.

So far, the administration shows no sign of acknowledging a willingness to 
peacefully coexist with North Korea ­ a North Korean demand ­ or offering 
detailed, one-on-one negotiations.

The escalating dispute is likely to make for tense discussion June 10, when 
South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun is due to meet with Bush in Washington.

*************************************************



4.        WFP CONDUCTS FIRST NATIONWIDE FOOD INSPECTION

WFP Emergency Report 2005-22, Reliefweb, 27 May 2005



As part of WFP's new monitoring system, the first household food security 
assessment started this week throughout the country. For 10 days, WFP 
monitoring teams will be conducting family household interviews, focus group 
discussions and observational walks within the communities of 300 
households. The focus of the assessment is to ascertain the coping 
strategies adopted by vulnerable families during the ongoing lean season. A 
follow-up assessment is scheduled to take place in the autumn.

*************************************************



5.        DPRK FOOD STOCKS RUN DRY AS LEAN SEASON BEGINS

WFP Emergency Report 2005-23, Reliefweb, 3 June 2005



With the stocks of the previous harvest running dry and the next harvest 
still months away, the country is now entering the lean season. At the same 
time the Public Distribution System-ration remains low at 250 grams of 
cereals per person per day and may even be reduced to an alarming 200 grams 
in July.

Overall inflation and soaring market prices of food is further compounding 
the situation and the most vulnerable segments of the population - small 
children, pregnant/nursing women and elderly people- are faced with a 
looming food crisis. The hardships are visible throughout the country and to 
cope many vulnerable families have begun eating porridge made of 30% cereals 
and 70% vegetables/wild foods. WFP is deeply concerned over the situation 
particularly as it is forced to suspend food assistance to many 
beneficiaries due to resourcing shortfalls.

Due delay in food supply, Vulnerable Group Feeding beneficiaries on the West 
Coast will not be receiving their rations as of mid-June. Moreover, unless 
new donations are confirmed, 3,6 million elderly people, Food for Work 
participants, primary school children and the poorest urban households will 
not be receiving assistance from WFP. Pregnant/nursing women, elderly people 
and some nursery and kindergarten children continue to face a disruption in 
food supply since April.

*************************************************



6.        PINK AND TANGERINE BUSES ON PYONGYANG'S STREETS

The Christian Science Monitor, 2 June 2005

[CS editor's note: This report was filed by an Asian journalist who visited 
North Korea recently on a nonjournalist visa. The government rarely grants 
journalists official visas. To protect those who assisted with this trip, 
the reporter requested anonymity.]



In Pyongyang, the streets still go dark when the sun goes down. But after 
two years of modest economic reforms and heftier trade with China and South 
Korea, the sun rises on more colour in North Korea's capital. More vendors 
hawk their wares, more stylish clothes are imported from China, and a new 
fleet of Chinese double-decker buses cruise the streets in a palette of 
pink, green, tangerine, and deep blue.

After a two-year hiatus I came back to Pyongyang this spring for a visit 
that was as quick as it was hard to arrange. Two years ago, when I joined a 
delegation of Taiwanese businessmen, it seemed that our plane was landing on 
a farm - and the airport felt like a farmhouse. Now the airport looks newer 
and better organized.

How life is going in the rest of North Korea - how tolerable it is - can't 
be clearly known, since we aren't allowed to move freely. The society is one 
of the most closed in the world, and the regime is a serious human rights 
abuser.

Reuters reported Tuesday that millions of Pyongyang's residents are heading 
to the countryside as part of an annual mass mobilization to help farmers, 
citing aid workers and others. A businessman who travels frequently to North 
Korea told Reuters that this appeared to be the biggest mobilization of its 
kind in years. The World Food Program said there was a food crisis in the 
country and that its stocks were drying up because it had not received major 
aid since late last year.

But during my visit to Pyongyang, which is mostly made up of party and 
military officials, and state bureaucrats, the little things of daily life 
actually seem better. The capital bustled with more consumerism than it did 
two years ago. Today, one sees more shops - though still not many. Around 
the city, older women sell chewing gum, chocolate, and balloons made in 
China. Ice cream vendors sell dollops of frozen product in bright foam 
packaging. Grilled sweet potato and tea are found in small booths. 
Nevertheless, the shop clerks, in behaviour reminiscent of China 20 years 
ago, seem uninterested in actually serving customers.

"There is apparently more money circulating around this society," said a 
foreign teacher based in Pyongyang, mentioning more cars, better clothes, 
and even more baby strollers.

