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A feature article from a Chinese magazine was struck from the Internet after news spread that it stated that the Korean War was started by North Korea’s invasion of the South. The lengthy feature in Xinhua’s International Herald Leader, timed for the 60th anniversary of the start of the war, had a time line that stated: “The North Korean military crossed the parallel on June 25th, 1950 and Seoul was taken in four days.” The article was widely distributed among Chinese news portals and agencies. After news of the story spread in Korean yesterday, the original article was found to...

China says arms sales to Taiwan are the cause of Sino-US defence tensions. But even if they stopped now, ties would be chilly. The poor state of Chinese-US military ties were laid bare earlier this month at a leading Asian security conference. In his June 5 speech to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates expressed annoyance at the refusal of the government in Beijing to allow him to visit the People’s Republic of China during his trip to Asia. He went on to express regret that the United States and China hadn’t managed to establish a...

The paranoia of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il seems to know no bounds. Case in point – in Brazil’s 2-1 win over North Korea today, ESPN analyst Martin Tyler made a rather odd observation. Tyler claimed that a rather rambunctious group that appeared to be North Koreans, weren’t actually North Koreans, but rather “handpicked Chinese Actors.” Reports have said these “fans” were Chinese actors, acting on behalf of China as a way to support its long-time ally. Roughly 1,000 Chinese citizens, “including musicians and actors, to cheer for the North Koreans,” the report said. They were conspicuously missing from the...

n February, Colonel Meng Xianging promised a “hand-to-hand fight with the U.S.” sometime within the next 10 years “when we’re strong enough.” “We must make them hurt,” said Major-General Yang Yi this year, referring to the United States. And last month, at the Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, a Chinese flag officer launched a three-minute rant that stunned the 65 or so American officials in the audience. Everything that is right with U.S. relations with China is due to China, said Rear Admiral Guan Youfei. Everything that is wrong is Washington’s fault. According to Guan, the United States sees...

Two unrelated stories in early June show in stark detail why the United States is on an accelerating downward, death spiral while China is continuing to build a solid foundation for economic domination in the decades to come. The actions reported in and of themselves will hardly register on the radar of most Americans. But they portray the crucial errors and arrogance of the Obama regime. They also point to a different path, a way forward out of the morass of ultra-liberal, ideological delusion that is now policy in Washington, D.C. The first article, appearing in the Washington Post, details...

Top military secrets, including a U.S.-South Korea war plan to counter a North Korean invasion, may have been given to Pyongyang by a South Korean Army major general spy, according to an investigation by military authorities. The major general, only identified as Kim, was being questioned by military authorities on charges of providing top confidential information to North Korea. The Defense Security Command asked the military’s General Court Martial to issue a detention warrant against Kim on Tuesday.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Wednesday he is disappointed by the international community's "tepid" response to North Korea's attack on a South Korean warship and called on China to step up and do more.

This is a link to the original Japanese story just now.Rather sketchy and breaking, but will synopsize main points into English as thus:There is the large Kaesong Industrial Complex in North Korea for manufacturing products, which is just across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) from the truce village of Panmunjom, jointly run by North and South Korea. You can clearly see this development from overlook vantage points on hills located around Panmunjom. There are a number of South Korean managers and employers there on-site as we speak. At this time, they are apparantly not free to leave.N. Korea is threatening to...

China's factories scaled back production last month and slowed the pace of hiring in response to a drop in new orders from both home and abroad, an official survey showed on Tuesday. Karin Slade | The Image Bank | Getty Images The purchasing managers' index (PMI) compiled by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) fell to 53.9 in May from 55.7 in April. The reading, which was close to the median forecast of 54.0 in a Reuters poll of 10 economists, marked the 15th straight month that the PMI has stood above the threshold of 50 that demarcates...

Is China backing away from censuring North Korea over the sinking of South's Cheonan warship? Despite indications last week that it might take a harder line on North Korea over the North's apparent sinking of South Korea's Cheonan warship, China now appears unwilling to censure its Communist ally. By Arthur Bright, Correspondent posted May 30, 2010 at 10:42 am EDT China appears to be maintaining its unwillingness to censure North Korea for its involvement in the sinking of a South Korean warship, despite earlier indications to the contrary, as a summit between China, Japan, and South Korea ended without any...

