Tag: Moon Jae-in

President Moon Jae-in (L) talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the State Kremlin Palace in Moscow on June 22, 2018, while having a summit there. (Yonhap)

It looks like President Moon is in Russia setting conditions for any future summit between Putin and Kim Jong-un:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in began his three-day state visit to Russia on Thursday for a bilateral summit with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that will likely focus on ways to boost the countries’ economic cooperation, as well as joint efforts to rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

Moon’s trip marked the first state visit to Russia by a South Korean leader since 1999, according to his office Cheong Wa Dae.

He was set to deliver a special speech at the State Duma, the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, becoming the first South Korean president to do so in history.

He will also meet Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev later in the day for bilateral talks on ways to expand their countries’ bilateral cooperation, Cheong Wa Dae said.

The Moon-Putin summit will be held on Friday, marking the third of its kind since Moon took office in May 2017. The two first met on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit held in Germany in July. They last met in September, when Moon attended the annual Eastern Economic Forum held in the Russian city of Vladivostok.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It has long been known by Korea watchers that President Moon Jae-in’s Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok has prolific communist and pro-North Korean past.  Over at One Free Korea, Dr. Tara O has a guest post that provides detailed background information that shows how immersed Im was in communist ideology before entering the Blue House.  What I found really interesting was how during the Roo Moo-hyun administration Im founded a group that collected royalties for the Kim regime in North Korea:

In 2005, Im Jong-seok founded and led as chairman, the South-North Economic and Cultural Cooperation Foundation (남북경제문화협력재단). The Foundation has been collecting royalties from MBC, KBS, SBS, and other TV and online broadcasters for North Korean TV footage. According to the Ministry of Unification, the foundation collected an estimated $1,876,700 over 13 years and transferred the royalties to North Korea until the Cheonan sinking in 2010. It is still collecting royalties on behalf of North Korea’s Chosun Central Broadcasting Commission, with the plans to transfer the money once the sanctions are lifted. The foundation even called the Ministry of Defense Public Affairs and demanded royalties for using the missile test footage in July 2017. North Korea does not pay for footage from South Korean broadcasts.

The foundation also has other revenue streams. One is membership and the other is education & research. It collects about 32,700,000 Won (~$30,000) on average for its annual membership. It also became a contractor to the Seoul City and Seongdong District governments, developing South-North “peace education” programs. What is interesting is that the contract with Seoul City was signed on the same day as when Park Won-soon, Seoul City Mayor, appointed Im Jong-seok as the Deputy Mayor on June 11, 2014. Im was the campaign manager for Park prior to that in 2014, and successfully led to Park Won-soon’s re-election.  [One Free Korea]

You can read much more at the link where Dr. O in painstaking detail lists all of Im Jong-seok’s communist and pro-North Korean ties.  Does anyone think that Im Jong-seok who less than a decade ago was collecting royalties to send to the Kim regime is interested in being an honest broker now between the US and North Korea?

I think everyone should be highly skeptical of the claims made by these two men:

On June 1, 2018, Professor Kim Ilsun and Mr. Jeong Choong-je were featured in a live video broadcast about Operation Golden Lily on the TePyung TV YouTube channel. During that broadcast, Mr. Jeong, a nonfiction writer, talked about how there were hundreds of tons of gold ingots buried in the Moonhyun-dong neighborhood of Busan, South Korea. This gold, which was hidden there in 1945 by the Japanese empire, was found on March 2, 2002 by Mr. Jeong. However, Mr. Jeong was then robbed and falsely accused and imprisoned by a group of people who colluded with former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and current occupier of the Blue House Moon Jae-in.  [Tepyung.com]

You can read more at the link, but Professor Kim and Mr. Jeong is claiming that threats are being made against them in response to his book to try and silence him.  The below Youtube video from their lawyer Eugene Kim lays out their claims:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsP8_wAJ4E4

I am highly skeptical of what these two men and their lawyer is claiming without evidence.  For example where in the Moonhyun-dong neighborhood is this tunnel?  Why haven’t third party experts been allowed to examine it?  Did anyone take pictures of the so called gold when it was found?  In 2002 smartphones had not been invented yet, but you would think people would have taken pictures of the gold.  Finally what evidence do they have that Moon Jae-in was even involved if the heist did happen?

When people like this make such sensational claims without hard evidence this actually helps the Korean left make the Korean right look like a bunch crazies and that is what this group looks like right now.

It has been a good week for President Moon Jae-in:

The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has swept the local elections as well as by-elections for 12 empty National Assembly seats.

According to exit polls and the vote count by midnight Wednesday, the DPK clinched 14 out of 17 governor and mayoral posts. The largest conservative Liberty Korea Party (LKP) managed to win in the mayoral and governor elections in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province ― its traditional strongholds. Independent candidate Won Hee-ryong won the Jeju governor’s post.

