Category: Inter-Korean Issues

No surprise here that the ruling Democratic Party gave in to orders from Kim Yo-jong to criminalize the activists sending leaflets into North Korea:

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea’s (DPK) passage of a bill at the national Assembly prohibiting the sending of leaflets with anti-North Korea messages across the border is facing a strong backlash from defectors’ groups and the opposition as well as the international community.

Park Sang-hak, the head of the Fighters for a Free North Korea, a North Korean defectors’ group, said Tuesday that he will file a petition with the Constitutional Court against the so-called “anti-leaflet law,” which can hand down a prison term of three years or a maximum fine of 30 million won to people sending messages critical of the North Korean regime via leaflets or broadcasts.

The DPK pushed ahead with passing the bill despite a protest from the conservative opposition People Power Party late Monday evening. The bill came after a statement from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister Kim Yo-jong in June in which she strongly denounced such leaflets and called on Seoul to do something about them. The opposition and activists for North Korean human rights such as Park have derided it as legislation “submitting to Kim Yo-jong’s order.”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the article speculates that this might impact relations with the incoming Biden administration. I would be surprised if it does because when did anyone in the Obama administration ever strongly support these activists? I doubt the Biden administration will be much different.

By the way the North Korean reaction and the South Korean left’s quick criminalization of Park Sang-hak and his group is a sure sign that the leaflets are having an effect in North Korea.

The Moon administration must really think the Biden administration is going to reduce sanctions to let them restart these cross border projects to make tribute payments to economic cooperation with Kim Jong-un through:

The government is seeking to revive deadlocked inter-Korean economic projects, including the reopening of a joint factory park, expecting that cross-border cooperation could resume earlier than some forecast.

Unification Minister Lee In-young held a meeting with business leaders in Seoul, Monday, to gauge their opinions on the plan as part of the government’s re-launching of the Korean Peninsula peace process initiative. Representatives from local companies, including Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG that accompanied President Moon Jae-in on his visit to Pyongyang in September 2018, participated.  (……)

“While building an environment for economic cooperation between the two Koreas, the government plans to reignite inter-Korean projects such as individual tours to the North by South Koreans, cross-border railway and road connections and the resumption of work at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex,” Lee said. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but does anyone really think the money the Kim regime will make from restarting these projects will go to improving the lives of North Koreans? As history has shown us the Kim regime uses these payments to make great advances in their military, nuclear, and missile capabilities. Why will this time be any different?

It is hard to believe that it has already been 10 years since this attack happened:

South Korea will memorialize a site on Yeonpyeong Island shelled by North Korean forces in an unprovoked attack a decade ago, according to Seoul’s military.  

A Marine Corps official told the JoongAng Ilbo Sunday that an area used to station field artillery on the island that was bombarded by North Korean artillery on Nov. 23, 2010, would be turned into a memorial.    

The memorial will stand at the “gun platform where, amid the flames of the North Korean military’s bombardment, we pulled out our K-9 [howitzers] and immediately returned fire,” the official said.  

Construction on a memorial that tourists can visit on Yeonpyeong Island, located around 120 kilometers (75 miles) off the western coast, will be complete around mid-December, the official added.  

Currently, the main reminder of the bombardment of the island is the rubble of a house torn apart by the North’s shelling.  

The North Koreans are believed to have fired around 170 rounds from a multiple-rocket launcher, hitting various spots on the larger of the two Yeonpyeong islands including a village and South Korean military installations.   

The shelling killed two South Korean civilians — both construction workers — as well as two Marines stationed on the island. Around 30 more people were injured, while most of the island’s 1,780 civilian residents were evacuated on government vessels to Incheon. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

ROK Drop favorite Professor B.R. Myers has a new article posted about the intense propaganda campaign launched by the Korean left to first impeach President Park and now is currently being used to cover up for ruling party scandals and setting conditions for implementation of the Korean confederation:

Druking, Burning Sun, Mokpo real estate, SillaJen, the Ulsan mayoral race, Pak Won-soon, Optimus, Yun Mi-hyang, Lime, Cho Kuk — Justice Minister Cho Kuk: More interesting than any of the recent scandals these keywords stand for has been the nationalist left’s unyielding defense of the pols and officials involved. We even saw self-described feminists jeer the frightened woman who had complained of the Seoul mayor’s sexual advances. Whistle-blowers and investigators are denounced as “pro-Japanese” elements working for the opposition, which is in fact the most docile and insignificant one this country has seen since the early 1980s.

The temptation now, to which my conservative acquaintances have succumbed with a certain relief, is to write off the ruling camp as a network of insider traders and real-estate speculators: old-school pols who rig elections, demote prosecutors, and imprison journalists for no other reason than to keep outsiders from the trough. But corruption and conviction are not the antitheses they are made out to be. One can hardly expect people who question the very legitimacy of the South Korean state to fret overmuch about breaking its laws. This is not to imply that the parliamentary right is more honest.

