The Marmot's Hole

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From Bureaucrash.

Maybe Lenin was right – perhaps we really will sell the North Koreans the rope with which they’ll hang us:

The government has increased monitoring to prevent raw materials and components for weapons from flowing into North Korea.

The measures have been taken as part of South Korean exports of sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical used to make a chemical weapon like sarine nerve gas, to China were reshipped to North Korea last year.

An official from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) confirmed Friday that a local company exported a total of 107 tons of sodium cyanide to a Chinese company in Dandong between June and September in 2003 without the government’s permission. The Chinese company then shipped those toxic chemicals to North Korea.

MOCIE official Seo Young-joo said the government uncovered the fact last September and took the local trading company, which violated the nation’s trade law, to court in October.

The head of the company was sentenced to one and a half years in prison and a two-year probation.

Interestingly enough, the KT’s headline was “NK’s Chemical Imports Raise Alarm.” Personally, given how this wasn’t the first incident of sodium cyanide exports from South Korea going places they perhaps shouldn’t, I would have found “SK’s Chemical Exports Raise Alarm” somewhat more appropriate.

UPDATE: Conrad of the Gweilo Diaries has his own thoughts on this.

Must have been a rough flight. Courtesy the BBC:

British pop star Sir Elton John launched a furious verbal attack on a group of photographers in Taiwan, branding them as “rude, vile pigs".

Sir Elton, dressed in a royal blue tracksuit and matching sunglasses, made the outburst after being surrounded by photographers at Taipei airport.

“Rude, vile pigs!” he shouted. “Rude, vile pigs. That’s what all of you are.”

A spokeswoman for the singer said he was angry that police allegedly did not protect him from the press pack.

‘Pig! Pig!’

One of the photographers shouted back: “Why don’t you get out of Taiwan?”

Sir Elton replied: “We’d love to get out of Taiwan if it’s full of people like you. Pig! Pig!”

Be sure to watch the video accompanying the BBC piece. If you come across an uncensored version, let me know.

One of the last Underwoods remaining alive in Korea, Horace H. Underwood - who is shortly to leave Korea with his family for good, gave a farewell speech to a class of businessmen at Yonsei University. Although I have not been able to find the full text of the speech on the net, the story was covered by almost all Korean newspapers , except for OhMyNews as far as I can see . Those who can should check the Korean reports, since the lecture was apparently delivered in fluent Korean by Dr Underwood, who has taught English literature at Yonsei University since 1971.

Horace H. Underwood is the fourth generation of Underwoods to work in Korea since his great-grandfather, Horace G. Underwood, came to Korea as a Presbyterian missionary in the latter years of the 19th century, and founded Yonsei University in 1915.

What was so interesting about his farewell lecture? I’ll quote from the Korea Times, but please read the whole article:

The professor implied that the insular nature of the Korean people serves as a stumbling block to globalization, urging them to open their minds to foreigners who are interested in the nation.

“A lot of naturalized foreigners in Korea are still regarded as foreigners, not as Koreans. This shows how narrow-minded Koreans are,'’ he said.

Referring to Koreans as “frogs'’ attempting to jump out of a well, the professor said, “Koreans should accommodate foreign cultures as well as foreigners who would come to the country.'’

Now this is not just a FOB ESL teacher/migrant labourer/US GI saying this, but someone with a long family and personal history in this country, and one who calls himself “an American who loves Korea".

He also made the point that globalisation is about more than sending Korean students overseas to study (160,000 a year); Korea should welcome and attract more overseas students to its shores (currently around 8,000).

Now, a good friend of mine - a man I respect very much and who has been here a long time, has argued that Koreans actually do accept outsiders if they see them making an effort to do their best to work hard and contribute to society. I must respectfully disagree with my friend, and agree with Dr Underwood that Koreans have a long way to go to opening their society to outsiders.

