Tag: politics

Likely ROK presidential candidate Ban Ki-moon is differentiating himself from his rivals by strongly back the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system to South Korea:

Former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon threw his weight behind the installation of a U.S. advanced missile defense system on Sunday in a move to woo security-sensitive conservatives in what is seen as his journey toward the Blue House.

During his visit to the Navy’s 2nd Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi, 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Seoul, the former UN chief said Seoul needs to set up the U.S.-made missile defense system on its soil to protect itself from North Korea’s provocations, adding the missile was purely defense in nature, a remark apparently intended to appease Beijing’s anger toward the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang, set to be complete by the end of this year.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Yes it's 'Bandemonium' but Ban Ki-moon's critics & enemies need no encouragement to take this 'slippery eel' to task https://t.co/zwMUE45c1a pic.twitter.com/WXO2nnKFSv

— Noon in Korea (@AllNewsKorea) January 14, 2017

It seems like an unwritten law of South Korean politics that every politician has a relative involved in a corruption scandal:

US prosecutors have charged relatives of former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with conspiracy to bribe a government official.

Mr Ban’s younger brother and his nephew stand accused of offering money to a Middle Eastern official, through an American middleman.

They allege the two men bribed the official to use state funds to buy their building project.

Mr Ban served as UN secretary general from 2007 until 2016.

He was succeeded by former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres on 1 January 2017. Mr Ban is now being seen as a possible future president in his home country of South Korea. [BBC]

You can read more at the link.

Where does this guy get his information from?

Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, one of the leading presidential hopefuls for the opposition bloc, said Tuesday that South Korea should pay less of the defense-cost sharing with the United States, clashing with calls by President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to get Washington’s allies to contribute more.

“South Korea’s defense-sharing cost should be on par with that of Japan,” Lee said during an interview with CBS Radio.

“Germany and Japan pay 18 percent and 50 percent, respectively, while South Korea shares stand at 77 percent,” he claimed.

Lee said the U.S. military presence in the country reflects Washington’s own interests and not that of South Korea. The mayor added the U.S. will suffer a great loss if it pulls its military out of South Korea.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but Japan pays 74.5% of US defense costs, not 50%, while South Korea pays about 50%. Mayor Lee is either blatantly lying for votes or is completely uninformed.  Either way it does not reflect positively on him.  I wonder if Mayor Lee wants to return to the old days when the Korean government paid the North Koreans more money to fund their nuclear and weapons program than what they spent funding the US-ROK alliance?

UPDATE:

From the Korea Times comes further information on how Mayor Lee came up with his 77% number:

Korea and the United States hold negotiations on cost-sharing for the upkeep of 28,000 American troops every five years under the Special Measures Agreement (SMA). Seoul pays about half the cost — 944.1 billion won ($782 million) and 932 billion won in 2016 and 2015, respectively. The last SMA was made in 2014 and the next negotiations for 2019 through 2023 are likely to begin later this year, according to the foreign ministry.

However, Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung, a liberal presidential hopeful, claimed Tuesday that South Korea is actually paying more than Japan and Germany, both of which have a U.S. forces presence.

According to him, Germany and Japan pay 18 percent and 50 percent of the total costs, respectively, while South Korea share stands at 77 percent.

His calculation includes indirect costs such as providing land for bases and firing ranges for free along with an exemption from taxation and benefits such as cheaper electricity and telephone charges — things not included in the SMA negotiations.

In addition, civic groups also insist that the SMA should include the nation’s support such as providing police to guard bases and troops under the Korean Augmentation to the United State Army (KATUSA) program. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but if Mayor Lee wants to play the game of including costs not in the cost sharing agreement than the US side can play that game to.  So how much does the use of the US military’s stealth bombers and B-52’s cost?  Better yet what about the cost of using the US space based satellites and sensors in support of South Korea?  What is the cost of all the US troops that would come to the peninsula in case of a crisis?  I could go on and on with costs the US military can add to the cost sharing agreement that right now the ROK is not paying for.

The next cost sharing negotiations to begin this year could end up being really interesting if a committed left wing candidate like Mayor Lee is elected and insists on South Korea paying less.

I am still waiting to see what evidence the ROK authorities have on Chung Yoo-ra to implicate her for corruption at Ewha Women’s University much less the ROK Presidential corruption scandal.  According to this interview she gave she wanted to drop out of the Ewha and her mom would not let her:

Chung Yoo-ra, daughter of Choi Soon-sil, told reporters in Denmark that she has nothing to do with the corruption charges against her and that any controversy involving her was the result of her mother’s scheming.“All I did was sign certain documents, whose contents were covered up by Post-its,” Chung told a group of Korean reporters during a break in a detention hearing at a local court in Aalborg, a northern city of Denmark, on Monday. “I don’t know a thing about what’s been going on in my mother’s business, as it was run by her and her aides.”Chung, 21, is accused of receiving unjust admission to and preferential treatment at Ewha Womans University. She is central to a probe into a corruption scandal involving the Korea Equestrian Federation and Samsung Electronics. Samsung pledged 22 billion won ($18.3 million) for Chung’s equestrian training. It was also the largest benefactor of two nonprofit foundations that Choi practically controlled, contributing 20.4 billion won.

