This list of books on North Korea ( Democratic People's Republic of Korea - DPRK) provides and annotated recommendation for understanding the country. Other books previously mentioned below such as The Man on Mao's Right and On China also add to an understanding the DPRK in context with the region.
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, by Barbara Demick (December 29, 2009) describes the extremes of life in North Korea from the 1950’s to late 2009 through people, who lived in the North Korean city of Chongjin.
Escape from Camp 14: One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, by Blaine Harden (March 29, 2012) describes the Prison Camps in North Korea, through the life and escape of a man born inside one of the camps. The book also describes the processes challenges with the transition common to defectors from North Korea who make it to South Korea, where each defector gets the three months of de-programming and why some go back to the DPRK after the deprogramming. This is a great follow-on (read) to Nothing to Envy.
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, by David Halberstam (September 25, 2007) describes the Korean War’s major battles (beginning to end) and leaders including General MacArthur, and LtGen O. P. Smith (USMC). The book provides both big picture perspectives along with descriptions of individuals personal experiences in small unit actions.
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag, by Chol-hwan Kang and Pierre Rigoulot (2001) clearly describes Kang Chol-hwan's imprisonment at the Yodok camp in 1977 at the age of nine and release 10 years later.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Friday, June 9, 2017
China and Russia Enhancing Cooperation
China and Russia continue to increase global influence, no longer the regional powers that the United States could dominate at the end of the Cold War in 1990. Since 1985, both China and Russia have moved away from their stagnant dying central planned economies, albeit by different paths.
Russia's Path
In 1906, Russia tried wholesale foreign intervention starting a war with Japan. 12 years later, the government in the form of the Russian Empire ended with the Revolution of 1917. In 1979, the Soviets again tried wholesale foreign intervention in Afghanistan. 12 years later, the Russian government in the form of the Soviet Union dissolved.
Russia initially Gorbachev in 1991 toward economic reforms through a loosening of political control of the member states within the Soviet Union. Perestroika (literally “restructuring”) was meant to allow a restructuring of the controls without having to dissolve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's, policy of glasnost (literally "openness") was meant to draw in technology to improve the economy. Anti-communist democracy liberals combined with self-seeking private entrepreneurs (oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky) through an opening and then control of the television and print media.
State owned enterprises (SOE's) were sold to private control by national and regional political leaders through shady deals and fraud. Control of these vast resources, which included banking, petroleum and telecommunications, sparked a feudalism resulting in the end of the communist government and oligarchs in control politics through money.
As the economy began to improve for Russians and openness increased, an ethnically European Muslim population located far from the central government power in Chechnya began to push for independence. That resulted in the first Chechen War from 1994 to 1996, which Russian President Boris Yeltsin temporarily ended with a peace treaty.
In August 1998, the Russian government devalued the ruble, defaulted on domestic debt, and declared a moratorium on repayment of foreign debt and declared bankruptcy. Seeing the weakness in the Russian government, Chechen separatists began a second war 1999. Yeltsin left office handing power directly Vladimir Putin.
By the end of the 1990's, democracy and freedom of speech had not brought a free market where all Russians could prosper and security was gone as Russia was rocked by a cycle of terrorist bombings. Instead, Russian government bureaucrat entrepreneurs lead by Vladimir Putin took control of the major industries. National government took power from regional governments.
China's Path
By contrast, China has historically not sought wars of foreign conquest. China sent forces to neighboring North Korea in 1950 to stop an increase of American influence in Asia. Then in 1979, China sent 30 divisions into Northern Vietnam for a short three-week war to stop a Vietnamese aggression in Cambodia.
China has the Uyghurs, an ethnically Asian Muslim population, located far from the central government power. However, the Chinese has remained more stable - avoiding the destruction and the 160,000 people that the Chechen government claims died in the two wars.
Starting in 1986, China began in controlled stages a gradual shift away from a centrally planned economy toward privatization of State owned enterprises (SOE's). Instead of uncontrolled wholesale fraud, China brought in foreign bankers to provide advice on how to move SOE into private corporations using western business models and practices.
Corruption had run rampant in the new Russian government, which was not a stable democracy with an independent judicial system. By contrast, the corruption that had begun spread quickly in China was able to be stopped by a stable government. Regional government officials in China, had begun to personally profit from the sale of state (government) property, sparking the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. In less than three years, the Chinese population identified the corruption to central government in China, which moved to stop it.
Since 1986, the Russian government, now under Putin, has fought wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria. The Russian foreign intervention costs Russia economically and may again lead to government-ending instability.
Since 1986, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty and not started or fought in any wars.
The Result
The United States must deal with countries and their governments pragmatically and with a long term strategy. China and Russia are dealing with each other as equals because pragmatically they are two of the largest players on the world stage. American's must also deal with China and Russia as equals, vice losers in the Cold War to be controlled by American hegemony.