Many of us foreigners here in Korea come from countries with large segments of the population that are no more than 1 or 2 generations removed from a personal immigration story. Korea as yet does not have a culture of immigration. In fact there is no Ministry of Immigration: all issues of visa and citizenship are dealt with by the Ministry of Justice, suggesting that these are issues relating to criminal law rather than multiculturalism.

I will know for sure that Korea has opened its heart to foreigners when, for example, foreign singing competitions, speech contests, writing contests disappear disappear, when taxes and tariffs on foreign food items are eliminated or greatly reduced, and when Korean people are not afraid or guilty to speak to a foreigner in Korean first, rather than speaking to them in English (or avoiding speaking to them altogether).

Do these seem like unusual criteria? To me, coming from a land of immigrants, they are a sign of ‘normalisation’ of foreign nationals or immigrants in a country; a sign of the removal of any kind of ’special’ status attached to foreigners. Of course there would be many other such signs - forcing male children of naturalised Koreans to do military service, for one. (I would go further than Dr Underwood and suggest that all long-term residents, and not only naturalised citizens, should no longer be thought of as simply ‘foreigners’.) What does all this mean? That ultimately, nationality will no longer be something dictated by one’s race or bloodline.

I invite your comments.

Some of you may recall 4 years ago, when the failing Dong-ah Construction company let it be known that they were engaged in the project of salvaging a Russian ship named the Dmitry Donskoi that had been sunk during the Russo-Japanese war.

The share price of Dong-ah shot up 70%, until trading of its shares was suspended a week later. At the time

Dong Ah declined to comment, though the company admits it has been searching for the treasure with the Korea Ocean Research Institute. The story is “totally unfounded,” says head of research Yoo Hai Soo. “We think we have found one small piece of the ship. That is it.”

Despite my initial interest (I love stories of lost treasure!) I had to give up, as I could find no further information, except the story of a Russian Naval officer, who poo-pooed (sp?) the idea soundly:

Sergei Klimovsky, scientific secretary of the Central Naval Museum in St Petersburg, said it was out of the question that the Dmitry Donskoi was carrying gold bars when it went down on May 28, 1905, in the Russian-Japanese War. …
“We view this report from South Korea as utter nonsense. It is out of the question that it had gold bars in its hold as it was Russia’s practice to send gold to the Far East on special rail cars,” Klimovsky said by telephone.
“If they found anything, it could be the box for the officers’ money supply.”

If Klimovsky’s last supposition is true, it would seem that they have found somewhat less than the rumoured $125 billion.

Nevertheless, my excitement was piqued once again when today, the Korea Times (yes still read it folks - mainly for Doonesbury, Prof. Lankov’s column and the hope that there may be the odd interesting letter) carried an article covering almost 1/3 of the obligatory “Roh’s visit to Russia” fluff-page, entitled “Rumors Fly Over Sunken Russian Treasure Ship”. Deja vu! Where have I heard that before?

Despite the sensationalist headline, the only rumors flying were old ones. No news there. Although there has apparently been some progress on four years ago:

The investigation team last year released reports suggesting the ship could be Russian warship the Dmitri Donskoi from Tsarist times, which sank off Ullung Island during the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese War. The announcement came after a joint investigation using state-of-the-art equipment including side scan-sonar and an ROV, or unmanned submarine.

There had been some speculation that Putin and Roh might discuss the issue of ownership during their summit meeting, although Blue House quickly nipped this in the bud:

Chong Wa Dae officials said last week that the subject is not very likely to be brought up during the summit between the two leaders.
“It’s not even clear whether the sunken ship is the Dimitri Donskoi, and we’re also not sure whether there really is any gold and treasures,’’ a government official said. “It’s a very sensitive issue concerning both countries, so we’re not in a hurry to decide who will claim ownership of the vessel believed to be lying on the ocean floor,’’ the official added. “If it turns out to be the Donskoi, the South Korean government has to go through very complicated negotiations with Russian counterparts.’’

