Search Results for: dokdo

This really isn’t surprising:

Japanese teenagers are more familiar with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il than his South Korean counterpart President Roh Moo-hyun, a survey says. Kengo Ozu, a member of Japan’s History Institute of Teachers, announced the results of his survey on the image of South Korea among middle and high school and college students in Japan at an annual seminar on history textbooks about South Korea and Japan. He asked a total of 236 — 91 third-year middle school students in Chiba Prefecture, 76 first year high school students in Kanagawa Prefecture and 69 students at universities in Tokyo what they know about South Korea.

When asked who the president of South Korea is, four middle school students (4 percent), 12 high school students (16 percent) and 42 college students (61 percent) gave the correct answer. But among middle school students, five answered Kim Jong-il, one more than had the right answer. Asked, ¿Who is the current leader of North Korea?¿ however, 95 percent hit the jackpot. Ozu said this was because the issue of Japanese abduction victims and other negative reports about the North deeply imprinted the image of ¿Kim Jong-il, the tyrant¿ in the minds of Japanese people.

Considering the threat Kim Jong-il poses to Japan and the attention he is given because of it, this really isn’t surprising.  I’m willing to bet more American students would know who Kim Jong-il is compared to the President of Mexico.  Actually who is the President of Mexico this week?  Is there still three of them?

Anyway this is something I found interesting from the survey:

he survey also revealed that respondents believed Korea to be ¿stubborn and graceless¿ in dealing with Japanese territorial claims to the Dokdo islets and felt Japan ¿made a mistake by invading the nation, but I can¿t understand why it educates its children to hate Japan. They also felt nationalist movements in Korea are pretty similar to those of Japan¿s past.

Korea is never going to budge on the Dokdo issue and I really can’t blame Koreans for being “stubborn and graceless” on this issue though there is a difference between “subborn and graceless” and just plain silly like many Koreans and the government appears to be at times with some of their antics over the Dokdo issue.  However, it is good to see that many students realize Japan made a mistake invading Korean though I wonder what exactly they think the mistake of invading Korea was?

I have been playing around with Google Trends and it is an interesting tool to see who from what countries are searching for certain terms. After playing around with this for a while I thought what a great tool to use to once and for all see if anyone else in the world gives a crap about the Dokdo Islands controversy. Judging from the results you will see that no one else outside of Korea gives a crap about Dokdo either.

4. Australia

6. United Kingdom

OhmyNews makes it sound like the former brutal dictator of North Korea, Kim Il-sung wasn’t such a bad guy after all:

The roots of the current crisis go back to the founding of North Korea in 1945, when Korea was divided along the 38th parallel after World War II. Given its current reputation, the Kim dynasty was one of the milder communist dictatorships, whereas Stalin and Mao both applied collectivist theory to the countryside in short, brutal bursts, leaving desolation in their wake. Kim Il Sung took a more gradual approach.

I guess according to OhmyNews it is better in dictator terms to let the people suffer slowly before perishing. Here is more on the greatness of Kim Il Sung:

Moreover, Kim Il Sung, by contrast, did not slaughter class enemies en masse. Rich landlords were allowed to flee to South Korea in 1946-50, those who stayed beginning new lives as peasants. The right to sell land was abolished, but the right to inherit it was not. Like Stalin and Mao, Kim collectivized rice, paddy, and maize fields, but in proper, manageable units. The peasants were also allowed to trade vegetables and whatever else they were able to grow for themselves in their backyard vegetable plots.

Nonetheless, North Korea under Kim Il Sung was a repressive state, but its people never experienced a peacetime famine. According to CIA estimates, until the early 1980s, North Korean rice fields were actually more productive than those in the capitalist South, which was owing mainly to big subsidies, massive irrigation projects, and a generous use of chemical fertilizers.

How productive would the agricultural system in North Korea had been if it wasn’t for the “big subsidies” from their communist allies. Kim Il-sung was not some enlightened leader who created an effective agricultural system; he was a thug who was a master at manipulating people which he was able to successfully do by playing both China and Russia against each other in order to gain aid from both. The fallacy of the North Korean agricultural system was evident when China and Russia cut aid to North Korea and famine ensued shortly there after.