“I thought I was going to be expelled [from Ewha Womans University],” Chung said. “But my mother and I met with then-President Choi Kyung-hee and professor Ryu Chul-kyun. I left the meeting before my mother did and then I found out later that I got the academic credits.

“I even told my mother that I wanted to drop out,” she added, “but it didn’t work out.”

Chung also denied knowledge of how Samsung came to finance her training.

“My mother told me that Samsung decided to sponsor six equestrian athletes,” Chung said. “I was just one of the six who were sponsored.

“I don’t know how much funding I received or from where,” she added. “Only my mother and my training coach would know.”

Chung denied having close ties with President Park Geun-hye.

“The last time I met her was when my father was still working [for Park],” she said. Chung Yoon-hoi, ex-husband to Choi, was chief of staff to Park from 1998 to 2004. “I think I was an elementary school student then.”

She also denied knowledge of what the president may have done during a mysterious seven-hour absence on the day of the Sewol ferry’s sinking in 2014, in which 304 passengers died after a delayed government response.

“I was pregnant at the time, and my mother and I had fallen out because of it,” she said. “I was living in Sillim-dong and my mother in Gangnam District [of southern Seoul], and we had no contact. So I have no knowledge of what might have happened in the government at the time.”

Chung was arrested by authorities in Denmark’s northern city of Aalborg on Sunday on the charge of illegally staying in the country. She was arrested with four other people, including her 19-month-old son.

The court in Aalborg on Monday extended Chung’s detention to Jan. 30, even after she told it, “There is no one to look after my 19-month-old son if I am detained.” Chung’s lawyer in Denmark is reportedly planning to file an appeal. [Joong Ang Ilbo]

It seems like ROK authorities can very easily have Chung return to Korea whenever they want if they allow her to have some kind of home detention with her baby:

Chung said after her arrest that she will not try to avoid extradition to Korea and will cooperate with an independent counsel’s probe of the allegations surrounding her and her mother – as long as she can be investigated without being detained.

Chung told the reporters in Aalborg that she would return to Korea in a heartbeat as long as she can stay with her son.

“It doesn’t matter if the child needs to stay at a nursery [when I’m being investigated], or with a social welfare group, or at a hospital,” she said. “I just miss my baby.”

If Chung returns to Korea, she will be separated from her son after she is arrested.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Here is what one expert thinks of President-Elect Trump’s North Korea strategy:

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to lack a plan on how to deal with North Korea even though his administration is set to take off in less than a month, a U.S. expert said Sunday.

Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), also said in an interview with CBS television that the Trump foreign policy team doesn’t seem to have a full strategy yet on China.

North Korea is “not an issue that Trump knows a lot about,” Glaser said, adding that the concern for the United States is that the North Koreans could pose an existential threat to the homeland if they can make a nuclear warhead that can potentially reach U.S. territory.

“Do we have a strategy that focuses on defense? Do we take a much more aggressive posture against North Korea?” Glaser said, wondering about Trump’s plan. “Some people are raising the possibility of a pre-emptive strike on a missile, if it’s on a launch pad, because we don’t know what’s atop that missile, whether it’s a satellite or a nuclear warhead.

“There may be some discussions about whether we really need to try to cut off trade and harm North Korea’s economy, go beyond sanctions that are really focused on depriving North Korea of weapons of mass destruction,” she said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but North Korea is not an “existential threat to the homeland”.  The Kim regime would need a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons along with the transport erector launchers (TELs) to launch them to be able to destroy a country the size of the United States.  Plus the DPRK’s warhead technology would have to be advanced enough to defeat the US’s Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system.  The Kim regime’s nukes are at best a deterrent that puts a handful of US cities at possible risk if military action is taken to remove the Kim regime.

As far as sanctions they obviously are not working to stop the Kim regime’s WMD programs because of China.  As North Korean diplomat turned defector Thae Yong-ho has already said, the Kim regime understands it can get away with nuclear development because the Chinese will do nothing to stop them.

It is pretty clear that the incoming Trump administration does have a plan, it is just that it is one that is going to focus on China instead of North Korea which Glaser has already pointed out:

“It looks to me like Trump is trying to keep China off balance, to try and signal that he’s not necessarily going to conduct business as usual in the same way that it has been conducted over the last eight years under Obama and that he thinks it can appear that he can gain some leverage by signaling a willingness to confront China,” Glaser said.

