President Moon must be feeling pretty confident that in the short term the Kaesong Industrial Complex will reopen:
Kaesong Industrial Park
President Moon Jae-in vowed Friday to invite foreign companies to set up affiliates at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) in North Korea if operations there are resumed.
“If operations at the Gaeseong complex resume, I will try to make it a place that houses multinational companies,” President Moon said at the start of a luncheon with businesspeople at Cheong Wa Dae, according to press pool reports.
The President appeared to be responding to remarks by Kim Ki-mun, head of the Korea Federation of Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), calling for the complex to be reopened to help small local businesses. Many of these are in a dire financial straits due to their investment in the complex, and a lack of new growth engines.
You can read more at the link, but Moon is probably betting that if large multinational companies set up shop in Kaesong that the Kim regime will be less likely to exhort South Korean businesses operating there like they have in the past.
For multinational corporations they will have to make a decision on whether they want their products built by near slave labor or not?
Apparently the North Koreans are not fans of President Moon’s peaceful reunification strategy:
North Korea on Friday launched a pair of unidentified projectiles into the East Sea while deriding South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s call for inter-Korean cooperation in his Liberation Day address Thursday.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the rockets were fired Friday morning at 8:01 a.m. and 8:16 a.m. from an area near Tongchon, Kangwon Province. Each of the projectiles flew a distance of approximately 230 kilometers (143 miles) with a peak altitude of 30 kilometers at Mach 6.1, the JCS said.
No determination has yet been made to what kind of weapon was tested, but the speed and distance covered suggested the same type of short-range tactical ballistic missiles believed to have been tested Aug. 10.
This marked the sixth time Pyongyang conducted such tests in just under a month and the eighth time this year. The tests are ostensibly protests of joint exercises between the United States and South Korea.
In this round, the launches were accompanied by a statement released by the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country (CPRC), one of the North’s agencies in charge of inter-Korean relations, that pilloried South Korea’s president without mentioning him by name.
Calling his Thursday speech on the anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese rule on “foolish” and a “citation of spiritual slogans,” the statement, attributed to a CPRC spokesperson, said Moon’s labeling of the North’s weapons tests as “worrisome acts” were “reckless remarks.”
“Even at this moment, there go on in South Korea joint military exercises against the DPRK,” the English-language statement continued, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name: the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of Korea. “Does [Moon] have any face to talk about dialogue atmosphere, peaceful economy and peace-keeping mechanism?”
The release scoffed at the central idea in Moon’s address – the building of a “peace economy” through inter-Korean cooperation – saying the notion would “make the boiled head of a cow provoke a side-splitting laughter.”
You can read more at the link, but what the Kim regime is essentially saying here is that if peaceful reunification is going to happen, it is going to happen on North Korean terms, not South Korean.
This is what reunification on North Korean terms looks like, it means a peace treaty that leads to the withdrawal of USFK, North Korea does not denuclearize, and South Korea carries the burden of rebuilding North Korea’s infrastructure, modernizing their military, and funding the Kim regime’s lavish lifestyle.
There will be no political or social openness in North Korea in return, instead the ideological indoctrination will be strengthened by the “victory” over the Americans by getting them to withdraw and the tribute the South Korean “puppets” are paying to Kim Jong-un in preparation for North Korea’s final victory over the South.
There will probably be more missiles being fired by North Korea next week as the joint exercise between the ROK and South Korea is scheduled to begin:
South Korea and the United States will stage joint military drills as scheduled despite warnings from North Korea, the South Korean military authority said Sunday.
The joint drills will begin Monday with a computer-simulated command post exercise (CPX) to cope with any emergency on the Korean Peninsula and last for half a month, according to the authority.
After the CPX, the allies will spend the remaining 10 days intensively verifying Seoul’s capabilities for its envisioned retaking of wartime operational control (OPCON) of its troops from Washington.
But many watchers say the joint military drills could prompt further provocation from the North.
