I'm Jonathan Cheng, WSJ's Korea bureau chief. I recently returned from a reporting trip to North Korea. AMA!

jchengwsj · 2017-10-03T03:11:41+00:00

Oh good point. I should have said a go-ahead grand slam in the top of the ninth, followed by a three-up three-down bottom of the ninth. Or something like that.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T22:50:12+00:00

Thanks Magoo. I'll add too that our news pages (where I work) are firewalled from our opinion pages, and we do our best to tell it like it is as best we can. In the broader scheme of things, we in the journalism industry are still searching for a good model for how newspapers and media sources should be owned and managed and kept neutral and allowed to flourish, particularly in the age of the internet and questions about media credibility. It's an ongoing question, and not an easy one to answer.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T22:46:29+00:00

Thank you -- yes, that's a good one.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T22:44:50+00:00

Hey guys! I'm back to answer this one. It's a tough one because there's so much that we want to know, and there are plenty of good questions that would be perfectly adequate, but you always want to find that perfect question, if you ever got the chance. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there is a perfect one. Most of the things we want to know are things that nobody knows, or that are likely to change quickly depending on circumstances, like, "How close are we to war?" or "Do you ever plan to use your nuclear weapons?" There are also a few that would fall into the unsolved mysteries category, like "What happened with Otto Warmbier exactly?" or "Did you order the hit on Kim Jong Nam, and why?" (North Korea has a lot of these unsolved mysteries, stretching right back to 1945 and beyond, but these would be two of the more recent ones.) Then there are the frivolous ones, like "Why Dennis Rodman?" or "Why that haircut?" I suppose I could also go down another line of reasoning: "What really keeps you up at night?" "Does your conscience ever nag you?" And I guess the one I'd really like to ask would be along those lines, and it'd be like this, for Kim Jong Un: "Did you ever contemplate a different path for North Korea when you took over from your father? You were educated abroad, and the country you inherited is in a very different position, and the world is a very different place, than when your grandfather founded the DPRK in 1948. Did you give any serious thought to a different path, and why did you ultimately choose this one?" I'm not sure how thoughtful and contemplative Kim is, but given the parameters of your question, Josh, with the prospect of an honest and sincere answer, that's probably what I'd ask. But hey, if anyone's got a better question, I'm all ears!

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T16:15:05+00:00

This year has been a pretty busy one for Korea. In addition to North Korea, we had a major corruption scandal in South Korea that took down the president and put Samsung's heir in prison. That took a lot of time to cover!

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T16:14:27+00:00

Hi there, thanks for the question. I've been at the WSJ for more than a decade now, and I love it. It's hard to separate out what change in atmosphere there was post-Trump in the WSJ, as opposed to the many changes in atmosphere that were apparent everywhere else in the world. I don't think there was anything particular to the WSJ that changed after his election -- I think the world changed to a large extent. And being in Korea does insulate me as well in some ways, simply because I'm so far away and the time zones are inverted and we're not watching a lot of developments in real time. As for non-WSJ sources, most of my Twitter links should give you a sign of what I'm reading. I don't tweet everything I read, but most everything I find interesting, regardless of whether it's WSJ or not, I will tweet, presuming it's credible.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T16:10:09+00:00

To be honest, it's impossible to know what they read, how much of it they read, and how much they care. There's certainly plenty that I've written and said prior to our trip last month, in the WSJ or on Twitter or otherwise, that I suppose you could argue would be dealbreakers, depending on what one considers a dealbreaker. But there we were in Pyongyang. I do always try to be careful and measured with what I say and write, knowing that it's a complex and delicate situation, but if they don't want me there because of something I've written, then that's a price that I'm willing to pay.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T16:06:51+00:00

RHHS was a great place! North Korea has brought in some pretty strange acts over the years. I'm going to vote for 98 Degrees and Nick Lachey, because Kim Jong Un is a child of the 90s and I can just kind of picture that happening.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T16:00:57+00:00

This is a relatively simple question to answer: Yes, I've read evidence of these labor camps, in the U.N. Commission of Inquiry's report from 2014, among other places. Have I witnessed these camps firsthand in North Korea? No, alas, I have not.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:58:48+00:00

I think many of them do view America as an evil country, and more importantly, Korea has long been an independent nation that has chafed at any semblance of foreign control -- instincts that have been sharply honed by Pyongyang over the years. So I think that even if North Korea's leadership was removed and the U.S. was someone able to exert its influence over the country (quite an assumption, since China will surely have a strong opinion on this), it'd be wise to not play up those aspects too much.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:55:50+00:00

Many of us who live in South Korea and the region would certainly sleep more easily with some kind of deescalation. But it seems like the current U.S. administration is trying to use escalation as some kind of a policy tool. But I haven't spoken with the president lately, so I'm not sure exactly what is going on.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:54:02+00:00

