I popped into Australia for a 2 day conference at Australia National University to present some work and to meet officials at the DFAT, Australia’s ministry responsible for trade and foreign affairs. I was looking to find out more about the impact of their previous training programs for North Koreans and to see if they are interested in restarting those programs. I managed to meet the person tasked with running those programs and he had an overwhelmingly positive view of how those programs were reshaping the dialogue on economic activity in Pyongyang. Interestingly, their program only took North Koreans under 35, and the North Korean government readily agreed to it. However, according to the professor, the programs were killed by the Bush administration, which push to cut off all UN funding for technical training in the DPRK.

The DFAT people I met involved in the North Korean desk were unfortunately far less impressive than I would have expected. I assumed that they would have good experts working on the issues but I guess it is too much of an expectation given how peripheral North Korea is to Australian interests. The people we talked to were downright condescending - preferring to lecture (about things I know already and issues I have struggled with myself) rather than listen. They did not know much about North Korea beyond the very limited amount about the country anyone can get from mass-media. It reminded me of what a friend of mine who used to cover North Korea for the International Crisis Group said: you can read 5 books on North Korea and know more than 90 percent of people working on the country full-time for the US State Department.

Because of mechanical issues, Qantas had to reschedule my flight, which left me with three hours of sleeping time before work on the next day. And to boot, they left my bag in Sydney as I made my way to Seoul.