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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 SEOUL 001255 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR ECON KPAO KS US
SUBJECT: SEOUL - PRESS BULLETIN; August 10, 2009 
 
TOP HEADLINES 
------------- 
 
Chosun Ilbo, KBS 
Hyundai Group Chairwoman to Visit N. Korea Today 
to Seek Hyundai Asan Employee's Freedom; 
He is Likely to be Released This Week 
 
JoongAng Ilbo 
ROK: "ROK-U.S. Joint 'Ulchi Freedom Guardian' Exercise 
will be a Low Key Event This Year 
in Order Not to Provoke N. Korea" 
 
¶N. Korea Invites Hyundai Group Chairwoman to Pyongyang 
 
Dong-a Ilbo 
Hwang Jang-yeop, Former Secretary of N. Korea's Workers' Party Who 
Defected to ROK in 1997: "Don't Respond to N. Korea's 
Saber-rattling, and Isolate the North Politically, Economically and 
Ideologically" 
 
Hankook Ilbo 
State-run Universities Face Mergers 
 
Hankyoreh Shinmun 
ROKG to Reduce Number of People on Welfare by 7,000 Next Year; 
President Lee's Promise of "Pro-Ordinary People Policy" Proves to be 
Empty Words 
 
Segye Ilbo 
Former President Kim Dae-jung Recovering 
after Falling into Critical Condition 
 
Seoul Shinmun 
ROKG and Food Industry at Odds 
over Cutting Wheat Flour Prices 
 
 
DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS 
---------------------- 
 
Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai Group, is scheduled to visit 
North Korea today to negotiate the release of a Hyundai Asan 
employee who has been detained in the North since March 30.  There 
is a possibility that she may meet with North Korean leader Kim 
Jong-il. (All) 
 
An ROKG official speculated that the worker is likely to be released 
before the August 15 Liberation Day. (Chosun, JoongAng, Hankook) 
 
 
INTERNATIONAL NEWS 
------------------ 
 
According to the Times of India, an English-language daily newspaper 
in India, India's coast guard detained a "suspicious" North Korean 
cargo ship on August 6 after a six-hour chase off the country's 
southeastern coast and has been investigating the ship ever since. A 
preliminary search of the vessel revealed that it was carrying no 
illegal nuclear materials. (All) 
 
According to the August 9 issue of The New York Times, the Obama 
Administration is likely to focus more on preventing the spread of 
North Korea's nuclear technology than on dismantling its nuclear 
program completely. (Chosun) 
 
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, in an August 9 
contribution to The Washington Post, stressed the importance of 
continuing to seek complete dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear 
program. (Chosun, Segye) 
 
White House National Security Advisor James Jones, in an August 9 
interview with Fox News, said that North Korea has signaled that it 
 
SEOUL 00001255  002 OF 006 
 
 
wants to improve relations with the U.S. and that North Korean 
leader Kim Jong-il seems in full control of the country. (Hankook, 
Hankyoreh, Segye, Seoul, YTN) 
 
 
MEDIA ANALYSIS 
-------------- 
 
-N. Korea 
--------- 
Most ROK newspapers on Saturday (August 8) replayed an August 6 ABC 
News report quoting a USG source briefed on former President Bill 
Clinton's visit to North Korea as saying that former President 
Clinton told North Korean leader Kim Jong-il that North Korea's 
nuclear program will not make that country safer and more secure, 
but rather will continue to lead to further international 
isolation. 
 
Most media today quoted White House National Security Advisor James 
Jones as saying during an August 9 Fox News interview that North 
Korea has signaled that it wants to improve relations with the U.S. 
and that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il seems in full control of 
the country. 
 
All ROK media today gave attention to an August 9 report by the 
Times of India that India's coast guard detained a "suspicious" 
North Korean cargo ship on August 6 after a six-hour chase off the 
country's southeastern coast and has been investigating the ship 
ever since.  According to media reports, a preliminary search of the 
vessel revealed that it was carrying no illegal nuclear materials. 
The ROK media noted that this was the first time a foreign country 
has actually seized a North Korean ship since the UN Security 
Council adopted Resolution 1874 against North Korea in June for its 
second nuclear test in May. 
 
Conservative Chosun Ilbo gave inside-page play to former Secretary 
of State Henry Kissinger's August 9 contribution to The Washington 
Post, quoting him as saying: "Speculation is already rife that last 
week's visit to Pyongyang by former President Bill Clinton brings 
the prospect of a change of course of American policy and of a 
bilateral U.S.-North Korea solution.  But two-party talks outside 
the Six-Party framework never made any sense.  ...  Any outcome 
other than the elimination of North Korea's nuclear military 
capability in a fixed time frame is a blow to nonproliferation 
prospects worldwide and to peace and stability globally." 
 
