Yoon in Singapore South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (2nd from R) and his wife, Kim Keon Hee (2nd from L), salute the national flag during a welcoming ceremony for their state visit at Parliament House in Singapore on Oct. 8, 2024. (Yonhap)
Singapore has abandoned the zero COVID strategy some countries are pursuing and instead focusing on hospitalization rates and not case numbers:
In this image provided by Joys Tan, graphic designer Tan, left, takes a selfie with her friend while onboard a bus that will take them to their quarantine hotel in Singapore on Sept. 21, 2021. As the island nation of Singapore pursues a strategy of “living with COVID” and a gradual relaxation of pandemic restrictions, daily cases are skyrocketing and residents are growing increasingly anxious.
Singapore reported a total of 93 deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic through Wednesday. Across the narrow Straits of Johor, neighbor Malaysia counted more than double that number on Wednesday alone.
Malaysia has reported 798 COVID-19 deaths per million residents since the start of the pandemic; Singapore fewer than 16.
After one of the most successful vaccination rollouts in the world, and the pandemic brought well under control with strict regulations and aggressive testing and tracking, Singapore began in August what it calls a “transition journey to a COVID-19 resilient nation.”
In doing so, the wealthy Southeast Asian nation of 5.5 million people tacitly conceded that reducing cases to zero was not a possible long-term solution, and instead decided it could start a gradual return to everyday life, said Tikki Pang, a visiting professor of infectious diseases at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore and a former World Health Organization researcher.
“In the longer term, it is really going to become the norm,” he said of the approach. “Because I think most governments of most countries will accept the fact that this virus is not going to go away, it’s going to become endemic and we’re just going to have to learn to live with it like the flu.”
You can read more at the link, but Singapore’s high vaccination rate is helping it keep its hospitalization and death rate well below neighboring countries. This has given the nation confidence to reopen and try to return to normal.
This news story should be trending a LOT more than it is as this is one of the defining debates of our age. There is a lot of fake news out there that range from harmless fun to fabrications that incite inter-ethnic violence. But is the Singapore model the right solution? https://t.co/3BLaasrpEq
I have to admit I cringed a little bit when I first saw this, but the follow on criticism has been over the top:
Newly released video footage from North Korean state media shows President Donald Trump returning a salute to a North Korean military general during this week’s summit in Singapore, an extraordinary display of respect from a US president to a top officer of a hostile regime.
In the military, returning a salute from a military officer of a friendly foreign nation is common practice for US military officers and considered a display of military professionalism. There is no rule that a US president is obliged to return a salute, which is considered a sign of mutual respect.
After Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked down a colonnade to shake hands, the pair entered into a room filled with various members of Kim’s delegation, the video from North Korean broadcaster KCTV news shows.
Trump starts to shake hands with those in the room. Upon encountering North Korean Gen. No Kwang Chol, who was in full uniform, Trump first extends his hand, to which the general responds with a salute. Trump then salutes back, extends his hand again and the two men shake hands. [CNN]
You can read more at the link, but the salute as expected has become red meat for the usual Trump critics to sensationalize. The over the top criticism of what appeared to a reflexive action by the President is about as stupid as the over top criticism of former President Obama bowing to the Saudi King. With that said if Obama had done this his critics would be doing the same thing that Trump critics are doing now.
From what I have read there really isn’t any regulation stating that a President is supposed to salute military personnel much less foreign military personnel. Saluting apparently started with President Reagan and follow on Presidents have continued this tradition.
