Tag: Moon Jae-in

President Moon Jae-in (3rd from L) walks to an airplane at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on May 21, 2018, to depart to Washington D.C. for a summit meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump the following day. The summit will focus on ways to denuclearize North Korea ahead of a summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on June 12. (Yonhap)

Here is the latest on the online opinion rigging scandal in South Korea that has largely been buried by the headlines out of North Korea:

A power blogger known online as Druking and his associates face allegations that they engaged in a systematic campaign during last year’s presidential election to sway public opinion in favor of President Moon Jae-in by manipulating the comments section on news articles.Text messages obtained exclusively by the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday offer a glimpse into how the group worked and the extent of their ties with the Democratic Party.

The blogger, Kim Dong-won, and his associates used an encrypted messaging app called Telegram to exchange links to articles where they would apparently leave comments and use software to “like” ones that were favorable toward Moon, then a presidential candidate.

In a series of messages dated April 17, 2017, an associate of Kim who allegedly developed the rigging software posted a link to an article about each candidate’s platform. The comment that ended up receiving the most likes on that article was one that criticized the Liberty Korea Party, Moon’s opposition.

“Those LKP people like Lee Myung-bak, Park Geun-hye and Hong Joon-pyo, they always talk about representing ordinary citizens. As if they would.” That comment received 837 likes.

On the same day, another member uploaded a link to an article about Moon’s platform. Comments such as “Young and old alike support Moon Jae-in” and “Go Moon” received the most likes, ranging from 100 to 200. The consistency between the comments of news articles posted to the Telegram chat room suggests the group had a hand in manipulating those comments.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but of interest is that Druking’s group was not only targeting conservatives, but coordinating with Moon Jae-in friends to target liberal rivals such as Ahn Cheol-soo:

In an earlier message dated April 6, 2017, Kim sent out a link to an article about Moon starting his campaign from Gwangju and wrote, “I ask for your support.” In the comments section, Kim had left a post criticizing Ahn Cheol-soo, one of Moon’s rivals.

“At the time, Ahn was rising in ranks and it looked like the election might be Ahn versus Moon,” said a member of the group who requested anonymity, “so we focused on criticizing Ahn in the comments.”

The messages also indicate ties between the group and Kim Kyoung-soo, then a lawmaker and close friend of Moon. “This link to the article was sent by Rep. Kim Kyoung-soo, so we better work on it once more in the morning,” the blogger, Kim Dong-won, wrote in the chat room in July 2017.

The revelation is the latest implicating the Democratic Party in the online manipulation scandal.

I have to wonder if Druking’s group was also used by the Moon campaign to target former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon?  Ban withdrew from seeking the ROK presidency due to what he called all the “fake news” allegations brought against him.

Overall though it is pretty clear that outside of conservative media in South Korea, this story is largely going under the radar.

Here is the latest on the online opinion rigging scandal in South Korea:

In the latest development of Korea’s own “fake news” case, an influential blogger charged with manipulating comments on the country’s most popular portal site may have collected donations for a ruling party lawmaker, according to files obtained by the police on Tuesday, deepening suspicions that the blogger may have masterminded his campaign on behalf of the Democratic Party.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency obtained the files from a USB drive belonging to a close associate of Kim Dong-won, the blogger known online as Druking. The finding is the latest in a police investigation of Druking’s alleged campaign to rig online opinion in favor of President Moon Jae-in during last year’s election.

According to the police, Druking and his team used software to fiddle with the comments section on Naver by increasing the number of “likes” on certain comments and giving the appearance that one opinion dominated on the forum. Druking allegedly used the software to help Moon win the election, but when the president’s office refused to grant patronage positions to some of his acquaintances after the election, the blogger turned on Moon by having his team like comments critical of the president.

The police arrested Druking in March for his anti-Moon campaign, and at his first trial hearing last week, the blogger admitted to the charge. Central to Druking’s online activities was a community he ran called Kyungkongmo. According to files from the USB drive, members of the online community collected over 30 million won ($27,800) to deliver to Rep. Kim Kyoung-soo, a Democratic Party lawmaker with close ties to President Moon. The police are investigating allegations that Kim may have worked with Druking to manipulate online opinion during last year’s election and that Kyungkongmo may have supplied the manpower.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I find it interesting that the police only cracked down on Druking after he turned on President Moon.  Why wasn’t he arrested before then?  Was his activities okay as long as they were targeted against Korean conservatives?

President Moon Jae-in (L) attends an event to plant a tree at the South Korean embassy in Tokyo on May 9, 2018. (Yonhap)

Here is the statement put out after the trilateral summit in Tokyo:

Leaders from South Korea, Japan and China on Wednesday adopted a special statement in support of the Panmunjom Declaration, which was signed at the inter-Korean summit last month and confirmed the shared goal of the two Koreas of complete denuclearization.

