Category: Korean Government

Here is the new Korean ambassador to the United States:

Cho Tae-yong, the nominee for Korea’s ambassador to the United States, has received diplomatic consent ― known in international affairs as “agrement” ― from Washington, according to media reports.

President Yoon Suk-yeol appointed the diplomat-turned-politician as his first ambassador to the U.S. on May 17 and the approval came two weeks after Cho’s nomination. 

It took two months for Lee Soo-hyuck, Cho’s predecessor under the Moon Jae-in administration, to receive the approval of the U.S. government, raising speculation for some at the time that the delayed consent had been due to Washington’s displeasure with Seoul’s decision to end an information-sharing deal with Japan, although the foreign ministry dismissed such conjecture.

Known by those close to him for possessing a balanced mindset as well as expertise in U.S. and North Korean affairs, Cho, 65, served as the first vice foreign minister and the deputy national security adviser under the Park Geun-hye administration. In addition, he was elected as a proportional representative in 2020 on the conservative People Power Party’s ticket, serving on the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee and Intelligence Committee. 

Last week, Cho resigned from the Assembly to take on the ambassadorship. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Remember all the naysayers saying how moving the Presidential office so quickly could not be done and was going to cause a security gap? Well it appears all the criticism was overblown and instead it was a lot of people not wanting to go through change:

President Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to move into his newly remodeled presidential office in Yongsan District, central Seoul, as soon as June 19.    
   
The presidential office’s new moniker and emblem will be revealed on the day of the move.   

Since the launch of his administration on May 10, Yoon has been working from a temporary office on the fifth floor of the Defense Ministry building in Yongsan. Remodeling work throughout the 10-floor building is underway, and Yoon will move to the second floor, his permanent office, as soon as it’s complete around June 19 or 20.    
   
The second floor will also have the office of Yoon’s chief of staff, small and large reception rooms and some security services. The third floor will be occupied by presidential senior secretaries, and other floors will be used by the Presidential Security Service, secretariat, other aides and a new public-private committee. The press center is located on the first floor.  
   
The fifth floor office, where Yoon’s summit with U.S. President Joe Biden was held on May 21, will be converted into a multipurpose reception room.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

It sounds like South Korea is having the same problems with their pension system as the U.S. has with Social Security:

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance nominee Choo Kyung-ho has called for an overhaul of the state pension fund, which experts agree is crucial considering the country’s aging and shrinking population.

“Given the low birth rate and the increase in the elderly population, failure in reform will dent the fund’s financial soundness and drastically increase the burden on younger generations,” Choo said in a Q&A submitted to the National Assembly as part of the preparations for his Assembly hearing scheduled for May 2.

He views the current pension fund management system under the National Pension Service (NPS) as inefficient, saying, “It will only increase the national debt and will not last long.”

He called for a “comprehensive check-up” on the premium rates and the minimum age that people are eligible to receive pension benefits, among other factors.

The pension fund is on course to be depleted under the existing system, possibly in the 2050s.

Worse still, the population is aging rapidly.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully this is the beginning of an improved relationship between the ROK and Japan:

A delegation of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for meetings with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other top officials, carrying a letter from Yoon that outlines his will for “new relations with Japan.”

The visit by the seven-member delegation, led by Rep. Chung Jin-suk of Yoon’s People Power Party, came as Yoon has stressed the importance of restoring relations with Japan that have been frayed badly over the past few years due to rows over issues like wartime sexual slavery and forced labor.

Japan is the second foreign country that Yoon has sent a delegation to after the United States.

“I think the letter carries President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s will and expectations for new relations with Japan, as well as his expectations for positive responses from Japan,” Chung told reporters after arriving at Narita International Airport.

The delegation is expected to meet with Kishida on Wednesday and hand him the letter from Yoon.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The facts of his kids getting into the same college he was the President of seems less concerning to me than the draft exemption his son received:

The office of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said Monday that whether the health minister nominee is fit for office should be determined after his confirmation hearing, despite calls for withdrawing the nomination over suspicions he used his position to get his children into a medical school.

The nomination of Chung Ho-young, a former chief of Kyungpook National University Hospital, has become the hottest political issue after allegations surfaced that he used his position to help his daughter and son gain admission to the university’s medical school and exempt his son from active duty military service.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the facts around his kids admission seem flimsy to me. However, his son claiming a back injury is preventing him from doing his mandatory active military service I find questionable. The medical exam for the exemption was done at his father’s university hospital:

On Oct. 27, 2015, Chung’s son visited Kyungpook National University Hospital again. The medical certificate issued for military examination stated on Oct. 29, 2015 that “Patient is waiting follow-up after being diagnosed with a herniated disc in the 5th to 6th lumbar vertebrae.” On Nov. 6, Chung’s son was diagnosed with a “spine disease” during a second physical examination at Daegu Gyeongbuk Regional Military Manpower Administrationand deemed a Level 4 draftee, eligible for a desk job instead of active-duty service.   

