Category: Korean Politics

Moon Jae-in’s Wednesday Night Massacre threatens the rule of law in Korea

IF ONLY HE’D MASSACRED THEM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, the metaphor would have been impeccable. But when South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, directs his Justice Minister, Choo Mi-ae, to reassign 32 prosecutors as they closed in on political corruption in his office–four months before elections will decide whether his party will have a majority to pass laws or a supermajority to amend the Constitution–it should have been the biggest news since the impeachment of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Last night,...

Guest Post: Blue House Chief of Staff Im Jong-seok vs. Dr. Ji Man-won: Im sues Ji for defamation; Ji sues Im for National Security Law violations

The following guest post is submitted by Dr. Tara O. While I’m writing about the Circus in Singapore, Dr. O informs us about far more consequential things for Korea’s future. ~   ~   ~ On May 31, 2018, Im Jong-seok (임종석) (age 51), the Blue House Chief of Staff, sued Dr. Ji Man-won (지만원) (age 75) for defamation. Im also sued a small, online independent news outlet called Newstown (http://www.newstown.co.kr/), which publishes Dr. Ji’s work, and others for defamation at the same time. Dr. Ji,...

Will the real Im Jong-seok please speak up?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, AS IF TO ANSWER THE QUESTION I RAISED in the final paragraph of yesterday’s post, reports on the background of South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s Chief of Staff, Im Jong-seok, or rather, some of it. It’s an unsatisfying report by first-rate reporters that reads as if it has been edited too heavily by lawyers. Its most glaring omissions are the word “Chondaehyop,” what it did, or when Im led it. Specifically, it fails to answer the...

South Koreans like Moon Jae-in personally, but are uneasy with his North Korea policies

If Moon Jae-in and his inner circle are, in the pits of their souls, as extreme as I think they are, why hasn’t Moon moved forward with his plans to reopen Kaesong, or Kaesongograd? Probably because he can read a poll, such as this one from the center-left Korea Herald: A recent poll by Gallup Korea, conducted from Sept. 5, after the Sept. 3 nuclear weapons test by the North, shows a clear sign of hardening attitudes among South Koreans....

Why Moon Jae-In can’t make the sun shine again

Given the background of Moon Jae-In and some of his closest confidants, the question that has nagged at me is whether Moon is (1) a closet hard-left ideologue who has managed to let everyone around him say and do the extreme things he avoids saying and doing himself; (2) just another oleaginous opportunist who paddled his canoe to the swifter currents on the left side of the stream; or (3) a hopelessly naive squish who thinks he can simultaneously charm,...

Moon Chung-In’s visit was a fiasco. Moon Jae-In’s summit with Trump might be the next one.

Next week, South Korean President Moon Jae-In will arrive in Washington for his first meeting with President Trump. North Korea policy is certain to be at the top of their agenda. Months ago, I predicted that the combination of Moon Jae-In and Donald Trump would be a uniquely volatile one, and all the indications so far are bearing this prediction out. Volumes of august and cerebral analysis may soon be nullified by 140 characters. This is partially (but only partially)...

North Korea policy in the South Korean election: what (little) the data tell us

What exit polling data I do have come to us from the Asan Institute. And while Asan’s analysis contains much interesting information that political types would call “internals,” it doesn’t tell us all that much about voters’ attitudes about North Korea policy. The first thing it tells us is that North Korea didn’t really weigh much on the minds of voters at all, compared to economic issues. I wonder whether you’d see more concern among Americans about the North Korean threat if...

No, Moon Jae-In’s election probably doesn’t mean Sunshine 2.0

I’ll have to keep this post short because of time constraints, but my interest in South Korea’s election is mostly related to how Seoul’s policies toward North Korea will shift. I’ll refer you to this post and this one on why it’s likely to change less than John Delury might like, this piece in NK News where I offer some thoughts, and this excellent post by Marcus Noland and Kent Boydston. Much will depend on how hard President Trump pushes...

How Moon Jae-in rode a wave of violent anti-Americanism from obscurity to power

Like Roh Moo-hyun, the President he served, Moon Jae-in’s ideological origins are found within the leftist lawyers’ group Minbyun (which has since become Pyongyang’s instrument for intimidating North Korean refugees in the South). As lawyers defending left-wing radicals and pro-democracy activists alike against the right-wing dictatorship, Moon and Roh became close friends and law partners in Pusan. Moon went on to become the legal advisor to the Pusan branch of the Korea Teachers’ and Educational Workers’ Union, a radicalized union...