There’s no regulation that stipulates presidents must salute the troops. In fact, for the first 192 years of our republic, it didn’t happen. None of the first 38 commanders in chief did it. And some of those dudes had some serious military experience. Eisenhower? Grant? I mean, Teddy Roosevelt was a war hero. Surely he felt compelled to click his heels together and cut a perfect knife-handed salute when he passed a uniform service member, right? Wrong. It was literally something that Ronald Reagan made up one day. [Task and Purpose]
Interestingly I did find buried at the very end of a Dallas Morning News article criticizing Trump’s salute, that President Obama did occasionally salute foreign military personnel as well:
A cursory check of photo archives shows that Obama on occasion returned a foreign official’s salute. [Dallas Morning News]
The White House for its part is defending the salute as being part of “common courtesy“. Well the so call common courtesy is sure to be immortalized with endless amount of Internet memes highlighting this salute.
President Trump is definitely working hard to sell the public on how successful the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore was in response to his critics:
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that the world should feel “safer” because North Korea poses no nuclear threat to the world.
“Everybody can feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!” he wrote just after he returned to Washington from a historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in Singapore on Tuesday.
“Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer,” he added.
Earlier he tweeted several times defending the summit, which critics said lacked specifics and fell short of the U.S. goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.
“Great progress was made on the denuclearization of North Korea. Hostages are back home, will be getting the remains of our great heroes back to their families, no missiles shot, no research happening, sites closing,” Trump tweeted.
“Got along great with Kim Jong-un who wants to see wonderful things for his country. As I said earlier today: Anyone can make war, but only the most courageous can make peace!” he added.
In later postings, Trump thanked Kim for taking a “bold” step toward a “bright future” for his people and said that their Tuesday summit helps the world stay a big step away from potential nuclear catastrophe. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but you can read my analysis of the summit at this link. What will be interesting to see in the coming weeks what the domestic North Korean media puts out about this summit.
Below is the statement that President Trump and Kim Jong-un signed during their summit in Singapore with my comments below each point:
U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un sign documents that acknowledge the progress of the talks and pledge to keep momentum going, after their summit at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore June 12. Reuters
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.
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) gestures as he meets with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un (L) at the start of their historic US-North Korea summit, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa island in Singapore on June 12, 2018. AFP
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.
Marines of the First Marine Division pay their respects to fallen buddies during memorial services at the division’s cemetery at Hamhung, Korea, following the break-out from Chosin Reservoir, December 13, 1950. Cpl. Uthe. (Marine Corps)
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.
This is a perfect example of how messed up North Korea’s priorities are. The Kim regime can supposedly launch a nuclear missile that can threaten most of the world, but they can’t maintain one aircraft to fly to Singapore:
The Air China Boeing 747 that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took to Singapore on Sunday (June 10) is the private jet of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported Monday (June 11).
Kim’s usual mode of transport is his own aircraft, the Chammae-1, but he appears to have sought help from China due to safety concerns regarding the condition of his jet. [AsiaOne]
You can read more at the link, but I would have to think this is quite embarrassing for Kim Jong-un to have to hitch a ride to possibly the most important summit he may ever attend.
However, he was all smiles when meeting with Singapore’s Prime Minister:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for the first time on Sunday.
Singapore is well known for a being a strict rule of law country and some KBS reporters just found that out:
Police check a car entering the Shangri-La Hotel at the hotel’s entrance on June 3. Singapore has tightened security arrangements in and around the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-un summit venue and hotels ahead of the June 12 meeting. / Korea Times photo by Jeong Min-seung
Two South Korean journalists will be expelled from Singapore Saturday for trespassing into the residence of the North Korean ambassador to Singapore, according to multiple sources, Saturday.
They arrived in Singapore a week ago ahead of the historic summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on June 12.
“The Singapore Police Force has decided to expel two Korean journalists over the criminal tresspass,” a source close to the police told The Korea Times asking not to be named.
The decision came a day after the police said in a statement Friday that they were investigating three journalists representing Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) and their interpreter after receiving a report of a case of criminal trespass at about 3.50pm,Thursday.
Among them, the two journalists from KBS who entered the residence without permission were arrested on site.
“There is another man from KBS involved in the incident but he is not subject to punishment because he was waiting outside of the residence,” he added. “Still, he will voluntarily have to leave Singapore.” [Korea Times]
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