As Professor B.R. Myers predicted, the Moon administration is quickly pushing the Kaesong Industrial Park and Mt. Kumgang tours on the Trump administration as some kind of “ethnic exemption” to sanctions:
South Korea will talk to the United States about preparatory work for the future resumption of two key inter-Korean economic projects and about waiving sanctions on North Korea if necessary, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said Tuesday. Cho made the remarks a day after he reported to President Moon Jae-in that the government will discuss with the U.S. ways to resume a long-suspended tour program to the North’s Mount Kumgang and reopen an industrial complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong. South Korea is considering these measures as part of efforts to keep the dialogue momentum alive and create better conditions for negotiations after last week’s breakdown of the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
This photo provided by the unification ministry shows a four-story building that will be used for the liaison office in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s Unification Ministry on Sunday unveiled details about the money it spent to renovate the inter-Korean liaison office in the North Korean border city of Kaesong, amid criticism that it spent too much on the project.
The ministry sent the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs and unification a document containing details of the costs of the office, which launched on Sept. 14 as a communication platform for cross-border cooperation and exchanges.
Of the total expenditures, which amounted to 9.78 billion won ($8.56 million), the cost for renovation materials, including construction equipment and pipes, was 3.49 billion won, while labor costs amounted to 2.58 billion won.
The costs for materials to construct the office’s main building, accommodation facility and other amenities were 1.22 billion won, 570 million won and 560 million won, respectively, the ministry said. [Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip]
Moon admin: Setting up liaison ofc at Gaesong is "sovereignty issue" "why must (we) get US permission on every little thing?" "A thick water stream is flowing haughtily; sanctions controversy is not a big obstacle." Sanctions is but "a small problem."https://t.co/hFmVf1NQJ7
I think the Moon administration may be trying to create a precedent of sanctions exemptions at the Kaesong Industrial Complex with this request. If this gets approved down the road they could request even more small exemptions and pretty soon they have a working industrial park again:
The Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea is seen in this file photo. All operations in the joint venture between the two Koreas have been stopped since 2016 when Seoul decided to close the complex. Yonhap
South Korea’s foreign ministry said Wednesday it was talking with the United States to possibly obtain sanctions relief for North Korea, though the ministry didn’t specify when the relief would happen.
“The ministry is in discussions with the United States to get the go-ahead for partial sanctions relief, which will be helpful for South Korea to push forward the country’s business projects, most of which are non-commercial, with North Korea. But the South has no plans to violate U.N. sanctions now being imposed on the North,” said a ministry official.
The official added the U.N. Security Council’s actions would support and conform to the efforts of diplomatic talks toward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.
At the Singapore summit in June between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Trump said economic sanctions will be maintained until Pyongyang’s nuclear program is “no longer a problem.”
The remarks came after Seoul began supplying power to the liaison office located inside the joint industrial park in Gaeseong, North Korea. Seoul’s unification ministry said South Korea seeks to run the office within this month in consultation with the U.S. and the allies.
It also said the power supply will be limited to the joint liaison office, not the entire Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC), and that its measure should not be seen as a sign of easing the U.S.-led international sanctions on Pyongyang.
The measure however, raised suspicions whether South Korea will be walking a tightrope between abiding by the sanctions and seeking exemptions from the sanctions to help the impoverished Pyongyang regime. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but the Trump administration should tell them to have North Korea provide the power themselves.
.@USUN should block any Kaesong reopening before North Korea is fully disarmed. Any bank that handles its transactions should face the same fate as ZTE, Bank of Dandong & ABLV. Congress must make itself heard on this.https://t.co/4TPFH8M6q5
Since February, when I summarized the UN resolutions that Kaesong violated (https://t.co/YoUoe16R0l) the UNSC has further restricted joint ventures with N. Korea. Sunshine was a conclusive & catastrophic failure policy failure, and Pyongyang has done nothing to deserve reopening. pic.twitter.com/OgPvIV4QgV
It appears that the Moon administration is trying to develop a political path to bring the Kaesong Industrial Park back from the dead:
This file photo shows the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the now-shuttered inter-Korean industrial park, just north of the inter-Korean border. (Yonhap)
Ousted former President Park Geun-hye unilaterally ordered the shutdown of an inter-Korean industrial complex last year without proper consultations or a legitimate process, a panel report showed Thursday.