Granted, the  cascade of scandals has given the lie to the ruling camp’s vaunted commitment to reform. The general non-response, meanwhile, has belied the public’s commitment to it, something the foreign press corps — “big-mouthed and clueless,” to borrow what Peter Handke once said of the Spiegel — took at face value in 2016.  None of the alleged misconduct, which uncannily replicates or amplifies that for which Park and her people were convicted, has aroused much indignation from the man in the street. Even considering that voters are more tolerant of abuses of power when public expenditures are rising sharply (Melo and Pereira, 2015), as they have been here since 2017, we must acknowledge that the so-called Candlelight Revolution was a more top-down affair than we were led to believe.

This should have been obvious to us from the demonstrators’ struggle to give coherent reasons for their festive-seeming “outrage” on the nightly news. They weren’t really mad as hell, but they believed they should be, thanks to an intense propaganda campaign orchestrated by the politico-media complex. 

B.R. Myers

I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link. Professor Myers goes on to talk about the propaganda efforts going on now to describe the Korean left’s Confederation idea as being like the European Union. The propaganda effort is also trying to bury historical memory of North Korea in order to set Clinton era like conditions for a deal to be struck with the U.S. All this is going on with little notice or care from the media or the so called North Korea policy experts who Myers is most critical of in his article.

With the North Koreans not launching any provocations before the U.S. presidential election and President Moon continuing to pound the drum about a peace treaty it is pretty clear they think the next U.S. President will be open to a peace treaty deal:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday echoed an earlier call at the United Nations for a formal declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War — despite a lack of interest in the idea by other parties like North Korea and the United States.  
   
In a filmed address to the U.S.-based Korea Society for its annual gala, Moon appealed for support for such a declaration, which he affirmed would “not only deter war” and “institutionalize peace,” but also strengthen the South Korea-U.S. alliance.  
   
The speech marked the second time in recent weeks Moon has beaten the drum for an end-of-war declaration, following his video address to the 75th UN General Assembly in New York last month. In that, he declared that such a declaration will “open the door” to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.  (…….)

With his peace initiative toward the North now on life support, Moon has apparently put his bets on an end-of-war declaration as a means by which to end the deadlock in diplomacy with the North.  
   
“We can neither allow any backtracking on hard-earned progress nor change our destination,” Moon said in his address, according to an official English translation from Seoul’s presidential office.  
   
“Moreover, our two countries will continue the efforts to build trust with North Korea, one of the parties involved, by keeping our ears, mind and heart open toward it.” 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I have long chronicled what would happen if a peace treaty was agreed to.

This news should not be surprising to anyone following the ideology of the Moon administration:

The alleged defection to South Korea of a ranking North Korean diplomat who went missing in 2018 during his tour of duty in Rome is raising concerns about its impact on inter-Korean relations, which have already hit an all-time low in recent months.

According to a local broadcaster’s report late Tuesday, Jo Song-gil, Pyongyang’s former acting ambassador to Italy, entered South Korea in July 2019 and has settled here under the protection of the authorities. Rep. Ha Tae-keung of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) who serves on the National Assembly Intelligence Committee, confirmed this in a Facebook post later in the day, while ruling Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Jeon Hae-cheol, the chief of the committee, acknowledged it Wednesday.

The National Intelligence Service and other relevant organizations have refused to confirm Jo’s entry into South Korea. However, the media here are highlighting Jo as the rare case of a high-level diplomatic official from the North defecting to the South. Jo is being compared to Rep. Tae Yong-ho of the PPP, who arrived in South Korea with his family in 2016 after serving as a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London. When Jo’s disappearance from Rome made headlines in 2018, Tae publicly called on Jo to join him in South Korea.

It is noticeable that there is a huge difference in Seoul’s reaction to the defection of the two diplomats. In August 2016, the Ministry of Unification officially announced Tae’s arrival. But if reports about Jo are correct, the Moon administration, which has prioritized engagement with North Korea, has been completely silent on him coming to the South. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Sounds like the ROK government is trying to spin a narrative of progress in regards to restarting denuclearization talks with North Korea even though nothing is happening:

South Korea and the United States have formed a “better foundation” for the declaration of an official end to the Korean War, South Korea’s top nuclear envoy said Wednesday.

“Since we had very broad and meaningful discussions, I believe a better foundation that will continue to serve us better in the future has been created,” Lee Do-hoon told reporters when asked whether the countries were able to reach a mutual understanding on the need to declare a formal end to the Korean War.

Lee’s trip to the U.S. came shortly after South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged international efforts to declare an official end to the 1950-53 Korean War, which he said would provide a security guarantee the North has long sought, and thus prompting the communist state to give up its nuclear ambitions.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but in my opinion nothing is getting done with North Korea until after the election. Even Kim Jong-un realizes this and has been very quiet these past few months.

According to the ROK government the fishery official murder by North Korea had over $282,000 in gambling debts which is likely what motivated him wanting to defect:

 South Korea said Tuesday that a government official slain by North Korean sailors wanted to defect, concluding that the man, who had gambling debts, swam against unfavorable currents with the help of a life jacket and a floatation device and conveyed his intention of resettling in North Korea.

Senior coast guard officer Yoon Seong-hyun said at a televised briefing that there was a “very low possibility” that the man could have fallen from a ship or tried to kill himself because he was putting on a life jacket when he was found in North Korean waters last week.

Yoon said tidal currents at the time would also make it extremely difficult for him to drift into North Korean waters naturally.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the man’s family says they believe he accidentally fell into the water and was not trying to defect.