According to OhmyNews, Kim’s son, Kim Jong-il must also be a “mild” dictator for his response to the mass famines in the mid-90’s:

The government’s immediate response to the mayhem, when set against the norms of unreconstructed communist oligarchies, was pretty good. While Mao never admitted that China was facing mass starvation, North Korean leaders, by contrast, confessed their inability to feed their subjects in 1995.

Could it be that Kim Jong-il asked for international aid because he had no other choice because the regime was on verge of collapse and not because of some deep seeded feeling to help his own people?

This article only gets better:

The problem is not that the North Korean administration does not understand where it has gone wrong. The chief obstacle to reform is that Kim Jong-Il cannot admit this publicly without losing the last pretext for not teaming up with the capitalist South. Having seen South Korean judges hand down long-term jail sentences to two of their own former presidents for corruption and political murder, he probably dreads the thought of what they would do to him.

So does the author believe that if Kim Jong-il is issued amnesty than unification should become a reality? Has it ever occurred to the author that Kim Jong-il doesn’t want unification? He wants to keep his power and amnesty wouldn’t let him keep that.

Here is my favorite part. This was actually predictable because when in doubt, blame the Japanese:

Observers say that the North Korean regime should stop being suspicious of Japan and South Korea, as they are nearby and are best placed to help. Millions of tons of rice are sitting in Japanese warehouses, but with the Japanese press full of stories about North Korean obstructionism against those who would try to feed its hungry masses, the Japanese government is unsure of what to do.

First Dokdo, then history textbooks, and now they are letting the North Koreans starve. Those bad Japanese. I also guess it hasn’t occurred to the author that Japan is not eager to offer any aid until all their abducted citizens by North Korea are accounted for. Just because South Korea could care less about their abducted citizens doesn’t mean that Japan shouldn’t.

What is the world coming to when Kofi Annan is the biggest hardliner outside of the US, against North Korea?:

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday said North Korea must be held to account for the suffering and rage of people it kidnapped and the anxiety of families who never discovered what happened to their loved ones. He called on the North to return every one of those it abducted in its bizarre campaign in the 1970s and 80s.

The secretary-general, who arrived here on Sunday, was speaking at a joint press conference with Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon. He condemned all abductions for whatever reason.

So let me get this right Kim Jong-li should be held to account for kidnapping citizens from multiple countries, but not held to account for starving and imprisoning in gulags his own people? Sorry I didn’t buy anything the UN said before the Iraq War and I’m not buying it now. However, sadly this is still the strongest statements I have heard any governmental body other than the US say about North Korea. What an interesting world we live in when movie and rock stars hold protests and advocate for the suffering of hundreds of thousands in Sudan while millions have perished and will continue to perish in North Korea and no one, especially the UN, cares.

So what else did Kofi have to say about Northeast Asia:

Turning to historical differences that are pitting Japan against the regional victims of its past aggression, Annan recommended Europe as a model for resolution of conflicts. He said Europe had a similar experience but was now moving to a union of 25 countries.

I can’t imagine in my life time Northeast Asia coming together into some kind of European Union type of government. These people don’t like each other and it has been this way for centuries and won’t change any time soon if the current Dokdo crisis is a barometer of the animosity that continues to simmer in this area of the world.

Finally here is something else Kofi said on his trip to Korea that made me chuckle:

Earlier, in an address to students at Seoul National University, the UN chief said he had witnessed the dynamic force of Korea’s youth, whom he called a ¿remarkable¿ group. He predicted a bright future for Korea given the healthy outlook of its younger generation.

I guess he hasn’t seen what this “remarkable” younger generation has been up to lately:

Yeah, remarkable.

At least someone besides USFK remembers the sacrifice of Major Yun Yeong-ha and his men during the West Sea naval clash between North and South Korea back in 2002. The naval battle was a pre-meditated ambush and murder of these sailors by the North Koreans that was alledgedly order by Pyongyang in order to draw attention away from the World Cup that was happening in South Korea at the time.

The South Korean government has done everything possible to cover up this ambush and make excuses for the North Koreans in order to keep the Sunshine Policy going. In fact the government has boycotted memorial services held by the navy to remember the six murdered sailors:

A remembrance celebration to mark the second anniversary of the battle was held yesterday at the headquarters of the Naval 2nd Fleet in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, with 150 people including victims¿ families participating. However, the event was dismally lonely, and more distressing, the bereaved families despairingly poured out questions in full cry to this society and the government.

