South Korea – Page 8

May 18, 2010

“Decisive” Evidence Implicates North Korea in Cheonan Sinking

As news reports suggest that an international investigation will soon announce that North Korea torpedoed the Cheonan, South Korean military sources are leaking information that, if true, seems reasonably conclusive: “In a search using fishing trawlers, we recently discovered pieces of debris that are believed to have come from the propeller of the torpedo that attacked the Cheonan,” a high-ranking government source said Monday. “Analysis of the debris shows it may have originated from China or a former Eastern-bloc country...

Cheonan Incident/China & Korea/Korean Politics/Useful Idiocy

May 12, 2010

Mad Cow Revisionism

The Hankyoreh reacts to comments by President Lee by reinventing the Mad Cow riots of 2008: During a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Lee said, “It has been two years since the candlelight vigil demonstrations and although many suppositions proved untrue, not one of those intellectuals or medical sector figures who participated back then has engaged in any reflection. The president also said, “Without reflection, there is no development of society. He added, “I would like to say that it is...

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

May 10, 2010

Samsung Tries to Sue Its Way to Mohammunity

Recently, a friend approached me about the idea of writing a column for a South Korean newspaper. I declined on the basis that I’m already overtaxed by the burden of writing this blog, but perhaps I should have added “the defense of personal jurisdiction” as another reason: In his Christmas Day 2009 column for the Korea Times, Michael Breen decided to lampoon such national newsmakers as President Lee Myung-bak and the pop idol Rain. Headlined “What People Got for Christmas,”...

Censorship/Humor/Satire/Korean Law

May 4, 2010

Oh, for F**k’s Sake: Not Another Do-Gooder Congressman Out to Rid the USFK of Juicy Girls

Normally, I actually like Chris Smith, but it’s just plain dumb to go after U.S. service members who, while thousands of miles from home, pursue (a) human nature, and (b) a form of commerce that’s more-or-less openly available to 23 million South Korean men around them: A bill to create a director of global anti-human trafficking policies in the Department of Defense was introduced Thursday in an effort to better monitor the way the military deals with South Korean “juicy...

Korean Society/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

April 30, 2010

Hankyoreh “Experts:” North Korea Sank the Cheonan, But It’s Still South Korea’s Fault

I expect the Hanky and its fellow travelers to be committed 24/7 tools of North Korea, but for God’s sake, people, your country is in mourning. Is this really the time? People’s Solitary for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) General Secretary Kim Min-young offered his diagnosis of the situation, saying, “If the government had faithfully executed the existing agreement between North Korea and South Korea for the peaceful use of the waters near the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, things...

Cheonan Incident/Fiskings/Korean Politics/Media Criticism/The Fifth Column

April 27, 2010

New North Korean War Plan: Grab Seoul, Negotiate

Via the Joongang Ilbo, North Korea’s on-the-shelf invasion oplan no longer calls for invading all of South Korea, but in recognition of stronger U.S. and South Korean military capabilities, now calls for quickly occupying Seoul and then negotiating favorable terms. With the new plan, the North would concentrate its early fire on Seoul and neighboring areas, where most of South Korea’s social and economic infrastructure is located. “North Korea would try to occupy Seoul early,” the source said. “And from...

NK Military/ROK Military

April 22, 2010

The Coming OpCon Debate

Rumors in Washington are building that the South Korean government will soon ask President Obama to delay the dissolution of Combined Forces Command, a/k/a OPCON in 2012. The Stars and Stripes has a rather unbalanced piece on the preposterous idea of South Korea assuming the lead command role in its own defense, which this piece by Doug Bandow more than balances. I think that on the one hand, most conventional thinkers on both sides of the Pacific still see America’s...

An Alliance?

April 20, 2010

Andrei Lankov on Ajumma Power

Picking up the theme of North Korea’s indefatigable ajummas, Andrei Lankov writes in the Wall Street Journal: A joke making the rounds in Pyongyang goes: “What do a husband and a pet dog have in common?” Answer: “Neither works nor earns money, but both are cute, stay at home and can scare away burglars.” I’ve often thought that one of the most destructive consequences of socialism is the destruction it wreaks on families. That is especially so in Korean society,...

Korean Society/NK Economics

April 19, 2010

For North Korean Spies, Sending Refugees to the Gulag Is Entry Level Work

While most of my allotted blogging time has been consumed by following the Cheonan Incident, several other k-blogs covered the story of one “Kim,” a South Korean, who volunteered in 1999 to work for North Korean intelligence, hunt down and rat out defectors hiding in China, and send them blissfully off to death, or a fate worse than. He also agreed to spy on activists helping the refugees, and on the South Korean military. “Kim” has since been arrested by...