Reference
Xi: China, Russia should enhance ties, boost role of SCO
By AN BAIJIE in Astana ,2017-06-09
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017xivisitskazakhstan/2017-06/09/content_29683124_2.htm
SCO expansion boon for regional stability, development
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017xivisitskazakhstan/2017-06/08/content_29672077.htm
The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War by Arkady Ostrovsky (June 28, 2016)
The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen (March 1, 2012)
Russia's Path
In 1906, Russia tried wholesale foreign intervention starting a war with Japan. 12 years later, the government in the form of the Russian Empire ended with the Revolution of 1917. In 1979, the Soviets again tried wholesale foreign intervention in Afghanistan. 12 years later, the Russian government in the form of the Soviet Union dissolved.
Russia initially Gorbachev in 1991 toward economic reforms through a loosening of political control of the member states within the Soviet Union. Perestroika (literally “restructuring”) was meant to allow a restructuring of the controls without having to dissolve the Soviet Union. Gorbachev's, policy of glasnost (literally "openness") was meant to draw in technology to improve the economy. Anti-communist democracy liberals combined with self-seeking private entrepreneurs (oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky) through an opening and then control of the television and print media.
State owned enterprises (SOE's) were sold to private control by national and regional political leaders through shady deals and fraud. Control of these vast resources, which included banking, petroleum and telecommunications, sparked a feudalism resulting in the end of the communist government and oligarchs in control politics through money.
As the economy began to improve for Russians and openness increased, an ethnically European Muslim population located far from the central government power in Chechnya began to push for independence. That resulted in the first Chechen War from 1994 to 1996, which Russian President Boris Yeltsin temporarily ended with a peace treaty.
In August 1998, the Russian government devalued the ruble, defaulted on domestic debt, and declared a moratorium on repayment of foreign debt and declared bankruptcy. Seeing the weakness in the Russian government, Chechen separatists began a second war 1999. Yeltsin left office handing power directly Vladimir Putin.
By the end of the 1990's, democracy and freedom of speech had not brought a free market where all Russians could prosper and security was gone as Russia was rocked by a cycle of terrorist bombings. Instead, Russian government bureaucrat entrepreneurs lead by Vladimir Putin took control of the major industries. National government took power from regional governments.
China's Path
By contrast, China has historically not sought wars of foreign conquest. China sent forces to neighboring North Korea in 1950 to stop an increase of American influence in Asia. Then in 1979, China sent 30 divisions into Northern Vietnam for a short three-week war to stop a Vietnamese aggression in Cambodia.
China has the Uyghurs, an ethnically Asian Muslim population, located far from the central government power. However, the Chinese has remained more stable - avoiding the destruction and the 160,000 people that the Chechen government claims died in the two wars.
Starting in 1986, China began in controlled stages a gradual shift away from a centrally planned economy toward privatization of State owned enterprises (SOE's). Instead of uncontrolled wholesale fraud, China brought in foreign bankers to provide advice on how to move SOE into private corporations using western business models and practices.
Corruption had run rampant in the new Russian government, which was not a stable democracy with an independent judicial system. By contrast, the corruption that had begun spread quickly in China was able to be stopped by a stable government. Regional government officials in China, had begun to personally profit from the sale of state (government) property, sparking the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. In less than three years, the Chinese population identified the corruption to central government in China, which moved to stop it.
Since 1986, the Russian government, now under Putin, has fought wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, and Syria. The Russian foreign intervention costs Russia economically and may again lead to government-ending instability.
Since 1986, China has lifted 800 million people out of poverty and not started or fought in any wars.
The Result
The United States must deal with countries and their governments pragmatically and with a long term strategy. China and Russia are dealing with each other as equals because pragmatically they are two of the largest players on the world stage. American's must also deal with China and Russia as equals, vice losers in the Cold War to be controlled by American hegemony.
Reference
Xi: China, Russia should enhance ties, boost role of SCO
By AN BAIJIE in Astana ,2017-06-09
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017xivisitskazakhstan/2017-06/09/content_29683124_2.htm
SCO expansion boon for regional stability, development
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2017xivisitskazakhstan/2017-06/08/content_29672077.htm
The Invention of Russia: From Gorbachev's Freedom to Putin's War by Arkady Ostrovsky (June 28, 2016)
The Man without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen (March 1, 2012)
Saturday, June 3, 2017
Russian vs Chinese Reform Effects 1985 - 2017
The 1980's saw the fundamental structural change of the two largest communist countries in the world. In 1985, the Soviet Union under Gorbachev and in 1986 China under Deng Xiopeng. Since the bulk of the previous articles focused on China, the following begins to consider Russia.
Vladimir Putin endured harsh times in poor assignments as a KGB officer during the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, who presided over the USSR from 1964 until his death in 1982. This period under what the west termed "détente" or relaxing, Brezhnev signed in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). Putin saw Brezhnev as a mediocre leader who hated confrontation and so let President Nixon and then President Reagan push Russians into bad agreements. Simultaneously, the USSR built up its armed forces and foreign military intervention at great economic expense. Yuri Andropov, the former head of the KGB replaced Brezhnev in 1982 only to die 15 months later and be replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died 13 months later.
