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American Eyes Inside North Korea’s Nuclear Facilities and Others

By Counter-Terrorism, Critical National / Regional Security Issues, Developments in Technology, Disaster Prep & Humanitarian Aid, Economic Development, Economic Security/Development, Energy, Food Security, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, International Business, Intl Business in Asia, IT/Computer/Software, Korean Peninsula, Military, North Korea, North Korea, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear, Our Media
Nicole FinnemanFormerly, Korea Economic Institute, Washington, D.C.

Nicole Finneman
Formerly, Korea Economic Institute,
Washington, D.C

 

 

 

Hosted by David Day, this television program aired statewide in Hawaii and features, as its special guest, Ms. Nicole Finneman, formerly with the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, D.C.  Ms. Finneman, an American eyewitness inside North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and other fascinating facilities and locations throughout the country, talks about those experiences.

The conversation turns from the Yongbyon visit to the potential business and commerce development in North Korea and references American firms now lining up to do business in North Korea in the future, including the Korean-American-owned, Pyongyang University of Science and Technology (a private university).

Ms. Finneman talks about her visits to various commercial enterprises, the Koryolink mobile phone explosion in the country, and the market/commercial developments within the country. (Koryolink, a joint venture between the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom Holdings and the state-owned Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation, is North Korea’s only 3G mobile operator.)

Nicole also discusses  her visit to the digital libraries at Kim Il Sung University and their remarkable high tech facilities which many universities in the U.S. currently do not have…but only connected to an intranet–no internet.

Finally, Ms. Finneman and David Day talk about the infrastructure for commerce and foreign investment that is now being put into place in North Korea and her crystal-ball view of the potential for change in that country.

August 15, 2013
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Fall of Saigon: What Did We Accomplish and What have we learned?

By All Southeast Asia, Counter-Terrorism, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Military, Our Media, PRC/China, Vietnam

April 30, marks the 38th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War for the United States. This year is also the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. This program looks at the linkage between these two momentous events and how they impacted American and Vietnamese lives, Southeast Asia, as well as the Cold War.

Gene Castagnetti USMC Col. (Ret.) Director, U.S. Memorial Cemetary of the Pacific

Gene Castagnetti
USMC Col. (Ret.)
Director, U.S. Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific

In this conversation,  former combat USMC (ret) Col. Gene Castagnetti and Stanford’s Nguyen Van Canh examine the background of the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the impact of the Paris Peace Accords, and then the collapse of the government and country of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. Wars, like elections, have consequences, and the discussion includes a look at the downside of the U.S. withdrawal and the losses on the South Vietnamese side, the genocide, imprisonment, executions, re-education camps and then the bloodbath in Laos and Cambodia that followed. Both guests talk about the victory in Vietnam that has gone unrecognized and unappreciated as well as a theme of betrayal of our men and women in arms by our own political leadership.

Prof. Nguyen Van Canh Stanford University

Prof. Nguyen Van Canh
Stanford University

 

 

Hosted by David Day

August 5, 2013
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Gulf of Tonkin: The Record Set Straight…Finally

By All Southeast Asia, Critical National / Regional Security Issues, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Military, Our Media, Pacific Forum CSIS, Vietnam

 

The Gulf of Tonkin incident in early August of 1964 is a key point in American History. It is the flash of armed conflict that formally brought the United States into the Vietnam War (or, “American War” as the Vietnamese call it) through the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The actual history of this incident got all entangled in the politics of the time and resulted in a conventional wisdom/urban myth (check out the Wikipedia version here)  which is 180 degrees from the actual facts.

 

In this program, Admiral Lloyd “Joe” Vasey, who investigated the incident contemporaneously, now sets the record straight. Interviewed by David Day, this is the very same Admiral Vasey that served as a junior officer to John McCain, Sr (Senator McCain’s father) during WW II and is the founder of the distinguished foreign policy thinktank in the Asia-Pacific Region, Pacific Forum, CSIS.

At the time this program was recorded, Admiral Vasey was 95 years old.

