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Jean H. Lee

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feature stories, news articles & op-eds

Featured
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018

From bombs to Olympic banners: Can winter sports diplomacy stop a war in the Korean peninsula? North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un took the world by surprise with his announcement that his nation and South Koreawould unite under a single banner at the Winter Olympics. Was it a diplomatic masterstroke or a cynical stunt? Journalist Jean Lee pieces together what really led to this public relations coup. 

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Feb 12, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018

North Korea’s participation in these Olympics runs the risk of rewarding bad behavior and handing Mr. Kim a diplomatic victory that he will brandish as proof that his strategy was right. Still, we have to start somewhere after so many years of tension.

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Feb 8, 2018
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017

Romance, humor, tension — everyone loves a good sitcom, even North Koreans. But in North Korea, TV dramas are more than mere entertainment. They play a crucial political role by serving as a key messenger of party and government policy. They aim to shape social and cultural mores in North Korean society. And in the Kim Jong-un era, they act as an advertisement for the “good life” promised to the political elite. 

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Dec 18, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants
Aug 11, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: Donald Trump is giving North Korea exactly what it wants
Aug 11, 2017

If President Trump thinks that his threats last week of “fire and fury” and weapons “locked and loaded” have North Koreans quaking in their boots, he should think again. If anything, the Mao-suit-clad cadres in Pyongyang are probably gleeful that the president of the United States has played straight into their propaganda.

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Aug 11, 2017
Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family
Aug 10, 2017
Esquire: Inside Kim Jong Un's bloody scramble to kill off his family
Aug 10, 2017

While Kim Jong Un stares down his enemies abroad, it's easy to forget that he's also fighting a battle from within his own borders: to survive at all costs. Like any autocratic leader, he's under constant pressure to maintain order and allegiance. But his youth and inexperience make staying in power that much more of a challenge, which in turn requires absolute control. Opposition must be eliminated. No one is safe, not even his own family.

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Aug 10, 2017
Wilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended
Jun 1, 2017
Wilson Quarterly: For North Korea, the War Never Ended
Jun 1, 2017

We in the United States often call the Korean conflict the “Forgotten War.” My high school history textbook in Minnesota devoted barely a paragraph to it, and growing up as the child of Korean immigrants, I knew almost nothing about a war my own parents survived as children. But the war is very much alive and present in North Korea, and the standoff with the United States figures prominently in their propaganda, identity, and policy. 

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Jun 1, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue
Feb 24, 2017
New York Times Op-Ed: North Korea's Palace Intrigue
Feb 24, 2017

After the 14th-century Korean ruler Taejo, founder of the Joseon dynasty, chose the youngest of his eight sons to succeed him, a spurned son killed the heir apparent and at least one of his other half brothers and eventually rose to the throne. Today, rumors of royal fratricide are again swirling, this time around the court of Kim Jong-un, the ruler of North Korea.

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Feb 24, 2017
Jan 7, 2016
New York Times Magazine: Kim Jong Un's Generational Ambitions
Jan 7, 2016

It was party time in Pyongyang. Workers scrambled to hang congratulatory banners in the lobby of the Koryo Hotel, my home away from home in the North Korean capital, where I was posted as an Associated Press correspondent. A gaggle of cooks, still in aprons and chef’s hats, dashed out from the kitchen to watch the festivities, and mothers tightened the pink bows in their daughters’ hair as the girls fidgeted in anticipation.

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Jan 7, 2016
Jul 20, 2013
AP: Vet Returns to North Korea for 1st Black Navy Aviator
Jul 20, 2013

Two years after he made history by becoming the Navy's first black pilot, Ensign Jesse Brown lay trapped in his downed fighter plane in subfreezing North Korea, his leg broken and bleeding. His wingman crash-landed to try to save him, and even burned his hands trying to put out the flames.

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Jul 20, 2013
AP: Pyongyang Glitters, but Rest of North Korea Still Dark
Apr 29, 2013
AP: Pyongyang Glitters, but Rest of North Korea Still Dark
Apr 29, 2013

A year after leader Kim Jong Un promised in a speech to bring an end to the "era of belt-tightening" and economic hardship in North Korea, the gap between the haves and have-nots has only grown with Pyongyang's transformation.

