Category: Korea-General Topics

Unsurprisingly Koreans are not fond of the forced labor compensation plan with Japan:

Nearly 60 percent of South Koreans are against the government’s plan to compensate victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor on its own without involving Japanese firms, a poll showed Friday.

In the poll of 1,002 adults conducted by Gallup Korea on Wednesday and Thursday, 59 percent said they oppose the plan as it does not require Tokyo’s official apology and compensation.

Some 35 percent said they support the compensation plan for the sake of national interest and Korea-Japan relations, while 6 percent were unsure.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

These COVID cases are so low now this should give the government sufficient reason to lift the mask mandates on public transportation:

The country reported 10,009 new COVID-19 infections, including 15 cases from overseas, bringing the total caseload to 30,625,389, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).

Saturday’s tally is slightly down from 10,335 a day earlier and from 11,246 a week earlier, KDCA data showed.

South Korea added three COVID-19 deaths, the lowest daily figure in about eight months, with the death toll rising to 34,096.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link.

I did not realize it has been this long since an official state visit to the U.S. by a South Korean leader:

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will make a state visit to the United States late next month, and hold a summit with his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the two countries’ alliance and deepen political, economic, security, and people-to-people ties.

The South Korean presidential office said Wednesday that Yoon will travel to the U.S. for a state visit in late April and that a state dinner is slated for April 26. The White House said U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-han discussed preparations for the upcoming visit by Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee.

It will be the first state visit to the U.S. by a South Korean leader in 12 years. The last South Korean head of state to do that was former President Lee Myung-bak, who was invited by then U.S. President Barack Obama in October 2011. Also, Yoon will be the second state guest invited by Biden since his inauguration in January 2021.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to prove that these companies hired Kim Keon-hee’s company to organize these art exhibitions because her husband was heading the Seoul District Prosecutors Office at the time:

 Prosecutors have cleared first lady Kim Keon Hee of graft suspicions involving three art exhibitions hosted by her former cultural content company, officials said Thursday. 

Kim had been under graft suspicions that about a dozen conglomerates sponsored three art exhibitions organized by her former company, Covana Contents, allegedly because President Yoon Suk Yeol was serving in a high-level prosecution position at that time.

Yoon was heading the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office while one of the art exhibitions on Swiss sculpture Alberto Giacometti was held in 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This should be no surprise that protesters would come out against trying to improve relations with Japan:

Soon after President Yoon Suk Yeol gave a key address, calling Japan a partner for South Korea’s regional security and economy, some hundreds held a rally on Independence Movement Day on Wednesday, urging him to keep his promise of resolving historic disputes with the neighboring country including the one over sexual slavery during its 1910-45 rule of Korean Peninsula.

In the late morning chill, around 200 civic activists gathered near the Japanese Embassy in central Seoul, holding paper cutouts of yellow butterflies — a symbol of victims representing a wish to escape from violence and fly — chanting “apologize,” and demanding compensation from Japan.

The protest was a part of the 1,585th weekly rally protesting Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II that has been held for the last 30 years.

Lee Yong-soo, a 93-year-old victim of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery, took over the microphone, said she still has a faith in President Yoon, and demanded his administration to send the matter to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.

“The then-presidential-candidate Yoon Suk Yeol was the third person to visit me, and he said he would resolve the comfort women issue even if he wasn’t elected. His words touched me,” she said. “I don’t think that he lied (at that time), and I will believe in him.”

Watching Lee’s tearful speech, 63-year-old Kim Deok-yeon said he has participated in the demonstration since last year to raise awareness, especially among the younger generation.

“These people were forced to become sex slaves of Japan’s wartime brothels, but Japan seems reluctant (to take responsibility). As a Korean citizen, I couldn’t stand my anger toward Japan for committing such atrocities,” he said, referring to the victims as “survivors of a dark part of history.”

Kim stressed the importance of educating Korean students about undistorted facts in and out of the country, lamenting Japan’s recognition of Dokdo as part of its territory.

“History doesn’t lie — it has everything recorded down. Now is a time to properly educate the younger generation about our country’s past so that the same history will not repeat itself in the future,” he said, hoping young people would create a change.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but if this 63 year old man really cared about sex slaves then what is he doing about modern day sexual slavery of Korean women in China right now?