 

There were 2 U.S. destroyers involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The first, the USS Maddox was fired upon on August 2, 1964. There was no dispute that the Maddox was engaged on August 2. There was a bullet hole in the ship to prove it. Because the Maddox carried sensitive and classified electronic equipment onboard, the USS Turner Joy was immediately dispatched to defend the Maddox and got between the Maddox and the incoming North Vietnamese patrol craft as its “shield.” It is the August 4 attacks on the Turner Joy that have been disputed by history.  Admiral Vasey corrects the twisted history here.

 

Admiral Vasey wrote an extensive article in the August, 2010 issue of Proceedings, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland and reprints can be ordered here.

Admiral Vasey was Chief of Staff for Commander Seventh Fleet. Subsequently, he commanded a fleet of destroyers, was Secretary to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and chief strategist for CINCPAC. He served as a submarine officer in the invasion of North Africa and then in the Pacific through World War II.

October 8, 2012
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The Taiwan Success Story

By All Southeast Asia, Critical National / Regional Security Issues, Economic Development, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, International Business Education, Intl Business in Asia, Japan, Our Media, Philippines, PRC/China, Regional Security/Flashpoints, South China Sea Claims, Taiwan, Taiwan Straits, Vietnam

In this televised, “Asia in Review” Broadcast, David Day engages Taiwan expert Prof. William Sharp in a lively discussion about Taiwan’s historic background, democratic institutions and structure, strategic challenges with China (including the South China Sea dispute), and its delicate relationship with the United States.

Bill Sharp and David Day on “The Taiwan Success Story”

November 26, 2011
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Yet Another China Foreign Policy Stumble: The South China Sea

By All Southeast Asia, All Southeast Asia, Articles, Blog, China, China, China, Energy, Food Security, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Oil & Gas, Philippines, Regional Security/Flashpoints, Resource management/Extraction, South China Sea Claims, Vietnam, Vietnam, Vietnam

China has had a number of foreign policy gaffes over the past couple of years and its very recent attempt at imposing a fishing ban in the South China Sea (known to the Vietnamese as the “East Sea”) is yet another stumble.  Attempting to protect and encourage the replenishment of fishing stock during the spawning season, China announced on May 11, 2011 a fishing ban to run from May 16 through August 1 over an area hotly contested by several South East Asia countries, most notably by Vietnam.

While replenishing the fishing stock may well be a noble ideal, China’s unilateral action is guaranteed to gin up a firey defiance by the Vietnamese, with fishermen ignoring the ban, boat seizures and violent confrontations– all too predictable.

Vietnam has a 1000 mile coastline to protect and its Eastern Sea is an essential part of its defense perimeter that it has, and will continue to jealously protect. China knows this all too well– given its historical battles and scrapes with Vietnam in these same waters over the millennia.

China’s unilateral muscle-flexing in the South China Sea is hardly simply to protect the  fishing stock which Vietnam’s marine industry depends upon. China had to know full well that its fishing ban would necessarily force a response from Vietnam  and give the PRC an opportunity to reinforce its imprimatur over the disputed waters.

For Vietnam, the Eastern Sea is its “line in the sand.”  Vietnamese public opinion will not stand for any moves by China to nip bites out of Vietnamese waters. China knows this but its policymakers blundered ahead anyway.

Defiance by little colorful Vietnamese fishing boats is one thing. China did not anticipate, however, the announcement by the Vietnamese Navy that it now intends to conduct live firing exercises off of Vietnam’s central coast directly into waters affected by the fishing ban.

Such are the perils of unilateralism–especially when you have a little sleeping tiger to the south.

June 11, 2011
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Confrontation in the Koreas: Where is the Solution?

By China, Critical National / Regional Security Issues, Disaster Prep & Humanitarian Aid, Economic Development, Foreign Policy/Geopolitics, Intl Business in Asia, Japan, Korean Peninsula, Military, Mongolia, North Korea, North Korea, North Korea, Northeast Asia, Nuclear, Our Media, Pacific Forum CSIS, PRC/China, Regional Security/Flashpoints, Russia, South Korea

This is Part 2 of the television series of discussions between Pacific Forum, CSIS’s Dr. Kevin Shepard and international Lawyer David F.Day on the complex issues behind the confrontation between the Koreas. This in-depth discussion includes and examination of the humanitarian crisis facing the international community should North Korea collapse, China’s 3 province economic policy and its impact on China’s view of North Korea, and the beginnings of private sector investment in North Korea.

March 20, 2011
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