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Apr 29, 2013
AP: Sweeping New Changes Expected at North Korean Farms
Sep 24, 2012
AP: Sweeping New Changes Expected at North Korean Farms
Sep 24, 2012

North Korean farmers who have long been required to turn most of their crops over to the state may now be allowed to keep their surplus food to sell or barter in what could be the most significant economic change enacted by young leader Kim Jong Un since he came to power nine months ago.

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Sep 24, 2012
AP: Ex-North Korean Star Recalls 'Ping Pong Diplomacy'
Jul 12, 2012
AP: Ex-North Korean Star Recalls 'Ping Pong Diplomacy'
Jul 12, 2012

Her eyes well up when Li Pun Hui recalls her role in a historic example of "ping pong diplomacy."

"For 50 days, 24 hours a day, we lived together as one, trained together, slept in the same room and ate all our meals together," Li told The Associated Press at an interview in Pyongyang. "We shared the same food and our feelings."

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Jul 12, 2012
AP: In North Korea, learning to hate US starts early
Jun 23, 2012
AP: In North Korea, learning to hate US starts early
Jun 23, 2012

For North Koreans, the systematic indoctrination of anti-Americanism starts as early as kindergarten and is as much a part of the curriculum as learning to count.

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Jun 23, 2012
AP: North Korea's Bethlehem is Birthplace of Kim Religion
Apr 8, 2012
AP: North Korea's Bethlehem is Birthplace of Kim Religion
Apr 8, 2012

As the snow drifts through the towering evergreen trees, silence enshrouds this remote pilgrimage site, a place some here consider the Bethlehem of North Korea.

As North Korea celebrates the centenary of Kim Il Sung's birth, his past, like the misty peaks of Mount Paektu, remains veiled in myth.

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Apr 8, 2012
AP: North Korea Rebuilds Pyongyang to Welcome New Leader
Mar 31, 2012
AP: North Korea Rebuilds Pyongyang to Welcome New Leader
Mar 31, 2012

Scores of soldiers march through a zone sealed off by green mesh fencing and checkpoints. A crew of about 1,000 soldiers and 2,000 police officers works around the clock, along with thousands more civilians in street clothes and hard hats, spurred on by billboards that rate their performance.

But they are not building tanks here at the foot of Mansu Hill, or weapons, except perhaps for a propaganda war. They are building 3,000 new apartments, a department store, schools and a theater, in the hope of selling a modern version of Pyongyang to the people of North Korea albeit one that most will never get to see.

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Mar 31, 2012
AP: China Brings Supermarket Concept to North Korea
Feb 26, 2012
AP: China Brings Supermarket Concept to North Korea
Feb 26, 2012

In his last public appearance, late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il went shopping. He peered at the prices affixed to shelves packed with everything from Pantene shampoo to Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. And he nodded his approval of Pyongyang's version of Walmart, which was soon to open courtesy of China.

The visit played up a decidedly un-communist development in North Korea: A new culture of commerce is springing up, with China as its inspiration and source. 

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Feb 26, 2012
AP: Shades of North Korea's Founder in Its Young New Leader
Jan 7, 2012
AP: Shades of North Korea's Founder in Its Young New Leader
Jan 7, 2012

The resemblance is striking: the full cheeks and quick smile, the confident gait, the habit of gesturing with both hands when he speaks.North Korea's young new leader, Kim Jong Un, appears to be fashioning himself as the reincarnation of Kim Il Sung, his grandfather and the nation's founder, as he seeks to solidify his hold on the nation of 24 million in the wake of his father's death last month.

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Jan 7, 2012
AP: A Look at North Korea Finds Country on Cusp of Change
Aug 3, 2011
AP: A Look at North Korea Finds Country on Cusp of Change
Aug 3, 2011

Communist North Korea is a world both foreign and familiar, a place where the men wear Mao suits and children tote Mickey Mouse backpacks, where they call one another "comrade" and love their spicy kimchi.

