Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com WASHINGTON — Winston Lord, a retired senior U.S. diplomat with wide experience in Asia, is “shocked” that President Barack Obama, in his much criticized commencement address at West Point, failed to say a single thing about the “pivot” of U.S. forces to Asia. Ralph Cossa, president of the […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com NEW DELHI — The division between India-held and Pakistan-held Kashmir ranks with that between North and South Korea as long-running, bloody and dangerous. The two were divided at about the same time — Kashmir in “partition” of the Indian subcontinent that gave birth to Pakistan as a separate […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com NEW DELHI – The United States has to go through a skillfully choreographed diplomatic dance as a prelude to making up with India’s incoming prime minister, Narendra Modi. That’s because Washington refused for more than a decade to grant a visa to Modi for his failure as chief […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The tragedy of the sunken South Korean ferry the Sewol is now old news. The international press barely covers the long aftermath as divers look for the last missing bodies. The news has receded from the lead position in the Korean media and sometimes barely makes […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The seas were running quite high when I took a small ferry from Mokpo, a port city on South Korea’s southwestern coast, to the idyllic island of Jeju a month before the tragedy of the ferry boat that sank with 476 people on board, most of them students […]
Special to WorldTribune.com “I came through and I shall return.” — Gen. Douglas MacArthur in Australia after being ordered by President Franklin Roosevelt to leave Japanese-occupied Philippines in 1942. By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com MANILA — U.S. forces were supposed to be gone from the Philippines for good by 1991 when the U.S. pulled out of […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com JINDO — A mother and her sister burst into hysterics, leaping up from the mat on which they had been resting on the floor of the gymnasium where hundreds were waiting for news of loved ones trapped aboard the sunken ferry boat. The two had just seen a […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com SEOUL — The word “trilateral” has a certain allure among those in search of ways to pull disparate nations or regions together. A group of three might cooperate while a group of two might form an alliance and fight the third one, the odd man out. Rather than […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com The people who write for the Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang must be having fun. How else can you account for some of the great turns of phrase that show up in the English-language versions of their harangues? It wasn’t enough that the KCNA quoted an otherwise […]
Special to WorldTribune.com By Donald Kirk, East-Asia-Intel.com JEJU ISLAND, South Korea – The protest against building a South Korean navy base off the shore of a pleasant village on the southern coast of this “island of peace” by now seems a little tiresome. No way will the hardy band led by priests and pastors stop […]