Link Banana

The Economist’s Asia.view column does a good job profiling America’s recent history of human rights advocacy in North Korea, as well as assessing China’s push for “corporate social responsibility” within its factories there. My favorite part, if only because I share the mentioned speakers feelings, was this bit:

And a documentary film which shows two ragged young men singing a song called “Our Father, Kim Jong Il”, in praise of the country’s dictator, hears one of them comment “Pretty lousy father”—a rare crack in the facade of national devotion.

None of this gives much cause for hope. But as one conference speaker put it, it is better to be an optimist and wrong than a pessimist and right. In North Korea, it is also harder.