The DPK overwhelmingly won in southeast regions including South Gyeongsang Province, Ulsan and Busan, exit polls showed. The party had never won elections in these regions before. The outcome means the liberal party successfully overcame deep-rooted hostilities in these areas, largely thanks to the high popularity of President Moon Jae-in.   [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I have always said that President Moon may be a leftist, but he is an extremely smart leftist.  Does anyone think it was just a coincidence that the Trump-Kim summit was timed to happen right before the election?  Also look at how Moon buried the damaging Druking scandal by naming a special prosecutor right before the Trump-Kim summit.  This timing assured that the news would be buried by coverage of the summit.

Finally the Moon administration has been able to effectively take over control of most of the major media outlets in South Korea.  Unless his North Korea policies end up imploding over the next year I expect that President Moon and thus the LKP will remain popular in South Korea.

As usual Professor B.R. Myers has correctly predicted how the Korean left led by the Moon administration will push for a confederation with North Korea by touting the economic benefits:

Image of B.R. Myers from the Korea Herald.

A few months ago I predicted the ruling Minjoo Party would begin agitating for a league or confederation before the June 13 elections. I said that in doing so it would focus on the economic benefits.

Last week I received the various parties’ campaign materials in a big envelope. (As a permanent resident I am eligible to vote in local elections.) Sure enough, the Minjoo pamphlet has a slogan in big brushstroke font at the top of one page: “Peace Equals Economy!” Underneath, next to a photo of President Moon, is the somewhat coded but still urgent pledge to “construct a permanent peace system this year.”

Of course his base knows what this means. To quote an approving headline in the nationalist-left Hankyoreh on April 29:

The plan for unification via a North-South league is hidden in the Panmunjom Declaration.

Indeed it is, and in plain sight. But the Hankyoreh was quick to drop this talk, being mindful of the need to get the Americans to Singapore in as blissful a state of ignorance as possible. This is why street demonstrations for the “peace system” have so far been rather small and sedate affairs (though with a higher proportion of young participants than conservative rallies).  [B.R. Myers]

I highly recommend reading the whole article at the link.

ROK Heads may remember that the Moon administration has been attempting to take the word “free” out of the ROK constitution in order to allow the Kim regime to maintain power in North Korea after a confederation.

Besides constitutional reform, to make this confederation possible, President Moon and Kim Jong-un need President Trump to drop sanctions.  This would allow the Moon administration to invest billions into North Korea, re-open the near-slave labor Kaesong Industrial Complex, and open the tourism projects on North Korea’s east coast.  They would prefer President Trump to do this without the Kim regime having to give up their nuclear weapons.  Trump pushing the Kim regime to completely give up their nuclear weapons before sanctions are dropped makes Moon’s plans for a confederation much more difficult.  This is why Moon has been so complementary to President Trump and thrown around accolades such as “Nobel Peace Prize” in effort to win him over to drop sanctions.

Eventually, as B.R. Myers writes, both the Moon administration and the Kim regime hope this confederation will lead to their ultimate goal of the withdrawal of USFK.  As I have written about before, I don’t expect the Moon administration to directly call for this because it will mobilize the conservative ROK political opposition against him.  Instead he will use the cost sharing negotiations and anti-US groups to make life difficult for USFK to where the Trump administration decides on its own to withdraw USFK.

Once again I recommend reading B.R. Myers entire article at this link.

Below is the statement that President Trump and Kim Jong-un signed during their summit in Singapore with my comments below each point:

Here is the first part of the statement:

1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new U.S.-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.

There has been a lot of talk about the US opening an embassy in North Korea.  This line seems to open the door to this possibility if North Korea behaves of course.  An opening of an embassy would symbolize the normalizing of relations between the DPRK and the US which is why I don’t think this will be something happening in the near term.  Once the DPRK makes irreversible decisions to end their nuclear program than I think this will become a possibility.

2. The United States and the DPRK will join the efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

This is something that President Moon Jae-in and the Kim regime has been actively pushing for.  Professor B.R. Myers has written extensively on this, but Moon wants to eventually establish a North-South Confederation.  This is why him and the Korean left have been attempting to amend the ROK constitution to make this happen.  One of the changes they have proposed was changing this passage in the ROK constitution:

“The Republic of Korea shall seek national unification, and shall formulate and carry out a peaceful unification policy based on the free and democratic basic order.”

In the proposed revision the word “free” would be removed which would open the door to the Kim regime maintaining power in North Korea after confederation with their own form of democracy.  President Moon and his left wing supporters will never admit to this, but that is the only rational reason why they would want this change in the ROK constitution.

Should this matter to President Trump?  It seems that from the US perspective if the DPRK ends its nuclear and ICBM programs then it should be left up to the ROK to decide their own future.  If the ROK public wants a confederation that sees billions of their taxpayer dollars going up North to support the Kim regime that will continue to maintain a massive conventional military force to threaten them with, then so be it.  Remember the Kim regime is only going to agree to a confederation on their terms.

3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panumunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclerarization of the Korean Peninsula.

