Double, double toil and trouble;
fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

Yes, once again Denise Chong, that best-selling author and fellow Canuck, stirs the ol’ hot pot again with her latest snipe at Zhongnanhai’s corrupt geriatric set over their handling of the whole so-called “6-4 Incident.” Enter her latest smashing volley, Egg on Mao: The Story of an Ordinary Man Who Defaced an Icon and Unmasked a Dictatorship.

Recounted through the heartfelt memories of Lu Decheng, the intellectually dullest of the trio of wayward Liuyangers who one-timed oil paint-filled egg shells from a local jian bing stand at the Forbidden City’s omnipresent portrait of the Great Helmsman, Chong spins a vivid tour-de-force tale depicting the aftermath of their arrest and subsequent incarceration in the dying days of the late-’80s student democracy movement.

During the spring of what would become that fateful ‘89 year, Lu along with his friends Yu Zhijian and Yu Dongyue were caught up in the fervor of ousting the Party leadership once and for all. They became drunk on the idea of setting the People’s Republic’s sails firmly on a course for integration with the West along with the abolition of China’s corrupt glad-handing society.

Heeding the poetic words of student leader, Uighur activist Wu’er Kaixi, the “sun shining off of Mao’s portrait was so bright that the people couldn’t open their eyes to what was going on around them.” Hopping on the overnight choo-choo via Changsha, the three impressionable young cats — caught up in the inexorable flow of thousands from all across the nation descending on Beijing (or Peking as it was still then known in the West, still stuck in Wade-Giles mode) — somehow found themselves in the thick of it at the center of T-Bone Square, rocking it on ’til the break of dawn against the Big Bad Red Machine.

Chong employs a nifty literary technique shifting back and forth between what was and what is, flashbacking to our impressionable ones’ preparations as they eagerly anticipate traveling north to the capital, matched against their deep-seated doubts about what they were monumentally about to do. The portrait vandalizing incident was only an afterthought, can you believe it?

I found the most harrowing portions of this book — quite expectedly — to transpire inside the jail where the three were sentenced to life imprisonment for defacing the People’s Property. A couple of the guards sympathized with their cause, while many others were tasked with the deplorable job of smashing their willful spirits and crushing the resistance out of them via a daily slew of humiliation, physical abuse, and in several cases, unmitigated torture. Their prison authorities somehow remained convinced that they’d succeed in luring the young men, especially the brilliant Zhijian, from of their “counter-revolutionary” paths, by inculcating in them the values of Mao’s Homo Sineticus, the “ideal” modern Chinese super-ego.

Decheng, a bus mechanic and driver by trade, was the least educated of the bunch at the outset. His journey is magnificent because his life changes by 180-degrees by story’s end. Dongyue, youngest and most impressionable, was a mere wet-behind-the-ears type at the crime’s time, a mere teenager. Zhijian was the one with all the bright ideas and coffee house theories, the one who read all the European classics, and the one who became most disillusioned by the end thanks to the students’ perfidy in refusing to come to the three’s aid by secreting them away from the lurking plainclothes PSB goons at the time, instead offering them up like sacrificial lambs.

Given that Decheng was our narrative vessel in Egg On Mao, we came to learn of the harshness of the boys’ prison conditions through his arduous journey in his own words. As he arrived at the stark realization that the West was absolutely powerless (or unwilling?) to convince the PRC’s Party higher-ups to spring him and his mates from the cavernous clink, Decheng set out to improve his skills and brain power while living out the typical prison double life.

Compelled to undergo the routine Maoist ideological indoctrination and daily hammering of Marxist-Leninist Thought, Decheng would mechanically nod his noodle during classes, only to “raid” the prison library later in the evenings to feast his eyes on anything he could get his meat hooks on: well-thumbed, outdated tomes on all manner of Western theory and thought — all in English which the guards couldn’t read — realizing that eventually his salvation would come and he should be prepared for that eventuality. Guards would needle him for his seeming craziness; the mere sight of Decheng reading stuff that looked as if though it could maim, rather than educate, him elicited many giggles. In time, howe3ver, this strategy would prove ultimately successful, confounding the dastardly designs of the prison system.

By 1998, Decheng was a free man — first, gaining asylum in Canada, where Chong learned of his story.

There’s a lovely parallel story in this book, and that’s the love affair between Lu and his young bride Qiuping, a woman he eventually weds prior to performing the fateful deed.

