This WP article gives some hints about China's recent tough stand against Taiwan which looks somewhat puzzling, given president Chen's softened tone for the independence in his inauguration address.
John Kerry opened part of his platform about security issues. Seems like he is reluctant to make a bold but irresponsible proposal and thus fails to distingush himself from Mr. Bush, with the exception of the assertion that he would concentrate on restoring strong alliances with France, Germany and South Korea. Yet, in terms of dealing with North Korea, apparently he has something different in his mind at least at this moment.
I just got an email from Michi, saying that the National Archives recently released approximately 20,000 declassified pages of Henry Kissinger's telephone calls from his 'private' collection, spanning Kissinger's tenure from 1969 to August 1974 as national security adviser and then secretary of state to President Nixon.
The Korea Herald says--------
North Korea is operating a military computer hacking unit to collect secret information on South Korea, a top military official in Seoul said yesterday.
Speaking at a conference on protection of defense information, Defense Security Command chief Lt. Gen. Song Young-keun said the North Korean military had the ability to hack into the computer networks of South Korea's major state organizations.
"Considering intelligence we gathered, the North is operating a hacking unit under the direct instruction of Kim Jong-il," Song said in the statement.
"They are stepping up cyber-terror abilities, such as collection of our information through hacking of our agencies and institutions."
The DSC commander said in May that the North had annually trained about 100 computer hackers to strengthen what he called its "cyberterror" capability against South Korea.
In response, he added, the South Korean military intelligence unit has set up a "counter-cyberterrorism investigative team."
Quoting unnamed DSC officials, Yonhap News Agency said North Korean military authorities had provided intensive and rigorous training in computer-related skills to the operatives assigned to the military unit under the control of the communist state's Korean People's Army. Their main tasks are to access and retrieve classified information from the computer networks of South Korean government agencies and research institutes, according to the report. Attacking computer systems is also part of their mission, Yonhap said.
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What should be noted, probably more than the news per se, might be the fact that the government has made decision to announce it. Obviously it must have been a tough decision to make public the existence of the hacking unit, given the recent mood in Korea that anything negavite about NK(even when it is undeniably true) is being considered a thing that should not be spoken out.
Last Friday, I made a presentation about some readings on postwar Japan’s party politics. Of two articles that I reviewed, Prof. Kohno’s and Steven Reed’s, much more interesting was the latter, which obviously impies that I cannot be a rationalist in its strict sense. Anyway, I like to introduce part of the article here.
By extending Duverger’s law to the Japanese case, Steven Reed came to the conclusion that structure influence behavior through learning process accompanying trial and error, rather than forcing rational choice. According to Reed, postwar Japanese election data tell us that the move to the n+1 equilibrium was conspicuously slow, although eventually reached, and that there had been repeat losers who were running for elections despite their consecutive defeat (for example, some communists), an anomaly that the Duverger’s law cannot explain adequately. The first case, the slow pace, can be explained by the fact that it was actually an incredibly difficult job for parties to reduce the number of candidates, that is, by rational strategy, even when they know it. Reducing the numbers was made possible only when they came to know, by trial-error learning, what price they ought to pay for repeated losses. The second distinction, the persistent existence of repeat losers, shows us another function of an election: the expressive election. Elections are a means of winning seats but they are also opportunities for candidates and voters to express themselves about politics. This is true of, for example, communists and their supporters who had chosen to act expressively instead of strategically.
In fact, although we tend to assume “rationality” quite easily for every players, little evidence of rational calculation was found. It is better to think of the game-theoretic analysis as telling us not about people but about structures. Of two humans, one of whom knows everything about the structure of constraints and incentives surrounding him and calculate rationally the consequences of his action, the other of whom do not really know what situation he is in but is capable of adjusting their behavior to avoid failure and seek success, who is closer to you?
The Seoul Southern District Court remarkably acquitted three “conscientious objectors” who refused to serve their compulsory military service out of their religious belief. (more info) The court dismissed the prosecution’s request to imprison a 22-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, identified as Oh, for violating the Korean Military Service Law in refusing mandatory military conscription. The ruling stated that his act of refusing to join the army or answer the conscription is justified because it was decided according to conscience and thus is a sufficient enough cause to be protected by the clause of the freedom of conscience in the Constitution. The courts however sentenced a 23-year-old conscientious objector to a three year prison term because of a violation of the Korean Military Service Law in refusing to join the army due to his religious belief, saying that his excuse was not sufficient.
The court said in its ruling, “The freedom of conscience includes not only the freedom of mind that constitutes the moral judgment of right and wrong and good and evil that the state cannot interfere in, but also the freedom of silence that guarantees the right not to be forced to express one’s moral judgment explicitly by state power.”
It added that the International Covenants on Human Rights (B) states in clause 2 of article 18 that "one’s freedom to choose one’s own religion shall not be violated by any force." The ICHR (B) is a covenant on civil and political rights and Korea joined it in 1990.