So we still don’t know if it is the Donskoi, and if it is, we don’t know if it is carrying gold. Even if that is the case, we don’t yet know who owns it because:

[W]eak international law on such issues, according to legal experts. The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea does not deal with the ownership of sunken vessels in foreign territories, which means the countries involved have to negotiate to resolve the dispute.

Could make for some fun negotiations.

GNP Rep. Kim Yong-gap collapses on the podium while speaking against the abolition of the National Security Law in the National Assembly on Thursday (Yonhap)

Kim Yong-gap, of course, is the lawmaker to whom the Oranckay once referred as the John Birch Society Korea Branch posterboy. What got me about this, however, is that Kim is the one who had been conducting the one-man demonstration in the National Assembly you see below (pic ripped off from OhMyNews):

The sign basically reads, “I will oppose the abolition of the National Security Law in a do-or-die spirt” (the Korean term gyeolsa means “ready for death").

And here I was, thinking God was keeping Kim to his word.

Anyway, Kim was five minutes into a speech railing against plans to abolish the National Security Law when he passed out. Right before he collapsed, he said, “North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and going to launch a Rodong missile, yet we’re going to do away with the National Security Law. Mr. President and ruling party, please get your acts together and… (lights out)”

Arch-conservatives should fear not, however – Kim was rushed to the hospital, where MRIs turned up nothing (including, presumably, a conscience).

OhMyNews, of course, has the blow-by-blow account.

Lee Hun and family explain situation at the time/ Gi Jong-yeon of OhMyNews

Ok this is for those of you expats who haven’t quite converted to a traditional style Korean breakfast, and for those Koreans who prefer cereal to seawood soup (nothing wrong with seaweed soup - just going for a cheap alliteration).

Recently a family living in Guri city, Gyeonggi Province, were unlucky enough to find a few unwanted guests in their children’s favourite breakfast cereal. (There is a photo there so if you’re squeamish or eating breakfast now, don’t look.)

The article from our good friends at OhMy tells how the family bought their cereal at a local store and came home and opened it, finding therein the mysterious source of additional protein. When they called the manufacturer (which we’ll call ‘N Company’ because that’s how they’re referred to in the story), a representative was sent out to investigate.

On the basis of what appears to be a less-than-thorough investigation, the representative, a Mr Choi, decided that the critters must’ve got in there during transportation, and was therefore not a problem with the actual production of the product. In other words “our factories are clean.”

The consumer was not happy and called the media, leading to the story we see here. OhMy contacted N Company for a statement, and the company basically repeated its assertion that the manufacturer was not to blame, but rather “negligent handling” during transportation. Furthermore, according to the head of marketing at N Company, although he/she knew no actual details of the facts at hand, he/she could affirm that there are bugs which can penetrate the aluminium foil packaging used inside cereal boxes. I didn’t know that marketing chiefs now also had degrees in biology. Are there really such resourceful maggots out there?

For those of you who want to know which cereal this was and who made it, the photo in the article itself is a little blurry for some reason, so it’s hard to work out. Luckily, those folks at OhMy have kindly tacked on a final paragraph to the story, which to all intents and purposes appears a little irrelevant, but certainly helps to identify the company. Or at least it helps me at least - I’ll let you be the judge.

Meanwhile, in 1980 domestic food company ‘N Company’ began a joint venture with American food company ‘K company’, which now holds a controlling interest in the company and is one of the largest multi-national food manufacturing companies in the world. Moreover, this company’s corn flakes and cereal products have a high name recognition in Korea too, and a strong base of regular consumers.

Food for thought? Or just a bug’s life?

Yonhap (English): S. Korea Almost Completes Troop Deployment in Iraq

I’m not sure whether I should be more impressed with Koizumi’s linguistic skills or ashamed that he speaks better English than Bush.

