afkuhn

First thought: frustrating to have to report on what's happening there without being able to get in. Take-no-prisoners style of politics pretty shocking. All this from a leader who loves basketball, Dennis Rodman, etc.

In the long term, yes, they can clean up, just as US cities have done. The threats to China's public health and social stability are so huge. The hardest part will be to change "develop first, clean up later" mindset, especially for those who have yet to share the fruits of development.

I am not encouraged about the direction of international coverage by US media. My colleagues at big 3 US networks have great difficulty getting stories on air. Foreign press corps appears to be contracting in many countries. Sometimes I feel like we foreign correspondents are an endangered species, to be replaced by kids with laptops and backpacks, locals who know nothing about their target audiences, and cubicle dwellers many time zones away from what they are reporting.

Not many, just French and Chinese (Mandarin). Long list of linguistic ambitions, including Thai, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, etc.

I guess the key question is how much it strengthens leader Kim Jong-un's position, whether it means an ideological shift away from market reforms, and whether the purge will bleed into foreign policy, for example tenser relations with Seoul, Washington and Beijing...or even more nuke or missile tests.