Kathreb

Monday, April 19, 2004

Back to DC

Am off again to the Nation's Capital so blogs will continue to be in short supply for at least another week.

Monday, April 05, 2004

North Korea's Nuclear Crisis Conference

Last Friday the Center for the Pacific Rim at the University of San Francisco held a conference on North Korea's Nuclear Crisis. Speakers included such prominent figures such as Victor Cha of Georgetown University, David Kang, Rosemary Foot, Patrick Lloyd Hatcher, Peter Hayes of Nautilus fame, Bruce Cumings, Kongdan Oh, T.J. Pempel, Scott Snyder, etc. In sum, a very impressive line up of the top Korea specialists.

The Pacific Rim center put on a good show which was well organised and provided a schedule that was highly informative and gave ample time for Q&A. Although, of course North Korea's nuclear crisis was not solved during the conference we did get to hear some interesting perspectives on the inter-play of North Korea's economic reform and its politics, US, China and Japanese relations, South Korea's perspective, and other factors which all have implications for what US and other countries can do to try and resolve the matter of North Korea's nuclear development.

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Thursday, April 01, 2004

Like a Speeding Bullet Train

Korea's much anticipated Bullet Train has pulled into the station. Cool!! - only six years late which is about standard for Korea's railway systems. The Seoul subway line number six was about five or six or more years behind schedule. And given the often rough-shod approach Koreans take to doing things its actually comforting to know it was behind schedule - hopefully it means they did a better job.

On a side to that, I found this little article aboutwhether or not US military can get a free ride on the shiny new trains or not. As the article notes, that could be a sensitive issue in these days of anti-american sentiment. Maybe they could ride in the caboose.

Korea and China - Business Week has an article on Korea's deveoping ties with China. Its a very interesting article discussing how Korea is reaping many benefits from making close ties with China and outsourcing labour and production. However, it warns of China's rapid pace of development and its ability to catch-up and overtake Korea in many areas where Korea currently enjoys a competitive advantage.

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