Moon Jae-in lied, people died

We now revisit the curious case of a leader inside South Korea’s Blue House who sought and followed the counsel of a cult leader with no official position in the South Korean government and (let us hope!) no security clearance, regarding a highly sensitive question of government policy. By which I refer, of course, to Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-il (who else were you thinking of?). To refresh your memory: Just before the Park Geun-hye scandal buried every other news story...

Must read: Brian Myers on what North Korea really wants (hint: it’s South Korea)

Over the years, the soft-liners’ explanations for why Pyongyang sacrificed billions of dollars and millions of lives to build a nuclear program have shifted. First, they said it just wanted the electricity. Then, they said it wanted a bargaining chip to trade away for better relations with us. Now, they say it just wants to protect itself from us. Unlike them, Brian Myers has listened to what Pyongyang has been telling its own subjects — it wants reunification, on its own terms. North...

What’s that? You want the Sunshine Policy back? Good luck with that.

If Nate Silver is feeling humble these days, just let him try to predict who wins the next election in South Korea. In the 12 months between now and the time South Korea elects its next president, the ruling Saenuri party will probably break up. God willing, new candidates will emerge to supplant the dismal fare it has served until now. Divisions between the pro- and anti-Park Geun-hye factions may or may not heal. Ban Ki-moon may or may not...

South Korea does not trust Trump. America would not trust Moon Jae-in.

After Donald Trump’s election, many South Koreans experienced shock and abandonment issues about their alliance with America. It would not be necessary for our man in Seoul — whose face was recently slashed by an anti-American fanatic — to reassure Koreans about the strength of the alliance if most people felt certain about its strength. Trump’s post-election call with President Park seems to have calmed Koreans’ fears, after which they returned their energy to finding the most anarchic formula possible for holding...

Why Seoul’s blacklisting of Air Koryo & Dandong Hongxiang matters

South Korea is the first of the Free Three (the U.S., South Korea, and Japan) to announce independent multilateral sanctions on North Korea following the approval of UNSCR 2321. Some of the measures, such as the blacklisting of Choe Ryong-hae and Hwang Pyong-so, will probably mean almost nothing until some future left-wing president tries to give one of them a ticker-tape parade along the Chongro. An extension of South Korea’s ban on ships that have entered North Korean ports within...

Why China and North Korea want Park Geun-hye gone

Nearly all of the news from Korea this week is about the scandal that has paralyzed President Park Geun-hye’s presidency, and may even end it. Going by Alastair Gale’s report in The Wall Street Journal, the scandal has three main elements, along with some other (mostly) unspoken elements. First, Park has said that her “friend, Choi Soon-sil, had helped her prepare speeches early in her presidential term.” She has since apologized for this, although I can’t see why. Most American...

Minbyun’s frivolous lawfare terrorizes 12 young N. Korean refugees & endangers lives.

The western association of “left” with “liberal” does not hold up well in South Korea, whose political spectrum is dominated by warring factions of nationalists. These factions wield the law as an authoritarian sword against their rivals, and as a (sometimes flimsy) shield against their rivals’ authoritarian assaults. Historically, the worst authoritarianism was on the political right before the transition to democracy in 1987. The left still fuels its moral propulsion from the nostalgia of dissent dating back to this...

Dear President Park: Make Reunification Your Legacy

Last week was a tough week for Park Geun-hye, when her party lost its majority in the National Assembly. The simplest explanation for this is that historically, ruling parties usually take beatings in mid-term elections, particularly when their own voters don’t show up to vote. The ruling party may poll well in the abstract, but a party that enters an election divided is likely to underperform expectations.  Republicans, take note. And don’t look so smug, Democrats. Something like this appears...

Park Geun-hye finds her inner Thatcher

This week, the South Korean government imposed bilateral sanctions on North Korea, banning from its harbors ships that have been to North Korea in the last 180 days, cancelling a joint logistics project with Russia to export coal through Rajin, and designating “30 companies with links to the North’s nuclear and missile programs …, 38 North Korean nationals and two foreigners.” The targets include “Leonard Lai, president of ­Singapore-based Senat Shipping” (see this post) and “the Taiwanese president of Royal Team...