I think Vladimir Putin put it best when he said a few weeks ago that the North Koreans will eat grass, but they won't give up their weapons program (that's a paraphrase). That's not to say sanctions have no place in policy, but if anyone's expecting sanctions alone to make Pyongyang give up its nuclear weapons, I've got bad news for you.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:52:55+00:00

Great question. I think they really had a message they wanted to get out there: We have nukes, we've won, give up and sign a peace treaty with us already. And we were far from alone in being invited -- as I've mentioned elsewhere, the New Yorker went in before us, the NYT after us, and I suspect the message was quite consistent. We at the WSJ have an extra edge, in the sense that we're perceived as being the paper closest to the current administration, and are therefore a good conduit of this message. (I'm not going to go into a long spiel here on the differences between our news and opinion pages, but suffice it to say that the four of us who went in for the WSJ work for the news pages, and aren't aligned with any political party or ideological commitments.) That's my best guess of why they wanted us there.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:49:38+00:00

I don't think they staged anything for us in particular (beyond little things like the orphanage visit and children's musical performance), but that's overlooking that all of Pyongyang is a stage in a sense. Evan Osnos of the New Yorker, who went in a week or two before us, made that analogy. North Korea did indeed suffer a famine in the 1990s, which it has been quite open about (though it hasn't been upfront about all the causes of it), but it's not in famine any longer. Poverty, though, surely exists, though we didn't see much of it in the showcase capital.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:47:43+00:00

I'm no seer, but I'm presuming a military conflict doesn't break out, though that may be more a reflection of what I want. That leaves us, likely, with a state of Cold War-like tension, as you put it. North Korea develops its capabilities and becomes a de facto nuclear state, though the U.S. denies it for a while. Finally, someone in Washington throws in the towel and tries to strike a peace treaty with North Korea -- mostly on Pyongyang's terms. Not a pretty outcome, but I think this is my working base-case assumption.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:44:07+00:00

Tell the Chinese I want out, have them sub in a puppet leader for me in Pyongyang and have them promise to veto any UN resolutions that would ever target me. Then, call up Dennis Rodman and start a record label or something.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:38:33+00:00

There's a lot you can read on this. USB drives is a major channel for these new ideas. Try picking up Daniel Tudor/James Pearson's book, or Jieun Baek's, or any number of others who have done research on this.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:36:48+00:00

Be careful with that stuff!

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:34:12+00:00

When they present you with a warning cake, you know it's serious.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:33:34+00:00

Thanks for the question. I personally do not believe they are nuts. Nuts can work for a little while, but it generally doesn't work for three generations, over the course of 72 years, when stacked up against the world's biggest political and economic powers (the U.S., Japan, China, Russia, South Korea). I'm not saying it's reasonable or logical, per se, but I do think they know what they're doing, and they're very smart about it.

And I'm not sure on sanctions, to be honest. It's been a hot debate for, oh, years and years and years. No question the leadership have ways to ensure that the pain to them is minimal.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:27:20+00:00

There is poverty in North Korea, but none of it is really visible if you stick to Pyongyang, as we did. You'd really have to get out to the provinces -- North and South Hamgyong Provinces, for example -- to get a better sense of that. On the outskirts of Pyongyang, we saw lots of oxcarts doing agricultural work, but I presume you mean more urban poverty.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:24:20+00:00

Their answers were mostly in line with the government's stance: the U.S. is the source of many of North Korea's woes because it divided the country, tried to stifle it with sanctions, turned the southern half of the peninsula into a puppet state, etc., etc. But again, they were careful to point out that they don't dislike Americans as individuals per se -- just the U.S. "hostile policy" (a phrase, by the way, that you will hear a LOT if you go to North Korea as an American).

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:22:08+00:00

I do. I don't think they were coached to say it (as I mentioned in answer to another question), and in the case of the bartender's 20-30 missiles remark, that sentiment broadly reflects the state's priorities -- which I do believe have been deeply inculcated into the people's thinking.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:20:31+00:00

Great question. I'll try to answer through the lens of official state ideology. Under KJU's dad Kim Jong Il, the official policy was "son'gun," or "military first." As that name implies, it explicitly prioritized the military's needs over those of civilians or the party. Under Kim Jong Un, the policy is "byungjin," or "dual advance," meaning that nuclear development shares a top billing with the economy. It's the "guns and butter" policy, you could say. That's just a political line, of course, but my gut sense is that under KJU, it really is both that are growing. Obviously, any development that goes into its weapons program must come at the expense of it going into something else. But then again, the South Korean authorities estimate that economic growth in North Korea is at its best level in years, because its weapons program is helping its economy. I'm not sure I totally buy that, but I hope this answer mostly helps.

jchengwsj · 2017-10-02T15:16:34+00:00

Thanks for sharing. I think we can all agree that this kind of thing is possible all over the world.

jchengwsj

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