Did the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea launched an investigation to find out facts as it does now when the West Sea naval battle broke out? Who apologized for the death of our boys? People, irrespective of rank, have been successively rushing to deliver condolence for a man who went to a foreign country to earn money and died there. But who went to the funeral services of the six sailors who sacrificed their lives for the nation? Even the Defense Minister and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as well as government officials did not attend the services.

Here is a sample of how angered the families of these sailors have been towards the Korean government:

Kim Jong-seon, the widow of Petty Officer Han Sang-guk, who was killed in a June 2002 naval battle with North Korea in the West Sea, turned her back on her homeland Sunday and boarded a flight bound for the United States. Before getting on her flight, she said, ¿If the indifference and inhospitality shown to those soldiers who were killed or wounded protecting the nation continue, what soldier will lay down his life in the battlefield?¿

In the battle on June 29, 2002 — one day prior to the closing ceremony of the Korea-Japan World Cup — six sailors were killed and 18 wounded when a North Korean patrol boat that had crossed over the northern line of control ambushed a South Korean naval vessel. The bereaved have spent the last three years in an atmosphere where it was difficult to even grieve. Nervous government officials, worrying that the incident might cast a pall over the Sunshine Policy, even warned the families to please be quiet.

(…..)

The father said, ¿My son is buried in the National Cemetery. But I¿m going to take my son¿s remains to my family burial site in my hometown.¿ Having watched the situation develop, he thought his son who was killed by North Korean soldiers was considered nothing more than a criminal. Some parents said that they are more scared of people who consider the U.S. a bigger enemy than North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who killed their son. We lose courage to defend the country, when we hear that a wife whose husband fell in the battle is preparing to leave this country. Reading a condolence letter from the USFK commander to mark the second anniversary, the wife said, “The Americans remember my husband and his brothers-in-arms better than Koreans… Frankly, I hate Korea.”

The treatment of the families and the appeasement of North Korea after the murder of these sailors was the first indications of how poor a government the Roh Moo-hyun administration was going to be. Plus this incident is a perfect example of the hypocrisy of the Korean leftists. They have been protesting for years over the USFK tactical vehicle traffic accident that tragically killed two Korean girls despite compensation to the families and apologies up and down the chain of command to include President Bush himself over the accident. Yet not one word muttered against North Korea by these people when they murder six South Korean sailors.

At least the ROK Navy has the intestinal fortitude to remember the sacrifices of these sailors. The ROK Navy has been the ones holding the annual ceremony marking the anniversary of the attack plus they have recently named one of their newest destroyers after the senior officer killed in the clash, Major Yun Yeong-ha.

The ROK naval destroyers are only named after great Korean patriots (Hat tip: reader):

All Ahn Yong-Bok class destroyers are named after Korean patriots. The first vessel destroyer was recently named Ahn Yong-Bok (Hangul:¿¿¿) after a Korean patriot who protested over Tokugawa Shogunate‘s repeated claim over Liancourt Rocks (Dokdo/Takeshima) and made Tokugawa Shogunate confirm in writing that Liancourt Rocks were Korean possessions. The second destroyer is to be named Ji Deok-Chil (Hangul:¿¿¿), after Staff Sergeant Ji Deok-Chil, who sacrificed his life to save his comrades during the Vietnam war. The third unit is to be named Yun Yeong-Ha (Hangul:¿¿¿), after Major Yun Yeong-Ha who fell in line of duty during a skirmish between the Republic of Korea Navy force and North Korean Navy. The fourth destroyer is to be named for General Yi Sabu of Silla dynasty of Korea, who subjugated Usan-Guk (present-day Ulleung-do) by employing brilliant naval tactics. The fifth and sixth destroyers are yet to be named.

I wonder how this got by the Blue House? To bad all six destroyers weren’t named after all six of the deceased sailors.

No surprise here, the anti-US hate groups will be out in force attacking 20 year old mandatory service draftees just trying to serve their country again:

Another violent showdown looms as groups protesting against the relocation of U.S. military bases to Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province are gearing up for a massive 10,000-strong protest this weekend. According to the police, the opposition groups will stage a demonstration in memory of the 1980 Gwangju Democratic Uprising, with which they have compared their movement, on Friday and continue their protests in Pyongtaek until Sunday. Police said the activists are looking at demonstrations in Daechu-ri, from where they have just been evicted, Dodu-ri and Pyeongtaek City.