The more I read about the Choi Soon-sil scandal the more I realize that she can arguably be considered a well connected lobbyist taking money from corporations to influence presidential policy.  In the United States lobbying is a well respected profession where in South Korea it can be considered bribery:

Samsung Electronics, the country’s largest listed company, picked up the tab for a sojourn by Choi Soon-sil, the controversial friend of President Park Geun-hye, and her daughter to Germany last year, the JoongAng Ilbo learned Tuesday.

Choi, 60, is a prime suspect in the abuse of power scandal that led to the impeachment of Park earlier this month. The prosecution indicted Choi in November on charges of abuse of power, coercion, attempted coercion and attempted fraud, making clear that the president is a co-conspirator in all of her alleged crimes. Park was impeached on Dec. 9 for alleged violations of the constitution and criminal laws.

Samsung has been accused of generously sponsoring the 20-year-old daughter of Choi, Chung Yoo-ra. Chung was a gold medalist in dressage in the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, and suspicions were raised that the tech giant financed some of Chung’s activities as an equestrian athlete, such as buying a horse, Vitana V, reportedly worth 1 billion won ($838,574).  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

Here is what she may have been lobbying for to President Park in return for the money that Samsung was giving her sports foundation:

The independent counsel’s team is trying to find a link between Samsung’s generosity toward Choi and Chung and the National Pension Service’s approval of a controversial merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries last year. The $8 billion deal solidified heir apparent Lee Jae-yong’s grip on Samsung Electronics.

The prosecution investigated whether the Blue House strong-armed the state-run pension fund into backing the merger. It failed to prove the suspicion.

Determining the nature of the money Samsung gave to Choi and Chung — whether it was bribes for favors or not — is the top priority of investigators at the independent counsel, a source from the law enforcement authority told the JoongAng Ilbo.

You can read more at the link.

Woo Byung-woo a former Presidential Secretary for Civil Affairs under the Park administration has been hiding from questioning for 47 days which caused a nationwide effort by average Koreans to located him.  It appears the pressure to find him has worked because he recently testified to lawmakers about his role in the Choi Soon-sil scandal where he denies everything:

Facing a series of condemning questions and mockery from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle, Woo Byung-woo, former senior presidential secretary for civil affairs, denied Thursday any wrongdoing in the unprecedented abuse of power scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

Woo made his first public appearance in 47 days to attend a hearing by the parliamentary special committee into the Choi Soon-sil scandal, and his presence generated high media and public interest, reflecting rampant suspicions that the former prosecutor colluded with Choi and her circle to allow her to pull strings from behind the scenes in state affairs.

Woo’s position as civil affairs senior secretary empowered him to monitor any legal or ethical breach by public officials. He refuted all allegations against him, a response that drew ridicule from lawmakers.

“I do not personally know Choi,” Woo testified. “I first heard about her when media reports came out on her husband Chung Yoon-hoi [in November 2014].”

When asked if he refuted media reports that he had let Choi interfere in state affairs and colluded with President Park’s three most trusted aides, nicknamed “the three doorknobs,” he said, “I do.”

Aside from allegations that Woo turned a blind eye to Choi’s interference, he is also accused of tax evasion and embezzlement from a real estate company run by his family. He is also suspected to have obstructed an investigation into the sinking of the Sewol ferry in 2014 that left 304 dead by ordering prosecutors to not raid offices of the Coast Guard in a probe of the botched rescue efforts.   [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but what I find surprising so far is the lack evidence presented.  If lawmakers are trying to prove that people like Woo were acting in concert with Choi you would think they would have emails to prove the connection?

The woman behind the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye decided to make a surprise appearance at a hearing that she did not have to attend:

The close friend of President Park Geun-hye who is at the center of an influence-peddling scandal that has led to the president’s impeachment appeared at her first court hearing Monday and denied all charges raised.

Choi Soon-sil attended the first preparatory hearing held at the Seoul Central District Court in southern Seoul. It was the first time she has appeared before the public since she was called in by prosecutors in late October.

“When I first came from Germany, I thought I should submit to any punishment,” said Choi, who was indicted last month over a string of corruption allegations involving the president and aides.

“But since I arrived here, I have gone through a lot of interrogations,” she said, without finishing the sentence.

When the presiding Judge Kim Se-yun asked whether she meant she denies all suspicions leveled against her, Choi said “yes.”

Choi returned home on Oct. 30 after nearly two months in Europe, following criticism from the public to answer questions raised against her.

“Eight of the allegations raised by the prosecution are that she colluded with the president,” Choi’s lawyer Lee Kyung-jae said. “As she did not collude with the president, she cannot be found guilty of the charges made.”

It is not mandatory for defendants to attend the preparatory procedures, which are meant for the prosecution and defense to discuss how the upcoming court hearings should proceed.

Lee told reporters in a text message earlier in the day she has “expressed her willingness to sincerely go through with the trial proceedings.”  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but it will be interesting to see if the prosecutors can prove that she bullied conglomerates into giving her non-profits money.  For all we know they could have been willingly giving her money because of her influence with President Park, much like corporations giving money to lobbyists in the US.