Even before the first yolk is hurled at Mao’s grim, moled likeness, Decheng and Qiuping have birthed their first tot — a XX Chromosomal Child Unit. His subsequent imprisonment, despair, and eventual divorce from his wife who fears her man will never be released for the ignominy caused to the Party’s international image, is a touching counterpoint to the violence taking place within the prison compound’s walls. The brutal and repeated attempts by Decheng’s prison warders to destroy his rebellious soul do nothing to diminish his abiding passion for his wife and their oft-stated commitment to “never accept a divorce, neither in life nor in death.” When news of Qiuping’s request for a divorce trickles through to Decheng via a letter he receives from a guard, it momentarily sidelines him as he struggles to reason out the rationale for her irrational behavior. When she eventually remarries, it nearly slays him, though he soldiers on knowing that in the aftermath of Deng Xioaping’s October 1992 demise — the man responsible for approving the murderous actions by soldiers on the Square against their own citizens — changes may be soon afoot in the “peaceful” People’s Republic.

Author Chong was censured for this book in the PRC. No surprise there. While she doesn’t personally do any of the criticizing about the events which took place on T-Bone Square — nothing is couched in her own words save for her parting caustic remarks in the Epilogue and Acknowledgments — the mere fact that she’s chosen Lu Decheng as the vessel of her apparent disapproval with the septuagenarians inhabiting the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee have now branded her as a PRC persona non grata. She won’t be able to return now, though she likely made her peace with this reality the instant finger touched laptop keypad.

Given that she had a year and a half to contemplate her fate — the duration of all her interview sessions with Lu Decheng in Canada, where he now lives — this was a well-designed goal.

Why you should read this book, friends?

Egg on Mao was likely the first straightforward and direct account about the actions of the perpetrators of the portrait defacement, told in their own words. No third-party stuff here, folks, or PRC spin-meistering for our ravenous Western investigative appetites.

Also, for those of you late-arriving (and young) Western stragglers who are convinced that TAM was a student-lead and directed protest crushed by the heavy-handed Chinese state apparatus, complete organized student hierarchies and chains of command on T-Bone Square itself, you’ll be shocked to discover that chaos was more the order of the day during those fateful two months. Chong does well to highlight this through the authentic recollections of Lu himself. Good job.

At 249pp, your bottom-line cost to purchase this brand new is just a few cents shy of a short paper route (wink, wink). The copy isn’t crafted to wallop you over the noggin from its apparent brilliance, and Chong, for lack of a better term, “keeps it real.”

This is a mean-slugging account of a very unusual time in China, an era when things were still in flux and the regime was deathly afraid of losing its balls years before Hu Jintao’s policy of China’s “harmonious rise” was even promulgated. I polished the book off on the trusty exercise bike over the course of a few days, wagging my head in several spots as I made my way through in astonishment, careful not to permit sweat droplets to damage its pristine acid-free (and lovely-smelling) pages. Cautious, as well, was I to ensure that my neighbors didn’t think I was becoming a closet Maoist, what with the Chairman’s identifiable head on its cover, even if it was smeared in a cocktail of egg and paint goo.

If you’ve already read the book and digged it hard, let us know.

If you haven’t caught it yet, it’s not the sort of “China book” that will make you dizzy-busy (so busy, you’re dizzy) from its girth and heft. ;-) Try it, Mikey, you’ll like it. I promise.

And, oh yeah…my name is Adam Daniel Mezei and thanks again for tuning in.

Love,
ADM

ps I’m in search of a new “China book,” friends, so if you’ve got any suggestions for me — which I promise to subsequently review — kindly let me know.

huxia juqui

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  The Party: The Secret World Of China’s Communist Rulers

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(What’s Bam Bam smiling about now?)

Given the sheer lawlessness of North Korean society and how practically any sort of mayhem could take place there without notice, it’s not an entirely implausible notion that a debilitating cyber attack against the US might emanate from within its borders. Apparently, Bam Bam has at his disposal a $56M slushy war chest for precisely these sorts of cyber-actions.

More to our purposes, let’s examine the rudiments of how such an attack might go forth in the event the Dear Leader chucks all caution to the wind and finally goes for broke in the waning days of his hapless reign.

I also strongly encourage you to have a read of the linked article as it quotes famous hacker Charlie Miller‘s recent speech to NATO about this very subject. Miller briefly goes into how a North Korean cyber attack would play out.

Cheap machines that wreak havoc:

The caliber of technology we’re talking about here isn’t state-of-the-art. There are enough second-hand pieces of gear out there that can capably achieve Bam Bam’s aims.

Used machines would have as their ultimate purpose the direct infiltration of the United States’ critical telecommunications networks (not the National Security Administration/NSA, as that would be too heavily firewalled).