I will be surprised if they get 10,000 people to show up. The hate groups are overplaying their hand and IMHO are slowly losing support within the greater Korean public. People are getting fed up with the violence against the riot police and soldiers:

The military has already started equipping the soldiers, who were violently attacked by protesters on May 5, with equipment to protect themselves.

Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-ung visited Pyeongtaek on Tuesday, partly to encourage the troops. “It would be nice if they would hold the protests in Yeouido or in front of the Government Complex in Gwanhwamun or somewhere like that,” Yoon quipped. He also promised the unpleasant conditions the troops stationed at Pyeongtaek face ¿will get better little by little.”

I am with the Defense Minister on this one. Minister Yoon has been left by himself to deal with these anti-US hate groups while all the other politicians hide. Where is Roh Moo-hyun on this? At least I know where Chung Dong-young is at; he is hiding on Dokdo. Wait a minute I almost forgot, Roh is hiding in Mongolia. Anyway I think it would be great if the riot police loaded up all these people and dumped them in front of Cheongwadae. Maybe if these rioters attacked Roh and his cronies with metal pipes and bamboo poles than they would do more to protect the riot police and soldiers just trying to serve their country in Pyeongtaek and show some leadership on an issue critical for the future of the US-ROK alliance..

I don’t claim to be a fortune teller, but when it comes to the anti-US hate groups their playbook is easy to decipher for those of us who have been in Korea a while and yet the Korean authorities still can’t seem to figure it out. After a successful operation that removed the anti-US protesters from the annexed land needed for the Camp Humphreys expansion project; I predicted the protesters would come right back and tear down the wire fence if it was not monitored by security guards.

What happens, the protesters come right back and tear down the fence and run wild within the perimeter and try to even break into the Camp Humphreys perimeter.

A day after the Defense Ministry forcefully evacuated protesters from an area in Pyeongtaek slated for the relocation of U.S. military installations, about 2,500 activists staged abrupt demonstrations by cutting through the fences built around the site of the future base.
About 2,000 protesters from around the nation broke through the police line to seal off the area from outsiders. They marched three hours to join about 500 other protesters who had been scouting in Daechu Village, where the base construction is slated.
The group held a rally, criticizing the Defense Ministry’s forcible eviction of residents from the site. They also cut the fences, built on Thursday after evicting the protesting activists, in 20 places.
The protesters also tried to enter Camp Humphreys, the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek near by the site, and scuffled with police trying to block them.

If they will throw these people in jail with heavy fines for assaulting policemen and breaking the law then they would not have to worry about these repeated clashes with these hate groups. But of course as this Chosun Ilbo editorial noted, the political leadership in Korea is so weak and incompetent they in fact actually encourage the violence on one hand while saying the US-ROK alliance is important on the other.

The Pyeongtaek affair is complicated. In terms of moving a military base alone, it is a defense issue, but it is also a diplomatic issue involving our relationship with the U.S, a public security issue dealing with illegal protests and a financial issue involving an increasing tax burden. Anti-American activists are trying to turn it into an ideological struggle, calling it a “second Gwangju Democratic Uprising” after bloodily suppressed protests in 1980.

The administration and ruling party should therefore make every effort to persuade the people that relocating the bases is inevitable and to minimize problems and costs. But government and ruling-party officials, who like to take credit whenever possible, were in hiding, leaving the affair entirely to the defense minister as if he alone were responsible.

To start at the top, the president is fond of speaking to the public, with his ¿dialogue with the people,” “statement to the people” or “letter to the people.” Yet he hasn’t said a word of concern about the affair. On the eve of Thursday¿s clashes he said, “We’ve been greatly indebted to the U.S., but we cannot afford to be obliged to the U.S. forever.” That rather sounds like an invitation to the anti-American activists.

As I mentioned before as well, the human rights activists are already condemning the police force for excessive force, while ignoring the violence of the anti-US hate groups:

With the clash between police and protestors in Pyongtaek Thursday, resulting in more than 200 injured, critics are questioning whether the police used excessive force in suppressing the rally.

