Quotes of the Day:
“North Korea is a wild card among military (and nuclear-armed) powers given the unpredictable nature of its leader, Kim Jong-un. The regime has been relentless for some two decades in developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. From Kim’s perspective, Muammar Qaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program and is dead, his regime gone; Saddam Hussein never got nuclear weapons and he is dead, his regime gone. Ukraine gave up 1,500 nuclear weapons in 1994 based on the pledge by the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia (and separately, France) to guarantee its territorial integrity; it has since lost Crimea and the eastern part of its country. Kim is smart enough to understand these lessons.”
— Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World by Robert Michael Gates
https://a.co/9szEFiW
"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."
- Theodore Roosevelt
"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."
- Benjamin Franklin
1. N. Korea tests new ICBM system, U.S. to impose additional sanctions: official
2. North Korea Tested Components of New ICBM in February, March Launches, U.S. Officials Say
3. South Korea, U.S. Bond To Tighten Following Recent Election Says U.S. Commander
4. Testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea
5. Signs emerge of N. Korea restoring demolished Punggye-ri nuke testing tunnels: sources
6. Yoon vows to make relations with U.S. commensurate with those of allies promising to defend with blood
7. Yoon says sure S. Korea-China relations will develop further
8. N.K. leader visits satellite launch test site capable of ICBM launches
9. N.Korea Expected to Test More Long-Range Missiles
10. South Korea’s president-elect promises military buildup
11. Swing Votes Helped Yoon to Wafer-Thin Victory
12. Election Result Shows People's Desire for Change
13. Yoon’s victory brings sigh of relief in US, Japan
14. N. Korean state media reports Yoon's election as S. Korea's new president
15. Group of street sellers in Hyesan pelt local police officer with stones
16. South Korea’s New President Is Welcome Development for US Policy
17. Meng promises “to request to amend H.R. 3446” - OKN
1. N. Korea tests new ICBM system, U.S. to impose additional sanctions: official
Some are calling this the Hwasong 17 (I heard that from a missile expert last evening the north called this the Hwasong 17 in a report but I missed that). Recall that the system we observed on October 10, 2020 was at the time to be a Hwansong 16.The previous ICBM test were the Hwasong 14 and 15 so what happened to the 16 if they are testing now elements of the Hwasong 17). It could be that they were building another system which they would have named the 16 but it may not have been able to be brought to full mission capability and they abandoned it.
Or it could simply be to make us speculate about where is the Hwasong 16? Or perhaps they borrowed from COL Aaron Bank when he established the 10th Special Forces Group in 1952. He did it to make the Soviets question where are the other 9 special forces groups.
It was interesting that the US released this information on this system yesterday, after the ROK presidential election. The intelligence analysis was coordinated with the ROK and Japan (according to reports). That is in keeping with the administration's intent to strengthen alliances and in this case enhance trilateral cooperation (a major line of effort in the new INDOPACOM strategy). But I wonder if this is also part of a new policy to reveal more threat information as the administration did in the run up to Putin's war in Ukraine. I think it is important to release the right information so that we can recognize, understand, EXPOSE, and attack the adversary's strategy. In this way we can inoculate the press and the public to adversary actions.
(LEAD) N. Korea tests new ICBM system, U.S. to impose additional sanctions: official | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with reports of a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense, Kim's visit to a ICBM launch site, minor edits in paras 11, 12-15; ADDS photo)
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, March 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's two most recent missile launches were aimed at testing a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system ahead of a possible full-fledged ICBM test, a senior U.S. official said Thursday, adding the U.S. plans to take action that will hinder Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea earlier confirmed launching missiles on Feb. 27 and Saturday (Seoul time), claiming they were aimed at developing a reconnaissance satellite.
"After careful analysis, the U.S. government has concluded that the DPRK's two ballistic missile tests on February 26, March 4 (U.S. time) of this year involved a relatively new intercontinental ballistic missile system," the U.S. administration official said in a telephonic press briefing, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the new ICBM was first unveiled during a 2020 parade in Pyongyang.
