NAPSNet Daily Report
 
tuesday, august 21, 2001
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I. United States

II. Republic of Korea
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I. United States


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1. Jiang Zemin's DPRK Visit

Reuters (Jeremy Page, "CHINA'S JIANG TO VISIT N.KOREA ON SEPT 3," Beijing, 08/21/01) reported that official PRC sources said Tuesday that PRC President Jiang Zemin plans to visit the DPRK on September 3, but it was not clear how long he would stay. An unnamed Beijing-based diplomat stated, "Just after Kim Jong-il's visit to Russia, China wants to show its presence." The PRC Foreign Ministry said that Jiang had accepted an invitation to visit the DPRK but details were still being worked out. The ROK's Yonhap news agency quoted an "informed Chinese source" as saying the trip was brought forward from late September to avoid schedule conflicts. Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that Jiang would be accompanied by Zeng Qinghong, head of the Chinese Communist Party's organization department, Vice Premier Qian Qichen, State Development Planning Commission head Zeng Peiyan, and military officials. Another diplomat in Beijing said, however, that it is "very unlikely" that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il will visit Seoul soon. The diplomat stated, "It's not so simple for North Korea."


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2. DPRK Famine

The Associated Press (Ted Anthony, "OFFICIAL REPORTS ON KOREAN FAMINE," Beijing. 08/21/01) reported that Catherine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), said Tuesday that more children, nursing mothers and elderly people in the DPRK are eating, largely because of foreign food aid, but the situation remains "quite precarious." She stated, "I am not reporting that the total food situation has improved. There is no significant improvement in terms of the country's ability to feed itself between 1997 and today. There is an improvement in the state of the people - particularly the children - who have been able to have food assistance." She added, "We go specifically to those places where everyone knows we're going. We'd like to go to places where there's not been as much advance notice." She warned, "It is not possible for the country to become food self-sufficient within the next few years. We hope for a better harvest. We hope the needs will be less.... But we know that, over the long term, food aid is still going to be required."


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3. Detention of ROK Activists

The Associated Press (Soo-Jeong Lee, "S. KOREA OFFICIALS DETAIN DELEGATES," Seoul, 08/21/01) and Reuters (Paul Eckert, "S.KOREANS DETAINED ON RETURN FROM NORTH RALLY," Seoul, 08/21/01) reported that ROK prosecutors detained 16 members of a delegation of ROK civic leaders who were suspected of violating the National Security Law by engaging in pro-DPRK activities during a trip to Pyongyang. Those arrested included Kang Jeong-koo, a college professor accused of visiting the birthplace of late DPRK President Kim Il-sung and leaving a memo that allegedly sympathized with reunification under DPRK terms. Others were Kim Kyu-chul and Kim Se- chang from BomMinRyon, an alliance of civic groups engaged with reunification-related activities. Scuffles broke out as police tried to take away white and blue flags showing an undivided Korean peninsula from a group of activists who showed up to welcome the visitors on their return to Seoul, while a group of 300 army veterans shouted slogans denouncing the travelers and threw several eggs at the students. Kim Chong-su, a Catholic priest who led the ROK delegation, apologized at the airport for the activists who attended the closing ceremony and said that exhaustive negotiations failed to persuade DPRK officials to change the venue.


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4. ROK-DPRK Cultural Exchange

The Associated Press ("NKOREA 'TITANIC' IN THEATERS SOON," Seoul, 08/21/01) reported that Narai Film Company, a Seoul-based film trader, is awaiting permission to screen a DPRK movie about a Japanese navy vessel, Ukishima, that sank with thousands of Koreans aboard off Japan's west coast on August 24, 1945. While the cause of the shipwreck has never been determined, the movie claims that the Japanese military bombed the ship to kill witnesses of its World War II atrocities, including the sexual enslavement of Koreans. Choi Jae-keun, an official of the Culture and Tourism Ministry, said that ROK film rating committee is expected to approve the movie soon. Narai has planned a premiere of the film in Seoul on Friday, the 56th anniversary of the sinking.


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5. US Port Visit to Hong Kong

The London Times (Oliver August, "CHINA SPIES ON DEFIANT US NAVAL VISIT," Hong Kong, 08/21/01) reported that the PRC was expected to monitor the e-mails sent by the crew of two visiting US aircraft carriers in Hong Kong. One unnamed US naval officer stated, "Many of the men use Yahoo! e-mail accounts. While the military mail is encrypted, the personal mail is not." The article also said that the PRC's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is believed to have deployed some of its most sophisticated eavesdropping equipment in Hong Kong harbor. [Ed. Note: This article was included in the US Department of Defense's Early Bird news service for August 21.]