Law enforcement authorities detained more than 520 demonstrators after farmers and activists collided violently with riot police in a rally protesting the expansion of a U.S. military camp located in the area.

Police said 210 were injured in Thursday¿s incident _ 117 police officers and 93 protestors _ and the vernacular dailies Kyunghyang Sinmun and Hankyoreh also claimed injuries to some of their reporters covering the scene.

The violence in Pyeongtaek has actually gained some media coverage in the United States. I saw reports on both CNN and Fox News about the protests. Here is the Fox News report. However, this coverage is to little to really shape any public opinion in the United States against Korea. Every time the US media begins to pick up on the violence against the US in Korea, that is when you see the government shows some leadership and clamps down on the hate groups to keep them quiet. Don’t expect any clamp down from the heads of the government any time soon. The Defense Ministry is being totally stuck with handling the political ramifications of the current violence as the politicians hide or take turns making trips to Dokdo. How can a government not comment on the violence and an issue as significant to the national interest as the USFK reorganization?

I’ll provide more updates as things develop, but of course check out the Marmot’s Hole as well for more great coverage of events.

Japan is scheduling the redeployment of the SDF soldiers in Iraq:

The Defense Agency chief on Monday formally told the United States that Japan will pull its troops out of Iraq when British and Australian forces withdraw, but an air unit will remain in Kuwait for logistic support, a Japanese official said.

Director General Fukushiro Nukaga informed the U.S. during a top-level security meeting in Washington.

Britain and Australia have announced their troops will leave the Samawah area but have not said when.

The British and Australians are templating to redeploy their troops from Iraq at the end of this year which would mean that Japan will have their troops redeployed by then as well. As I had noted before plus with my personal pictures and recollections of the city Samawah, the results from the SDF deployment are mixed, but I for one appreciate their service in the effort to rebuild Iraq.

With the Japanese now templated to redeploy, will the Koreans now be tempted to do the same? You never know, those dastardly Japanese are really sneaky. In fact the real reason the 600 Japanese soldiers are being redeployed may be to add to a building invasion force to retake the Dokdo Islets. If so, Korea better hurry up and redeploy their 3,000 soldiers to reinforce the Dokdo defenses or better yet after this past week maybe the Camp Humphreys defenses.

Look who is making a visit to the Dokdo islets:

South Korea’s ruling party chairman made a surprise visit to a string of disputed islets Monday and said the country must defend them at any cost, amid heightened tensions with Japan over rival claims to the territory.

Chung Dong-young’s visit came as a top Japanese diplomat was set to arrive in South Korea to try to repair bilateral ties battered by recent spats over the islets, known as Dokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese.

Japan’s Senior Vice Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs Yasuhisa Shiozaki was scheduled to meet South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon later Monday.

Chung, a former unification minister, warned that Japanese moves to deny South Korea’s sovereignty over the islets would bring unhappy results to both sides, and that Japan will be held responsible.

“Dokdo cannot be the subject of any negotiation or dispute,” Chung said on his one-day trip to the islets, according to a transcript provided by the Uri Party.

This is really no surprise that Chung is trying to play to Korean nationalism to improve his own political standing. As the former South Korean Unification Minister he was one of the masters of using anti-Americanism to improve his own political standing as well. If Chung likes Dokdo so much how about he just stays out there and doesn’t come back.

This just doesn’t make sense to me:

South Korea plans a ‘focused’ campaign, including special holiday packages, to woo the Indian traveller.

‘We are hoping for a five percent increase in the number of tourists from India this year,’ said Korea Tourism Organisation (KTO) chief Kim Jong-Min here Thursday.

Now why doesn’t this make sense you may ask?  Well this is why:

‘India is a significant market for South Korea. Considering the potential India has in the tourism sector, KTO aims to promote the destination among prospective travellers through focused and coordinated efforts,’ he said.

Citing survey reports saying that an average Indian traveller spends $300 on vacations, the KTO chief said, ‘South Korea has lots to offer at $1,500, including travel expenses.’

India, domestically has a much wider variety of pristine beaches and mountains than Korea for significantly cheaper prices so Korea’s natural beauty is not going to draw Indian tourists so what is the KTO counting on then to draw in those extra tourists? I think I have a feeling I know what it is.  I could be wrong though, and maybe all those Indian tourists are in fact just heading to Korea to see the wonders of Dokdo?