Pyongyang had showcased its new ICBM, Hwasong-17, during a parade that marked the 75th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party on October 10, 2020,
Experts have since noted the Hwasong-17 was mounted on a transporter erector launcher (TEL) with 22 wheels, compared with a 18-wheel TEL used to transport the Hwasong-15 ICBM, a possible indication that it may have a longer range than previous models.
The U.S. official said the North's latest missile tests did not demonstrate the range or capability of an ICBM.
"These launches are likely intended to test elements of this new system before the DPRK conducts a launch at full range, which they will potentially attempt to disguise as a space launch," said the official.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff earlier said the North Korean missile launched on February 27 flew about 300 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 620 km, and that the missile fired Saturday flew 270 km at a top altitude of 560 km.
North Korea reported on Thursday (Seoul time) that leader Kim Jong-un had visited the country's space agency and commended recent efforts to develop a reconnaissance satellite.
On Friday (Seoul time), the North said Kim also visited a satellite test site on the west coast that is said to be capable of launching ICBMs.
North Korea has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range missile testing since late 2017, but said in January that it may consider restarting "all temporarily-suspended activities" amid a stalemate in dialogue with the U.S.
John Kirby, press secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense, said the U.S. normally does not disclose details of North Korean missile launches, but decided to do so "because we believe that the international community must speak in a united voice to oppose the further development and proliferation of such weapons by the DPRK."
"While the United States remains committed to a diplomatic approach, we will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the United States and our allies," he added.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command on Thursday said it has intensified intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance collection activities around the Korean Peninsula as of Monday.
The U.S. administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, underlined the U.S.' commitment to dialogue with the North, noting that President Biden also remains open to meeting with Kim.
"We continue to seek diplomacy and we are prepared to meet without preconditions," he said.
"President Biden himself has previously made clear that he is open to meeting with Kim Jong-un when there is a serious agreement on the table, which will need to be based on working-level negotiations because, as we saw in the past administration, leader-level summits alone are no guarantee of progress," added the official.
Kim held two historic summit meetings with former U.S. President Donald Trump, but has stayed away from denuclearization talks since their second summit in Hanoi in February 2019 ended without a deal.
The U.S. Department of Treasury will announce a set of new steps Friday that will help prevent North Korea from "accessing foreign items and technology that enable it to advance prohibited weapons programs," the U.S. administration official said.
"The United States strongly condemns the DPRK for these tests. The launches are a brazen violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, needlessly raise tensions and risk destabilizing the security situation in the region," he added.
In addition to the two suspected ICBM tests on Saturday and Feb. 27, the North staged seven rounds of missile launches in January, marking the largest number of missile tests it conducted in a single month.
(END)
2. North Korea Tested Components of New ICBM in February, March Launches, U.S. Officials Say
We have to assess this along with the other seven missile launches and the reported construction at the Pyungre-ri nuclear test site. Clearly the regime continues to build advanced military capabilities to support warfighting but also support the political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy. I think this may be part of the regime efforts to raise tension to drive the US and international community to ease or lift sanctions in the hope that it does not conduct ICBM and nuclear tests.
I wonder if Kim understands that if he does conduct a test it will only harden the positions of the US and the incoming US administration and it will never get concessions again in the future unless it takes comprehensive verifiable steps toward denuclearization. (it will no longer be able to get something for nothing -that is what Kim is trying to do - he is demanding something in return for not testing an ICBM and nuclear weapon).
Conversely, if we give in to Kim's demands and lift or ease sanctions even in a small way, Kim will assess his strategy as a success and instead of coming to the table to negotiate in good faith he will continue to execute his political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy even when at the negotiating table. He will double down on his "success" as manipulating us.
It is a good thing that the administration is going to announce new sanctions today. But what is also really required is aggressive and effective enforcement of all sanctions. And we need to begin interdiction of sanctions evasion activities (such as ship-to-ship transfers of energy supplies), a reinvigoration of the Proliferation Security Initiative, renewed effort to expose all of the regime's overseas illicit activities and help friends, partners, and allies with intelligence on the regime's illicit activities in their countries(drug trafficking, counterfeiting, money laundering and slave labor, etc.) and convince them to halt these activities that violate host country and international law.
