(7) North Korea Study Group
Donald Kirk shared a link.
22 December at 23:43
http://sthelepress.com/…/12/21/north-koreas-unification-dr…/
North Korea’s Unification Drive
[Below is the text I used for about 90% of my speech on December 19 at the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch, Seoul. I would like to thank everyone who braved the very cold weather to attend. I al…
STHELEPRESS.COM
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Charles Park http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp...Manage
Is peace treaty prelude to invasion?
There is a prevailing myth among some
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Charles Park http://m.koreatimes.co.kr/phone/news/view.jsp...Manage
Is peace treaty prelude to invasion?
There is a prevailing myth among some
M.KOREATIMES.CO.KR
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Craig Urquhart
Craig Urquhart I know, eh. I think this time I'm making a simple point here. It's part of my dissertation, actually, this problem, and this is a signal example of why discussions of North Korea by foreigners is so fraught with incomprehension. Nobody in that circle is listening to North Korea, though they insist on talking to it. Then they're baffled by what it does. Nuclear weapons are a massive destabilized: PY had more than enough deterrent without them, what they didn't have was leverage. The enemy for nk is the status quo. Nuclear weapons are key for a strategy of unification (not by violent means), but are destabilizing for any permanent status quo. The gambit might fail, depending on what Sk does. But enough people in SK get it to make it a dodgy prospect. But in foreign circles, incomprehension of nk is great enough to prevent any way to accurately read the situation.
Unification is the be all and end all of North Koreas message to its own people. There's really noting left for its domestic support or legitimacy. This is actually a very clever game plan.
That unification need not involve anything military :just enough to force the us into a humiliating withdrawal treaty. And this is definitely doable.
Craig Urquhart If this is what you think myers writes, then you've never read him. I suspected that - yo don't seem to understand what he's getting at actually- and seem to be unfamiliar with what he writ
But this isn't justmyers.
Craig Urquhart
Dude. Read myers piece. Just read it. You're literally dismissing out of hand almost everything north Korea does. And everything north Korea says. And you're not alone in doing this. If we do this, have nothing but our own assumptions and projections to see what might be motivating north Koreas leaders. And then it becomes a battle of the blind arguing about which projection is true, with no means of verifying these assumptions.
I'm sound like a broken record only because you keep insisting we need to ignore what nk says and does and the demands it makes to understand it.
Again, I can say: I'll leave others to determine the merits of doing that. I think the various merits are extremely obvious.
I would also note that the only people who effectively ignore all information from North Korea are those with outside agendas (on all sides) and those who don't speak or read Korean.
So myers lays out the case effectively. Others do the same thing. Myers has the impressive resume of paying close attention to what nks regime actually says it wants, and how it wants it. And he's hardly the only one that has come to the same conclusion for many reasons.
Nuclear weapons are envisaged as a tool to help push reunification on nks terms. They do this by producing an umbrella,preventing American attack- stopping retaliation from provocations. Better, they could force the us to abandon it's position in Korea. They can do this via provocations or being so hard to deal with they get whatever they want, which ti cut the us from South Korea. They say they want this, they act exactly like they want this, they plan for this, and it's never changed. In fact, the stubborn consistency of this strategy over time is impressive.
You say we can ignore this because you have special insight that drives from the superior logic of your reasoning and need not take into account anything from, by or about North Korea. And you're not alone. You're joined by almost all so called experts who operate in this field who don't speak Korean or have any substantial ties to Korea, South or north, and or have other projects they need north Korea to stand in for. Like praising or decrying, say, us foreign policy.
But taking the evidence available, the position you hold is basically only supportable if we totally ignore everything nk does or says.
Would we do this with anything else? Which position is arguing from ignorance, here? In this case - deliberate and assertive ignorance.
That's the question you should think about. It's not a case of myers and basically *every scholar working in the korean language* on all political sides being "nuts". I think it's a case of those who won't bother reading/listening or analyzing *in* Korean and who desperately need north Korea not to be about North Korea, but to be about some other issue, then deciding that we ignore whatever information they decide for their own reasons is simply inconvenient.
And that's the issue you keep avoiding. You don't even respond to it, and strawman argue things nobody has ever said.
I've laid it out totally clearly. If you choose to ignore what I've said, that's fine, but others can evaluate based on this.
2Manage
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Charles Park Meyers is nuts.
2Manage
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Craig Urquhart Myers isn't saying anything radically different from all the scholars who work in the field in korean. Many are more radical. Myers is pretty conventionally moderate actually.