Refugees/The Fifth Column

April 12, 2010

Just for the Paulbots: Why the U.S. Army Should Leave South Korea

Even an imbecile like Ron Paul accidentally happens on the truth now and then. And while the election of Lee Myung Bak has reduced the degree to which South Korea actively undermines U.S. policy toward North Korea, the continued existence of Kaesong and Kumgang up to this moment refutes any suggestion that South Korea has really joined it, either, or restored South Korea as a bona fide U.S. ally on a global or regional scale, or tapped into South Korea’s...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/U.S. & Korea

April 6, 2010

Government Bungling Feeds Cheonan Conspiracy Theories and Frustrates National Unity (Updated)

More than a week after the mysterious sinking of the corvette Cheonan, the only certainties for the families of the missing are loss, tragedy, and confusion. In the last several days, the body of just one missing sailor was found. Divers have searched much of the sunken stern section of the ship, but did not find any bodies there. In addition to the diver who was lost trying to save the crew, nine more crew members of a fishing boat...

Cheonan Incident/ROK Military

April 5, 2010

Will South Korea Go Nuclear Next?

For more than a year, the Lee Administration has been talking about “closing the nuclear fuel cycle” with respect to the uranium it currently uses to produce electricity. Denials notwithstanding, I had concluded that President Lee had given up on dismantling North Korea’s nuclear program, and worried that the limitations of America’s will weakened the sufficiency, in his mind, of the U.S. nuclear umbrella over which South Korea frets so much. But now, calls for South Korea to go nuclear...

Proliferation/ROK Military/WMD

March 26, 2010

ROK Navy Ship Sinks Near NLL; Updates: 46 Sailors Missing, ROK Gov’t Downplays Initial Reports of North Korean Attack

Original Post, 26 March 2010, ~0800: This from Yonhap. It’s not clear if the ship is sinking or has already sunk: A South Korean Navy ship with 104 crew members on board was sinking off the Seoul-controlled island of Baengnyeong in the Yellow Sea, near North Korea, Navy officials said Friday. The 1,500-ton ship sank between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. near the island, but the cause of the accident was unknown, the officials said. A rescue operation was underway,...

Cheonan Incident/NK Military/North-South/ROK Military

March 26, 2010

Don’t Know Much About History

Just the latest example of historical myopia from the kids in South Korea. As the university was announcing the plans, the Chosun Ilbo reported a Gallup poll in Korea that showed 62.9 percent of teens and 58.2 percent in their 20s did not know when the Korean War broke out. Also, only 43.9 percent of those surveyed said North Korea is to blame for starting the Korean War, with the figure among teenagers 38 percent and 36 percent for 20-somethings....

Anti-Americanism/Korean Education/Korean History/Korean War/U.S. & Korea

March 9, 2010

Blasphemy in the Temple: Thoughts on Ramstad, Kirk, and the Finance Ministry

I’m going to add just one small bit to the fracas between the Korean Finance Ministry and two reporters with whose work I’m familiar — Don Kirk and Evan Ramstad. As to the questions themselves, sometimes, the function of a good reporter is to challenge official groupthink and corruption, especially in a place where groupthink is as prevalent as it is in Korea. I do not think that a country that aspires to be a hub of international business can...

Korean Society/Media Criticism

March 8, 2010

North Korea Re-Re-Declares War, Threatens “Merciless Physical Force,” Demands Peace Treaty

So Operations Key Resolve and Foal Eagle have started again. I boldly predict that this year, as has been the case for each year for the many decades we’ve had troops stationed in South Korea, the exercise will not end with an American invasion of North Korea. Just as predictably, North Korea is threatening the United States and/or South Korea. The challenge for North Korean propagandists is always how to make each year’s threat stand out from such previous-year classics...

Diplomacy/ROK Military/Six-Party Talks/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. Military/Useful Idiocy

February 21, 2010

Were the Taliban Casing Yongsan?

By what unhappy accident did the muses of Seoul’s urban planning put a large mosque with a significant population of Pakistani fundamentalists in its congregation smack-dab on top of Hooker Hill? Walking through Itaewon shortly after 9/11 and shortly before my DEROS date, watching chitrali hats and shalwar kamiz coexist uneasily with spandex mini-dresses, Dimple scotch, and crowded nightclubs frequented by U.S. military personnel, I confess to having thought: it’s just a matter of when. A Pakistani man who claims...

Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military

February 17, 2010

How Will Chung Dong Young Answer a Truth and Reconciliation Committee?

After years of unproductive debate, the South Korean National Assembly’s Unification and Foreign Affairs Committee finally approved a bill on improving human rights conditions in North Korea last week, on a vote divided along party lines: The National Human Rights Commission of Korea (NHRCK) said the overall budget for its activities in 12 categories was cut by 5.38 percent on-year to 4.63 billion won (US$4 million) for the 2010 fiscal year. Funding for research into North Korean defectors and human...

Human Rights/Korean Law/Korean Politics/The Fifth Column

Category: South Korea