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6. US-PRC Information Warfare

MSNBC.com (William Arkin and Robert Windrem, "THE U.S.-CHINA INFORMATION WAR, 08/20/01) reported that the mission of the downed EP-3E spy plane was not only to monitor the PRC's voice communications and radar signals, but also to gather information on a new form of data code named "Proforma," which can be used to manipulate, deceive and disable computers used by military command and control systems. An unnamed senior US official said that unlike weapons systems, "Information technology changes too quickly," requiring constant updating of information warfare (IW) capabilities. Internal Defense Department documents described IW as the process of compelling an adversary to take particular actions rather than to impose a military defeat. The document said that IW "must be carefully integrated into the overall military strategy and closely coordinated with the associated diplomacy and international public information activities." Air Force General Ralph Eberhart, commander-in-chief of US Space Command and the senior IW officer in the US military, stated, "First of all, you have to map the networks." Lieutenant General Michael Hayden, director of the National Security Agency, said that intercepted signals "that used to be in the air are now in the ground, and what used to be in the ground is now in the air. We are turning our national SIGINT [signals intelligence] system on its head chasing after the new telecommunications environment." According to the US Defense Department's annual report to Congress, "China appears interested in researching methods to insert computer viruses into foreign networks as part of its overall [information operations] strategy." Timothy Thomas, an analyst at the US Army's Foreign Military Studies Office, said that the PRC military plans to elevate IW to a separate service, including detachments of network warriors organized into "shock brigades." The US first detected PRC IW capabilities during an October 1998 exercise conducted in the Lanzhou Military Region, where an electronic "confrontation" was simulated, including reconnaissance, interference and destruction. A US Defense Department assessment concluded that "many officials in the PLA [People's Liberation Army] view the Kosovo conflict as the first example of a purely 'no contact' war, in which control of aerospace and information systems were the deciding factors." An unnamed high- ranking US intelligence official noted, "The countries who would pose the greatest threat to us in terms of information warfare are increasingly dependent on the same systems we use. Something like 90 percent of China's military computer systems use Windows and Intel chips. They know if they attack us, we have an even greater capability at NSA [the National Security Agency] to go after them. No one has been working on offensive info-war longer than we have." [Ed. Note: This article was included in the US Department of Defense's Early Bird news service for August 21.]


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7. US-Russian Missile Defense Talks

The Associated Press ("U.S., RUSSIA TALK MISSILE DEFENSE," Moscow, 08/21/01) and Reuters (Peter Graff, "RUSSIA, U.S. HOLD ARMS TALKS; NO DEAL SEEN SOON," Moscow, 08/21/01) reported that US Undersecretary of State John Bolton met Tuesday with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov to discuss US missile defense plans. Mamedov said that the consultations are "a new, serious thing, which we are just starting." Andrei Nikolayev, head of the Russian Duma's defense committee, said after talks with Bolton on Monday, "We have not heard from the Americans a clear-cut explanation of what it is that is not to their liking in the [Anti-Ballistic Missile] treaty."


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8. International Arms Sales

The Associated Press (John J. Lumpkin, "US DOMINATES ARMS TRADE IN 2000," Washington, 08/21/01) reported that a US Congressional Research Service report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1993- 2000," said that the US accounted for almost half the US$25.4 billion in weapons sold to developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa in 2000. The ROK ranked third in arms purchases, behind the United Arab Emirates and India. The leading recipients of completed weapons from older contracts were Saudi Arabia, the PRC, Egypt, Taiwan and Israel.


II. Republic of Korea


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1. Nogunri Massacre

The Korea Herald (Kang Seok-jae, "U.S. PLANES STRAFED CIVILIANS IN NOGUN-RI: DOCUMENTS," 08/21/01) reported that declassified US documents posted on the Web site of the US publication firm Henry Holt show that US air force planes strafed ROK civilians on three occasions in and around Nogun-ri during the early days of the Korean War. An after-mission report showed that between "50 to 100 troops were killed or wounded by U.S. air force planes three miles south of Yongam-ri July 26, 1950." It added, "The initial attack on the refugees occurred around mid-day; this mission flew in early evening. But some survivors say they were strafed again later that day, or the next day, or both." Another after-mission report also said that US planes were ordered to strafe an "unidentified object" one mile west of Hwanggan July 27, 1950. The Nogun-ri trestle, which some survivors say was strafed that day, is a mile and a half west-southwest of Hwanggan. Henry Holt plans to publish a book on the incident, titled "The Bridge at No Gun Ri" on September 6, written by Associated Press writers Charles J. Hanley, Choe Sang-hun and Martha Mendoza. [Ed. Note: This article was included in the US Department of Defense's Early Bird news service for August 21.]


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