The special statement was made following a trilateral meeting in Tokyo of President Moon Jae-in, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and Premier Li Keqiang of China, the first of its kind in more than two years. The last such three-way summit was held in November 2015 in Seoul.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Here is what was agreed upon that really matters during the trilateral summit:

At the Moon-Abe talks, the latter made it clear that sanctions imposed on the North should not be lifted unless Pyongyang demonstrates concrete denuclearization measures, emphasizing that the closing down of a nuclear testing site and a halt in the firing of ballistic missiles were not sufficient for sanctions relief.

“It is the timing that matters when it comes to easing or withdrawing sanctions altogether on North Korea,” the prime minister was quoted as saying by the Blue House during the bilateral summit talk with Moon in the afternoon.

“We should not reward the North for just shutting down the Punggye-ri nuclear site or stopping the test-firing of intercontinental ballistic missiles. We need additional and substantive actions from the North,” said Abe.

On the matter of easing sanctions, Moon stressed Seoul could not move to ease sanctions unilaterally, noting that sanctions were international agreements in which Seoul took part.

“There could be worries that South Korea could make a unilateral move to ease sanctions independent of the international consensus. There is no need for such worries,” he said. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Basically Prime Minister Abe is making the case that North Korea was rewarded in past agreements for doing little to nothing in return.  This time they should not be rewarded until they take real measures to denuclearize.

I wonder if President Moon has cleverly decided to let authorities make their arrests for this online opinion rigging scandal involving his administration at a time when news coverage of it would be drowned out by the Inter-Korean and US-DPRK Summits?:

South Korean police said Monday they’ve found additional comment manipulation by a power blogger and his accomplices, who have been indicted for tempering with Internet comments on politically sensitive news articles.

Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency said the blogger, who goes by the nickname “Druking,” and his followers manipulated some 20,000 comments on 675 news articles using 2,290 different IDs from Jan. 17 to 18.

A ruling party lawmaker and former aide to President Moon Jae-in is also probed over his alleged ties with the blogger.  (…….)

The police said it has booked 21 additional members of the online community founded by Druking for their involvement in the online opinion rigging scheme. The police said so far 30 people have been booked for the case.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like President Moon will be able to personally make his case to President Trump to get on the peace train and pretend trust that the Kim regime is going to denuclearize:

President Moon Jae-in will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on May 22 to discuss the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit, the Blue House said on Saturday. The date and location of the high-stakes meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump have yet to be announced.

Moon is expected to share the detailed outcome of his summit with Kim last month and convey the North Korean leader’s intentions to Trump. The presidential office said in a statement that the two leaders would “have an in-depth discussion over ways to make sure the North-U.S. summit will be successful on the back of achievements forged in the April 27 summit.”

On the upcoming Moon-Trump meeting, the White House said the two “will continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula following the April 27 inter-Korean summit,” and discuss “Trump’s upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

President Moon continues to say all the right things in his continuing effort to get President Trump to sign up for the recent charm offensive with North Korea:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in flatly dismissed the idea of U.S. troops stationed here pulling out following a formal end to the Korean War, saying the issue has nothing to do with North Korea but only with the Korea-U.S. alliance.

“U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) is a matter of the South Korea-U.S. alliance. It has nothing to do with signing a peace treaty,” the president said, according to his spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.

In a historic summit held at the border truce village of Panmunjom on Friday, Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to push for a peace treaty that would formally end the 1950-53 Korean War.

Moon’s remarks came shortly after his special adviser Moon Chung-in hinted at the possibility of a withdrawal.

“What will happen to U.S. forces in South Korea if a peace treaty is signed? It will be difficult to justify their continuing presence in South Korea after its adoption,” the former Yonsei University professor said in a contributed articled published Monday by U.S. magazine Foreign Affairs.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but here is something to consider on what could happen with USFK if a peace treaty is agreed to.  Possibly the future of USFK could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju.  President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence.  In Seongju he continues to allow the blockade of the THAAD site which has made it extremely difficult to sustain and causing the quality of life for the soldiers there to be reportedly very poor.

After a peace treaty is signed President Moon could allow his army of leftist supporters to protest and blockade US military bases to make life miserable for US servicemembers in Korea.  Servicemembers stationed in Korea back in the 2002-2004 timeframe remember how bad serving in Korea was due to the 2002 Armored Vehicle Accident and the massive protests it created.  It got so bad that US soldiers were kidnapped from the subway and forced to make coerced statements in a sports stadium, some soldiers were grabbed off the streets and beaten, and USFK bases were even fire bombed.

Remember Moon Jae-in was the Chief of Staff for the ROK President at the time, Roh Moo-hyun who allowed all the outrageous behavior to happen.  Then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s threat to withdraw USFK was what eventually stopped the protests and attacks on troops.  What if President Moon this time just allows the protests and attacks to continue and the US decides on its own to withdraw?

To me it appears that President Moon Jae-in is attempting to play to President Trump’s ego:

South Korea’s president said Monday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

Moon Jae-in made the comments during a Cabinet meeting three days after his momentous summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace,” he said in remarks confirmed by the presidential office.

Trump is planning to hold his own summit with Kim in coming weeks, although the venue and date have not been announced.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but if the North Koreans do not commit to real denuclearization President Trump could sink the entire facade that is going on right now.  President Moon may be hoping that the possibility of winning a Nobel Peace Prize just like Trump’s rival Barack Obama did, may be enough to get him to play along with the current facade as well.  Time will tell and we will all just have to wait and see what happens.