Miller describes how botnets — when a host computer is infiltrated and begins to do a cyber attacker’s bidding — would be triggered and programmed to detonate on the very same day. He uses as an example the so-called “Zero Day” bug which he described to delegates at a recent NATO speech. Zero Day can lie dormant for as long as 348 days before being summoned. All it would take it for someone to talk into a control room, plug in a USB key with the offending virus, upload, and walk away. Weeks later, the attack command would be issued and the sum of all our fears would play out.

Coordinated from a central location like Pyongyang which the world has virtually no access to, a proliferating virus would be almost impossible for tech experts to trace. The original outbreak of a hostile e-attack might even be blamed upon politically-sensitive nations like China or Russia, and implicating them in a scandal might be part of Bam Bam’s grand design, as had happened during January 2010′s apparent “Chinese” cyber-attack on Google.

Why a North Korean cyber-attack just might work:

There would be scant incentive for the US/ROK alliance to retaliate against Pyongyang in the event critical US or South Korean telecom networks were compromised. Why?

For one, what could they possibly damage there, other than crushing what little infrastructure remains for the DPR Korea’s citizenry outside its capital? A strike against the north would only cast it into an even darker shadow, with untold deprivation in its aftermath, greater than what the country endured during the so-called Arduous March famines of the nineties.

As described by hacker Miller, once a virus would “leave the building,” North Korea would be essentially scot-free. Counter-accusations might even be leveled against the United States by North Korea for the US’ wanton aggression against an otherwise blameless nation. Since no proof of the virus’ existence in North Korea, would be found or for even having emanated from there it would essentially mean the event didn’t even happen. Kim has proven to be beyond wily when it comes to skulduggery of this ilk.

Then there’s the on-again, off-again nuclear threat, the poisoned chalice that the South Koreans and their American allies are reticent to quaff from.

If US/ROK retaliation for a perceived North Korean cyber-attack were on the order table, Bam Bam might just crank up his ol’ whirling rhetoric machine and counter with threats to let fly Seoul- and Osaka-bound nuke-tipped missiles from Yongbyon. This alone — if the past decade-plus is any indication — would be justification enough to put the kibosh on any potential spanking the Americans and ROK Forces might wish administer on Bam Bam’s Paradise On Earth.

So where does that leave things?

As usual, Kim has all his turtledoves in a row. We’re starting at our usual series of if-then scenarios.

To wit:

Scenario #1: If the North Koreans cyber-attack US/ROK telecommunications networks and drumbeat against Pyongyang, Kim will unsheathe his nuclear rapier. And never one to be pushing an already unstable silent-but-deadly demagogue into passing his personal point of no return, Washington will back off and “negotiate” an amicable solution with the Non-proliferating Six Parties at a so-called “neutral” location, possibly at November’s G20 Summit in Seoul.

Scenario #2: If the Americans refuse to believe Kim’s nuclear threat is credible and advise the ROK to promptly attack North Korea for a) the DPRK’s perceived hack-attack and b) March 25, 2010′s sinking of the Cheonan, the Chinese aren’t going to take any of this sitting down. Wanting affairs to stay as “harmonious” as possible on the Korean peninsula, and doing anything in its power to thwart a northern influx of stark raving DPRK refugees into Yanbian across the Yalu and Tumen Rivers, Beijing will use every diplomatic trick in the book — from economic sanctions to Security Council vetoes — to prevent the South Koreans from laying a finger on any of Pyongyang’s chinny-chin-chin hairs. And no one seems to want to tussle with the Chinese these days for some reason.

Scenario #3: If the Koreans don’t heed either the PRC’s broad warnings or their American handlers’ sharp advice to play things cool and instead launch perhaps a seabound strike across the Northern Demarcation Line (where the Cheonan went down), Bam Bam might be tempted to press that godforsaken red nuke button of his. Worse yet, while Kim himself might want nothing to do with a nuclear holocaust on his soil, the present power rift in his security apparatus caused by his choice of youngest son Kim Jong-un as successor might take things out of his hands. It could mean ever direr consequences than the Cheonan. Its sinking may even have been a prelude heralding something eminently worse. “Rogue generals” within Kim’s security system might have wished to send an unequivocal signal to Kim on who’s really running the show.

Conclusion:

In advance of September’s Korean Worker’s All-Party Congress (KWP Congress), things may yet remain tranquil. But given what happened this March, nothing is ever predictable up on the Kim Farm.

Four weeks between now and then along the 248km stretch of the 38th? In North Korea, that’s like eons.

(The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, by Richard McGregor, 273pp)

It’s depressing to realize how 273 tiny pages can raise the ire of the humongous Chinese Communist Party and kick up such a colossal domestic fuss, yet veteran journalist Richard McGregor’s latest work of investigative prose succeeded in doing exactly that.