When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, the country's economy suffered from the extraordinary military expenditures and faced the United States economic prowess lead by Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev saw glasnost ("openness") as a means to get the USSR moving technologically. The USSR produced more iron ore than the US but industry waste meant in produced half the iron. Simultaneously, Gorbachev pushed a policy of "perestroika" (restructuring) in the Soviet government intending to rid the government of inefficiency as he removed it from industry.
Vladimir Putin endured harsh times in poor assignments as a KGB officer during the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, who presided over the USSR from 1964 until his death in 1982. This period under what the west termed "détente" or relaxing, Brezhnev signed in treaties on armament control (SALT I, SALT II, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty). Putin saw Brezhnev as a mediocre leader who hated confrontation and so let President Nixon and then President Reagan push Russians into bad agreements. Simultaneously, the USSR built up its armed forces and foreign military intervention at great economic expense. Yuri Andropov, the former head of the KGB replaced Brezhnev in 1982 only to die 15 months later and be replaced by Konstantin Chernenko, who died 13 months later.
When Mikhail Gorbachev became General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in March 1985, the country's economy suffered from the extraordinary military expenditures and faced the United States economic prowess lead by Ronald Reagan. Gorbachev saw glasnost ("openness") as a means to get the USSR moving technologically. The USSR produced more iron ore than the US but industry waste meant in produced half the iron. Simultaneously, Gorbachev pushed a policy of "perestroika" (restructuring) in the Soviet government intending to rid the government of inefficiency as he removed it from industry.
From 1985 to 1990, Putin served as a KGB agent in Dresden,
East Germany. Tiananmen Square protests of which started April 15, 1989 and
lasted until June 4, 1989 deeply affected the Soviet government's actions in
response to protests in Soviet constituent countries. In 1989, as protesters began ransacking East
German government buildings, Putin burned his KGB files, which he considered
otherwise useless press clippings, in the Soviet Offices. Born just after the WWII in the war torn St.
Petersburg (Leningrad) to a hard life in a one room apartment, Putin had lived
the brutal calculating life of a thug.
After Putin returned to St. Petersburg in 1990, he resigned
from the KGB and quit the Communist Party, bailing out of a dying regime. Putin got a job in the Mayor's Office in St.
Petersburg, with responsibility for promoting international relations and
foreign investments. The 15 republics
that made up the Soviet Union began to fall apart, and on 8 December 1991,
Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belavezha Accords, which declared the
Soviet Union dissolved. On December 25,
1991, Gorbachev declared office of the President of the USSR extinct as he resigned
tuning power over to Russian President Yeltsin.
The next day, the Supreme Soviet, which had been the Soviet Union's
highest governmental body voted itself out of existence.
Liberals anticipated the rise of a democracy; however, the
collapse of the Soviet Union strict structure brought severe drop fall in
living conditions as poverty, crime, corruption, and unemployment skyrocketed.
Russia created private-national corporations from state
owned enterprises (SOE) which created corporations such as Gazprom as a
monopoly in the gas sector.
As people were starving in St. Petersburg, Putin reportedly
directed $93 million in Russian state bulk metals to be in exchanged for
foreign food aid that never arrived.
Starting in 1996, he rose through a liberal political party by managing
elections, not running himself.
By mid-1998, Russian President Boris Yeltsin had appointed
Putin as Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), the successor of the
KGB. On 31 December 1999, Yeltsin
resigned, which made Putin the Acting President of the Russian Federation.
Three months later, Putin won the Presidential elections with 53% of the vote.
June 2000, Putin upon assuming the office of President of
Russia, Putin ostensibly moved to control the huge political power that
capitalists in Russia had gained beginning with firing the Chairman of the
Gazprom board and replacing him with Dmitry Medvedev, one of Putin's
subordinates from St. Petersburg.
After a constitutional maximum of two terms as President,
Putin essentially installed the liberal looking Medvedev as President for one
term. This was long enough for the term
of the president to be increased to 6 years.
The 1980's saw the fundamental structural change of the two
largest communist countries in the world.
In 1985, the Soviet Union under Gorbachev began to move toward
decentralized Soviet control and a multi-party democracy. While nearly
simultaneously, in 1986 China under Deng Xiopeng moved toward "capitalism
with Chinese characteristics" meaning free enterprise but one political
party.
Since the 1980's, Russia became a state essentially ruled by
one man, who dissolved democratic organizations while reconsolidating control
over former state owned enterprises (SOE) with questionable closed accounting practices intended to promote Russian state policies.
Simultaneously, China brought in international accounting
firms to advise the privatization of state owned enterprises (SOE) essentially
phasing them out while lifting an estimated 800 million people out of poverty.
One result is that in April 2017 China has a GDP 2nd in world while Russia's GDP is 10th after Canada, Italy and Brazil. Neither country is a multi-party democracy. One is the largest geographically, and has immense natural resources, and the other contains the largest population. Both continue to strictly control their populations.
References:
1. Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, by Masha Gessen, March 5, 2013
2. Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower, (April 12, 2016), by Henry M. Paulson,
(plus articles and books cited previously below)2. Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower, (April 12, 2016), by Henry M. Paulson,
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