Are you saying the south Korean scholars are nuts?
I'm sound like a broken record only because you keep insisting we need to ignore what nk says and does and the demands it makes to understand it.
Again, I can say: I'll leave others to determine the merits of doing that. I think the various merits are extremely obvious.
I would also note that the only people who effectively ignore all information from North Korea are those with outside agendas (on all sides) and those who don't speak or read Korean.
So myers lays out the case effectively. Others do the same thing. Myers has the impressive resume of paying close attention to what nks regime actually says it wants, and how it wants it. And he's hardly the only one that has come to the same conclusion for many reasons.
Nuclear weapons are envisaged as a tool to help push reunification on nks terms. They do this by producing an umbrella,preventing American attack- stopping retaliation from provocations. Better, they could force the us to abandon it's position in Korea. They can do this via provocations or being so hard to deal with they get whatever they want, which ti cut the us from South Korea. They say they want this, they act exactly like they want this, they plan for this, and it's never changed. In fact, the stubborn consistency of this strategy over time is impressive.
You say we can ignore this because you have special insight that drives from the superior logic of your reasoning and need not take into account anything from, by or about North Korea. And you're not alone. You're joined by almost all so called experts who operate in this field who don't speak Korean or have any substantial ties to Korea, South or north, and or have other projects they need north Korea to stand in for. Like praising or decrying, say, us foreign policy.
But taking the evidence available, the position you hold is basically only supportable if we totally ignore everything nk does or says.
Would we do this with anything else? Which position is arguing from ignorance, here? In this case - deliberate and assertive ignorance.
That's the question you should think about. It's not a case of myers and basically *every scholar working in the korean language* on all political sides being "nuts". I think it's a case of those who won't bother reading/listening or analyzing *in* Korean and who desperately need north Korea not to be about North Korea, but to be about some other issue, then deciding that we ignore whatever information they decide for their own reasons is simply inconvenient.
And that's the issue you keep avoiding. You don't even respond to it, and strawman argue things nobody has ever said.
I've laid it out totally clearly. If you choose to ignore what I've said, that's fine, but others can evaluate based on this.
2Manage
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Charles Park Meyers is nuts.
2Manage
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Craig Urquhart Myers isn't saying anything radically different from all the scholars who work in the field in korean. Many are more radical. Myers is pretty conventionally moderate actually.
Are you saying the south Korean scholars are nuts?
Unification is the be all and end all of North Koreas message to its own people. There's really noting left for its domestic support or legitimacy. This is actually a very clever game plan.
That unification need not involve anything military :just enough to force the us into a humiliating withdrawal treaty. And this is definitely doable.
=============
But this isn't justmyers.
Most Korean scholars fundamentally agree with him:
Sk is an existential threat to nk, nk articulates this,
nk wants unification above all else and is obsessed with it, all roads for nk lead to unification, nuclear weapons aren't just about self defence but also about getting the means to push the us out of South Korea so that unification on mostly north korean terms can happen. This is not invasion talk, but a plan for coercion.
Pretty much no south Korean scholars disagree with this assessment, because - and wait for it- they read and speak Korean. They spend their time studying konorth Korea.
Pretty much no south Korean scholars disagree with this assessment, because - and wait for it- they read and speak Korean. They spend their time studying konorth Korea.
Professionally. In kore
Even Bruce Cummings, left hero of the century, thinks the same: nk wats unification. Right wingers who study- in korean - note the same thin
Only people who don't read and study in korean think nk only wants nuclear weapons to protect against American aggression.
This is consistent.
Do you sense a problem? I do. I do because this is what I do.
"Broken record" like "nuts" is not a response. This isn't about myers. It's about the mostlydeaf, projecting foreign press andcommentary that seemsunable to assimilate any actually meaning information on orabout or from north Korea, left right, peacenik and hawkish all alike.
The you keep avoiding this central point. It's not about just one Korean speaking and writing scholar in Pusan. It's th entire field.
You're dismissing it all because you think you have magical insight immune to data. I'm saying that's nice of you and nice for you, but we're going to have to differ on the relative merits of such a position.
If we presume that scholars working in korean are on to something, then suddenly the inscrutable north korean actions make lots of sense, and there's nothing inconsistent or mysterious about any aspect of North Korea. If we take the positionof those who project. Their own needs and motivations onto nk for their own purposes, then nothing north Korea does or says makes any sense.