Going deep behind Zhongnanhai “enemy lines” in a way few foreign scribblers or Zhongguotong — those cliched “Old China Hands” — would ever dare to (on fear of reprisals from PRC authorities), McGregor serves up a red hot zinger of an indictment on the inner-workings of China’s Big Red Machine, the party tugging the levers of power inside the authoritarian capitalist country.

The book is the work of more than a decade of silent toil and research by the relentless Australian, a journalist who traveled to and fro between the PRC, Hong Kong, and his native Land of Oz, with family in tow, as he compiled interview after painstaking off-the-record interview for this comprehensive tell-all.

To be sure, The Party’s already been banned across China; yet, then again, we fully expected it would be and, come to think of it, doesn’t it kind of add to its cachet in a very Zhao Ziyang-esque sort of way (let us know in the comments below!).

What kind of illicit treasures can be found inside this latest oeuvre of CCP criticism, you ask? What in tarnation is so taboo, you want to know? I mean, what exactly is the Central Committee so goshdarn afraid of?

All good starting questions…

McGregor — like other so-called “China experts” — knows several of the answers. All of this tracks back to that “sum of all fears” for the Chinese Communist Party: the fear of losing total control of the state apparatus and helplessly witnessing as the nation-state reverts back into the pre-revolutionary Armageddon-like times which reigned supreme during Chiang’s rule.

The CCP, oddly enough, permits practically anything and everything that doesn’t directly clash with its interests or harm its preeminent position within Chinese society.

This is the reason why, for instance, visitors to China can observe such things as LGBT bars in the ‘jing, yet no organized national gay pride parade exists for China. This is also the reason why Chinese citizens are legally permitted to freely practice their chosen form of religion…provided they link up with one of China’s wholly (holy?) state-sponsored places of worship, be it a church, a mosque, or a Buddhist shrine. Say you’re a Roman Catholic? No problemo, provided you don’t recognize the Pontiff as your spiritual shogun with the lone direct hookup to the Man Upstairs. A proud and practicing Muslim? Cool beans, so long as you don’t buy into the drivel Rebiya Khadeer has been popularizing in the Western mass media. And, oh yeah, you can’t be a member of that group with its first initial before the letter “G.”

The basic “silent agreement” between the State and these various religious acolytes is that all must avoid demonstrating for greater faith-based openness in that Big Square which sprawls out in front of the Forbidden City — yeah, that one. Or else!

Crazy Eights:

McGregor unfurls his argument in eight exquisite chapters. He deems these to be the eight key areas in which the CCP’s influence pervades Chinese society. In order:

1. The CCP’s relationship towards the Chinese State.
2. The CCP’s capitalist leanings in the wake of the Deng-era (aka, “China Inc.”).
3. The CCP’s iron-fisted control of its personnel files.
4. The CCP’s relationship towards the People Liberation Army (PLA).
5. The CCP’s total dominance by “The (notorious) Shanghai Gang.”
6. The CCP’s relationship with towns and regions far away from Beijing.
7. The CCP’s capitalist shell surrounding its so-called “socialist” core.
8. Tombstone:  The book which revealed the true death toll from Mao’s Great Leap Forward (>30 million citizens).

Salient Points:

Rather than supply a detailed breakdown of all eight chapters — thereby ruining the fun for you, dear reader, as you track down your illicit copy of The Party — why don’t I summarize what you can expect to find in each, thereby whetting your chops for the bigger feast to come?