One significant change in Pyongyang: A private car market is increasing, 
since personal ownership of vehicles is no longer forbidden, and there is 
more cash.

For years, most cars carried official black (military) or white (factory 
officials) license plates. But now one sees more and more brown plates - 
private cars. Visible in town are Japanese brands like Toyota and Nissan, 
Chinese cars, and the most sought after, Mercedes. Kim Moo Tae, head of 
North Korea-based Peace Motors Corp. (a North-South joint venture), said his 
company has set a production goal of 1,000 cars in 2005.

For most Pyongyang residents, owning a car is still a long way off, and most 
don't discuss it. They do talk with nostalgia of the brief period in 2003 
and 2004 when cell phones were allowed. Without explanation, the government 
last year forbade their use, and a Japanese friend in Pyongyang says service 
hasn't resumed.

"We really loved carrying the mobile phones around," said a young, state- 
certified tour guide.

Despite the country's isolation, street talk is in a nascent commercial 
language. A Chinese think tank director who has visited North Korea numerous 
times circulated a paper this spring that traces the changes to a moment in 
2002 when Kim Jong Il declared that "money should be capable of measuring 
the worth of all commodities." The Chinese academic says that experiments 
are under way in North Korea that allow factory managers to fire 
underperforming workers and decide bonuses. But Pyongyang still sets wages.

Government officials are on the books as making about $35 a month. But the 
figure doesn't allow for the hidden economy, and doesn't explain how 
people - especially "general workers" who make about $10 a month - can pay 
for food amid inflation. According to the Chinese academic, rice last spring 
was $1.40 per kilogram. This winter it was $3.50 per kilo.

"Everyone was talking about money, money, money," said a Beijing-based North 
Korea expert who visited Pyongyang recently, and with whom I spoke. "I never 
saw it before."

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OPINION



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7.        NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: AS GOOD AS IT GETS

by Gwynne Dyer, The Telegraph, India, 30 May 2005



"If we could get out of this conference without a major blow-up, we would be 
doing well," said Matt Martin, deputy director of the British American 
Security Information Council, when the review conference on the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty opened in May. There was not even a final document 
when it closed on Friday, May 27, but nobody actually stormed out vowing 
never to return, so maybe we are doing well. Not nearly well enough, 
however.

These conferences have been held every 5 years since the NPT came into 
effect in 1970. The last one, in 2000, seemed to be making real progress: it 
agreed on "Thirteen Steps" to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons 
and to hold the existing nuclear powers to their commitment to eliminate 
their nuclear arsenals in the long run. But that was then, and this is a 
very different time.

North Korea, panicked by its inclusion in president Bush's "axis of evil" by 
loose talk in Washington about "regime change," pulled out of the NPT and 
began claiming that it had or would soon have nuclear weapons. Whether that 
is true remains open to question, but the US invasion of Iraq confirmed Kim 
Jong-Il's belief that only nuclear weapons could deter a US attack.

North Korea stated that it had nuclear weapons and refused to return to the 
six-power talks that were intended to persuade it to drop its nuclear plans. 
Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 
called Pyongyang's actions "a cry for help". They are hopelessly inept at 
diplomacy, in other words, but basically they want a deal.

It's probably true, but nobody in Washington believes it. Nor do they 
believe Iran's assurances that its uranium enrichment programme is purely to 
fuel peaceful nuclear power reactors. After all, the Iranians have lived 
under the threat of Israeli nuclear strikes for around 40 years, and 
latterly their inclusion in Bush's "axis of evil" has led them to fear a 
direct American attack as well.

Meanwhile the Bush administration continues to pursue its goal of a new 
generation of mini-nukes under cover of the so-called Reliable Replacement 
Warhead programme. Britain plans to replace its existing Trident missiles 
and probably its nuclear warheads as well. And neither country will allow 
Israel's unacknowledged nuclear weapons to be discussed in non-proliferation 
talks. It's a mess, and it meant that the 2005 NPT review conference was 
bound to fail.

The non-nuclear countries insisted that the priority was for the existing 
nuclear powers to start living up to their promises to eliminate nuclear 
weapons. The Western nuclear powers swept that aside, saying that the 
priority was to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. They were 
both right, but they were unable even to agree on an agenda until the third 
week of the conference, and it closes with absolutely nothing accomplished.

Although America and Russia continue to possess over 90 per cent of the 
world's nuclear weapons between them, the actual number of warheads in their 
arsenals has fallen by more than half in the past 15 years, and is scheduled 
to shrink by many thousands more in coming years.

