1/23/2018 In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care What Korean Americans Think?

In the Debate Over North Korea, Does

Anyone Care What Korean Americans
Think?
The headline was adapted from a New York Times piece published last week on Nov. 11,
titled, “In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care What South Korea Thinks?”

In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care

What South Korea Thinks?
In Tokyo, Trump gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
fodder for his agenda of militarization and encourag…
www.nytimes.com

I was pleased to see the headline because it shows that the New York Times is recognizing
that South Korea must play a role in resolving this crisis.

The loudest voices in the North Korea crisis belong to Donald Trump, China’s Xi Jinping,
and Japan’s Shinzō Abe, not the people who would be most affected by any eruption of
conflict. The closest neighbor to North Korea, South Korea, has been relatively ignored,
even as President Moon Jae-in repeatedly states that war is not an option. Certainly the
opinions of South Koreans and North Koreans are not highlighted in the media. Even
further down on the media’s radar are the voices of the Korean Americans who have a
double stake in this crisis, as citizens who have built their lives in the US and continue to
hold strong familial and cultural ties to South Korea, and even perhaps North Korea.

Prior to this piece, the Times had published a series of articles that made it seem as though
war with North Korea was an inevitable outcome, echoing the shrill bellicose voices in this
debate. The week before, on November 4, the Times published this piece by Nicholas
Kristof, an otherwise thoughtful and reputable journalist.

Opinion | Slouching Toward War With North Korea

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1/23/2018 In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care What Korean Americans Think?

President Trump is traveling in Asia this week, rallying

countries to strengthen sanctions against North Kore…
nyti.ms

Upon reading this, I shot off this comment to the paper.

“Could the NYT please stop publishing pieces on North Korea with inflammatory titles
written by people with no discernable expertise on the matter? I am generally a fan of
Nicholas Kristof, but his last few pieces on North Korea makes him sound like a mouthpiece
for Kim Jong Un; his words could be twisted in the North Korea media as evidence that
even US elites want to go to war with North Korea. His article is exacerbating an already
fraught situation.

Please consider the many American troops stationed in South Korea, and the incredible
human toll that any conflict would inflict, before publishing pieces that make it sound as
war is a foregone conclusion. Most casualties would be on the Korean penninsula. As a
Korean-American with family and friends serving in the US military and many relatives in
Seoul, South Korea, I feel that this was an irresponsible and thoughtless piece.”

If anyone had doubts that the New York Times comments section is moderated, feel free to
put those doubts to rest. While I’ve seen comments rife with spelling and grammatical
errors released for public view on the comments section, my comment blasting the Times’
coverage was not approved.

I subsequently sent this more moderated response.

“As a journalist who has exposed human rights abuses and humanitarian crises, Nicholas
Kristof should focus on the atrocities that the Kim regime has inflicted on its people instead
of amplifying the steady drumbeats of war within the country. To avoid imprisonment and
starvation, thousands have defected to China, where they live in the shadows, in fear of
deportation by the Chinese police to imprisonment or death in North Korea. The few who
resettled in South Korea and US have shared horrific experiences: starvation, beatings,
rapes, abject poverty. The average North Korean citizen today has probably has seen South
Korean dramas and US movies, dreams of prosperity in the outside world, trades in the

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1/23/2018 In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care What Korean Americans Think?

black market, and lives in fear and poverty. The sanctions must have had a devastating
impact on ordinary North Koreans, who trade with China for their survival. North Korean
society has changed through exposure to information and technology. Humanitarian groups
have floated balloons, filled with flashdrives loaded with Western media and copies of the
Bible, across the DMZ. Given the right tools, ordinary citizens and disaffected elites in
North Korea could instigate change in the country. The US should support and give life to
the voices of the disaffected, oppressed, and suffering. An internal coup is possible. Nicholas
Kristof’s state-sponsored trip to Pyongyang exposed him only to the brainwashed elites, not
the oppressed millions who dream of freedom.”

This comment seemed favorably received, with some agreeing with the need to focus on the
plight on North Korean citizens rather than the erratic and self-destructive actions of its
ruling class. While there has been international coverage on the human rights abuses and
abject poverty in North Korea, that reality has been overshadowed by the nuclear crisis.

On Nov. 17, a North Korean defector made international headlines by driving a truck across
the DMZ, and was shot by his own soldiers before fleeing across the border. During
emergency surgery to tend to his bullet wounds, the North Korean soldier was found to be
riddled with parasitic wounds. His plight shows how poor living standards in North Korea
must be for a relatively high status person to be found with parasitic worms. Parasitic
worms are relatively uncommon in the developed world due to good sanitation and
nutrition.

Surgery Reveals North Korean Defector Is Riddled

With Parasitic Worms
"We have found dozens of fully grown parasitic worms
in his damaged intestines,'' said Dr. Lee Cook-jong, a…
nyti.ms

I hope there is more attention paid to the desperate case of the North Korean citizens. The
number of defectors risking their lives to work in China, while hiding in the shadows from
the police, shows that life in North Korea must be increasingly untenable.

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1/23/2018 In the Debate Over North Korea, Does Anyone Care What Korean Americans Think?

A far more informed analysis of the situation in North Korea is available elsewhere,
including this book by Jieun Baek, “North Korea’s Hidden Revolution.”

North Korea's Hidden Revolution - Inalienable

Where to Buy: Amazon (US) Amazon (UK) Yale
University Press Yale University Press - (UK, EU,…
jieunbaek.com

In my opinion, the best case pie in the sky scenario would be the dissolution of the Kim
regime and a gradual transformation of the North Korean government, elites and military to
create a society that would serve the needs of ordinary citizens. This transformation ould be
followed by a peaceful reunification with South Korea to create a more prosperous
peninsula that would contribute to the global community.

Alas such dreams are in the realm of a magical solution to global warming and terrorism.

At the very least, I hope that the dialogue on North Korea shifts to include the voices of
Koreans and Korean-Americans. Koreans and Korean-Americans, on the other hand, must
mobilize to articulate a clear policy on North Korea that would bring about the peaceful
resolution of this crisis, while laying the foundation for a Korean peninsula that is no longer
riddled with division and the remnants of war.

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