#MoonJaein admin to transfer $8M to #NorthKorea via WFP next week. Meanwhile, NK rejected SK rice aid, shot off more missiles, & warned SK, the day after Chinese & Russian military aircraft intruded KADIZ & a RU aircraft violated SK airspace. Priorities.https://t.co/6EN5QK1GCd
NYT revealed Mercedes imported to N.Korea via Busan to Vladivostok then to Pyongyang by the ships. Ships once reached Vladivostok, they bring Coal to S.Korea.S.Korea became the route for N.Korea sending Mecedes and take Coal. No wonder why JPN sanction us.https://t.co/W5hUNTKoxx
Notice the Kim regime is not making threats against President Trump, but continuously make attacks against the Moon administration:
In this March 29, 2019, photo, a U.S. F-35A fighter jet prepares to land at Chungju Air Base in Chungju, South Korea. North Korea on Thursday, July 11, 2019, slammed South Korea for introducing high-tech U.S. stealth fighters, warning that it will respond by developing unspecified special weapons.
North Korea slammed South Korea over its ongoing deployment of high-tech U.S. fighter jets, warning Thursday that it will respond by developing and testing unspecified special weapons of its own to “destroy” the aircraft.
The statement, which also urged South Korea to abandon its “preposterous illusions” for improved ties, comes as Seoul has expressed hopes that a recent summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will help revive dialogue between the Koreas.
Under its biggest-ever weapons purchase, South Korea is to buy 40 F-35 fighter jets from Lockheed Martin by 2021. The first two arrived in March and two others are to be delivered in coming weeks, according to Seoul officials.
The project was announced in 2014 to cope with then rising military threats from North Korea, which was conducting an unusually large number of weapons tests. Animosities have gradually eased since last year when Pyongyang and Washington launched nuclear negotiations, but Seoul has been moving ahead with its already-approved F-35 procurement.
You can read more at the link, but it is arguable that the disrespect towards the Moon administration by the Kim regime is because they know they can get away with it. It is easy domestic propaganda for them with no risk of retaliation from the Moon administration.
It appears there is momentum moving towards reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park:
US President Donald Trump talks with President Moon Jae-in in the Korean Demilitarized Zone and views North Korea from Observation Post Ouellette at Camp Bonifas in South Korea, Sunday, June 30. AP-Yonhap
Nuclear negotiators of South Korea and the United States are set to discuss the possible reopening of now-shuttered Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea through the upcoming working-level talks on North Korea’s denuclearization, officials at the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said Sunday.
“South Korea unofficially sent a message about the normalization of the Gaeseong joint border industrial park to North Korea. The North has yet to respond. However, Seoul will be working on how to come to an agreement on conditions, terms and other differentiations with the United States about reopening the complex,” a DPK lawmaker who is involved with the matter said by telephone.
You can read more at the link, but this report comes on the heels of another recent report that the Trump administration is now looking at making a “Small Deal”. It appears the small deal could be reopening Kaesong for little to nothing in return which what has been tried before and failed to lead to any North Korean denuclearization.
If it reopens, the Kim regime will be able to use the estimated $110 million a year from the Kaesong Industrial Complex to help maintain the lifestyle of the regime elite and further develop their nuclear and missile capabilities. In return they may give the Trump administration a “cooling tower moment“. I guess we will see if this is what the Trump administration decides to sign up before.
It seems a bit premature from President Moon to declaring peace in our time:
President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that North Korea and the United States have effectively declared an end to their hostile relations with the symbolic weekend meeting between their leaders at the inter-Korean border.
Although they did not sign any document, their action was tantamount to a “de facto declaration of an end to hostile relations and the beginning of a full-fledged peace era,” Moon stressed, speaking at a Cabinet meeting.
He was referring to a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday.
President Moon might want to wait until next year to see if this is still the case because Kim Jong-un has previously said the regime is giving until next year for sanctions to be dropped. The Trump administration does not seem like it is going to drop sanctions without real denuclearization. I guess we will see what happens.
I would think such a visit would only happen after a major denuclearization deal is struck. Though I am extremely skeptical of Kim ever fully denuclearizing, if he does commit to a real denuclearization deal he should be hosted at the White House:
U.S. President Donald Trump invited North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un to Washington, D.C., when the two leaders met at the Panmunjom truce village on Sunday.
“I did,” Trump said when asked if he extended the invitation for Kim to come to the White House. “Actually, at some point it will all happen. When it all works out, at some point it will all happen.”
Earlier he said, “I would invite him right now to the White House,” as the two leaders headed to Freedom House, on the southern side of the village, before holding private talks.
