U.S. & Korea – Page 5

September 7, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 67

[Update: As I had figured, only video really does it justice. Just watch the body language and Bush’s expression. And for that matter, Roh’s. Roh certainly has used his presidency to perfect a sublime aura of idiocy. It’s hard for me to imagine that South Korean voters will be impressed if their media ever decide to cover this story. There definitely isn’t much love in that room. Click the image. Update 1 continued below, with an AP report that does...

An Alliance?/Korean Politics/U.S. & Korea

July 14, 2007

If Jack Pritchard Doesn’t Believe Jack Pritchard, Why Should We?

Jack Pritchard probably comes to his role as South Korea’s main policy mouthpiece honestly, through a shared belief that the next ten years of unrequited aid really will change North Korea into a peaceful, bucolic, union-free garment district. Pritchard is President of the Korea Economic Institute, which works Washington’s Korea-watching and policy-making crowds through its regular sponsorship of social and academic dinner events. I’ve been to a few myself, and though I seldom agree with what I hear there, the...

Media Criticism/Six-Party Talks/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/Washington Views/WMD

July 5, 2007

The FTA and ‘Fortress Korea’

It can be disturbing to find so much to agree with in the writings of someone who doesn’t share your outlook on the bigger picture. I generally favor the lowering of trade barriers and oppose the protection of domestic industries from the competition of a fair and open market. Note the key caveat in that last sentence, for defining “fair and open” is where the devil is. I suspect Alan Tomlinson defines it more narrowly than I do, and that...

NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

June 18, 2007

Lee Myung-Bak Proposes ‘Kaesong Archipelago’

Would you trust this man? If you were one of those hoping that the next South Korean election would be the end of our long international nightmare, you were mistaken: Former Seoul Mayor Lee Myung-bak, the front-running opposition presidential aspirant in December’s election, proposed Monday creating a “Manhattan-like” island near the border with North Korea and building an inter-Korean industrial park there to ease military tension. Dubbed “Na-deul,” which means a narrow waterway in Korean, the manmade island would be...

Human Rights/NK Economics/Proliferation/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics/WMD

April 13, 2007

‘Kim Jong Bill’ Richardson and Camp 22

[Update: The dissenting comments have been erased again. Gov. Richardson’s fans want to create a cult of adulation in which all dissent is stifled and concentration camps are never mentioned. All of this is somehow familiar to a North Korea-watcher.] [Update 2: Help us keep “Kim Jong Bill” on Wikipedia until he asks Kim Jong Il to close down Camp 22. I’ve put the text and code at the bottom of the post, below the line. Everyone is...

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

April 4, 2007

Richard Lawless Resigns

Lawless was responsible for pushing the South Koreans into USFK restructuring and cost-sharing agreements, and unlike years of predecessors, had been tough enough to sit down and negotiate as firmly as his counterparts. No one pushed Richard Lawless around. As a result, the Korean government and press were not fans. See, e.g., this picture the Joongang Ilbo printed. “Hulk angry!” Lawless cited personal reasons for his resignation, according to one official. He will leave his post in a few weeks,...

An Alliance?/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/U.S. Politics

April 1, 2007

FTA Agreement Reached FTA Talks Near Failure: The Death of an Alliance, Part 66

[Update 2: Well, as it turns out, the two sides did reach an agreement, although it’s not clear how comprehensive. Both sides — mainly us — made major last-minute concessions. Talks were ongoing until minutes before the legal deadline. Beef tariffs will be phased out over 15 years, which is a long time. (We’ll see if the Koreans actually accept the next shipment.) Korea also gets to protect its rice market. There’s really only one bright spot I can see:...

Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/The Fifth Column/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

March 31, 2007

An FTA Pre-Post Mortem

At this hour, it looks like free trade talks with South Korea are about to fail, despite their extension for another 48 hours. It may be a bit early for the Chosun Ilbo to have published this post-mortem, but any free-trade agreement we reach now will be unworthy of the name and hardly worth doing from an American perspective. Yes, I still believe an US-Korean FTA is a good idea, but it’s pretty hard to write a good one when...