Chung’s son completed his military service by working at a desk job instead of active-duty service.  It was also notable that Chung’s son only spent about 150,000 won for medical expenses over the past five years, according to press accounts, suggesting a good level of health.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

If his back is so bad that he can’t do active military service than he should have a long medical record of physical therapy, acupuncture, and follow up medical examinations. If the 150,000 won figure is true then all this follow treatment was likely not done which shows his back must not hurt all that bad.

A former ROK Army general that studied in the U.S. will soon be taking over the Defense Ministry:

Lee Jong-seop, a retired Army lieutenant general and former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), is an expert in military policy and strategy, with a focus on alliance issues between South Korea and the United States.

A graduate of the Korea Military Academy, Lee previously served as vice chief of staff of management at the 1st Army Command, and vice head of the defense ministry’s policy and planning division.

He later served as head of the Army’s 2nd Division in 2013 before becoming the JCS vice chairman from 2017 to 2018. Lee joined President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition committee as a member of its diplomacy and security subcommittee.

He is considered well-versed in matters related to South Korea-U.S. military relations, having experience in work related to the transfer of wartime operational control (OPCON) from Washington to Seoul. He has a doctorate degree in studies concerning the South Korea-U.S. alliance from Tennessee State University.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Moon was serious about assisting President-Elect Yoon with moving the presidential office after initial skepticism:

 The Cabinet on Wednesday approved 36 billion won (US$29.5 million) in reserve government funds for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to relocate the presidential office.

The spending was approved in an extraordinary Cabinet meeting presided over by Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum, a day after President Moon Jae-in ordered the swift approval of the relocation budget.

Kim said the approval was made in the context of cooperation for a “smooth government transition without a security vacuum” amid the heightening situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The scandal involving President Moon Jae-in’s wife’s wardrobe has finally come to light, but the journalist that first began to document improprieties of the first lady was riddled with lawsuits from the Blue House for doing so:

It all began with a column published on June 11, 2019, in local newspaper the Joongang Ilbo, which pitted veteran journalist Nam Jeong-ho against the presidential office in a legal battle that lasted for two years. 

In his column titled “First Lady Kim Jung-sook’s Bucket List?” he cautiously but unequivocally alleges that the first lady had made the most of the official overseas trips taken with her husband, President Moon Jae-in, as opportunities to explore some of the world’s renowned cultural heritage sites and museums on taxpayers’ money. 

Nam said he was overwhelmed by what happened to him afterwards. He first received a letter from the presidential office urging him and his company to print corrections according to unusually lengthy and detailed guidelines. He ignored a letter from LKB & Partners, one of the nation’s top law firms which was representing the first lady. Weeks later they sued him, after the two sides failed to reach an agreement arranged by the Press Arbitration Committee.

Nam compares his legal battle against Cheong Wa Dae to a showdown akin to David and Goliath. 

“I felt pressure (when I looked at the sender of the thick package of documents because I knew who they were),” Nam said in a phone interview with The Korea Times on Monday. “There were lots of naysayers around me and they encouraged me to do what Cheong Wa Dae asked me to do. They said Cheong Wa Dae would mobilize all the resources it could to win the battle.”

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read more at the link, but Mr. Nam should consider himself lucky that he wasn’t thrown in jail like other Korean journalists critical of President Moon.

This all should have happened many years ago, so it will be interesting to see if Yoon is able to get any traction on moving more of the government to Sejong City:

The incoming administration of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is moving to elevate the status of Sejong City, an administrative town 144 kilometers south of Seoul, as illustrated by the transition committee’s plan to transfer major components of the National Assembly to Sejong and set up a second presidential office there by 2027, according to government officials Thursday. 

Setting up the second presidential office and a legislative building in Sejong was a key campaign pledge of Yoon, a vision he said would cement the sparsely populated city as the administrative capital where a number of central government ministries and state-run organizations will be relocated.

The city houses 47 central administrative organizations, 16 state think tanks and 24 government-affiliated institutions. About 20 key government organizations remain in Seoul including the foreign, defense, unification and gender equality ministries.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the move the Sejong City reminds me a lot of the move to Camp Humphreys by USFK. That move took much longer than it should of because people were comfortable at Yongsan Garrison in Seoul and thus no urgency to complete the move. There is probably few people working in the Korean government that want to move out of Seoul as well to a rural area as well.