Chosun Ilbo, in an editorial entitled "U.S. Public Opinion Starts to 
See through Kim Jong-il Tactics," stated: "The Obama Administration 
has made it clear that under no circumstances will it  recognize 
North Korea as a nuclear state and repeat the past pattern in which 
North Korea broke its promises after obtaining profits. 
Paradoxically, this U.S. principle seems to be strengthening after 
former President Clinton's meeting with North Korean leader Kim 
Jong-il." 
 
All ROK media reported today that Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of 
Hyundai Group, will visit North Korea today to negotiate the release 
of a Hyundai Asan employee who has been detained in the North since 
March 30. 
 
Right-of-center JoongAng Ilbo, in particular, raised the possibility 
that she may meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.  JoongAng 
also viewed North Korea's invitation of the chairwoman as having 
come out of consideration for progressive circles in the ROK, as 
well as a conciliatory gesture designed to obtain aid from the ROK 
in order to appease its own citizens. 
 
 
OPINIONS/EDITORIALS 
------------------- 
 
WHY THE U.S. IS KIM JONG-IL'S LAST, BEST HOPE 
(Chosun Ilbo, August 10, 2009, page 30) 
 
 
SEOUL 00001255  003 OF 006 
 
 
By Political affairs reporter Kang Chol-hwan 
 
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton's surprise visit to North Korea 
to win the release of two American journalists went according to 
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's script.  The North used the 
capture of the two reporters to its utmost advantage, the hostages 
providing it with an ideal opportunity to lure an eminent American 
onto its soil just when it became subject to tighter sanctions over 
its nuclear tests and missile launches from the international 
community and the U.S. in particular.  It was a lucky break of the 
first order. 
 
The North used former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's visit 15 years 
ago to bolster the image of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, and when 
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went to watch the 
Arirang mass calisthenics performance in Pyongyang, she gave the 
regime another boost.  It is remarkable that the North treats 
eminent visitors from the U.S., its ostensible archenemy, quite 
differently from the way it receives leaders from China, its closest 
and most important ally. 
 
In the past half century, the North has essentially consolidated 
itself by the sole expedient of anti-Americanism, defining the U.S. 
as a longstanding enemy.  According to North Korean propaganda, 
America is the great imperial power, desperate to destroy the last 
bastion of socialism.  North Korea alone holds out against it now 
that the Soviet Union has fallen and China has deserted the cause. 
 
Few North Koreans believe the propaganda any longer. Many among the 
North Korean privileged classes are beginning to think it is not 
China but North Korea which has deserted socialism, and some of them 
question the wisdom of dealing with the U.S. alone over the nuclear 
issue when they feel it could better be resolved with China.  Hwang 
Jang-yeop, a former Secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party who 
defected to the ROK, recalls, "I often heard Kim Jong-il slander the 
Chinese leadership, but never heard him criticize the United 
States." 
 
The late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping since the early days of 
China's reform asked the North Korean leadership to change, and 
former President Jiang Zemin and current President Hu Jintao 
repeatedly recommended reform.  But for Kim Jong-il, change means 
the end of himself and his system.  That is why China, if it asks 
him to change, becomes in effect the biggest threat. 
 
The Chinese Communist Party, too, sees the Kim Jong-il regime as one 
that has long escaped socialism through the personality cult and 
hereditary feudalism, and is sending a message to Pyongyang that it 
can establish a socialist regime based on a market economy in place 
of Kim's at any time.  Though it fears the emergence of a pro-U.S. 
regime in the North when the current one goes, China is ready to 
drop the Kim regime the moment a serious pro-Beijing reform movement 
emerges. 
 
A sort of farce is being played out whereby the Kim regime, whose 
survival depends on China, is desperate to win recognition from the 
U.S.  Why does North Korea insist on direct negotiations with 
Washington while distancing itself from its ally China, which holds 
all the economic and military keys?  The answer lies in the threat 
called reform and opening. 
 
The essence of all North Korean problems including nuclear, missile, 
and human rights issues, is the fixation on maintaining the current 
dictatorship.  Expanding trade between the ROK and China as well as 
China's rapid economic development represent the biggest threats to 
Kim Jong-il, who, accordingly, believes that nuclear armament is the 
only way to defend himself.  North Korea's groveling reception of 
Bill Clinton and the release of detained journalists even as a South 
Korean remains locked up incommunicado at the joint Kaesong 
Industrial Complex, can be seen not as a diplomatic victory but as 
the last desperate effort to maintain the regime through hostage 
taking. 
 
