Category: Korean Government

South Korea has joined with the vast majority of the world to condemn Russia’s attempted annexation of territory within Ukraine:

The South Korean government said Saturday it does not recognize Russia’s recent annexation of Ukrainian territory as legitimate while strongly condemning Moscow’s invasion of the eastern European country.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to annex four regions in Ukraine, following referendums in the territory late last month.

“The Korean government strongly condemns Russia’s armed invasion against Ukraine as a violation of the principles of the U.N. Charter,” foreign ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk said in a statement.

“The Korean government does not recognize the referenda held in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson and Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian territory as legitimate.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but areas that Russia is claiming in this annexation have already been liberated by Ukraine. This includes Russia’s embarrassing defeat this weekend in the logistical hub of Lyman.

Just from a security stand point getting the Presidential office out of North Korean artillery range would be a smart move:

Several government ministries will team up to help facilitate the construction of a second presidential office in Sejong City, an administrative area 144 kilometers south of Seoul, by 2027, according to government officials, Sunday.

Setting up a second presidential office and a legislative building in Sejong was a key campaign pledge of President Yoon Suk-yeol, a vision he believes will cement the sparsely populated city as the nation’s administrative capital. The plan gained traction after the National Assembly revised related laws in May. 

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Ministry of Interior and Safety and the National Agency for Administrative City Construction said a joint team of officials will commission a study before October to determine the function, size and location of the second office. Plans to strengthen the public transportation system and infrastructure in a broader context of city planning will also follow.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the lowering of the elementary school age in Korea is no longer going to happen after public protests has led to the resignation of the Education minister:

Education Minister Park Soon-ae offered to resign Monday, just 34 days after taking office, amid criticism she mishandled key school policy proposals, such as lowering the elementary school entry age.

Park has been under pressure to step down after many teachers and parents protested strongly against lowering the school entry age by one year to 5. She has been criticized for announcing the proposal without sufficient preparations, such as collecting public opinion.

Her ministry had also unveiled a plan to abolish foreign language high schools, only to retract it days later.

Should President Yoon Suk-yeol accept the resignation, Park will be the first Cabinet minister to step down since Yoon took office in May.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It seems like momentum is building to resolve the forced labor issue between the ROK and Japan:

Foreign Minister Psrk Jin said Monday he believes a summit with Japan will take place once thorny issues, like Japan’s wartime forced labor, are resolved.

“I anticipate that a summit between South Korea and Japan will likely be held when desirable resolutions for ongoing issues, like wartime forced labor, are prepared,” Foreign Minister Park Jin told a parliamentary interpellation session.

Acknowledging that bilateral ties between the two countries are unlikely to recover without such a resolution, Park said the government will aim to find a “reasonable measure” for both countries while respecting the opinions of the victims.

When asked about possible measures to mend ties, Park said the government is reviewing many options such as former National Assembly Speaker Moon Hee-sang’s proposal to launch a fund for the victims backed by both companies and people of South Korea and Japan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This seems like a lot of hyperbole by the Interior Minister:

Interior Minister Lee Sang-min strongly criticized the chiefs of police precincts Monday for their collective action on Saturday against the envisioned launch of a supervisory bureau inside the interior ministry, calling it “an incident akin to a military coup.”

During a news briefing, Lee said Saturday’s meeting of police officials reminded him of the Dec. 12 military coup led by a group of generals that took place weeks after the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979.

“A lot of time has passed since then and we now live in an era when a military coup has become an unimaginable incident. But the fact that armed officials went ahead and gathered despite a warning from their superior and discussed an action against the government is a serious matter,” he said, indicating that the ministry will investigate those involved in the collective action.

The minister’s strongly-worded criticism came days after some 190 senior police officials from across the country responded to calls by Ulsan Jungbu Police Station Senior Superintendent Ryu Sam-young to gather and discuss how to react to the interior ministry’s plan to launch a supervisory bureau to put the police under its control.  

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I think the Yoon administration needs to be careful with this because what is to stop the Korean left once they are back in power at some point and prosecuting conservative officials for payback. We have already seen them do this at the Presidential level:

South Korea’s state spy agency said Wednesday it has requested formal investigations by prosecutors into allegations that two of its former chiefs mishandled controversial incidents involving North Korea a few years earlier.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) filed a complaint with the Supreme Prosecutors Office against Park Jie-won for “deleting intelligence-related reports without authorization” in regard to North Korea’s killing of a South Korean fisheries official in 2020.

Park, formerly a longtime lawmaker, is accused of abusing his authority and unlawfully destroying public electronic records during his stint as director of the NIS under the previous liberal Moon Jae-in administration.

In September 2020, Lee Dae-jun, then 47 years old, was fatally shot by the North’s coast guard near the Yellow Sea border between the two Koreas, a day after going missing while on duty on board a fishery inspection boat.

A storm of controversy has stirred up here since the South’s Coast Guard and the defense ministry recently announced that they have not found any concrete evidence backing the probe results from two years ago that the official might have attempted to defect to North Korea.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The KNPA director was highly criticized by President Yoon after he approved a personnel reshuffle without running it by the President for approval. The KNPA director is a hold over from the prior Moon administration so he was probably going to get changed out anyway:

National Police Agency Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong offered to resign Monday, days after President Yoon Suk-yeol strongly chastised police over a recent personnel reshuffle flip-flopping.

Police released the names of new senior superintendents general a week earlier, only to reverse seven of the selections two hours later. Yoon rebuked police, calling the flip-flopping a “serious disturbance of national discipline.”

The resignation offer also came as police have protested the interior ministry’s plan to establish a “police bureau” to increase its control of the law enforcement agency set to take over greater investigative roles from the prosecution.

“I determined that resigning now would be the best way,” Kim said, offering an apology to the public and policemen for “failing” to safeguard the neutrality and independence of police.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is pretty clear that the Korean left has nothing to hammer current President Yoon Suk-yeol on so they have come up with this so called “English complex”:

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s “unnecessary” use and praise of English has some citizens alleging he has a “complex.” 

Yoon has been heard using English terms on several occasions, even when the events did not call for a mixing of languages.

In a meeting on June 10 with the leaders of the ruling People Power Party, Yoon brought up a name change for Yongsan Park, a newly opened former Korea base for the U.S. Forces. 

While suggesting a new name, the president said, “When you say ‘National Memorial Park’ in English, it sounds cool, but when you say ‘Gukrip Chumo Gongwon,’” referring to the Korean equivalent of the name, “it doesn’t, so I don’t know what to call it in our country’s language.”

In another incident on June 8, Yoon spoke about how “In advanced countries like the U.S., former ‘general attorneys’ are widely positioned in politics and government,” saying “general attorneys” in English.

Yoon’s seemingly unnecessary inclusion of English in his official statements have sparked debate in South Korea as to whether the new president is showing bias toward the U.S. and the West more broadly.

Yahoo News

You can read more at the link, but would these critics instead have Yoon showing bias towards China instead of the West? That is clearly what they are implying.