Left Flank

A South Korean law designed to manage international marriage brokers due to take effect in June 2008 will be too late for Tran Thanh Lan and four South Koreans indicted for human trafficking in The Philippines. But,the two incidents dramatize the consequences, when South Korean men go looking for brides in lesser-developed states.

The business began in the late 1990s by matching South Korean farmers or the physically disabled mostly to ethnic Koreans in China, according to brokers and the Korea Consumer Protection Board. But by 2003, the majority of customers were urban bachelors, and the foreign brides came from a host of countries. The board says 2,000 to 3,000 agencies operate now.

The widespread availability of gender-screening technology since the 1980s has resulted in an overabundance of South Korean males. What is more, South Korea's growing wealth has increased women's educational and employment opportunities, even as it has led to rising divorce rates and plummeting birthrates.

"Nowadays, Korean women have higher standards," said Lee Eun Tae, the owner of Interwedding, an agency that last year matched 400 Korean bachelors with brides from Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Mongolia, Thailand, Cambodia, Uzbekistan and Indonesia. "If a man has only a high school degree, or lives with his mother, or works only at a small- or medium-size company, or is short or older, or lives in the countryside, he'll find it very difficult to marry in Korea."

Critics say the business demeans and takes advantage of poor women. But brokers say they are merely matching the needs of Korean men and foreign women seeking better lives.

"But this business will get more difficult as those countries get richer," said Won Hyun Jae, the owner of i-Bombit, another agency. "Now, even a disabled Korean man can find a Vietnamese bride. But eventually Vietnamese women will ask why they have to go marry a Korean man when life in Vietnam is good."

For now, Vietnam remains a popular source of brides, second only to China. Marriages with Vietnamese women are considered so successful that the local government of at least one city, Yeongcheon, in South Korea's rural southeast, subsidizes marriage tours only to Vietnam.

There are other sides to these stories. Last October, during the Pusan International Film Festival, I also watched Hello, Stranger, in which a North Korean defector helps a Vietnamese guest worker find his Vietnamese girlfriend. Events turn to tragicomedy as he learns, that his only love, who lied when she claimed only to be working, is actually married to a South Korean man, and that his odyssey to ROK to rescue her and marry her was only a miserable failure replete with a bullying, exploitative boss and language barriers.

Whether another layer of bureaucracy can prevent such regrettable incidents is questionable, but at least it's a recognition of sorts, that all is not right. ROK is a a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking, according to Human Trafficking.

Could this be a portent, or a godsend: the DPRK following its bigger cousin's lead in Southeast Asia?

Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung formally welcomed Premier Kim Yong-il before senior officials of the two communist-run countries signed memorandums of understanding to share agriculture technology and promote cultural exchanges.

«We are convinced that our current visit will bear out good results,» said a statement by the North Korean delegation, which includes several cabinet ministers.

Kim, who is in charge of economic policy, arrived in Hanoi on Friday and will visit a coal mine, a port, an agricultural institute and an industrial zone until Tuesday before going to Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos.

(...)

Vietnam, opening its economy and the newest World Trade Organisation member, says it has done almost no trade with North Korea since 1996.

In contrast, Vietnam's business ties with South Korea are booming. South Korea is the biggest investor in Vietnam and two-way trade is about $4 billion.

Is Kim Yong-il the face of the new DPRK? Cambodia and Laos are entirely forgettable, but Malaysia could make a serious dent in Pyongyang's isolation.

One question, though: that Vietnamese rice might be fairly exotic to North Korean palates. How will Pyongyang spin that?

Are Asian Communist values coming to Cuba?

Ra�l Castro, who took over as Cuba's acting president in July 2006 when his elder brother, Fidel, had intestinal surgery, seems to be aware of the popular frustration. Acknowledging that the economy needed «structural and conceptual changes», in July he called for an «open debate» on what to do. Nothing should be off the agenda, he insisted.

The debate has taken place at local branches of the Communist Party, as well as trade unions and other mass organisations. At each meeting, a notetaker has recorded without attribution the criticisms and suggestions. Over the next two months the results will be analysed. Cuba-watchers reckon that, after a slow start, the debate has been franker and more wide-ranging than the last such exercise held in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the island's sponsor.

Apart from petty corruption and slovenly officials, the main gripes have been low pay, rising income inequality, inefficiency, waste and asphyxiating bureaucracy. Loyal Communist militants have joined ordinary people in criticising defects in the prized health and education systems, including Cuba's policy of sending some 25,000 doctors and other specialists to support Hugo Chavez's «Bolivarian Revolution» in Venezuela. (Mr Chavez pays Cuba some $3 billion-4 billion a year, partly in oil, for their services.)

How will Raul Castro respond to all this? Unlike Fidel, he is thought to favour the course pursued by China and Vietnam, in which markets and private investment have been combined with Communist political control. Even before the debate began, government economists had been studying measures such as allowing more self-employment and private or co-operative ownership of small and medium-sized businesses, as well as reforming land tenure and freeing agricultural markets.

Under Raul Castro the government has already been a bit more welcoming of foreign investment. He has also said that wages need to rise, though that will have to be accompanied by changes in prices and the official exchange rate.

It's not democracy, but many Cubans might prefer it. Will the US tolerate it?

Let me put a marker down: any North Korean leader will visit Vietnam before he ever visits Seoul.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said North Korean Prime Minister Kim Yong-Il would pay an official visit to Hanoi «at a coming date» without being specific.

The last senior Vietnamese figure to visit North Korea was then-President Tran Duc Luong in May 2002.

Last week, the Vietnam government Web site said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had «approved an investment protection and encouragement pact» with North Korea.

Vietnam has relations with both North Korea and South Korea. The South Koreans are the biggest investors in the Southeast Asian country, whose economy is growing at more than 8 percent a year.

I guess, though, Seoul had something to do with this visit, since it's Vietnam's top exporter (and avid consumer of brides). I also wonder if American goods might find their way by this circuitous route through Hanoi to Pyongyang?