Tag: Moon Jae-in

It seems like every week President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating continues to fall to a new low, however I don’t think it is low enough to really effect any change in his current North Korea policies yet:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped to a record low last week, a poll showed Monday.

According to a survey by pollster Realmeter, 47.1 percent of the public said they approved of Moon’s performance, down 1.4 percentage points from last week. 

Amid an ongoing controversy over the alleged surveillance of civilians by Cheong Wa Dae, the approval rating fell to the lowest in three weeks, according to Realmeter. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but his approval rating continues to fall despite controlling most of the news media in South Korea and imprisoning and launching lawsuits against journalists that oppose him.

Via a reader tip comes news that President Moon’s official aircraft was blacklisted by the US for traveling to North Korea: 

President Moon Jae-in’s official airplane has been blacklisted by the U.S. because it had flown him to North Korea, it emerged Wednesday. The official plane even had to be cleared for a visit to the U.S. in September after it was slapped with a 180-day ban. 
One diplomatic source said, “A blacklisted plane can only travel to the U.S. by special permission.” 
U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September 2017 that bans all aircraft that traveled to North Korea from entering the U.S. for 180 days. But exceptions can be made. 
A U.S. government official confirmed that Moon’s plane had to receive authorization even when Moon went to New York on Sept. 24 to attend the UN General Assembly and meet Trump.

Chosun Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but by getting the rail and roads connected with North Korea like President Moon has been pushing hard to do, he can avoid the aircraft blacklisting problem.  

I am sure that this is something that enough cash sent up North can make happen.  His dad needed $500 million to host a summit in Pyongyang, so I am sure Kim Jong-un’s price to go to Seoul will be much higher:

Anchor:  North Korea continues to remain silent about a prospective visit to South Korea by leader Kim Jong-un.  If the visit is to take place before the end of the year, as the South Korean government hopes, there may only be a matter of days left to confirm a date and make arrangements.  Kim Bum-soo has more.

Report: It was at September’s inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang about three months ago when leaders of the two Koreas first held out the possibility of meeting again in Seoul.

[Sound bite: N. Korean leader Kim Jong-un (Korean)]
“I promised to President Moon Jae-in that I will visit Seoul in the near future. We will put an end to the tragedy of division as soon as possible and hold our hands together to embark on a sacred journey to peace and prosperity.”

[Sound bite: President Moon Jae-in (Korean)]
“I requested Chairman Kim Jong-un to visit Seoul and he decided to come to Seoul in the near future. ‘Near future’ means ‘within this year’ unless there is a special circumstances. Chairman Kim’s visit to Seoul would be the first by a North Korean leader and it will provide a breakthrough to the inter-Korean relations.”

Now, in December, with just a few weeks remaining in the year, the South still hasn’t heard any confirmation date from the North.  That’s according to Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, who told lawmakers Friday the South and North have been in talks to try to make the visit happen.  [KBS World Radio]

You can read more at the link, but it is not surprising at all to me the hypocrisy of how the Moon administration wants to champion someone with a visit to Seoul who has killed many Koreans in recent years, launched a nerve agent attack in an international airport just two years ago, has active gulags, still has kidnapped South Koreans, among a host of other provocations while at the same time regularly bashing the Japanese for things that happened 75-100 years ago.

Is anyone in the Moon administration going to demand apologies from Kim Jong-un for his regime’s transgressions against South Korea like they regularly demand from Japan?  Better yet what about demands for compensation for the victims of the Kim regime’s attacks?

The only problem with this is that Kim Jong-un’s wish is to keep his nukes and have sanctions dropped:

US President Donald Trump will grant North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un his wishes if he delivers on denuclearisation, the South Korean president said Sunday, following talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

As officials work to arrange a second meeting between Trump and Kim, South Korea’s Moon Jae-in relayed a message to reporters given to him by the US president to pass on to the North’s leader.

“And the message was that President Trump has a very friendly view of Chairman Kim and that he likes him, and so he wishes Chairman Kim would implement the rest of their agreement and that he would make what Chairman Kim wants come true,” Moon told the Yonhap news agency while en route to New Zealand.  [AFP]

You can read more at the link.

President Moon’s approval rating continues drop despite near complete control of the government, media, and the ability to silence to critics through legal action:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped below 50 percent for the first time since he took office in May 2017, the latest Realmeter presidential poll showed Thursday.

Moon’s approval rating hit 48.8 percent in its ninth straight week of decline.

Analysts blamed the decline on Korea’s stagnating economy and Moon’s preoccupation with inter-Korean relations. Denuclearization talks with the North have stalled recently.

The approval rating of the ruling Democratic Party also dipped to 37.6 percent in the same Realmeter poll, 1.6 percentage points lower than the previous survey. It also declined for the past nine weeks.

In contrast, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party reached its highest popularity rating since the infamous Choi Soon-sil scandal broke out in October 2016, which led to former President Park Geun-hye’s impeachment.

The party had an approval rating of 26.2 percent in the latest poll, 3.3 percentage points higher than the previous survey and the highest since the third week of October 2016, when it was 29.6 percent.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Another week and yet another new low approval rating for President Moon:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating dropped to 52.5 percent, the lowest level since taking power in May 2017, affected by a stagnating economy with no signs of an immediate rebound and stalled talks on North Korea’s denuclearization.

In a poll by Realmeter of 1,505 adults nationwide from Monday through Wednesday, Moon’s popularity dropped 1.2 percent points to 52.5 percent in an eighth straight week of declines. The previous lowest point was 53.1 percent polled in the second week of September, right before his third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Pyongyang.

Approval hovering just above the 50 percent mark is a stark contrast to earlier this year when they surged to around 80 percent on hopes for a breakthrough with North Korea, which contributed to a sweeping victory in local elections in June.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

It seems like the Trump administration is going to keep playing along with the so called peace process by smiling for photo ops and saying the right things.  However, so far it appears they will not drop sanctions until North Korea does something to show they are serious about denuclearization.  At some point this will come to a crisis and it seems the Trump administration wants the Kim regime to be the ones blamed for starting the crisis:

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence asked South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday to communicate and talk more closely with North Korea, Moon’s spokesman said.

The remark, made during a meeting with Moon in Singapore on the sidelines of regional summits, is seen as a call for Moon to play greater roles so that upcoming talks between the U.S. and the North, including a second summit, will be able make progress.

Pence was quoted as telling reporters after the meeting with Moon at the Suntec convention center that U.S. President Donald Trump plans to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next year and that the two sides are discussing details.

“My understanding is that (Pence) made a request to Moon separately even as talks are under way between the North and the U.S.,” the South’s presidential spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, told reporters.

Moon agreed to play active roles while closely communicating with both sides, Kim said.

Kim said that there was no mention of sanctions during the meeting.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It seems like President Moon is in a race to get sanctions dropped, a peace treaty signed, and loads of free cash to North Korea before his approval ratings drop so low he politically cannot move forward with his agenda:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has dropped for the seventh consecutive week.

According to a new Real Meter survey of one-thousand-500 adults nationwide conducted between Monday and Wednesday, 53-point-eight percent of respondents answered that the president is doing a good job, down one-point-six percentage points from last week.

Over 39 percent of respondents had negative assessments about Moon’s performance, up one-point-one percentage points.

Real Meter attributed the falling approval rating to public concerns about the economy fanned by news of worsening economic indicators and the government’s failing economic policies.   [KBS Global]

You can read more at the link.