1. The CCP’s relationship towards the Chinese State: Nothing that happens in China occurs without the CCP’s blessing. Any organization, body, association, business, and/or any dealing with any foreign power — either in the Southeast Asian region or internationally — always occurs via the CCP’s direct intervention. Party membership is coveted by business types as it affords them access and needed connections. The Party bills itself as the preeminent force preventing China from teetering back into Century of Humiliation-like anarchy. Like an octopus, and in emulation of Lenin’s dictates about the Communist Party of the Soviet Union being everywhere at all times, the CCP penetrates every facet of Chinese society.
2. The CCP’s capitalist leanings in the wake of the Deng-era (aka, “China Inc.”): Being accepted into the CCP’s ranks is no mere ideological progression. Rather, it’s a step up the ladder of corporate and commercial success in China. Former State-owned enterprises that were gradually privatized are still run by a silent cabal of Party loyalists who duly take their instructions from on high in Beijing, despite any decisions these firms’ various boards of directors or CEOs might make regarding the strategic direction of the company they preside over. The Party always has final say. And a company director can always be overruled by the most senior Party member on the board. CEOs carrying membership also receive the coveted “red hotline” in their offices, the direct line from Beijing. Their phone numbers are so exclusive, that they’re limited to just four digits. And when that red box rings, you better pick up.
3. The CCP’s iron-fisted control of its personnel files: Being in total command of information flows is also a key CCP characteristic: all the better to avoid unexpected media leaks or to parties with an aim to toppling the CCP’s legitimacy via a coup. Personnel files are fiercely guarded in Beijing-area buildings that don’t even carry distinctive visitor-friendly markings on the outside. The merits and demerits of its several thousand members — hand-written on paper cards — still remains one of the nation’s most fiercely guarded secrets. The Party uses these cards to award concessions, favors, or privileges or to dole out punishment to its adherents and members.
4. The CCP’s relationship towards the People Liberation Army (PLA): The PLA exists solely to safeguard the Party, not the Chinese people and neither the integrity of the Chinese state. Believe me when I tell you these various strapping youths are expressly recruited for their stature and capacity to intimidate. I witnessed with my own eyes how these Tiananmen Guards strike fear into thousands of onlookers because at whose behest they serve (i.e. the Party’s). The PLA remains the Party’s vanguard force, tasked with protecting the Party from all threats both from within and from without.
5. The CCP’s total dominance by “The (notorious) Shanghai Gang:” Former Chinese President Jiang Zemin was the exemplar of the might of Shanghai politics in the Communist Party’s upper ranks. Once he become President back in October 1992, Jiang moved quickly to entrench Shanghai’s position amongst the capital’s power elites. Shanghai went from being the bastard child of the new People’s Republic — the city most despised by the Communist Party for all it represented during the interwar period — to a thriving, thoroughly-modern colossus. It’s no mere coincidence that Shanghai and its gorgeous Bund views are the most recognizable thing about China outside of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall.
6. The CCP’s relationship with towns and regions far away from Beijing: The infamous Sanlu (“Three Deers”) melamine scandal, in which a form of plastic was added in lieu of protein to bolster the consistency of this company’s milk is a recent example of this. Regional Party members seek to leverage their power within rural Party fiefdoms strictly for gain. It’s what one anonymous Chinese blogger called the “black-collar class: their cars are black. Their income is hidden. Their life is hidden. Their work is hidden. Everything about them is hidden, like a man wearing black, standing in the black of the night.” A ranking compiled by most popular Chinese portal sina.com of the numbers of people seeking information about particular government jobs revealed that “…of the top ten government bodies which received the most expressions of interest for positions, eight were provincial tax bureaux, topped by Guangdong, all of them along the prosperous coast; and two were customs bureaux of Shanghai and Shenzhen. The bottom ten which attracted the least interest, were all provincial statistics bureaux.” With Beijing so far from the regions, who notices when things go awry until it’s too late?
7. The CCP’s capitalist shell surrounding its so-called “socialist” core: The Party in 2010 isn’t the same Party of Mao. In fact, today’s CCP bears little resemblance to the revolutionary mass organization which won the hearts of WWII-weary Chinese citizens back in the late 1940s. This is a more business-oriented party. Fully corrupt. Swayed by profit. Droning on fulsomely about its socialist roots and leanings, meanwhile it erects ever-larger, ever more luxurious, and ever-megalomaniacal infrastructure projects across the breadth of China. Now that the government is flush with cash, it’s begun spending on the population: roads and hospitals, for instance, yet this is a relatively recent phenomenon.
8. Tombstone:  The book which revealed the true death toll from Mao’s Great Leap Forward (>30 million citizens): Tombstone: Yang Jisheng’s account of the true death toll from the Great Leap Forward. A fitting end for The Party because of how it handily summarizes the main themes of the previous chapters: the CCP’s rigid control of information as it forged data about the Great Leap. How the regions were quick to avail themselves of their distance from Beijing to falsely report only information Beijing wanted to hear. How the Party sought to silence those who has the power to knock it off its pedestal. Yet this intrepid Xinhua journalist — yes, an insider! — devoted fifteen years of his life to meticulously notate over one thousand pages of stats from regional bureaus as the core material for his book. McGregor cites the (only Hong Kong, for now) publication of Tombstone as an example of how the Party appears to be morphing over time. Yang’s heretical work would have surely been destroyed — with Yang himself likely imprisoned or killed by the state — more twenty years ago. Does this seemingly permissive act hold out future promise for the Chinese Communist Party? McGregor appears to want his readers to decide.

Should You Buy This Book?

Yes! Just don’t get arrested buying it. There’s enough incendiary information contained within its pages to fully indict the Party for its misdeeds, sundry corruptions, and other flagrant recent abuses of power. Short of a few random hardcover copies flitting around Beijing-area indie bookshops, don’t expect to find this on Chinese bookshelves — either in its original English or in translation — anytime soon.

