South Korea – Page 12

January 17, 2009

Hostile Policy: N. Korea Threatens ‘Confrontration’ Along Sea Boundary

It looks like Joe Biden was right about at least one thing: Military tension escalated sharply along the inter-Korean border on Saturday as North Korea vowed to take an “all-out confrontational posture” against South Korea, just hours after it said it would hold onto its nuclear arms. South Korea put its military on heightened alert, warning that armed clashes might take place in disputed waters in the Yellow Sea …. “Now that traitor (South Korean President) Lee Myung-bak and his...

NK Military/ROK Military/Terrorism (NK)

January 17, 2009

South Korean Officer Gets 3 1/2 Years in North Korea Spy Scandal

Somehow, the spirit of the June 15th declaration hasn’t reached all levels of the North Korean government: A South Korean army officer has been sentenced to three and a half years in military prison for aiding a North Korean spy in a sex-for-secrets scandal last year, an official said Friday. The 27-year-old first lieutenant, identified only by his last name Hwang, was arrested in July on charges of supplying classified information to North Korean spy Won Jeong-hwa while being aware...

Korean Law/ROK Military/The Fifth Column

January 16, 2009

FTA Prospects Still Bleak

You know, with all of the anti-American falsehoods some Koreans proliferated before the FTA was signed, I thought the entire effort was more trouble than it was worth even before the beef riots, also inspired by asinine libel, and largely attended by people so stupid as to legitimize the issue of reproductive licensing. Then came the recent parliamentary brawls: And for a moment, South Korea blessed a troubled world with the gift of laughter. (If you polled Koreans about how...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea

January 16, 2009

Korea Invents New Form of Child Exploitation

Korea’s entertainment industry, legal “profession,” and police force join forces to shake down kids: “We have struggled to find a way to stop the abuse of the justice system,” said Hwang Un-ha, Daejeon Jungbu Police chief. “So we decided to exercise the right of police to refer cases for summary trial. It was a solution to save kids. [Joongang Ilbo, emphasis mine] How compassionate of them. Copyright holders, however, are upset, claiming that the matter must not be treated lightly....

Korean Law/Korean Society

January 14, 2009

Lee Myung Bak’s Nightmare Scenario

Yesterday, I noted that North Korea is now demanding the full normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States as its latest demand prerequisite to nuclear disarmament … notwithstanding the fact that as recently as February 2007, it had agreed to disarm in exchange for a completely different set of demands. Having achieved its first set of demands — the lifting of U.S. sanctions, the terror-sponsor designation, and probably enough fuel oil and food to take care of its inner...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/Japan/U.S. & Korea

December 9, 2008

Roh Legacy Death Watch

There are two entries in this merry vigil: – Roh’s brother ordered jailed over a bribery scandal. – A left-wing agitprop history textbook heads off for the ash-heap of …. Still, the counter-revisionism is going a tad too far when episodes like Kwangju are flat-out written out of history. The idea is to put historical events into their proper context. Kwangju no more defines South Korean history or its modern reality than the Pullman Strike defines American history or its...

Korean Education/Korean Politics/Korean Society

December 4, 2008

Leaflets Balloons Prove Effective as Weapons of Economic, Political Warfare

It shows you the woeful condition of modern South Korea that some would show up to defend slavery and oppression from the non-violent propagation of truth to the oppressed. I can understand why, to a man whose life has been stolen from him by that oppression, that proved to me more than he could bear. This is the point at which things ceased to be non-violent: Here, encapsulated in one incident, is the ugly future of reunification. And the longer...

Deprogramming/The Fifth Column

December 1, 2008

Watch Your Back, Comrade

No, this is not a post about Hillary Clinton’s role in Barack Obama’s cabinet. I’ve read a lot of silly reporting about Kim Jong Il’s rumored stroke, but I’ve also seen and heard enough leaks from people who ought to be in the know that I’m actually starting to believe that he’s seriously debilitated. This latest one comes from former CIA officer Art Brown, and it makes it sound as though the power struggle to inherit all this is already...

Diplomacy/Kremlinology/U.S. & Korea

November 29, 2008

The Wisdom of Kim Dae Jung: Slavery Is Prosperity, Censorship Is Freedom, Terror Is Peace

No matter what the North Koreans do with Kaesong next week or next year, their actions last week have already assured that it will fail to attract the international investment it needs to succeed. The North having demonstrated its willingness to hold potential investors’ capital hostage to their political whims, those investors will now stay away in droves. It’s worth reviewing just how grandiose the dream of Kaesong had become so recently. If you recognize the url stamped onto this...

Appeasement/Korean Politics

November 26, 2008

Tokdoheit 451: Let’s have an essay contest!