North Korea Tested Components of New ICBM in February, March Launches, U.S. Officials Say
Missile system, if fully developed, could hit U.S. or allies
WSJ · by Gordon Lubold and Michael R. Gordon
“These launches are likely intended to test elements of this new system before the DPRK conducts a launch at full range, which they will potentially attempt to disguise as a space launch,” the official said, referring to North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“This is a serious escalation by the DPRK,” said the official. “The United States strongly condemns the DPRK for these tests.”
Much as it did in the lead up to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the Biden administration declassified intelligence to expose moves by an adversary before they were expected to take place. In this case, the U.S., in conjunction with Tokyo and Seoul, conducted additional analysis and provided it publicly to show what Pyongyang is expected to do.
But even as the U.S. highlighted the new missile system, U.S. officials were mum on details, describing it only as an “ICBM-capable platform.’’
North Korea’s mission at the United Nations didn’t respond to a request for comment. North Korea has previously said that the two missile launches were intended to test components of a military reconnaissance satellite.
The hardware demonstrated by the recent launches was shown off twice in recent years: once at the Korean Workers’ Party Parade in October 2020 and again a year later at the Defense Exhibition in Pyongyang, officials said.
The new missile is likely the Hwasong-17, according to experts on North Korea’s military, who say it is a high priority of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“This is significant because it would be the first North Korean test of an ICBM since 2017,” said Vann Van Diepen, a former State Department nonproliferation official.
Mr. Van Diepen said the missile was much larger than previous North Korean ICBMs and could carry a larger payload, potentially including multiple warheads.
An assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies issued Tuesday said that Mr. Kim was seeking to expand his country’s missile and nuclear capabilities and could resume the testing of nuclear weapons and ICBMs after a self-imposed moratorium. North Korea hasn’t tested a nuclear device since 2017.
“We assess that Kim views nuclear weapons and ICBMs as the ultimate guarantor of his totalitarian and autocratic rule of North Korea and believes that over time he will gain international acceptance as a nuclear power,” the assessment read.
The Biden administration is expected to announce economic actions against North Korea as early as Friday. North Korea, however, has proven adept at evading international sanctions, including those imposed by the United Nations Security Council.
An image provided by the North Korean government shows leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang late last month.
Photo: /Associated Press
The Biden administration has attempted to conduct talks with North Korea but those efforts so far have been rebuffed. Officials said that diplomatic options remained open, but that the U.S. was taking other actions to increase security in the region. Chief among them, the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command ordered new surveillance operations in the Yellow Sea.
U.N. experts have previously noted that North Korea has developed increasingly sophisticated hacking capabilities that have enabled it to steal from financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.
The tests were announced at the time by the U.S., Japan and South Korea, but U.S. officials, in coordination with Tokyo and Seoul, on Thursday revealed more information about the tests to highlight the dangers posed by North Korea’s test launches.
“While the DPRK chose not to publicize information on the systems involved in these launches, the United States is revealing this information publicly and sharing it with other allies and partners because we believe that the international community must speak in a united voice to oppose the further development and proliferation of such weapons by the DPRK,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement Thursday.
Building a capable intercontinental ballistic missile capability has long been on the North Korean leader’s to-do list, said another analyst.
“The ICBM for Kim Jong Un has been unfinished business,” said Robert Einhorn, another former State Department official and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington.
WSJ · by Gordon Lubold and Michael R. Gordon
3. South Korea, U.S. Bond To Tighten Following Recent Election Says U.S. Commander
I think the commander is forecasting the future here as I think President-elect Yoon is going to support this. But this is how we need to approach training:
When asked about the resumption of large-scale military exercises with the South Koreans, LaCamera said “my preference is to do as much training as possible at all echelons.”
And I would just add the right training at the right echelon - some echelons are better served with counter similar training (e.g. theater HQ and comeonent HQ), and some echelons better served with tactical field training on land, in the air, and at sea.