Robert Neff has another gem for history buffs, this time a tale of pearl schooners and imperial intrigue. Just to get you started:

In the early months of 1885, Russia and Britain were on the verge of war. In April, Britain seized the Korean island group of Komun-do (also known as Port Hamilton), claiming that they wanted to prevent the Russians from taking the islands. The British insisted that their occupation was only temporary and that the islands were sovereign Korean territory. The Korean and Russian government protested, but the British fleet remained, unchallenged, at least until July 19, 1886 when the small American schooner Pearl challenged Britain’s fleet. The full story of the “Pearl” may never be known, but what we do know makes a good story.

After you read that, I encourage you to check out the photos at this site, taken during the British occupation of Komun-do.

A satellite picture of the capital city of the ancient Korean Kingdom of Balhae is released for the first time ever, revealing the city’s magnificent scale. The 1,300-year-old city of Sanggyeong, currently located at Ningan City, Heilongjiang Province, was once considered to be the second most prosperous city in East Asia, second only to the Tang Dynasty’s Chang’an, and was encircled by a 16-kilometer outer fortress.

The image of the site shows traces of excavation where Chinese authorities have embarked on a two billion yuan restoration effort since April last year to make the site listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. Some fear that Balhae’s old palace may be restored in a Chinese style, motivated by political purposes. The picture taken Sept. 12 was released by Wia Co.

Courtesy Da’ Chosun.

I jotted down some drivel on the Palhae controversy back in Sept. 2003, for those who are interested.

Well, this isn’t the sort of GI crime I’m used to seeing in the papers:

An American soldier accused of hitting a Korean man who refused to have sex with him was handed over yesterday to U.S. military police at Uijeongbu, just north of Seoul.

The 27-year-old specialist in the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, identified only by his last name Robert, hit the Korean, also 27 and identified by his family name Suh, with a blunt instrument, Uijeongbu police said.

Police said the men ran into each other in a park near a U.S. camp in Uijeongbu and had drinks together before the incident. The American soldier was accused only with an act of violence as Suh withdrew his initial accusation of sexual harassment under a mutual agreement.

Is anyone else kind of curious at to what that mutual agreement was?

For reasons I don’t wish to get into on this blog, I’ll be rejoining my wife later than originally planned. Accordingly, I will not be leaving Korea for Mongolia today.

Starting Wednesday night, beefed-up anti-prostitution laws will take affect in the Republic of Korea. By just about any standard, the current anti-prostitution law – the 1961 Prostitution Prevention Law (Korean: Yullak haengwi deung bangji-beop) – has abysmally failed to do what it was ostensibly intended to do, namely, stop prostitution. Accordingly, two new laws – the Sex Trade Middleman Punishment Law and Sex Trade Victim Protection Law – were enacted. The Joongang Ilbo (Korean) outlined some of the changes that are expected (?) to take place:

– Those who confine women and force them to sell sex or engage in human trafficking for the sex trade will get a minimum of three years in the pen. This roughly corresponds with the punishment given to those convicted of burglary or causing injuries resulting in death. Organized crime members engaging in human trafficking for the sex trade will get a minimum of five years. The original law had no separate articles for those crimes. The new laws also provide for up to W20 million rewards to those tipping police off to human trafficking. The law aims to pull out the roots of prostitution by hitting the middle men the hardest. It also calls for all the proceeds and property earned through pimping and prostitution advertisements to be confiscated. Also of note, not just sexual intercourse, but also other sexual acts using tools or parts of the body other than the genitals are now punishable. This makes cracking down on barbershops, massage parlors, phone rooms and other such places much easier, and one would imagine a W60,000 handjob much harder to obtain.

– The new laws designate those women who sell sex while being confined by their employers or while hooked on drugs as victims, as it does minors and women who are physically or mentally handicapped. Accordingly, they will not be punished. Women voluntarily involved in the trade, however, will be punished, and this is expected to cause controversy, both during actual crackdowns and during trials (as well it should). Debts owed by women to their employers, often used to shackle prostitutes to the trade, will automatically be canceled. The old law not only punished all women involved in prostitution, regardless of circumstance, but there have actually been instances of brothel owners suing their former employees for unpaid debts and/or breach of contract and winning.