There appears to be no end to Korea’s passion for insignificant, isolated scraps of land. Some 85.5 percent of the 451 islets in the Apnok (or Yalu) and Duman (or Tumen) rivers on the border between North Korea and China properly belong to the North, an academic claims. Prof. Suh Kil-soo of Seokyeong University makes the claim in a study of the border along Mt. Baekdu and the two rivers, which will be released in a seminar of the Koguryo...

China & Korea/Korean Society/Unintended Humor

November 26, 2008

Like North Korea, Only Further South

I wonder if this article by the Chosun Ilbo’s Washington Correspondent, Lee Ha Won, pissed you off as much as it did me: [U.S. Ambassador Kathleen] Stephens should inform her government of the very real problems facing Korea’s automotive market, since the issue has the potential to fray ties between the Lee and Obama administrations. Korea has no regulations discriminating against U.S. automobiles. What is not widely known in the United States is that last year alone, 50,000 Japanese and...

U.S. & Korea

November 21, 2008

Obama Cabinet Looking Surprisingly Centrist and Responsible

The L.A. Times reports that Obama is seriously considering either Hillary Clinton or Richard Holbrooke for State and retaining the effective Robert Gates at Defense. We are already hearing the first sorrowful wailing from those for whom the highest form of patriotism is the emotional investment in America’s defeat and dimunition, in a way that is only coincidentally similar to the patriotism of its enemies. At least one of them had the deficiency of judgment to actually believe that Dennis...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

November 19, 2008

Can we finally dispense with the whole “no gay in Korea” myth … ?

… now that the Korean Supreme Court is considering the case of a certain “Sergeant A?” A sergeant identified only as “A” was initially booked on a charge of making a sexual attack on a private in a platoon that he led, but the suit against him was dropped with the victim’s consent. However, the sergeant has been newly charged for violation of Clause 92 of military criminal law. [Joongang Ilbo] In the American system, cases very rarely become “test...

Korean Law/Korean Society/ROK Military

November 17, 2008

Freedom Isn’t Free

USFK has announced that a battalion of Apache attack helicopters, comprising some 24 aircraft and half of USFK’s Apache strength, will leave Korea for Ft. Carson. The choppers are expected to redeploy to Afghanistan and Iraq later on. Washington had in the past tried to redeploy some of its Apache helicopters from Korea, but such moves were often met with strong opposition from the government in Seoul, which feared a possible reduction of U.S. strength here. “The situation we are...

An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea

October 9, 2008

S. Korean JCS Chair: N. Korea Building Lighter Nuclear Warheads for Missiles

You might have thought that an agreement whose nominal objective is nuclear disarmament ought to be reasonably clear about dismantling, disabling, or dissing those arms in some specific way. If so, you thought wrong, and here are the consequences of that. In fact, Chris Hill’s February 2007 disarmament deal was intentionally vague about North Korea’s existing nuclear arsenal. Until this summer, State had insisted that the North’s nuclear weapons were covered by the phrase “all nuclear programs,” although North Korea’s...

Appeasement/Diplomacy/NK Military/Proliferation/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/WMD

October 8, 2008

Lee’s N. Korea Policy Will Be, as Lee Says, ‘Pragmatic.’

Suzanne Scholte has accepted the Seoul Peace Prize, offering this prescient comment in her speech: “When all the atrocities committed by North Korean dictators are exposed in the future, people will assess how adequately the Seoul government then responded,” said Scholte, referring to the current administration. “Consider the judgment of history.” [Chosun Ilbo] I’m hoping to have a guest post from a reader who was there. Warning: this post will now enter a stream of consciousness. You can already see...

Activism/Human Rights/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

October 7, 2008

The Lewinsky Effect

NORTH KOREA SPY WON JEONG-HWA, who exchanged sexual favors for information from South Korean officers and who plotted to assasinate South Korean officials with poisoned needles, is awaiting sentencing. The L.A. Times covers the story in considerable detail and publishes photographs of Won and her passport. On a personal note, I realize that standards of beauty are subjective in any culture, but if there’s apparently not much to be said for Ms. Won’s personality, I remain unable to explain her...

ROK Military/The Fifth Column

September 30, 2008

Korean Kids Face Twin Perils: Poisoned Chinese Milk, Moms Who Use them as Human Riot Shields

Update, 12/08: Here’s how history will record this whole ridiculous episode. BY NOW, WE KNOW THAT THERE WAS NEVER ANY SCIENTIFIC SUBSTANCE BEHIND all of those “Mad Cow” protests in Korea over the imports of U.S. beef. So why so little protest over melamine contamination in food imported from China poses an actual, no-sh*t health risk to Korean kids who drink powdered milk? It might even be a greater risk to the health of Korean kids than strapping them...

Anti-Americanism/China & Korea/Korean Society/The Fifth Column

Category: South Korea