South Korea, U.S. Bond To Tighten Following Recent Election Says U.S. Commander - USNI News
U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Jay M. Bargeron, left, 3d Marine Division commanding general, salutes Lt. Gen. Kim Tae-sung, right, Commandant of the Republic of Korea Marine Corps during a visit to Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Mar. 1, 2022. US Marine Corps Photo
The top commander in Korea saw encouraging signs for the with U.S. alliance with the election of conservative candidate Yoon Suk-yeol as the nation’s president in the most hotly contested race in Seoul’s history as a democracy.
“It seems very promising,” Army Gen. Paul LaCamera said when asked if he expected any changes to the U.S.-South Korea relationship under the new South Korean government. “We’ll have to figure out, see what it looks like in execution.”
“Yoon talks about security as his top priority,” he added.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday, LaCamera said, “we’ll reach out to his transition team” now as Yoon, Korea’s former top prosecutor, prepares to take over as president in May.
“We look forward to working with his administration to strengthen the U.S.-ROK alliance and take on regional challenges,” LaCamera said.
During the campaign, Yoon consistently criticized President Moon Jae-in for his conciliatory approach to North Korea and China. Yoon called for “strategic clarity” when it comes to enforcing sanctions on Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile programs and in Seoul’s relations with Beijing.
He was quoted during the presidential race as saying, “peace is meaningless unless it is backed by power.”
Testifying beside LaCamera at the hearing, Adm. John Aquilino, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said, “the alliance with South Korea is the linchpin” of all others in the Indo-Pacific.
When asked about the resumption of large-scale military exercises with the South Koreans, LaCamera said “my preference is to do as much training as possible at all echelons.”
U.S. Army Gen. Paul J. LaCamera, the Commander of United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command, U.S. Forces Korea, talks with U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen. H. Stacy Clardy, III, the III Marine Expeditionary Force Commanding General and Maj. Gen. Bradley S. James, the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Korea Commander, during an outcall at the USFK Headquarters, South Korea, Oct. 26, 2021. US Marine Corps Photo
Former President Donald Trump suspended major combined exercises after his 2018 meeting in Singapore with Kim Jong-un in an effort to speed negotiations on denuclearizing the Korean peninsula and curbing the North Korean’s missile programs.
Ballistic missile defense is at the top of the priorities list for the command, LaCamera said told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday. Following close behind is ensuring that intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets are placed properly to meet changing threats from Pyongyang.
LaCamera said, “we have to make sure we get after the kill web” rather than trading “arrows for arrows” in the event of a missile attack from North Korea.
In part, he was referring to missile defense systems like Patriot and Theater High-Altitude Area Defense [THAAD] already in place in the Republic of Korea.
LaCamera said North Korean leader Kim’s goal in escalating missile tests as recently as Saturday and threatening to resume nuclear weapons testing “is protecting his position in the world.”
Included in the nine tests this year were two involving hypersonic glide vehicles and on intermediate range ballistic missile.
“The threat is real,” LaCamera said.
The challenge in Korea for the United States, he told the House panel, is Seoul “will tell you their economic partner is China; their security partner is the United States.”
This stance was the “strategic ambiguity” that Yoon pledged to end.
While his conservative People Power Party holds the presidency for the next five years, Moon’s Democratic Party retains control of the National Assembly.
Related
4. Testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea
OPEN/CLOSED: To receive testimony on the posture of United States Indo-Pacific Command and United States Forces Korea
Date: Thursday, March 10, 2022
Time: 09:30 AM
Location: Dirksen SD-G50
5 Signs emerge of N. Korea restoring demolished Punggye-ri nuke testing tunnels: sources
.
All part of Kim's political warfare strategy and blackmail diplomacy. He is trying to create the conditions to demand concessions.
Signs emerge of N. Korea restoring demolished Punggye-ri nuke testing tunnels: sources | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to be working to restore underground tunnels of its purportedly demolished Punggye-ri nuclear test site, government sources here said Friday.
Indications have also emerged the North has started work to remove South Korean-built facilities at the Mount Kumgang resort on its east coast, once a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, in yet another move likely to raise cross-border tensions.
The moves came as Seoul and Washington are stepping up combined defense amid concerns Pyongyang could engage in provocative acts after its veiled threat in January to lift a voluntary moratorium on nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.
The North appears to be restoring part of the four tunnels at the nuclear test site, which the North claimed to have demolished in May 2018 in the presence of international reporters to demonstrate its willingness to denuclearize, the sources said.
