This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/11/world/asia/eric-schmidt-bill-richardson-north-korea.html

The article has changed 9 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 5 Version 6
Google Chief Urges North Korea to Embrace Web Visit by Google Chairman May Benefit North Korea
(about 4 hours later)
BEIJING — Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, returned from a four-day visit to North Korea on Thursday with a message for the reclusive nation’s young new leader: embrace the Web or else. BEIJING — As a work of propaganda, the images that North Korea circulated this week showing Google’s executive chairman, Eric E. Schmidt, touring a high-tech incubation center are hard to beat.
Mr. Schmidt, part of a private delegation led by former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico that also sought to press North Korea on humanitarian and diplomatic issues, said North Korea risked falling further behind if it did not provide more access to cellphone service and the Internet. With former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico at his side, Mr. Schmidt, who is fond of describing the Internet as the enemy of despots, toured what was presented as the hub of the computer industry in one of the world’s most pitiless police states. Both men gazed attentively as a select group of North Koreans showed their ability to surf the Web.
“As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their physical world, their economic growth and so forth and it will make it harder for them to catch up economically,” he told reporters during a stop at Beijing International Airport. “We made that alternative very, very clear.” It is unclear what the famously hermetic North Koreans hoped to accomplish by allowing the visit. But the photos of the billionaire entrepreneur taking the time to visit the nation’s computer labs were bound to be useful to a new national leader whom analysts say needs to show his people that their impoverished nation is moving forward.
Their visit, the highest-profile delegation of Americans since Kim Jong-un took power upon the death of his father in December 2011, comes at precarious time for United States-North Korean relations after the North’s rocket launch last month that drew international condemnation. North Korea insists its Unha-3 rocket is part of a peaceful space program; South Korean and American intelligence officials say the North was testing a long-range ballistic missile that could one day reach the United States. It will matter little, those experts say, that the visitors were bundled against the cold, indoors — a sign of the country’s extreme privation — or that the vast majority of North Koreans have no access to computers, much less the Web beyond their country’s tightly controlled borders.
The State Department was not thrilled with Mr. Richardson’s freelance diplomacy, at least not publicly. A spokeswoman described Mr. Richardson’s visit as not “particularly helpful” given that the United States is seeking to rally support for tougher international sanctions against the North. Some North Korea experts have characterized the self-described humanitarian mission as naïve, saying it will ultimately serve the North’s propaganda needs. The men’s quixotic four-day trip ended Thursday much the way it began, with some analysts calling the visit hopelessly naïve and others describing it as valuable back-channel diplomacy at a time when Washington and Pyongyang are not on speaking terms (again).
Although Mr. Richardson did not address the criticism on Thursday, he said his hosts were receptive during discussions about ways to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula as well as his effort to seek the release of a Korean-American who was detained in November in the north of the country. “I’m still spinning my wheels to figure out a plausible motivation for why they went,” said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea specialist at the International Crisis Group.
“We had a very positive reaction,” Mr. Richardson said. Mr. Schmidt and Mr. Richardson insist they accomplished some good — showing the world has not forgotten the plight of an American detained in the North, and at least trying to nudge the tightly sealed nation a bit closer to the fold of globally connected nations.
The delegation did not meet with the detained American, Kenneth Bae, 44, a tour operator from Washington who has been accused of “hostile acts,” but Mr. Richardson said he was assured Mr. Bae was being treated well and that judicial proceedings would begin soon. “As the world becomes increasingly connected, their decision to be virtually isolated is very much going to affect their  physical world, their economic growth and so forth,” Mr. Schmidt told reporters after arriving at Beijing International Airport. “We made that alternative very, very clear.”
There was one tangible success of their visit: the authorities, Mr. Richardson said, had agreed to deliver to Mr. Bae a letter from his son. The unofficial visit, however, raised hackles in Washington, and provided rich fodder for commentators and comedians. Even before the Americans left Pyongyang, someone created an account on Tumblr, the popular social blogging site, called “Eric Schmidt looking at things,” that parodied sites (themselves parodies) featuring the country’s leaders earnestly inspecting livestock, soldiers or leather insoles. (Mr. Schmidt is shown looking intently at computer screens, “the back of a North Korean Student,” and Mr. Richardson.)
But Mr. Richardson’s efforts to promote peace, love and understanding were overshadowed by the billion-dollar wattage of Mr. Schmidt, a vocal proponent of Internet freedom. The delegation, which included Mr. Schmidt’s daughter and Jared Cohen, a former State Department official who heads Google Ideas, the company’s think tank, made highly choreographed visits to several sites meant to display the nation’s information technology prowess. Others were less kind. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, took to Twitter to call the self-appointed delegation “useful idiots,” and John R. Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador, said the delegation was unwittingly feeding the North Korean propaganda mill as it sought to burnish the credentials of Kim Jung-un, the nation’s leader, who is in his 20s.
At the elite Kim Il Sung University, computer science students showed off their ability to surf the Internet, stopping on a Web site run by Cornell University. “Pyongyang uses gullible Americans for its own purposes,” Mr. Bolton wrote in The New York Daily News.