Even if Iran and/or North Korea should acquire a token number of nuclear 
weapons for deterrent purposes, neither regime has shown the urge for 
self-immolation that would be needed for it to launch those weapons, in the 
certain knowledge that instant annihilation would follow in the form of an 
overwhelming nuclear counter-strike. And even if they did get nuclear 
weapons, it is not clear why other countries in their region would feel 
compelled to follow their example. The situation is not good, but it is 
probably less bad than it seems.

*************************************************



8.        WIDE GAP BETWEEN USA AND ROK AT JUNE 10 SUMMIT

by Richard Halloran, Joongang Ilbo, 3 June 2005



When President Roh Moo-hyun of South Korea sees President George W. Bush of 
the United States in Washington on June 10, relations between their two 
nations will be worse than at any time since Americans and South Koreans 
fought, bled and died together in the Korean War that ended in 1953.

The North Korean nuclear threat will be high on the summit's agenda but the 
fundamental, underlying issue will be: "Can and should the deeply troubled 
alliance between the United States and South Korea be salvaged and if so, 
how?"

The responsibility for reviving US-South Korea bonds will rest on both 
presidents, but President Roh must decide first whether that would serve 
Korea's interests. If the Koreans say no, there would be little that the 
United States could do about it; alliances can't be built on sand.

If the Koreans say yes, it would be up to President Bush to respond 
positively. Given his attention on Iraq, the war on terror, the Arab-Israeli 
conflict and domestic issues, it is an open question as to whether he values 
the alliance with South Korea enough to make the effort.

A small, and discouraging, clue is in the arrangements for the meeting: 
President Roh will meet with President Bush in the White House, take part in 
a working lunch, and fly home. No state dinner, no chats with congressional 
leaders, none of the pageantry that often surrounds a visit by an allied 
leader.

President Roh's spokesman, Kim Man-soo, sought to put the best face on it, 
saying President Roh would "focus his attention on substantive 
consultations" and would "attend no other events than the summit talks."

Evidence of the endangered alliance, based in the Mutual Defence Treaty of 
1953, dots the landscape. Both sit atop divided nations but from opposite 
sides of the political spectrum -- President Bush a conservative, President 
Roh a progressive, which influences their respective decisions.

On North Korea, President Bush sees the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, as 
an implacable enemy. President Roh, reflecting views of younger Koreans, 
prefers to accommodate -- some say appease -- Kim Jong Il, whom he sees as 
an errant brother.

President Bush has taken a hard line in negotiations to persuade the North 
Koreans to give up their plans to acquire nuclear arms that would threaten 
US forces in Asia, Alaska, and Hawaii. President Roh and many South Koreans 
doubt that North Korea would use those weapons against them.

The Bush administration wants "strategic flexibility" for the 32,500 US 
troops in Korea to be able to deploy to missions elsewhere. President Roh 
has made clear that South Korea will not permit the United States to use 
Korea as a base for missions it does not approve.

President Roh has asserted that South Korea should seek to be a "balancer" 
between the United States and China as Beijing acquires more military, 
economic, and political power in Asia. American critics ask how a supposed 
ally can strike a balance with a potential adversary.

US military planners in Seoul drew up a contingency plan designated 5029 
under which US and ROK forces would move into economically stricken North 
Korea to establish order if the North Korean regime imploded. President 
Roh's government killed the plan.

Japanese officials let it be known that Tokyo could not pass US intelligence 
reports to Seoul because the Americans don't trust President Roh's 
government. South Korean spokesmen blasted the Japanese for the 
revelation -- but didn't deny it.

President Roh has suggested that South Korea no longer needs US forces for 
defence. "We have sufficient power to defend ourselves," he said. "We have 
nurtured mighty national armed forces that absolutely no one can challenge."

In 12 policy goals President Roh set for his five-year term, which began in 
2002, little of security or foreign policy was declared beyond platitudes, 
and nowhere was the alliance with the United States mentioned.

Behind these disputes is a rampant anti-Americanism that has begun to have a 
backlash. Koreans frequently demonstrate near the US Embassy or US military 
headquarters in Seoul, which look like prisons behind thickets of barbed 
wire. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said several times: "We will not 
stay where we are not wanted."

Koreans sometimes say this is part of an identity crisis that causes them to 
strike out against Americans, Japanese and anyone else they think has 
crossed them. "The South Koreans fight over what they hate," says a Korean 
scholar who asked not to be named, "not over what they stand for."

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End CanKor # 208



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