Also of note, those men caught frequenting a prostitute’s services will be automatically booked and punished with up to a year in jail, W3 million in fines, or other punishments like community service. The previous law called for similar punishments, but most men busted in the company of a working girl were let go with a warning.

– The War on Prostitution: each police station will form three anti-prostitution teams to crack down intensively on prostitution for a one month test period. The Ministry of Gender Equality is doing anti-prostitution PR work at the water fountain behind the Sejong Cultural Center, and women’s groups in the greater Gyeonggi Province area will be doing promotion campaigns of their own. Since April, the office of the prime minister has been running a “Prostitution Prevention Measures Inspection Team,” composed of officials from 14 ministries and departments, so it would initially appear that the government is serious about eliminating prostitution from Korea.

The question, of course, is will the new laws work. CBS (Korean) pointed out that much of that rested with how seriously police took the crackdown. Police are expected to concentrate their efforts on confinement and human trafficking, pimps who rip their girls off financially, and forced prostitution. They are also expected to crack down on advertising, which means you might see a lot less of those lewd little advertising cards scattered in front of yogwans (or schools, for that matter) advertising for massages or other sexual services, at least for the next month.

The problem is that if this is going to work, the relationship between the police and pimps needs to be broken first. One person involved in the trade told CBS that the police never made patrols, and they informed pimps of crackdown dates. When new girls came, police were paid off with free service. The Segye Ilbo (Korean) also pointed to examples of police collusion with the sex trade. I blogged back in April that a brothel owner attempted to set himself on fire (no one was quite sure why) at Yongsan Police Station in connection with kickbacks being paid to cops in return for protection of their businesses.

If I might add, there are other issues as well. Unless you just arrived in Korea yesterday, you should be perfectly aware by now that prostitution is a major industry in Korea. That’s not a judgment, BTW; it’s a simple fact. We’re not talking about just red-light districts concentrated in certain areas; in any major city, it’s hard to walk five minutes in any direction without passing at least one establishment – massage parlors, barber shops, phone rooms, ticket tea houses, what have you – where one could blow his load for a reasonable sum of money. There are obviously a lot of people employed in this sector, and the ubiquitous nature of such places would suggest that prostitution is a reasonably well accepted form of male entertainment, even if a survey by the Ministry of Gender Equality resulted in 94.9 percent of respondents agreeing that prostitution is a crime (with 93.9 percent saying that the prostitution problem in Korea is “serious"). A serious crackdown is going to run into a ton of resistance, both of the active variety from people being put out of work and the passive variety by those who don’t see why the government should be getting involved in this.

For the police, I’m sure they’ll be on the ball for the first month, given the pressure they’ll most likely be receiving from the politicians whose whores are both out of the price range of the common man and beyond the scope of police attention. After that, I see no reason to believe this won’t end up like the much ballyhooed crackdown on drivers crossing stop lines – was absolutely awe-inspiring for the first week or so, but decidedly less so afterward. I can certainly see them going all out on the human trafficking, forced prostitution and underage prostitution – there would seem to be some sort of social consensus that such practices are intolerable. I can even imagine them having some success in cracking down on the financial shackles keeping women involved in the trade longer than they wish. Eliminating prostitution all together, however, would be a joke, and I can’t understand why the government doesn’t simply abandon the fiction and legalize the industry, making it easier to regulate (this would apply to other nations, too).