An Alliance?/Anti-Americanism/Korean Politics/NK Economics/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Politics

March 25, 2007

Anju Links for 3/25: N. Korea Threatens to Do Us a Favor, Money We Can’t Follow, the FTA Circus, and S. Korea’s Slavery-Loving Unions

* No.Please.Stop. North Korea is threatening to pull out of the dreadful (for us) February 13th Agreed Framework 2.0 over the RSOI / Foal Eagle exercises. “This may entail such serious consequences as escalating the tension between the DPRK (North Korea) and the US and scuttling the six-party talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, arranged with so much effort.” [Channel News Asia] A KCNA statement wouldn’t be complete without a reference to...

An Alliance?/Human Trafficking/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military/UCMJ & SOFA

March 20, 2007

Anju Links for 3/20

* Renaissance man Kevin Kim, a/k/a The Big Hominid, has launched his new book, “Water from a Skull.” * Missed the train, but not the train wreck. “Notice me!,” cries Ban Ki Moon, just as the February 13th deal starts to strike immovable objects, one of which has an atomic mass of 238. * I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the Japanese are an odd people. * Don’t Forget to Ask for Receipts:...

"United" Nations/Appeasement/Blogs & Blogging/Diplomacy/Japan/Terrorism/Iraq/U.S. & Korea/WMD

March 19, 2007

Chipyong-ni It Aint

[See also: A very good, thorough ROK Drop post, and a dissent from Andy Jackson.] Reporting from Kurdish Iraq, Michael Totten says the only booms are economic, and that the Kurds are leveraging peace and prosperity into de facto independence. It’s a long, interesting, occasionally fretful post, and well worth reading. Along the way, Totten notes how Kurds view the South Koreans’ “sacrifice” for a democracy in Iraq: Iraqi Kurdistan is technically occupied by a foreign power, but this...

An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea

March 14, 2007

Wiesenthal Center’s Associate Dean to Speak on Anti-Semitic Korean Comic at Seoul Grand Hyatt Tomorrow

[Update: The AP has more. The end result may be to show just how much anti-Semitism there really is in Korea (see this and this, with its updated “traditional European” inspiration). I will concede that before this epsode, I perceived it to be relatively rare. I don’t think so anymore. I also think that for now, it’s pretty shallow, and mostly a biproduct of anti-Americanism, which is not shallow. Racism in its broader sense is pretty much on open...

Korean Society/U.S. & Korea

March 6, 2007

Take the OFK Statesmanship Quiz

You are a major political leader of one of the world’s major industrialized democracies. An actor-turned-author publishes a book in which he photoshops the name of the country’s top newspaper into a picture of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Just to make sure there’s no room for ambiguity, he says, “I want to become a terrorist …. The newspaper is the sole monolithic monster remaining in [this] society.” As a statesman, your response is to: a. Jail the man...

An Alliance?/Democracy/Terrorism (NK)/U.S. & Korea/WTF?

February 26, 2007

The Death of an Alliance, Part 65: Beyond Dependency, Toward Reunification

[Update: In the course of a whiney tirade about how America “betrayed” South Korea, Kim Dae Joong also calls for a national conversation about South Korea becoming more self-sufficient in its own defense. I’d suggest to Mr. Kim that it’s a wee bit early to declare South Korea fully abandoned by America while we still have 29,000 of our people there. Kim also admits that the (elected) South Korean government got the deal it wanted, and in light of...

An Alliance?/Reconstruction/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military

February 23, 2007

U.S., ROK Ministers Agree on OPCON Date

[Update: But we’re demanding benchmarks! Gates apparently shares my fears and has demanded ROK assurances that the date won’t slide yet again. He’s also demanding “tangible moves,” such as “establishing a military command that would take charge of troop control, and an earlier start to drawing up new military strategies once Combined Forces Command is dismantled.” Those sure do sound a lot like “benchmarks,” although that term was understandably avoided. I think the value of a promise made...

An Alliance?/ROK Military/U.S. & Korea/U.S. Military

February 20, 2007

Pentagon’s Position on OPCON Deadline Slides to 2010

The report doesn’t specify what month, or how the Korean side reacted. The two countries’ defense secretaries will discuss the issue further this month.