For most North Koreans, using a computer, let alone accessing Google, is all but impossible. Although the country has global broadband Internet, few people are allowed to use it, and if they do, their surfing is strictly monitored. Experts say fewer than a thousand people have such access, most of them software developers, government officials and well-connected party loyalists. The State Department, meanwhile, called the visit “not particularly helpful” given efforts by the United States to rally international support for tougher sanctions following North Korea’s recent launching of a rocket that intelligence experts say could help in the development of missiles that could one day reach the United States.
At the main library in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, the Grand People’s Study House, the Americans watched as users in thick winter coats crowded around computer screens that connect to North Korea’s Intranet, known as Kwangmyong, which serves up government-approved documents, books and archival newspapers. As if on cue, the North Korean news media hailed the visit by “the Google team” — which included Jared Cohen, who leads Google’s think tank — highlighting their visit to the mausoleum where Mr. Kim’s grandfather and father lie in state. There, Mr. Richardson and Mr. Schmidt “expressed admiration and paid respect to Comrade Kim Il-sung and Comrade Kim Jong-il,” the North’s main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said.
They later toured the Korea Computer Center, an incubator for domestic software and hardware, where they played with a homegrown tablet and other gadgetry, most of it developed with help from Russia, China and India. A quote from Kim Jong Il, the current leader’s father, graced the room: “Now is the era for science and technology. It is the era of computers.” Although Mr. Richardson did not address the criticism during his brief remarks to reporters on Thursday in Beijing, he said he believed his visit was helpful in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Since he came to power, the 20-something Mr. Kim, who was educated in a Swiss boarding school, has emphasized the importance of science and technology for economic development. And while he has called for computerizing in the nation’s dilapidated factories — and spending even more scarce hard currency on developing ballistic missiles — he has made no mention of addressing North Korea’s status as one of the world’s least wired nations. The delegation did not meet with the detained American, Kenneth Bae, a tour operator from Washington who has been accused of “hostile acts,” but Mr. Richardson said he received assurances that Mr. Bae was being treated well and that judicial proceedings would begin soon.
Mr. Schmidt appears to have learned a great deal from his visit. Speaking to reporters in Beijing, he talked in some detail about the nation’s 3G cellular phone service, developed by the Egyptian telecom company Orascom. But he noted with disappointment that little more than one million of the country’s 24 million citizens had cellphones. A number of North Korean analysts said that Mr. Richardson — who has made several visits to Pyongyang — should be commended for his efforts on behalf of Mr. Bae. “It sends an important message that people outside his family care about his fate,” said John Feffer, at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington.
That system, he added hopefully, had the potential to provide Internet access but that so far the feature was unavailable. “It would be very easy for them to turn it on,” he said. Mr. Richardson said that he was invited by North Koreans whom he had met before, and that he extended an invitation to Mr. Schmidt.
Known for his independent streak, Mr. Schmidt appears to have drawn the lion’s share of criticism for a trip that some have described as an act of vanity, or worse, hubris.
It is not the first time his personal ventures have distracted from company business. Privately, some Google executives say his activities, both political and personal, have at times become public relations headaches. An avid fund-raiser for President Obama, Mr. Schmidt was seen at election parties at a time when Google was embroiled in an antitrust investigation by the federal government.For Mr. Kim, who did not meet the delegation, the trip appeared to have no downsides.
In the year since Mr. Kim became supreme leader, North Korea has been trying to build his image as a youthful, people-friendly modernist who understands the benefits of technology better than his late father. Analysts say the Google visit, coupled with the successful rocket launch, provide his image makers plenty of raw material. “Kim Jong-un wants to show to the outside world that he is not as isolated and reclusive as is often believed,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul.
Mr. Kim spent some of his teenage years at a Swiss boarding school, where he was exposed to Western culture and technology. At home, he has emphasized science and technology to help build “a strong and prosperous nation.” He wants to computerize the country’s antiquated factories, many of which have been idled by a lack of fuel and raw materials. He has even stressed following “global trends” by reaching out to other countries and using the Internet to acquire technological know-how from overseas. Last November, he recommended horseback riding to offset the occupational hazards of working with computers.
Despite such talk, the government remains openly hostile toward the Internet; the country is a reliable member of the annual “Enemies of the Internet” report issued each year by Reporters Without Borders. And under Mr. Kim, North Korea has intensified a crackdown on other forms of outside information, including the DVDs and thumb drives smuggled from China that often carry banned South Korean soap operas.
Given the government’s obsession with keeping out any information that could undermine its grip on power or the Kim family’s personality cult, analysts say North Korea is unlikely to embrace Mr. Schmidt’s global connectivity dream any time soon.
“When Kim Jong-un talks about using the Internet, he means a one-way traffic of information: getting information North Korea needs,” said Kim Kwang-in, head of the North Korea Strategy Center, a research institute in Seoul. “It does not mean North Korea will open itself up to the Internet. It is not ready to — and cannot — adopt such reforms yet.”

Choe Sang-Hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea, Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco, and Edward Wong from Beijing.