 
 
SEOUL 00001255  004 OF 006 
 
 
U.S. PUBLIC OPINION STARTS TO SEE THROUGH KIM JONG-IL TACTICS 
(Chosun Ilbo, August 10, 2009, page 31) 
 
It's been almost a year since news broke that North Korean leader 
Kim Jong-il collapsed.  His illness, an unconfirmed rumor in August 
last year, has now been confirmed to have involved not only the 
blood vessels in his brain, but also caused partial paralysis to the 
left side of his body.  Over the past year, Kim hurriedly anointed 
his 25-year-old (sic) son Kim Jong-un as his successor, to continue 
hereditary rule in North Korea. 
 
The elder Kim tried to demonstrate his physical health by speaking 
with former U.S President Bill Clinton for more than three hours, 
but cerebrovascular diseases have a high probability of a relapse. 
Some experts already believe Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law and 
Jong-un's uncle, Chang Sung-taek, a vice director of the Workers' 
Party, have started managing day-to-day state affairs. 
 
The reason why North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in April 
and conducted a second nuclear test in May, even before the Obama 
Administration's North Korea policies took shape, was most likely 
due to the sense of urgency and crisis triggered by Kim's ailing 
health.  This sense of crisis could have caused North Korea's senior 
officials to solidify their belief that possessing nuclear weapons 
was their last chance of survival. 
 
But judging by the latest trend in the international community and 
the U.S., nuclear weapons may not be the ultimate guarantee of 
survival for the North Korean regime.  The Obama Administration has 
made it clear that under no circumstances will it recognize North 
Korea as a nuclear state and repeat the past pattern in which North 
Korea broke its promises after obtaining profits.  Paradoxically, 
this U.S. principle seems to be strengthening after former President 
Clinton's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. 
 
Influential U.S. media including the New York Times and the 
Washington Post, which called for a policy of placating North Korea 
at a time when the George W. Bush Administration went through a 
hardline phase, are now saying that their government must not waver 
in sanctions against the North following Clinton's visit.  "Over the 
last 15 years, North Korea has cajoled the countries involved in the 
Six-Party Talks," the Washington Post recalls. Congress is also 
united in its stance toward North Korea.  The country has rarely 
been as united in its position over the North Korean nuclear 
dilemma. 
 
During recent strategic talks with Washington, Beijing voiced fears 
of a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia.  It was a clear warning 
that it will not accept a nuclear-armed North Korea.  China may not 
immediately restrain North Korea, but nobody can say for sure 
whether the present relationship between Beijing and Pyongyang will 
last forever. 
 
The North Korean nuclear problem must be resolved by Kim Jong-il 
himself.  After his death, North Korea may face a leadership vacuum 
and be left with nobody to handle the problem.  Seoul needs to come 
up with a strategy of convincing North Korea that it can survive 
without nuclear weapons.  From a long-term perspective, such efforts 
dovetail with the ROK's preparations for reunification with North 
Korea.  There is not much time left for both sides. 
 
 
URGING DEMOCRACY IN NORTH KOREA 
(Dong-a Ilbo, August 10, 2009, page 27) 
 
Hwang Jang-yeop, former secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party 
and once the No. 2 man in Pyongyang's power hierarchy, has begun 
urging democracy and reform in the North.  Hwang, who defected to 
the ROK 12 years ago, visited the Dong-A Ilbo's headquarters Friday. 
It was his first visit to a media office since his arrival in the 
ROK.  He told reporters about the human rights situation in the 
North, its leader Kim Jong-il's diplomatic strategy and 
countermeasures against it.  Hwang's comments deserve close 
attention in that he knows both Koreas well. 
 
SEOUL 00001255  005 OF 006 
 
 
 
Hwang called the North's communist regime "a traitor government that 
starved millions of its people to death, turned the whole country 
into a prison camp, and forced countless of North Korean defectors 
to die violent deaths abroad."  He said he learned from a briefing 
by a high-ranking North Korean official that 500,000 North Koreans, 
including 50,000 members of the Workers' Party, died from hunger in 
1995, while one million starved to death in the first 11 months of 
the following year.  Hwang's comment corroborates the rumor that 3.5 
million North Koreans starved to death in the famine. 
 