Yonhap news is focusing on how Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in are getting along quite well:

Off-topic ramblings, jests and quips during the historic encounter between the leaders of the two Koreas on Friday highlighted their growing rapport despite the security-heavy summit agenda.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un met for the third inter-Korean summit at the border truce village of Panmunjom at a time when their close bond is critical in charting a path for a lasting peace on the divided peninsula.

“When will I be able to go over (to the North)?” Moon said when he first met Kim near the Military Demarcation Line, with a throng of reporters jockeying to capture their greetings before their summit south of the inter-Korean border.

Kim, in turn, made a surprise proposal for the South Korean leader to walk into the North across the military demarcation line, a 50-centimeter-wide strip inside the Demilitarized Zone that has separated the peninsula since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Ice-breaking confabulations continued during their official tete-a-tete, where sensitive issues such as the communist state’s denuclearization and the establishment of a peace regime were up for discussion.

“I heard that you had tossed and turned early in the morning as you had to participate in National Security Council sessions … You should be accustomed to waking up early (by now),” Kim said, half in jest.

The young leader was referring to a series of top-level security talks Moon held last year with his security and foreign policy aides to discuss responses to Pyongyang’s unrelenting provocations, including the sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September last year.  [Yonhap]

Here is a bit of a surprising admission by Kim Jong-un:

When Moon mentioned his wish to travel to Mount Baekdu via the North, Kim said he is worried about the traffic inconvenience in the North that Moon might experience — a rare admission of his country’s poor infrastructure.

“The high-speed train (in the South) appeared to be good … When you come to the North after living in such a condition, I may feel embarrassed (because of the inconveniences),” Kim said.  [Yonhap]

The Korea Times is reporting that Kim Jong-un has offered to visit Cheongwadae in Seoul:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he was willing to visit Cheong Wa Dae anytime if President Moon Jae-in invites him, during their summit at the truce village of Panmunjeom, Friday.

He also proposed the two leaders meet more often.

When the two leaders inspected a South Korean traditional honor guard before starting the bilateral talks, Moon told Kim that the ceremony was scaled down because of the limited space in the truce village, chief presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan said in a media briefing after the first round of talks in the morning.

“Moon told Kim that if he came to Cheong Wa Dae, he could show him a much better ceremony. Then Kim said, ‘Is that so? I would come anytime if you invite me,'” according to Yoon.   [Korea Times]

The Joong Ang Ilbo has a  report about the entourage that traveled to Panmunjom with Kim Jong-un:

Nine key aides of Kim Jong-un will accompany the North Korean leader when he crosses the border today for a first-ever summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. The delegation is a wide-ranging entourage of party loyalists, cabinet members and military officers that reflects Kim’s ambition to discuss multiple issues related to his country’s long-strained ties with South Korea.

Im Jong-seok, Moon’s chief of staff, told reporters on Thursday at the summit’s main press center in Goyang, Gyeonggi, that Kim Jong-un’s delegation would include Kim Yong-nam, the nominal head of state who serves as president of the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, North Korea’s rubber-stamp legislature; and Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party and director of the committee’s United Front Department.

Other high-ranking party members include Choe Hwi, vice chairman of the Central Committee who chairs the State Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission within the North’s powerful State Affairs Commission; Ri Su-yong, vice chairman of the Central Committee and director of the committee’s International Department, which handles foreign affairs; and Kim Yo-jong, first vice director of the Central Committee’s Propaganda and Agitation Department and Kim Jong-un’s younger sister.

Military officials include Ri Myong-su, chief of the Korean People’s Army’s General Staff, the equivalent of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Pak Yong-sik, minister of the people’s armed forces, who plays the role of defense minister.

Other cabinet members include Ri Yong-ho, minister of foreign affairs; and Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, which handles relations with South Korea.
[Joong Ang Ilbo]

The Hankyoreh has an article discussing how President Moon is proposing a liaison office at Panmunjom:

During the summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that is scheduled for Apr. 27, South Korean President Moon Jae-in reportedly intends to propose setting up and running a permanent deliberation and liaison office at Panmunjeom that would serve as an inter-Korean mission. Moon also reportedly means to propose establishing and operating inter-Korean joint committees to serve as permanent bodies for consultation in areas including politics, the military and the economy.On Apr. 24, multiple sources who are familiar with the preparations that are being laid for the inter-Korean summit said that South Korea would be proposing a liaison office at Panmunjeom during the summit. While it is too early to be certain, the sources said, an agreement was possible.  [Hankyoreh]

Here is a Arirang News video of Kim Jong-un crossing the Military Demarcation Line:

Here is a Yonhap wrap up of the Inter-Korean Summit:

Overall I would say Kim Jong-un continues to skillfully execute his charm offensive in an effort to convince the ROK populace to once again give the Kim regime billions of dollars in aid for likely little to nothing in return.  I guess we will see if President Trump will be as easily convinced as Moon Jae-in is that this time the Kim regime is different.