SEOUL, South Korea — Next month will be a big one for North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, as his nation hosts various conspicuous, cultish festivities. On Dec. 12, North Korean state media will probably memorialize its satellite launch one year ago, an early boost to Kim Jong Un’s prestige.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 20, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea is the butt of many jokes. Its military parades, for one, offer an eclectic mix of the clownish and terrifying. With blocks of goose-stepping soldiers in Soviet-style uniforms, tanks in formation, and a pudgy young dictator looking on, the scene is fitting for a cheesy 1960s propaganda broadcast — or even the next Austin Powers movie.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Nov 10, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — In American and South Korean tabloids, the wife of the North Korean dictator has achieved an unusual degree of celebrity.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 30, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — For more than 60 years, North and South Korea have been divided along the demilitarized zone, or the DMZ. Barriers — political, legal and physical — often prevent South Koreans from communicating directly with their northern brethren.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 19, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — In 2009, American minister Robert Park crossed into North Korea to protest what he called a “genocide” in the country’s six prison camps. Of course, the regime detained and later released him, making him one of six Americans held in North Korea in recent years.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 16, 2013
It’s almost an age-old tradition: North Korea gets upset over a joint military exercise between the US and South Korea, and vents its anger in a couple vague war threats.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 8, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — Earlier this year, North Korea tested its third underground nuclear device and then launched a flurry of war threats against the US and South Korea. The three months of tensions, from January to April 2013, are often called the “2013 North Korea crisis.”
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Oct 5, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — According to conventional wisdom, North Korea is headed for collapse. The only question is when. The answer: maybe sooner than we might expect.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 28, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — It’s not every day that 47 Western bikers can ride through the world’s most reclusive state. Yet as part of a race that began in China, athletes zipped through North Korea’s port town of Rajin this week, Reuters reports. Traffic was blocked off, and the cyclists given an unusual stint of freedom to move around the area. (Not that there’s much traffic in North Korea anyway.)
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 27, 2013
SEOUL, South Korea — The Obama administration’s push for a military strike against Syria is in full swing, highlighting not only the use of chemical weapons but the regimes that support Assad.
By Geoffrey Cain
PRI’s The World
Sep 8, 2013
What to read next:
Geoffrey Cain on Investigative Journalism, Authoritarian Power, and The Perfect Police State | In a wide-ranging conversation with Jennifer Grossman, CEO of The Atlas Society, investigative journalist Geoffrey Cain reflects on years spent reporting inside some of the world’s most restrictive regimes — and on the research behind his book The Perfect Police State: An Undercover Odyssey into China’s Terrifying Surveillance Dystopia of the Future.
For years, Tim Cook insisted Apple could change China from the inside. Instead, China changed Apple.
The latest evidence? Apple spent billions developing cutting-edge electric vehicle battery technology with Chinese automaker BYD, only to watch its innovations become the cornerstone of BYD’s rise to global electric vehicle dominance. Apple walked away with nothing. China walked away with everything.
This isn’t just another story about corporate research and development gone wrong. It’s a cautionary tale about how even America’s most valuable company has become trapped in China’s web of technological control — and how that web is about to tighten even further.