Also on the prostitution front, Newsis reported that 13 women’s groups from Gwangju/South Jeolla Province area announced Tuesday that they would oppose the deployment of U.S. Patriot missiles to Gwangju Airfield. Among the reasons given – in fact, the first one mentioned in the piece – was that the missile deployment might be accompanied by a base town, which could lead to nasty side effects like domestic and foreign human trafficking and prostitution. Personally, I found that remarkably rich; let’s just say Gwangju has some of the most vibrant “nightlife” of any city in Korea to which I’ve been, and I don’t think it was the Air Force guys from Gwangju of Gunsan driving it.

And to think I was beginning to wonder what NIS spooks did with their time since they got out of the counterespionage/torturing dissidents racket. Courtesy AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) – A South Korean man who met with John Kerry’s fund-raisers to discuss creating a new political group for Korean-Americans was an intelligence agent for his country, raising concerns among some U.S. officials that either he or his government may have tried to influence this fall’s election.

South Korean officials and U.S. officials told The Associated Press that Chung Byung-Man, a consular officer in Los Angeles, actually worked for South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.

A spokesman for the South Korean consulate office said Chung was sent home in May amid “speculation” he became involved with the Kerry campaign and Democratic Party through contacts with fund-raiser Rick Yi and that his identity couldn’t be discussed further.

“According to international tradition, we cannot identify, we cannot say who he is, because he is intelligence people,” spokesman Min Ryu said.

The State Department said it has discussed Chung’s reported activities with the South Korean government and has no reason to doubt Seoul’s representations he was an intelligence agent.

The department believes Chung’s contacts with donors and fund-raisers, if accurately described in reports, were “inconsistent” with the 1963 Vienna Convention that prohibits visiting foreign officials from interfering in the internal politics and affairs of host countries, a spokesman for its legal affairs office said.

Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton said the campaign did not know Chung was an intelligence agent or that Yi, one of the campaign’s key fund-raisers in the Asian-American community, was meeting with him until it was brought to light by the AP.

The AP first reported this spring that Yi and other Kerry fund-raisers and donors had met with Chung, but at the time Chung was only identified as a diplomat. Yi resigned from the Kerry campaign after the story, and Kerry returned $4,000 in donations he had solicited because of concerns about their origins.

AP was alerted to the meetings and Chung’s identity as an intelligence agent by Democratic donors and fund-raisers who said they were uncomfortable with the activities.

A South Korean government official in Seoul and two longtime U.S. officials in Washington, both speaking on condition of anonymity because Chung’s intelligence work is classified, told AP that Chung worked for South Korea’s NIS, the country’s CIA equivalent.

The U.S. officials said Chung had registered with the Justice Department as a friendly foreign intelligence agent on U.S. soil, and that his activities had raised concern he or his government had tried to influence the fall presidential election through “extracurricular activities.”

Like when this story (minus Chung’s intelligence connections) broke back in June, I won’t use it to take cheap shots at Kerry. His folk did the right thing by returning the money once they found out where it came from. What this does raise questions about, however, is whether the Roh administration is trying to play games with the U.S. elections in November:

The NIS dismissed any suggestion the South Korean government tried to influence American politics as a “totally groundless rumor and all fiction.”

South Korea has been frustrated over the deadlock in talks on North Korea’s nuclear activities, while at the same facing the Bush administration’s planned withdrawal of thousands of U.S. troops from the tense region. One expert said Chung’s actions were consistent with Seoul’s concerns with the Bush administration even if he didn’t get a direct order.

“It is certainly possible that these actions would not reflect an order from the top but rather point to the unaccountability of a rather high-ranking officer to pursue their own agenda or what they perceive to be the agenda of their superiors,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.

“But, nonetheless, this sort of intervention certainly provides a faithful reflection of the general attitude of Roh Moo-hyun’s administration toward the presidential race,” Eberstadt said. “There’s an awful lot of people in this (South Korean) government who can’t stand the Bush administration and would love to see Bush lose.”

Hmmm…

Military history buffs are highly encouraged to check out GI Korea’s post on the Battle of Uijongbu, an early battle that could have (but didn’t) changed the course of the Korean War. This pics of war-time Uijongbu were especially impressive for me, having lived just outside the city.