According to one report the sexual trafficking of Korean women is a $105 million industry in China. Imperial Japan was obviously wrong about trafficking Korean women 80 years ago which they claim was resolved with the payments made in the 1965 Normalization Treaty. The Japanese government had apologized even started a victim compensation fund before the prior President Moon shut it down for political reasons. Restarting this victim compensation fund appears to be the route that President Yoon is trying to go again, but we will see what happens.

I knew a KATUSA Soldier in this situation who was born in the U.S. and his parents still lived in the U.S. He could of avoided military service by not going to Korea, but his parents were adamant that he complete his military service just like other Korean males:

The Constitutional Court has upheld the constitutionality of the law requiring military service for men born to South Korean parents temporarily staying overseas before they can renounce their Korean citizenship.

According to legal sources Wednesday, all eight Constitutional Court judges rejected a 23-year-old man’s petition questioning the constitutionality of the Nationality Act forcing conscription on people in his situation.

The man was born to South Korean parents in the United States while they were studying there. He held dual South Korean and U.S. citizenships, and his application to renounce his South Korean nationality in 2018 was rejected.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I wonder what would happen in the U.S. if a law like this was ever passed?:

The Constitutional Court has ruled that the school violence prevention law mandating a school bully’s apology to the victim and other countermeasures is constitutional, officials said Tuesday. 

The court made the decision 6-3, rejecting a middle school student’s petition claiming that the anti-school violence law infringes upon the freedom of conscience and personality rights by forcing an apology to a victim of school bullying.

Under the school violence prevention act, bullies can be ordered to make a written apology to victims, banned from contacting, threatening or retaliating against victims, and be ordered to transfer classes.

The student filed the petition for a review of the law’s constitutionality after being punished for school violence in 2017 with orders to make a written apology to the victim, move to a different class and not to contact the victim.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another BTS member is taking the first steps to complete his mandatory military service obligation:

BTS artist j-hope began the enlistment process for his stint with the South Korean military, his record label announced, making him the second member of the Korean-pop group to do so.

The rapper-singer, whose real name is Jung Ho-seok, applied to end his postponement of the mandatory 18-month service.

“We will inform you of further updates in due course,” BIGHIT Music wrote on Weverse. “We ask you for your continued love and support for j-hope until he completes his military service and safely returns. Our company will spare no effort in providing support for our artist.”

The 29-year-old follows fellow BTS star Jin, 30, who began his mandatory service in December. South Korea requires most men to enlist in its military by age 28, but entertainers can push back their stints until they’re 30.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This cable car project will probably turn Osaek into the same madhouse that the current Seoraksan National Park entrance is. I have taken the cable car before at the National Park entrance and it was a long line with a packed cable car; so I understand why they are trying to create another cable car to distribute the demand. However, Osaek is a quieter area compared to the park’s entrance since this is where hikers stay to ascend the mountain from. That may change in the near future if a cable car is built there as well:

The environment ministry on Monday gave a conditional nod to a controversial project to build and operate a cable car system over a natural reserve area on Mount Seorak near South Korea’s east coast.

The project, pursued since the 1980s, seeks to build a 3.3-kilometer-long cable car system between the Seoraksan National Park’s Osaek area in the county of Yangyang and near the mountain’s summit. 

Once completed as planned, the system will service 53 cable cars to carry up to 825 passengers per hour. 

The site is within a state-designated natural reserve as well as a biosphere reserve designated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

The environment ministry’s regional office in Wonju gave “conditional consent” to an environmental impact assessment report submitted by Yangyang County on the project, saying it carries measures to reduce negative environmental effects.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is not good news for the historically low Korean birthrate:

Just four percent of unmarried Korean women in their 20s and 30s see marriage and childbearing as essential in their lives, according to a recent survey that paints an even gloomier picture of the country’s continuously falling fertility rate. 

The survey was conducted by Park Jeong-min, a professor of social welfare at Seoul National University and published in the Korean Journal of Social Welfare Studies, Sunday. Park surveyed 281 unmarried men and women aged between 20 and 40 on their thoughts about marriage and childbirth.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.