Which is why more fruitful an approach?
Again: I leave it up to the gallery to decide, but attempts to dismiss this rather consequential observation through cute quips and deliberately ignoring the fact that this has beenpointed out does nothing good for the position you've taken.
I have a suggestion. Myers has kindly written his blog in English. It means it's. Accessible to you. I might suggest reading. It before dismissing it.
Also, note that he is hardly a lone wolf lost in the forest. Most of those working in korean, on every political side, agree with. Him. That should tell you something.
Once you've actually read anything by Myers and absorbed new info, and understand what he's actually articulating, you can try moving on to other sources, which aren't cold warrior leftovers (left or right or realist or whatever).
At that point, when you understand what's being said, perhaps then you can cogently undo the arguments being made.
As of now, I haven't seen any evidence that you either understand this analysis, or acknowledge any part of it. Simply calling what you refuse to intake or understand "nuts" and dismissing everyone who works in korean as irrelevant isn't a good look.
I mean this in a nice way, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. You seem to have a lot of hard, locked in assumptions you dislike being questioned, you don't see to be familiar with any ofthegood scholarship on this subject at all, and the obvious criticisms of myers' work you've weirdly failed to make. Instead, you dismiss him with a brush that would dismiss all scholarship that scholars working in korean
I mean this politely, but if I sound like a broken record, it's becuse youdnt semto beable tounderstandwha s taimsaying or, and maybe this is the thing, you're not able to absorb information that disagrees with assumptions you have, assumptions you seem unwilling to question on any level. Also, you don't seem familiar with ay work on North korea.
It's astonishing you have such strong view on the subject given this. There are fantastic grounds onwhich too go afterpeople like myers,but you don't seem to knowwhatthosethings are , and the criticisms you do make don't illustrate that you understand what he's saying. Because he's notactually saying anything radicl that's not already understood as ridiculously well established in the korean scholarship, even if it's absent from the awful literature about nk in english.
This is the point. Don't take it personally. This kind ofstubborness and this effect is pronounced from people like Victor chaall the waydown.it seems toradiate out from some schools, too, and goes right up to the state department. I find it inexplicable.
You're locked in apolitically realist trap. You don't see north Korea. It's something else for you. Look at north Korea in North Korean terms and it gets much clearer. Trust meon this.Manage
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Charles Park Facts by Statistics Korea:
* NK economy (US$33.5 billion) growing by 3.1% is now $34.5 billion or a difference of $1 billion approx.
* SK economy (US$1.51 trillion) growing by 2.8% is now $1.55 trillion or a difference of $40 billion.
Which economy grew more? In one year, ROK created another entire NK economy, in terms of estimated value.
You still have people like Brian Meyers, Bradley Martin, Craig Urquhart tell you, you have to worry about NK takeover of the ROK. You got to take them seriously. Be afraid. Be afraid. Be very afraid. You'll have others that tell you ROK can never defend itself. It's a trick. They're coming for you.
Ergo, such memes justify the Status Quo and it is not at all helpful to achieving peace.Manage
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Craig Urquhart You've clearly not only not read myers at all- not even this short piece - nor have you apparently read a word of anything written in korean. What you've said isn't germane to the discussion.
How about this: read what myers wrote. If you'd like, I ca...See moreManage
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Charles Park Tell me how a $40 billion a year economy can swallow up a $1,550 billion economy? Meyers is nuts.Manage
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Craig Urquhart That's nothing like anything remotely what anyone has ever said, least among them myers.
If you're going to continue to not even read what others say, I'd refrain from commenting on it. Nobody has said what you've said here....See more
1Manage
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Craig Urquhart Look. If you can't even be bothered to read what people write and everything you respond with doesn't even take into account what others have said on the most basic level, then I'm sorry, but there's no point in continuing this discussion. You've raise...See more
1Manage
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Craig Urquhart Go read his piece, step one. Read some work by (insert anything by any Korean scholar), or try hassig and oh or Helen smith for the least troublesome work in english. They're not great but it's about as good as the English literature gets.
You don't s...See moreManage
Craig Urquhart I have many objections to myers work, extensive and deep, but these are based on understanding what he's written. PS: it's not just myers, but a raft of related scholarship, much of it excellent, and well sourced, and widely understood to be pretty close to the mark. If this was a dicussion in korean, there'd be general agreement. The ignorance in the English language press (incl. Publishing) appeara to be a crippling issue here: myers' work is not troublesome on the points you've raised.