Michi blogged about the Smurfs of which I also was a big fan in my childhood. Come to think of it, certainly at the time, I had really wondered why there is only one girl-smurf (Smurfette) in the smurf village and if she “can” maintain the species of smurf by herself.
I just remembered that my brother had a smurf-related nickname – Gargomel.
It is quite obvious, the Japan Times says, because "nobody in China thinks that it would be reasonable to try to eliminate sales of counterfeit DVDs." In China, the usual response to the question "what should be done?" is that the movie industry should change its business model and sell legitimate DVDs at much lower prices. Certainly, it seems far away when the Chinese authorities will tackle the problem with any earnestness in the situation where the average Chinese thinks that watching counterfeit DVDs threatens no one except Hollywood moguls and rich actors. Rather, they may think Americans should be grateful for the role of counterfeit DVDs as carrier of American Dream.
Finnemore offers a valuable distinction. She defines norms as shared expectations about appropriate behavior held by a community of actors. Unlike ideas which may be held privately, norms are shared and social; they are not just subjective but intersubjective. Ideas may or may not have behavioral implications; norms by definition concern behavior. One could say that norms are collectively held ideas about behavior. This is not to say that norms are never violated – they are – but the very fact that one can talk about a violation indicates the existence of a norm.
What, then, are implications of this distinction for idea-oriented research programs? Above all, ideas should not be confused with norms and thus the content and holder of an idea should be clearly identified before eyeing on its move.
憲法改正への動きが活発になりつつある。毎日新聞で行った国会議員アンケートで改憲派が78％に達した。戦時中のイラクに自衛隊が派遣されている。憲法制定当時は想定していなかった国内外の状況に憲法を適応させるべきとの認識が国民に広がっている。確かに、実態はすでに現行憲法のはるか彼方をいっている。だが、現状追認のみが憲法改正の目標になっていることで本当に十分だろうか。9条改正を以って、国際社会との付き合いのために人並みのことができることを見せるだけでよいだろうか。あふれ出ている改正論議の中で、日本がどのような国のあり方を想定し、国際社会に向けてどのような理念を提示しようとしているかが見つけられないのは、やはり自分の鈍感さのせいか。
One of six stories in a Korean omnibus movie "6개의 시선" contains a live coverage of the shocking operation in which they cut off part of a kid's tongue to make it easier to pronounce "R" and "L." Calming down the crying kid, the mother says, "Don't cry, it's all for you, for you future." ...a little depressed..
To the below questions, David Kang provides an interesting explanation.
According to him, the major logic of Asian international relations is built on the hierarchic system. Under the system, he claims, “it is reasonable for the lesser states to bandwagon rather than balance.”
The hierarchy as a system is stable and order is preserved through a combination of benefits and sanctions that the central power provides to the lesser powers. Good relations with the central state ensures survivial and even prosperity by the lesser states, through a continual flow of good trade, and technology. On the other hand, rejection of the hierarchy brings conflict as the central power intervenes to reestablish the hierarchic order. As a corollary, the optimal strategy for the lesser states, like Korea and Vietnam, is to adjust, get what they can from the central state, in this case China, and not provoke it too much.
As Kang repetedly stresses, this argument is consciously constructed against Waltz’s theory that the weaker states are bound to balance against a rising power, which is quite different from what is really happening in Asian international relations. However, as Kang himself admits, this model cannot escape a criticisim that it oversimplifies, sometimes misunderstand, the 'complex' reality in Asian international relations. Indeed, it doesn't even consider strategic interations between states. A hiearchic system is taken as a given exogenously and the system is basically based on endogenously constructed histrorical memory of “中華秩序”.
My methodological interest is to clarify the microfoundation of the shift. That is, focusing on who or what forces are behind Korea's leaning toward China. It might be sort of commercial interest in the economic cycle, or political incentive of the young generation congressmen to distance themselves from America, or result of cooperation between them. Neither is clarified yet.
According to the Chosun Ilbo(4/28), 63% of the lawmakers of the ruling party, the Open Uri party, who just got elected in recent general election, cited China as a country, the relationship with which should be given a top priority in the government’s managing foreign policy. In contrast, only 26% elects choose Korea-U.S. relations as the most important issue of Korean diplomacy. Given that the Uri party is mainly composed of members whose ideological orientation is left-leaning, the result is, to some extent, understandable. However, it should be noted that this survey is just one more indicator of the recent pro-China drive in Korea. Obviously, there is something odd in the speed with and the extent to which Korea is jumping on the Chinese bandwagon. What does this rapid shift imply? Does it demonstrate Korean’s hope (which is highly likely to end up as a wishful thinking) that China would do something to solve the North Korean problem? Or is it a reflection of a ‘maturity’ of Korea-U.S. relations that makes the congressmen feel that there is NO pressing issues between Korea and the States? What is the microfoundation of the shift? Who drives Korea closer to China and away from the States and, pretty naturally, Japan?