Though more than 10 percent of the North's 24 million people died 
from hunger, Kim apparently feels no pang of conscience and shirks 
responsibility for this atrocity.  The North's second nuclear 
explosion and long-range missile tests conducted this year resulted 
in the suspension of international food aid, adding to the suffering 
of the North Korean people.  The U.N. Food and Agricultural 
Organization warns that more than six million North Koreans will 
experience a food shortage until harvest season.  If no action is 
taken, a large number of people will die from hunger.  Turning a 
blind eye to the suffering of his people and those who fled the 
country, Kim is instead focusing on transferring power to his son. 
 
To save North Koreans, who are "our people in a non-liberated 
place," Hwang said the international community must distance itself 
from the North while pretending to respect it.  By doing so, he 
said, the North can be isolated from the global community 
politically, ideologically and economically.  He also criticized 
pro-North Korea groups in the ROK for unilaterally urging Seoul to 
resume talks with Pyongyang while blaming their government for 
strained inter-Korean relations.  Hwang urged the need for 
non-governmental organizations and North Korean defectors to lead 
the movement to install democracy in the North. 
 
In August last year, the Lee Myung-bak Administration of the ROK 
allowed Hwang to travel abroad, write books, and give lectures. 
Because of this, he can now express his opinions, something that he 
never could have thought of doing under the two previous 
left-leaning governments in Seoul. 
 
 
FEATURES 
-------- 
 
MANY "HOLES" FOUND IN WEST PROGRAM 
(Segye Ilbo, August 8, 2009, Front Page) 
 
By Reporter Na Ki-chun from Washington 
 
The first group of about 180 WEST participants has encountered 
difficulty... raising concerns about damage done to them. 
 
Participants have difficulty getting an internship, and even if they 
are employed, many of the internships are unpaid jobs. 
 
Since participants do not have a written contract, they cannot make 
a complaint about possible unfair treatment. 
 
There is growing concern that the ROKG's "global internship" 
program, ambitiously designed to nurture global young leaders, may 
only frustrate young people. 
 
The first group of about 180 participants in the WEST (Work, English 
Study, Travel) Program, who left the nation this past March, are 
running into various problems.  One of the participants was dropped 
mid-program, and it has taken more than a month before participants 
get internships after finishing their language courses.  Since 
participants do not have a written contract, it is difficult for 
them to make a complaint to local sponsors even if they receive 
unfair treatment. 
 
Observers point out that in addition to the roughly 150 participants 
who are going to join the program this month, up to 5,000 
participants, who will be selected for the program every year 
 
SEOUL 00001255  006 OF 006 
 
 
starting in 2010, may face the same problems. 
 
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on August 7 that 
among the first batch of the participants, 46 people finished their 
language courses and entered an internship.  But most of them had 
been anxious about getting an internship for over a month, and one 
is still seeking an internship.  The situation, however, is expected 
to become worse when 136 people, a majority of the first 
participants, finish their five-month language programs at the end 
of this month and start to seek an internship. 
 
As WEST participants have difficulty getting internships amid the 
U.S. economic downturn, the foreign ministry, through ROK missions 
in the U.S., is encouraging Korean businesses in the U.S. to hire 
the them.  Considering that Korean companies rarely use English, the 
WEST Program is losing its original purpose of teaching students 
English and local culture while working in the U.S. 
 
The ROKG (initially) said that WEST participants will work as paid 
interns and their salary as interns will be able to cover the 
participation fee (8,300-8,400 dollars) and the costs of stay. 
However, 25% of the employed participants are working unpaid.  A 
local sponsor recently sent an email to the program participants, 
saying that U.S. companies cannot afford to have paid interns, 
hiring only unpaid interns. 
 
A WEST participant who began an internship last month said, "I 
expect to receive housing assistance and a monthly 500 dollars but 
am worried about (my) sponsor's position because it cannot guarantee 
it for them."   If the internship is not paid, the participants will 
likely pay 30 million won annually, which covers the participation 
fee, airfare, housing and living expenses. 
 
Also, the participants had no contract when they left (to the U.S.), 
and their status and activities in the U.S depend totally on the 
sponsors.  This makes it difficult for participants to plead any 
unfair treatment.  Recently, a participant had a visa cancelled 
because of an alleged absence from the language program class.  This 
further fuelled concerns among the participants.  The participant 
criticized it as a retaliatory act, which came after openly 
protesting the sponsor's unfair work process.   Now, the participant 
has applied for a change of visa status. 
 
An Jin-geol, Director of People's Solidarity for Participatory 
Democracy said that the ROKG sent the youths to the U.S. without 
fully laying out plans for the program, thus potentially making them 
feel frustrated.  The ROKG should thoroughly check the problems 
rather than exaggerate the effects of the program. 
 
 
STEPHENS