You seem to fail to understand what's being said, and you don't seem to know you don't understand what was said, or the reason that it's said, yet bizarrely, despite not understanding what's been said, or because of this, you appear deaf to having this pointed out and more confident in dismissing all info you disagree with.
I'm sure you've seen this in other fields. You're doing t his now. I say this in a polite way, meant well:
You are demonstrating not coherent objections to positions, but that you fundamentally don't understand what those positions are articulating. Really. This is the case.
I'm going to sign off from this. I've got a huge paper to write. The subject, coincidentally, is a systematic evaluation of the published scholarship in english with a comparison to work in Korean, with proposals on how to best improve the level of English scholarship by understanding the causes of its weaknesses beyond mere lack of access to the far higher quality work in korean: it's a systematic problem that shows up in many ways. I have to finish this in the next few days, as my supervisor [Who??] needs to get it and it's meant for internal distribution in early january.
I'll say it again: you demonstrate a lack of understanding of what you're critiquing, and your objections clearly indicate you didn't understand what you were critiquing, and I'm not sure if this is because you either have never read it or have some completely uninformed perspective that excludes information you dislike: as in you're using nk as an issue for other purposes and don't care to know.
I don't know which is true, only that you clearly didn't get it and your commentary shows this. So it's not useful for me to harangue you on this point; I've said it, it's obviously true, there's an issue there and no wonder you think it's all nuts.
If it was what you say it is, sure it'd be nuts. But nobody has said what you think they said, and you seem immune to having this pointed out to you.
So have a happy holidays
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Mike Bassett
Even Bruce Cummings, left hero of the century, thinks the same: nk wats unification. Right wingers who study- in korean - note the same thin
Only people who don't read and study in korean think nk only wants nuclear weapons to protect against American aggression.
This is consistent.
Do you sense a problem? I do. I do because this is what I do.
"Broken record" like "nuts" is not a response. This isn't about myers. It's about the mostlydeaf, projecting foreign press andcommentary that seemsunable to assimilate any actually meaning information on orabout or from north Korea, left right, peacenik and hawkish all alike.
The you keep avoiding this central point. It's not about just one Korean speaking and writing scholar in Pusan. It's th entire field.
You're dismissing it all because you think you have magical insight immune to data. I'm saying that's nice of you and nice for you, but we're going to have to differ on the relative merits of such a position.
If we presume that scholars working in korean are on to something, then suddenly the inscrutable north korean actions make lots of sense, and there's nothing inconsistent or mysterious about any aspect of North Korea. If we take the positionof those who project. Their own needs and motivations onto nk for their own purposes, then nothing north Korea does or says makes any sense.
Which is why more fruitful an approach?
Again: I leave it up to the gallery to decide, but attempts to dismiss this rather consequential observation through cute quips and deliberately ignoring the fact that this has beenpointed out does nothing good for the position you've taken.
I have a suggestion. Myers has kindly written his blog in English. It means it's. Accessible to you. I might suggest reading. It before dismissing it.
Also, note that he is hardly a lone wolf lost in the forest. Most of those working in korean, on every political side, agree with. Him. That should tell you something.
Once you've actually read anything by Myers and absorbed new info, and understand what he's actually articulating, you can try moving on to other sources, which aren't cold warrior leftovers (left or right or realist or whatever).
At that point, when you understand what's being said, perhaps then you can cogently undo the arguments being made.
As of now, I haven't seen any evidence that you either understand this analysis, or acknowledge any part of it. Simply calling what you refuse to intake or understand "nuts" and dismissing everyone who works in korean as irrelevant isn't a good look.
I mean this in a nice way, but I don't think I'm being unreasonable here. You seem to have a lot of hard, locked in assumptions you dislike being questioned, you don't see to be familiar with any ofthegood scholarship on this subject at all, and the obvious criticisms of myers' work you've weirdly failed to make. Instead, you dismiss him with a brush that would dismiss all scholarship that scholars working in korean
I mean this politely, but if I sound like a broken record, it's becuse youdnt semto beable tounderstandwha s taimsaying or, and maybe this is the thing, you're not able to absorb information that disagrees with assumptions you have, assumptions you seem unwilling to question on any level. Also, you don't seem familiar with ay work on North korea.