Notice that the wording of this statement is “work toward” which makes no demands of the Kim regime to actually denuclearize.  So far the North Koreans have only taken denuclearization actions that are easily reversible.  I think that in response the US will only make concessions that are easily reversible.  I don’t think the US will drop sanctions until concrete actions are taken by the Kim regime to eliminate their nuclear weapons such as shipping nuclear material to a third country.  The DPRK and the ROK have long wanted a “freeze deal” that would allow the North Koreans to keep their nukes in return for dropping sanctions.  I have so far seen no indication of an agreement of a “freeze deal” from this summit.    If the US drops sanctions against North Korea for little to nothing in return than this will be a huge win for Kim Jong-un.

4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

It will be interesting to see how this is executed because in the past the US stopped the recovery work because of the ridiculous fees that North Korea demanded.  The North Koreans know exactly where the bulk of the remains are because the US military buried a large number of casualties in marked cemeteries before evacuating North Korea after the Chinese intervened in the war.

To be able to repatriate these remains to their family members the North Koreans have been demanding inflated prices which just shows how low the Kim regime is willing to go to make money.  The work to recover the remains ended in 2005 with 220 remains recovered.

As recently as 2014 the Kim regime was trying to get the US to restart recovery of the remains threatening to let them get washed away.  It looks like the Kim regime has now convinced the Trump administration to restart the remains recovery, but at what cost?

Final Analysis

My analysis on this is that the Trump administration would love to have North Korea completely denuclearize and give up their ICBMs in exchange for dropping of sanctions and being reintegrated into the world community.  However, I am confident based on the people that President Trump has around him, that he is not naive to the past history of the Kim regime.

I think this is the one final chance for the Kim regime to make peace with the United States and if they try to play their old games again, that will be the excuse the President needs to take military action against them.  This kind of reminds me of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks during the Clinton administration.  Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader, Yasser Arafat was given the opportunity to make peace with the Israelis during the 2000 Camp David Summit and did not do it which led to the Second Intifada.  This gave the Israelis the excuse they needed to crush the Palestinians which they did.

Does anyone see any similarities between these two photographs? 

Kim Jong-un currently has the opportunity to seek peace with the United States just like Arafat did with the Israelis.  Arafat could not bring himself to make peace with the Israelis despite the great deal that was offered to him that gave the Palestinians nearly everything they wanted.  Arafat it was argued did not agree to the deal because it jeopardized his leadership status by being responsible for building a state along side Israel instead of a deadly, authoritarian opposition which is all he knew how to do.

Will Kim Jong-un accept denuclearization in return for building his state after the dropping of sanctions?  Time will tell, but like the Israelis I would not be surprised if President Trump isn’t ready to take military action if the North Koreans return to a provocation cycle again.  Just like with the Palestinians, I think things will end badly for the Kim regime if that is the course of action they choose to take.

Final Note: By the way did anyone else feel like Kim Jong-un looked like he was a contestant on the Celebrity Apprentice show during this summit?  If they would have let Dennis Rodman into the summit it truly would have a been a Celebrity Apprentice episode.

Here is an article in the New York Times about the image makeover that President Moon has helped Kim Jong-un achieve over the past year.  I think this below passage from the article shows the example of either mass mental illness or effective control of the ROK media by the Moon administration if 77% of South Koreans actually think the Kim regime is trustworthy:

The summit meeting mainly rehashed old inter-Korean agreements that had never been kept, producing only a vaguely worded commitment to denuclearization and peace. But the images made the event a success, providing momentum for warmed ties between the two countries and redefining Mr. Kim in the eyes of many South Koreans.

The next morning, a South Korean newspaper filled its front and back pages with a photograph showing Mr. Moon and Mr. Kim crossing the border hand in hand. Mr. Kim, formerly vilified as the region’s most dangerous leader, was considered “trustworthy” by 77 percent of South Koreans following the meeting, according to a survey by the Korea Research Center.

“Chairman Kim’s popularity has risen rapidly among South Koreans, and so have the expectations,” Mr. Moon told Mr. Kim last month when they met for the second time at Panmunjom. He said the summit meeting especially strengthened Mr. Kim’s image among younger South Koreans, who have shaped their views of North Korea through the past decade of inter-Korean tensions and have become increasingly skeptical of reconciliation, much less reunification, with the North.  [New York Times]

What this means is that when Kim Jong-un eventually renegs on getting rid of his nuclear weapons he will blame the Americans and the Moon administration will make sure that 77% of South Koreans will agree with him.

President Moon Jae-in meets with disadvantaged people at a polling station in Seoul on June 8, 2018, after casting an early vote for the June 13 local elections. They called on the government to come up with measures to facilitate the casting of ballots by the disabled. (Yonhap)

Does anyone think this will be a fair and transparent investigation or is the fix in?:

President Moon Jae-in appointed a special counsel Thursday to investigate a opinion rigging scandal that involves one of his confidants.

Moon named prosecutor-turned-lawyer Huh Ik-Bum as a special prosecutor, his office Cheong Wa Dae said.

The appointment came three days after Huh was named one of two candidates by opposition parties as required by the law on the special counsel.

“President Moon will present special counsel Huh with a certificate of appointment on Friday,” Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but the special counsel has 90 days to report their findings.