Kim Jong Il is known to follow foreign reports about him closely. AND he enjoys watching foreign films.

What this means is that someone was forced to translate “Team America” (words and “wonewy” music) for the paranoid little Stalinist.

(Not a job for which I’d volunteer. . .)

Thanks for getting back to me on the subject. I am wondering if in fact you read these papers in Japanese. Cover to cover. Everyday. I am also wondering if you are or are not confusing Sankei newspaper with say Sankei Sports. Sankei Sports is indeed a bit wacky, but no more so than any other of the evening sports papers. The one thing Sankei newspaper does have is an editorial page that is strongly anti-communist (thus its interest in North Korea and Taiwan) and strongly pro Japanese-American alliance. Its straight news I find less ideologically tainted than all the other papers, or at least on par with Yomiuri. But Mainich and Asahi to a much greater extent than even their European counterparts lets their political leanings color the straight news. With the communists and socialists taking such a beating these last few years one often hears from the papers that support the far left, these being Asahi and Mainichi to a lesser extent, the belief there is a vast right-wing conspiracy doing them in. This leads to the Sankei=wacky meme. What you say about the reporters, especially those in Washington, is very true, except for Sankei’s Mr. Komori and one or two others. The papers you speak of all have regional bureaus and thus each edition of each paper differs to some extent by region. Not to mention, places like Kyoto, have their own paper. I would say Sankei serves a very important function, debunking Asahi, and is part Washington Times, part Wall Street Journal, and part Washington Post on a good day. To end, the reporters I know all have their own desks. With this said your overall suspicion regarding the mass media in Japanese is well founded.

Okay, maybe “wacky” is too strong a word. “Washingtontimesesque” may be a better adjective. I admit they scoop more North Korea stories than the others, if only because they are obsessed with North Korea and run many more stories than anyone else. But for every hit they have there are a couple stories like “Princess Tenko and Kim Jong Il’s Secret Love Nest.”

But in general all Japanese papers are suspect. I’ve done some public relations work that involved visits to the press clubs, and amazingly the reporters from the various newspapers don’t even have desks at their own companies: they sit side-by-side at their desks in the press clubs, listening in to each other’s conversations.

The lack of real city or regional newspapers is also a problem. All the major papers are national. Comparing it to the U.S., it’s like only the NYT, Washingon Post, USA Today, LA Times, and WSJ existed, with the next level being the neighborhood advertiser.

This is historic Chinese security policy of many centuries – China is the center of the universe, and anything right around them needs to be properly tamed.

It is possible that ROK could cut some sort of deal where a reunified Korea would be acceptable to China, but the price would be steep – probably at least a minimal loss of sovereignty.

Also known as “Rope-a-dope”. Watch for it, especially if this is the only indication that the NorKs are getting restless.

I’m just sayin’…

South Korea can take over North Korea at any time – the NKPA doesn’t exist anymore. All the ROK has to do is send a corps north. There isn’t anything to stop them.

The alternative is to wait six months for millions of starving North Koreans to head south (millions more will go to China and some even to Russia).

So what is stopping the ROK from reunifying Korea? Might it be that they don’t want to? Perhaps Sandy P. is right in saying:

“What really scares the Sorks is that they paid attention to what happened to Germany after reunification. It bankruputed them and Sork fears the same, so they want to “go reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally”

slow.”

I used to agree with you – there are major, major downsides to a Chinese takeover of North Korea, and the point you raise was only a minor one of those.

But IMO China’s ruling group will do anything to avoid threats to their own rule from events in North Korea. And it is also a question of them being paranoid control freaks – they’d much rather have the ability to influence events than be forced to merely endure them.