It's astonishing you have such strong view on the subject given this. There are fantastic grounds onwhich too go afterpeople like myers,but you don't seem to knowwhatthosethings are , and the criticisms you do make don't illustrate that you understand what he's saying. Because he's notactually saying anything radicl that's not already understood as ridiculously well established in the korean scholarship, even if it's absent from the awful literature about nk in english.
This is the point. Don't take it personally. This kind ofstubborness and this effect is pronounced from people like Victor chaall the waydown.it seems toradiate out from some schools, too, and goes right up to the state department. I find it inexplicable.
You're locked in apolitically realist trap. You don't see north Korea. It's something else for you. Look at north Korea in North Korean terms and it gets much clearer. Trust meon this.Manage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 1d
Charles Park Facts by Statistics Korea:
* NK economy (US$33.5 billion) growing by 3.1% is now $34.5 billion or a difference of $1 billion approx.
* SK economy (US$1.51 trillion) growing by 2.8% is now $1.55 trillion or a difference of $40 billion.
Which economy grew more? In one year, ROK created another entire NK economy, in terms of estimated value.
You still have people like Brian Meyers, Bradley Martin, Craig Urquhart tell you, you have to worry about NK takeover of the ROK. You got to take them seriously. Be afraid. Be afraid. Be very afraid. You'll have others that tell you ROK can never defend itself. It's a trick. They're coming for you.
Ergo, such memes justify the Status Quo and it is not at all helpful to achieving peace.Manage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 17h · Edited
Craig Urquhart You've clearly not only not read myers at all- not even this short piece - nor have you apparently read a word of anything written in korean. What you've said isn't germane to the discussion.
How about this: read what myers wrote. If you'd like, I ca...See moreManage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 15h · Edited
Charles Park Tell me how a $40 billion a year economy can swallow up a $1,550 billion economy? Meyers is nuts.Manage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 15h
Craig Urquhart That's nothing like anything remotely what anyone has ever said, least among them myers.
If you're going to continue to not even read what others say, I'd refrain from commenting on it. Nobody has said what you've said here....See more
1Manage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 15h · Edited
Craig Urquhart Look. If you can't even be bothered to read what people write and everything you respond with doesn't even take into account what others have said on the most basic level, then I'm sorry, but there's no point in continuing this discussion. You've raise...See more
1Manage
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 15h
Craig Urquhart Go read his piece, step one. Read some work by (insert anything by any Korean scholar), or try hassig and oh or Helen smith for the least troublesome work in english. They're not great but it's about as good as the English literature gets.
You don't s...See moreManage
You seem to fail to understand what's being said, and you don't seem to know you don't understand what was said, or the reason that it's said, yet bizarrely, despite not understanding what's been said, or because of this, you appear deaf to having this pointed out and more confident in dismissing all info you disagree with.
I'm sure you've seen this in other fields. You're doing t his now. I say this in a polite way, meant well:
You are demonstrating not coherent objections to positions, but that you fundamentally don't understand what those positions are articulating. Really. This is the case.
I'm going to sign off from this. I've got a huge paper to write. The subject, coincidentally, is a systematic evaluation of the published scholarship in english with a comparison to work in Korean, with proposals on how to best improve the level of English scholarship by understanding the causes of its weaknesses beyond mere lack of access to the far higher quality work in korean: it's a systematic problem that shows up in many ways. I have to finish this in the next few days, as my supervisor [Who??] needs to get it and it's meant for internal distribution in early january.
I'll say it again: you demonstrate a lack of understanding of what you're critiquing, and your objections clearly indicate you didn't understand what you were critiquing, and I'm not sure if this is because you either have never read it or have some completely uninformed perspective that excludes information you dislike: as in you're using nk as an issue for other purposes and don't care to know.
I don't know which is true, only that you clearly didn't get it and your commentary shows this. So it's not useful for me to harangue you on this point; I've said it, it's obviously true, there's an issue there and no wonder you think it's all nuts.
If it was what you say it is, sure it'd be nuts. But nobody has said what you think they said, and you seem immune to having this pointed out to you.
So have a happy holidays
LikeShow More Reactions · Reply · 14h
Mike Bassett
People like Charles cannot be helped and therefore arguing with them is a waste of time.
They get incensed every time they realize another person is seeing North Korea for what they really are. Trust me on that. And then they wage attack against you for realizing that the Devil is a liar. ...See moreManage
========
They get incensed every time they realize another person is seeing North Korea for what they really are. Trust me on that. And then they wage attack against you for realizing that the Devil is a liar. ...See moreManage
========
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