Some might reasonably argue that banning prostitution in Korea is a lot like trying to ban drinking in Russia (more on this later), but USFK wants you to know that it’s doing its part:

A 2002 report by a Fox News affiliate alleged U.S. military members and military police patrols were patronizing bars in South Korea where women from the Philippines and Russia had been forced into the sex trade. In response, the Helsinki Commission chairman, Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., and 12 other members of Congress requested an immediate Pentagon investigation.

The investigation, headed by Schmitz, looked into the military’s role in the sex trade in South Korea, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. A report issued after that investigation faulted military commands for a misperception of human trafficking problems and said further education for servicemembers was needed.

In response, U.S. military officials in South Korea say they embarked on an aggressive program to combat the sex trade and human trafficking. Among other initiatives: increasing both uniformed and nonuniformed patrols in known sex-trade enclaves; putting suspect establishments and even entire neighborhoods on “off limits” lists; and creating a human trafficking hotline for servicemembers to report suspected cases.

USFK commander Gen. Leon LaPorte will apparently testify before the House Armed Services Committee on USFK efforts to root out U.S. military prostitution in Korea.

This is interesting:

Aminex has signed a 20-year agreement to develop North Korea’s petroleum industry.

The oil and gas company - listed in London and Dublin - will initially provide technical assistance to the closed state.

Aminex will receive a royalty on hydrocarbons produced from any new drilling in the country, be entitled to a carried interest in any wells drilled by incoming companies and have a prior right to explore in its own name anywhere in the country.

The agreement is part of North Korea’s drive to develop an indigenous energy industry.

I think it’s at this point that Brian at Cathartidae would joke (?) that Pyongyang had better hope Aminex doesn’t find anything; otherwise, with a nuclear program AND oil, Kim Jong-il is truly screwed.

As always, be sure to check out the latest installment of Simon’s Asia by Blog.

President Roh Moo-hyun, left, with Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev yesterday after a signing ceremony for the natural resource agreements. [YONHAP]

President Roh came out of his stopover in the Nazarbayev Khanate with a rather nifty oil and mining deal as well as a deal on Kazakhstan’s nuclear energy program. Courtesy the Korea Herald:

ASTANA - South Korea and Kazakhstan agreed Monday to join hands in developing petroleum and uranium in this Central Asian country, offering the South inroads to energy exploration in the resource-abundant Caspian Sea region.

The two countries also signed an agreement on the peaceful use of atomic energy in which the South will provide nuclear-related technology to Kazakhstan to help the country develop uranium as nuclear energy to generate electricity and for medical purposes.

President Roh Moo-hyun and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev promised to strengthen bilateral cooperation in energy, trade and other areas when they held a summit in this Kazakh capital on Tuesday.

The details on the deals, you ask? All right:

Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Lee Hee-beom concluded with Kazakh Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Vladimir Shkolnik an arrangement to facilitate cooperation between the two countries in developing energy resources.

“South Korea has come to acquire the first bridgehead to the Caspian Sea, which has emerged as a new treasure house of natural resources following the Middle East,” Lee said.

Government officials said South Korea will be able to enhance its energy independence with the joint oil exploration project in Kazakhstan, which they expected would lead to development of 600 to 800 million barrels of oil.

The Korea National Oil Corp. signed a protocol with the state-run oil firm of Kazakhstan, KazMunaiGas, for development of up to 650 million barrels of oil in the Caspian Sea and a memorandum of understanding for another 200 million barrels in the Tenge region.

The Korea Resources Corp. signed an MOU with Kazakhstan’s state-run uranium development corporation, KazAtomProm, for joint development of uranium mines in the southern Kazakhstan region of Budennovsk.

The uranium development is expected to provide 500 tons of uranium every year for the coming 30 years, amounting to 10 percent of South Korea’s uranium consumption.