For any aspiring China Hand, amateur Sinologist, or Sinophile, The Party makes for deeply engaging fare.

But for all you vets out there, this book will only serve to reinforce the message you already know that the CCP isn’t a object to be trifled with.

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(a potential fraud? — so what else is new on the Kim Farm?)

Major fedora-tip to Richard yesterday at ADM.com for pointing out this groundbreaking brief Gadling post by Tom Johansmeyer detailing some particularly perplexing news about recent propaganda efforts currently underway on the Kim Farm.

Apparently, that North Korean propaganda poster some Chinese businessman snapped then subsequently published over the net from China? You know, the one (above) chiding the South Koreans for their blame of the North for the Cheonan‘s mysterious March 2010 sinking?

Well, it’s a fraud!

Apparently, says Richard again, this NYT article describes the semi-bloody Yellow Sea pitched naval battle that precipitated the creation of said above poster.

A battle that took place in July 2002!

Sorry haters! As for the rumors this was an original Cheonan-related bit of North Korean classic agit-prop — better luck next time.

Its caption reads:

“We will smash you with a single blow if you attack!”

So it would appear that Pyongyang and Bam Bam totally lucked out on this one: socialist-realist art so drippingly generic that it can serve multiple purposes and multiple masters, causing the hearts of die hard North Korean Commies to swell with pride!

So why is an 8 year-old poster being regurgitated for the masses’ viewing pleasure?

Likely due to the large coming-out party for the young Padawan warrior and heir apparent to NK’s throne,”Youth Captain” Kim Jong-un. This seems part and parcel of his initiation into the delicate art of DPRK military-intelligence subterfuge. Dad’s poppin’ his cherry, to bandy about a phrase…

I can just imagine the conversation around the (geriatric) dinner table between Kim and his youngest son about all this:

Bam Bam: “Son, let me share with you a little secret: if it’s good enough, it’s good enough.  Nothing needs to be perfect in this country. Policymaking ain’t literature. It ain’t no movie either. And it ain’t poetry. Shit, it ain’t even (as he surveys the lavish spread dedicated to no one in particular) a dinner party! Ha! Mao would have liked that one!”

Jong-un: “I realize, Dad. But don’t you think the people might remember this one hanging from back in oh-two? You think we can fool them twice? People aren’t that stupid, you know. Especially the ones living near the border. They have Chinese cellphones now.”

Bam Bam (spooning a piping mouthful of some decidedly medicinal-looking oatmeal into his awaiting maw, spilling most of it on his brown leisure suit on the way up): “Goddamit Jong-un! Buck up and act like a Kim, will ya already?! Let me teach ya something about street-level dopes: they’ll believe just about anything you tell ‘em to believe! Imagine ‘em as your little playthings. People to do with as ya bloody well wish. Pretend they’re sweaty, um…field…cows, strapped to, er…your heavy yoke (licking his chops). The nation sometimes steps outta line. But all’s ya gotta do is whip ‘n kick and spank ‘em back — even breaking or killing a few if you got to — and watch how they slide right back into formation. They’re deathly afraid of me, you know.”

Jong-un: “They are?”

Bam Bam: “Yeah, get a load of that, eh? Little pussycat like me with a high voice and I make ‘em squeal! Ha! Now don’t be afraid to do it too. You’re bigger, stronger, and more educated than me. And better-looking, too! The people will fear you more, trust me.”

Jong-un: “But the army…why don’t the generals show up for your meetings anymore, Daddy?”

Bam Bam: “Generals shmenerals! Don’t you worry about those jerkys, okay? I’m the one with (lifting a small box out from beneath the table) my pinky finger on the button. They don’t got diddly compared to what I got! (tapping the box lovingly)”

Jong-un: “So the key is whatever’s in that box?

Bam Bam: “Duh?! That was like the first lesson your grandfather taught me during my first Chinese brothel experience. Never — and I mean never! — underestimate the force of threats, Jong-un, especially when you’ve got a finger inches away from this little red button. And quit worrying about that damned poster, will ya? You’re a Kim for crying out loud! You’re royalty. Start acting like it already, even in front of me!”

Jong-un nods, slowly — ever so slowly — understanding.

Bam Bam: “C-plus to A-plus my boy. It might be completely shitty policy when I sign the damn thing. But by the time Old Kim here is done with it, it’s gonna shine. Shine like poetry.”