South Korean police are probing leaflets and Internet messages spreading rumours of imminent war and questioning an investigation into the sinking of a naval vessel which they say could affect Wednesday's local elections. WORLD | SOUTH KOREA The ship sinking has become the top campaign issue, with the liberal opposition accusing President Lee Myung-bak of provoking tension after a decade of warming ties with reclusive and impoverished North Korea. But polls showed Lee's uncompromising stand against the North has helped keep support ratings for him near the 50 percent mark in recent weeks. Lee has vowed to hold North Korea...

Surprised by how easily a South Korean warship was sunk by what an international investigation concluded was a North Korean torpedo fired from a midget submarine, senior American officials say they are planning a long-term program to plug major gaps in the South’s naval defenses. The discovery of the weaknesses in South Korea caught officials in both countries off guard. As South Korea has rocketed into the ranks of the world’s top economies, it has invested billions of dollars to bolster its defenses and to help refine one of the oldest war plans in the Pentagon’s library: a joint strategy...

U.S. and South Korean forces said they are ready to repel any threat posed by North Korea as 24 stealth fighter jets deploy to the region and a report said the military alert level has been raised. Naval vessels plan anti-submarine exercises close to the disputed maritime border between North and South Korea where one of the South’s warships sank on March 26, killing 46 sailors. An international team of experts last week concluded that a North Korean torpedo blew apart the Cheonan, prompting Kim Jong Il’s regime to cut all ties with the South and threaten “all-out war” over...

May 31, 2010 China’s stance on North Korea could lead to war The world is anxious about the Kim regime but greater disasters lie ahead if its superpower neighbour fails to act Bill Emmott Try this quiz. You lead a rising economic superpower, with ambitions for global political power. You have pledged to pursue a “peaceful rise” and to work through the United Nations wherever possible to maintain international stability. Out of the blue, your unruly neighbour, an ally and quasi-dependant for the past 60 years, torpedoes a warship of its own neighbour, killing 46 sailors, and then, when accused...

SEOUL, May 30 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's military has deferred a plan to fly anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets to North Korea, a defense ministry official said Sunday, as the communist nation has kept up harsh rhetoric against Seoul's propaganda warfare. (snip) "Leaflet distribution had been put off due to weather conditions so far, but we have now decided to put it on hold for the time being, considering the political situation," the ministry official said on condition of anonymity. North Korea has denied any responsibility for the sinking that killed 46 sailors, and strongly protested South Korea's punitive measures. Pyongyang has...

USUALLY, there is a familiar cycle to Korea crises. Like a street gang showing off its power to run amok in a well-heeled neighborhood, the North Koreans launch a missile over Japan or set off a nuclear test or stage an attack — as strong evidence indicates they did in March, when a South Korean warship was torpedoed. Expressions of outrage follow. So do vows that this time, the North Koreans will pay a steep price. SNIP The White House betting is that the latest crisis, stemming from the March attack, will also abate without much escalation. But there is...

/begin my translation N. Korea's Defense Commission Held Unprecedented News Conference over Cheonan's Sinking 05/29/10 (Korea Central News Agency, Pyongyang = Yonhap News) On May 28, at People's Cultural Palace in Pyongyang, Maj. Gen. Pak Rim Su, director of the department of policy at the National Defense Commission, gave news conference to invited diplomatic corps. /end my translation

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don't count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints. The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters. One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in...

The sinking of the South Korean frigate Cheonan last March 26 by a North Korean torpedo has prompted some Arab Gulf officials to wonder whether this would be a scenario that they would likely face with a nuclear-armed Iran in the future. North Korea, now equipped with nuclear arms, appears to have grown bolder in its provocations of its U.S.-allied neighbor in the south and other parts of East and Southeast Asia. An international team of investigators concluded that the warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo. Seoul’s reaction has thus far been mild compared to its loss of...

Have you been anxiously awaiting word that the Bibles you sponsored have successfully reached their destination in North Korea? Wait no more! Bibles Unbound is pleased to announce the successful completion of the operation. Thanks to your help, 10,000 Bibles have made it into the hands of believing and non-believing North Korean men and women. Mr. Lee, one man who received a Bible through this operation, explained that before he defected to China he believed Bibles were evil. As a young boy he had been taught that American missionaries did bad things and that the books they carried were bad,...