With the Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy, South Korea can now advance into Kazakhstan in areas of nuclear reactors, nuclear hospitals and nuclear fusion, government officials said.

“Kazakhstan hopes to build a foundation for nuclear power development by getting assistance from South Korea, which is equipped with necessary technologies,” Chung said.

The Korea-Kazakhstan agreement on nuclear power is valid for 10 years and can be extended by five years if necessary, the officials said. South Korea has signed similar agreements with 20 countries.

Now, I personally love watching the Korean foreign policy establishment break its fixation with China, Japan and the U.S. to get involved in regions of such obvious importance like Central Asia. It’s beautiful, actually, and deals like the one signed with Kazakhstan reveal that Korea is capable of playing a major role in one of the world’s most geopolitically important areas.

They also reveal, however, the moral hazards of playing in the Great Game. Now, one might be able to say a lot of positive things about Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, but nobody will ever confuse him for a democrat. While not quite as high-profile an association as one might find with U.S. bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, involvement of the nature Seoul has embarked on in Kazakhstan, along with its high profile economic involvement in Uzbekistan (arguably Central Asia’s most Soviet “stan"), essentially associates South Korea with two repressive regimes in return for investment opportunities and access to natural resources, most notably oil and natural gas. I believe that’s what many leftists – including probably more than a few members of South Korea’s ruling Uri Party – would call neo-imperialism… had it been done by the United States. This is not to say that I wouldn’t have made a similar deal (I would have), but there are potentially negative consequences to sponsoring dictators (something the U.S. should know all too well), and it will be interesting to watch whether Korea’s growth as a player on the world stage would be accompanied by both a greater discussion of the rather complex moral issues involved in the pursuit of national interests and greater appreciation of the difficult choices that face nations that enjoy interests that extend beyond their own borders.

On a lighter note, Korea might have to take an occasional shot from Jay Leno, but Koreans should count themselves lucky they don’t have to put up with something like this (hat tip to The Argus):

Roman Vassilenko, the press secretary for the Embassy of Kazakhstan, wants to clear up a few misconceptions about his country. Women are not kept in cages. The national sport is not shooting a dog and then having a party. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum. “Khrum” is not the word for testicles.

These falsehoods, and many others, have been spread by Borat, a character on “Da Ali G Show,” which recently finished its second season on HBO. Like Ali G, Borat is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, a British comedian who specializes in prank interviews. As Borat, Cohen has told a dating service that he is looking for a girl with “plow experience,” persuaded a meeting of Oklahoma City officials to observe a ten-minute silence in memory of the (fictitious) Tishnik Massacre, and, most notably, led a country-and-Western bar in a sing-along of “In My Country There Is Problem,” whose chorus goes: “Throw the Jew down the well / So my country can be free / You must grab him by his horns / Then we have a big party.”

God…

In a very interesting post, the Oranckay asked why it was that Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro might have become the first Japanese prime minister to become a household name in the United States, while President Roh Moo-hyun couldn’t even get his name mentioned in President Bush’s nomination acceptance speech. And then today, perusing the sports pages, I see this:

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, left, shakes hands with New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui before throwing out the first pitch in the Yankees game against the Boston Red Sox, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2004, at New York’s Yankee Stadium.

(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi throws the ceremonial first pitch to New York Yankees’ Hideki Matsui (55) for a game between New York and the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium in New York, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2004.

(AP Photo/Pool)

Someone over at Cheong Wa Dae needs to find out who’s doing Koizumi’s PR work, because he or she is worth his or her weight in gold.

There has been a rather sudden death in my wife’s family; she returned to Mongolia this morning, while I most likely will be joining her this Wednesday for the funeral. As you could imagine, this is a difficult period at my home, and posting might be a little light over the next couple of days, so your understanding would be most appreciated. Needless to say, any thoughts or prayers you might have for my wife and her family would be truly appreciated.