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Aug 3, 2011
AP: Quiet Digital Revolution Under Way in North Korea
Jul 24, 2011
AP: Quiet Digital Revolution Under Way in North Korea
Jul 24, 2011

North Korea is undergoing its own digital revolution, even as it grapples with chronic shortages of food and fuel. It is still among the most isolated of nations, with cyberspace policies considered among the most restrictive in the world. Yet inside Pyongyang, there's a small but growing digital world, and a whole new vocabulary to go with it: CNC, e-libraries, IT, an operating system called Red Star and a Web portal called Naenara.

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Jul 24, 2011
AP: North Korea's Rooney Loves His Cars, Clothes and Rap
Jun 14, 2010
AP: North Korea's Rooney Loves His Cars, Clothes and Rap
Jun 14, 2010

He plays like Rooney but behaves a little like Beckham. He loves his cars, his rap music and his clothes, and changes hairstyles more often than you can say "Kim Jong Il."North Korea striker Jong Tae Se is not your average North Korean.

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Jun 14, 2010
May 19, 2010
AP: For the 2 Koreas, Joint Appearance at World Cup Turns Sour
May 19, 2010

With both North and South Korea in the World Cup for the first time, many on this war-divided peninsula were hoping that sports could cross the border and unite people. But the sinking of a South Korean warship in March has shattered the mood and heightened tensions between the two nations, turning the World Cup into a missed opportunity less than a month before the games start.

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May 19, 2010
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North Korea Rocket Launch Shows Young Leader as Gambler 

AP: North Korea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler →

December 13, 2012

By Jean H. Lee 

Associated Press

December 13, 2012

Pyongyang, North Korea 

A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country's young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.

Wednesday's rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father's death.

The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.

Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un's father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.

Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country's international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea's military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim's rule.

The launch's success, 14 years after North Korea's first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.

"North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader" who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.

The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.

Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.

Workers' Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that "hostile forces" had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the "cunning" critics.

North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or "Lode Star" - the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.

Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to "Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il."

But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.

Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.

"It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space," Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday's ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.

"The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again," she told The Associated Press. "And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future."

Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.

Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.

"Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige," according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

Noland, however, also mentioned the "Machiavellian argument" that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military - "the only real threat to his rule."

Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.

The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father's legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea's political and economic isolation, he said.

On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.

Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.

North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.

The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang - and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.

Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea's nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.

If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, "it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger," Snyder said.

 

In AP, Op-eds Tags rockets, Kim Jong Un, North Korea, military, ballistic missiles, sanctions
← AP: Google Executive Gets Look at North Koreans Using Internet AP: North Korea Replaces Defense Minister →

Latest Posts

Featured
Jan 22, 2019
Asia Dispatches: We Need a Roadmap: Second Trump-Kim Summit Needs to Be More Than Just Another Photo Op
Jan 22, 2019
Jan 22, 2019
Sep 19, 2018
Wilson Center: 'Face-Saving,' Promises, and Propaganda: Jean H. Lee on the Inter-Korean Summit
Sep 19, 2018
Sep 19, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Wilson Center: A Historic Handshake
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 11, 2018
Jun 10, 2018
Wilson Center: ‘Kim Jong Un, International Statesman’
Jun 10, 2018
Jun 10, 2018
May 15, 2018
NPR: 2 Generations, 2 Different Perspectives On Korean Reunification
May 15, 2018
May 15, 2018
Feb 12, 2018
BBC Radio 4: A Korean Thaw?
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 12, 2018
Feb 8, 2018
New York Times Sunday Review: Will North Korea Win the Gold Medal for Deceit?
Feb 8, 2018
Feb 8, 2018
Jan 21, 2018
Getty Images: Skiers at North Korea's Masikryong ski resort
Jan 21, 2018
Jan 21, 2018
Dec 18, 2017
KEI: Soap Operas and Socialism
Dec 18, 2017
Dec 18, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
Prospect: Kim Jong-un has realised there’s a benefit to behaving badly
Oct 10, 2017
Oct 10, 2017
Copyright Jean H. Lee 2014