Jong-un smiles…

Anyways — kidding completely aside — “Postergate” certainly raises a series of deeply perplexing questions:

1. If the above poster is indeed a dud, perhaps North Korea didn’t sink the Cheonan after all and are being wrongly framed, as the Russians seem to claim as part of their own independent investigation?
2. And if we, once again, presume that the above poster is indeed a complete and total fraud, why has this gross misinformation not been announced by the international press and duly corrected? Koreans (and their US allies) could be going to war again on the peninsula over a silly piece of socialist-realist “art.”
3. And if we presume this poster is indeed a dud and the North Koreans didn’t really sink the corvette Cheonan — yet the poster is still being pasted all up around Pyongyang and other large North Korean cities to milk the tragedy for all its apparent propaganda value — what’s it really saying about Bam Bam’s already tenuous hold on power?
4. In advance of the KWP congress this September, Bam Bam has likely decreed this poster displayed alongside images of the Youth Captain — Kim Jong-un. Kim is thereby signaling to the masses that Jong-un intends on following in his footsteps. It’s a clear indication that Bam Bam is indeed still in firm control of North Korea’s military, make no doubt it.
5. Knowing that NK is currently weaker than weak, low on national food stocks, losing increasing numbers of its population along its border areas to Chinese and North Korean snake head traffickers, suffering under an ill-conceived currency reevaluation — is this yet another saber-rattling show of bluster and force by the Kim Court to demonstrate power where none actually exists?

Some pertinent advice to Western corn-fed media stooges:

Don’t believe everything you read! Especially when the rumors are being spread mostly by South Korean (ROK) news organizations. I think ROK press outlets have just a wee bit of an agenda in full-effect when it comes to reporting DPRK domestic blunders, don’t you think?

Scant and almost nonexistent as it is, there still exists a whiff of NK investigative journalism, even in the case of hapless Bam Bam.

Just something to think about…

(Bam Bam waving good-bye?)

The North Korean English-language blogosphere reported last week on the recent “significant breakthroughs” in US-North Korea relations. Brisk mentions were made of how these recent developments might be the final shove that topples North Korea from its illogical isolationist perch.

Articles and blogs were quick to bolster their strongly-worded arguments and sentiments with proof of recent events taking place along the peninsula over the past several months, events these bloggers and pundits claim prove conclusively that the time is ripe for a vigorous push by the US and South Korea to bring North Korea to heel and lure it once and for all into the international fold.

With Bam Bam’s condition weakening by the day and his restive population subsisting on a spartan diet of poor-quality foodstuffs — northern refugees to the South claim that starvation rations persist in certain parts of DPRK — North Korea, yet again, is decimating itself from within.

Basically, say these bloggers, journalists, and pundits, this may spell the end of North Korea as we know it…

What Are Those “Recent North Korean Developments” — A Review:

Plenty of stuff’s been happening since May 2009, to wit…

• The nuclear tests of May of that year: This was the event which kickstarted North Korea’s year-long-plus downward spiral into the mire. Last time Bam Bam issued the order to detonate something was way back in October 2006, and, of course, he apologized profusely for having done so, claiming that he’d be perfectly willing to make a few compromises, if only the US would make some key compromises first. Same old story. Same old outcome.
• November 2009′s release of the captive US journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee: the  pair were released from North Korean captivity on August 4, 2009 following Former President Clinton’s whirlwind 2-day emergency intervention tour to Pyongyang. This too represented something of an opening. A willingness – in North Korean newspeak and gesturespeak — on the part of Pyongyang to deal with the West. It basically amounted to nothing. Two additional American missionaries still remain in North Korean custody, incidentally. They don’t have nearly the clout or influence of Ling and Lee.
• November 2009′s dramatic currency devaluation: Whole fortunes were wiped out in November 2009 at the stroke of a pen as the NK won was redenominated by a factor of 100. This was allegedly enacted in order to curtail the spate of private marketeering and other entrepreneurial activity that had sprouted up in recent years across DPRK, reluctantly tolerated by the regime. Kim and his hapless cronies (one of whom — Pak Nam-gi was subsequently put to death in March 2010 for the economic chaos which ensued) were basically looking to stick it to the rising NK moneyed class just to remind them who’s really in charge. The re-evaluation slammed North Korea’s already ailing destitute classes hardest.
• March 2010′s sinking of the corvette Cheonan: Then there was the sinking of the South Korean navy ship Cheonan, the blame for which a UN-sponsored commission of inquiry — with US, Australian, and Swedish participation — initially laid squarely on Pyongyang’s shoulders, only to later backpedal during the Security Council’s issuing of its toothless “presidential statement.” It merely alluded to North Korea’s involvement, using the diplomatically-chosen words that it “Takes Note of Neighbour’s Response Denying Responsibility for Sinking” — the “Neighbour” of course being DPRK. This has had repercussions all around the region as first China was obviously unwilling to point the finger at its erstwhile ally, and then Russia — conducting its own independent inquiry — also joined the chorus of doubters as to who was responsible for the action. In the latter case, economics seems to be the clear motivating factor.
• Kim Jong-il’s “Secret” May 2010 trip to China: We’re left wondering what this meeting entai led? What did Kim talk about with Chinese President Hu Jintao? Did Kim travel to Beijing to receive instructions from the Chinese on how best to deal with the US in the wake of the Cheonan‘s sinking? Was he called out onto the mat to explain his country’s apparent belligerence? Was he given strict succession instructions from the Chinese? Did Hu promise to look after the heir apparent Kim Jong-un once Bam Bam was good and gone, to ensure that the Americans wouldn’t have their way with him? Here, here, and here are several possible scenarios…
• World Cup 2010: Following an impressive 2-1 stonewalling the mighty Brazilians (in which NK lost honorably), the country’s squad went on to get annihilated in its second game — 7-0 — against the Portuguese and then lost convincingly — 3-0 — against the Ivoreans to bow out of the tournament’s Round of 32. Were North Korea to have done well at the tournament, it might have generated a whole mass of goodwill. But it wasn’t to be.
• June 2010′s willingness to talk…again: North Korea announced its willingness last month to join a UN-sponsored forum to “discuss” its chronic domestic health problems, all under US auspices. Why this was significant was because the US refused to place NK on the list of terrorist-sponsoring states a second time following the country’s October 11, 2008 removal from that same list. The White House is very reluctant to add NK back for two primary reasons: a) blame for the Cheonan‘s sinking is not conclusive, ergo, it isn’t NK’s direct fault for certain, and b) China is totally against an escalation of hostilities on the peninsula whatsoever, and the Obama Administration isn’t going down that rabbit hole, for now.
• Calls to boot NK out of the United Nations: Certain pundits, namely journalist-in-residence Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, recently listed the litany of ways in which Kim Jong-il’s regime has violated the various sacred tenets of the UN Charter, He, therefore, she claims, has abrogated North Korea’s sovereign right to remain a member of the weak-kneed international body as a result. Rosett’s opinion perhaps remains a minority one for now, but as this rumor picks up velocity in the echo chamber, look to have more pundits and journalists calling for Kim’s head on a silver platter. It’s a well-written piece with a cogent argument and I fully recommend the read.
• Possible Ressurrection of the North-South Sunshine Policy? Ever since South Korea forbade its citizens from visiting North Korea’s Kumgang resort following July 11, 2009′s shooting of a 53 year-old female ROK tourist in so-called “no-man’s land,” the Sunshine Policy of the early naughts has been — for all intents and purposes — moribund. However, a recent Christian Science Monitor article (nice going Douglas Kirk!) suggests movements are underway in South Korea to involve the Chinese in a revitalized “sunshine-esque policy” that may coax NK back to the bargaining table. We’ll see…
• Will Kim Jong-un nominally take over in September 2010? The Korean Workers Party (KWP) Congress set for this September promises to be “historical.” It’s expected that Bam Bam will take the opportunity here to formally announce to the rest of the nation and the world that his son is to become the country’s next hereditary leader. Jong-un will likely be awarded with increased security responsibilities and a rash of public face time, yet even the experts are unsure what may become of him. If the military doesn’t stand behind him — as evidenced by the Cheonan‘s mysterious sinking — there may be more than just a palace coup come September.

So what now?

Following November 2009′s currency devaluation, North Koreans are once again starving.Food — and money to buy it — is scarce again, and the regime is getting ultra nervous.

Around two million (!!!) people died — according to certain statistics — during the mid-1990′s famine following the end of Soviet-sponsorship on the Kim Farm. North Koreans aren’t going to tolerate yet another famine now that its society is increasingly savvy to what’s happening outside of the DPRK’s borders, especially along the border regions with China and the Russian Federation, thanks to mobile phones and traffic around the Tumen and Yalu crossings.

Bam Bam’s bombastic sloganeering and the regime’s overall attempts to mollify the populace aren’t going to work a second time.

(NK propaganda about the Cheonan?)

This likely explains why Bam Bam has escalated his son’s succession to the super fast track.

This also likely explains the recent spate of postering in Pyongyang (as shown above) depicting a possible retaliation against a “Cheonan“-like ship (“If she comes, we will attack it!” it says) in order supply more distracting belligerent fodder for a population finding itself at wit’s end.

There are even some North Koreans who crave a second round of warfare, just to put a decisive end, once and for all, to their miserable living conditions vis-a-vis the South.

If something suddenly happens, you’ll be the first to know here.

North Koreans plan, Bam Bam laughs.