The report was unveiled by a nine-member committee of civilian experts that has been reviewing the previous conservative governments’ North Korea policies, including Seoul’s closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in February 2016. The panel was launched by Seoul’s unification ministry in September.
The Park administration shut down the factory zone, just north of the inter-Korean border, in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in 2016. The move put an end to the last symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation.
“It is verified that the closure was decided by the president’s unilateral verbal order without discussions or consultations at the official decision-making level,” the report showed.
The former government said that the shutdown was decided at a National Security Council meeting on Feb. 10, 2016, right before the announcement. But the report showed that Park made the order two days earlier.
It also said that the closure was a decision that transcended law, adding that even a political decision amid a security crisis should be made within the boundary of law and under legal procedures. [Yonhap]
It was no secret that the Kaesong Industrial Park could be shutdown in retaliation for North Korean provocations. There were plenty of discussions over a prolonged period of time before the final shutdown in 2016. Park may have decided she wanted to shutdown Kaesong, but she still clearly held a National Security Council meeting to discuss it before the final decision was announced. This seems like an extreme reach to try and find fault with the decision making process in my opinion.
Here is the most ridiculous part of the government’s findings:
At that time, the ministry said that the decision was aimed at preventing money generated by the industrial park from bankrolling North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.
But the panel said that there is no sufficient information or evidence to support the claim that funds from the complex had been used for other purposes.
“This hampers the legitimacy of the government’s decision and limits Seoul’s future stance over the resumption of the Kaesong complex,” the report showed.
The Kim regime is paid directly in US dollars which makes it very easy for the Kim regime to divert the money to support their weapons programs as has been previously reported:
South Korea said 70 percent of the U.S. dollars paid as wages and fees for the suspended Kaesong industrial project, run jointly with the North, had been diverted for Pyongyang’s weapons program and luxury goods for leader Kim Jong Un. (……)
“The wages for the North’s workers and other fees were paid in cash in U.S. dollars to the North’s authorities and not to the workers,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Sunday. “This is believed to be channeled in the same way as other foreign currency it earned.”
The cash is then kept and managed by the ruling Workers’ Party’s Office 39 and other agencies, the ministry said. The ministry said it had confirmed the movement of the money through various sources but did not specify them.
Office 39 is widely believed to exist to finance the luxurious lifestyle of the North’s leader. The office is also believed to be part of the North’s agencies that fund the country’s missile and nuclear program. [Reuters]
For the Moon administration to claim that no money from Kaesong was used to support the Kim regime’s weapons programs is very deceptive. This is because the Kim regime is not going to provide a financial audit that shows conclusively where the dollars they received went to. However, reasonable people can conclude that any money received by the Kim regime from Kaesong to fund their government is more money ultimately available to fund their weapons programs.
The Moon administration clearly has a political motive to try and reopen Kaesong, but I would be very surprised if the Trump administration will ever agree to this. Could you imagine the Tweet storm from President Trump if President Moon announces the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex?
It looks like South Korean students will no longer be dressed in clothes made by quasi-slave labor:
Tens of thousands of secondary school students may not be able to wear school uniforms for the upcoming semester, as suppliers based in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex (GIC) are unable to deliver the goods in time after the complex was shut down due to strained inter-Korean relations.
Those students may have to wait for up to two more months to buy new uniforms, while the new semester begins on March 2.
A day after South Korea announced the shutdown of the inter-Korean industrial park on Feb. 10, North Korea expelled all South Korean workers from the complex.
According to Mansun, a uniform subcontractor to Hyungji Elite, the largest school uniform manufacturer here, more than 80,000 sets of uniforms were left behind in its factory in Gaeseong.
“When we were forced out, we were not allowed to take our products with us,” an official from Mansun said. “Not only us but three other subcontractors for school uniform manufacturers were prevented from bringing the products, causing the uniform supply shortage.” [Korea Times]
