Word: pyongyang
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...frigid Monday afternoon, under a fading sun and a beaming visage of Kim Il Sung, the late "Great Leader" of North Korea, the music director of the New York Philharmonic orchestra today led the largest American contingent since the end of the Korean war into Pyongyang, the capital city of the world's most isolated regime. When Lorin Maazel stepped off a chartered Asiana Airlines 747 from Beijing and shook the hand of North Korea's deputy minister of culture, Song Sok Hwan, the Gershwin offensive had begun...
...concert Tuesday night in Pyongyang, before 1,400 North Koreans, the orchestra played An American in Paris, part of an artistic adventure that has whipped up excitement not just in musical circles but in diplomatic ones. When the Philharmonic's visit was announced, images of the Ping-Pong diplomacy of an earlier era were revived. In 1971 the visit to Beijing by a group of U.S. table tennis players foreshadowed the end of China's Cold War-era seclusion and a new era in relations between Washington and Beijing. Now, the Philharmonic's concert comes as Pyongyang shuts down...
...also underway to repair a rail line linking Kaesong with the North Korean city of Sinuiju on the Chinese border - promising to give South Korean companies an overland transport route to the booming mainland. The South has also promised to help rebuild the main highway from Kaesong to Pyongyang. Given that there is already an expressway that runs from Seoul to the DMZ, optimists such as Lee Im Dong of the Kaesong Industrial Council note that this would, in effect, link Seoul to Pyongyang with a modern road in just a few years. South Korea is also interested in rebuilding...
...Economic Promise, Political Risk Such animosity highlights the fragility of ongoing efforts to pacify the North by boosting its parlous economic condition. South Korea's giant conglomerates like Samsung are unlikely to invest significantly until the U.S. removes Pyongyang from its list of state sponsors of terror and also amends its Trading with the Enemy Act, which imposes sanctions on North Korean trade. And billions of dollars, not just from South Korea but also from the U.S., Japan and China, will be needed to bring North Korea into the global economy - assuming, that is, that Kim Jong Il wants...
...increase his Kaesong production significantly in the coming months and hire an additional 370 North Korean workers before the end of the year. Still, he acknowledges that the success of his business may ultimately depend upon the decisions of Kim Jong Il's erratic government - and relying on Pyongyang has rarely proven to be a winning strategy in the past...