Tunnels 3 and 4 could be under restoration, as the North has claimed Tunnel 1, the site of its first nuclear test in 2006, already collapsed, while Tunnel 2 was used for the North's next five underground nuclear experiments.
Seoul officials have presumed it might be difficult to immediately restore Tunnels 1 and 2, but Tunnels 3 and 4 could be usable after restoration work.
Talk of another North Korean nuclear test has emerged, as the North has made the threat to upend the moratorium on strategic weapons and is pushing for five key national defense projects, including developing a "super-large" warhead.
Pyongyang is also said to have set in motion its work to remove South Korean-built facilities at Mount Kumgang.
In October 2019, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for tearing down all "unpleasant-looking" facilities. But in January 2020, the North notified the South of its plan to postpone the removal work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Launched in 1998, the tour program to Mount Kumgang was a major inter-Korean cooperative project. Hyundai Asan, an affiliate of Hyundai Group, had been an operator of the tour program to the mountain until tours came to a halt in 2008, when a South Korean tourist was fatally shot by a North Korean soldier.
The allies are also monitoring activities at the North's Dongchang-ri long-range rocket test site. Moreover, the International Atomic Energy Agency has also spotted indications of activity at the 5-megawatt reactor at the Yongbyon nuclear complex north of Pyongyang.
(END)
6. Yoon vows to make relations with U.S. commensurate with those of allies promising to defend with blood
We are blood allies. It is good of the President-elect to state that.
As an aside, one of the things we have to consider is to follow- through the plans developed for the May summit last year. The blueprint for the alliance laid out then can be effectively built on by President elect Yoon.
The joint statement HERE and the fact sheet HERE provide a way forward for the alliance that should continue to be implemented. A lot of work went into this by professional diplomats on both sides and this should not be viewed from a partisan lens by the South and rejected simply because it was developed during the previous administration. I think the blueprint was developed to be enduring and there is no need to start from ground zero. President-elect Yoon's foreign policy ideas laid out in is Foreign Affairs article HERE can effectively build on this.
Yoon vows to make relations with U.S. commensurate with those of allies promising to defend with blood | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol vowed Friday to rebuild South Korea's relationship with the United States to make it commensurate with those of allies promising to defend each other with blood.
Yoon made the remark during a meeting with U.S. Embassy Charge d'Affaires Christopher Del Corso at the headquarters of his conservative opposition People Power Party, saying the U.S. is South Korea's "only ally."
"We are nations that promised to defend each other's security in blood, so our relationship will have to be reestablished accordingly," he said. "I believe all of the items on our agenda, including the economy, climate cooperation, health and medicine, and advanced technologies, should develop comprehensively based on our alliance forged in blood."
Del Corso congratulated Yoon on his election victory two days ago and promised the embassy's close cooperation with the new administration to expand the bilateral relationship.
Yoon said he was grateful for U.S. President Joe Biden's congratulatory message and phone call Thursday.
"From now on we will rebuild the firm relationship between South Korea and the United States across all areas, and be able to contribute to peace and prosperity in our two countries and in the world," he said.
(END)
7. Yoon says sure S. Korea-China relations will develop further
Excellent line here:
"(Yoon) said our people look forward to China's responsible role being fulfilled,"
(3rd LD) Yoon says sure S. Korea-China relations will develop further | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with spokesperson's remarks in last 3 paras)
By Lee Haye-ah
SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol said Friday he is certain South Korea-China relations will develop further as he met with Beijing's top envoy to Seoul.
Yoon made the remark during a meeting with Chinese Ambassador to Seoul Xing Haiming two days after his election, noting China is South Korea's largest trading partner and South Korea is China's third-largest.
"I'm certain South Korea-China relations will develop further," he said at the People Power Party headquarters, recalling this year marks 30 years since the two countries' establishment of diplomatic ties. "The establishment of diplomatic relations was of great help to our two countries' people in many ways. It also helped economic development."
In a congratulatory message read by Xing, Chinese President Xi Jinping mentioned the importance of the anniversary and called South Korea a "close neighbor and important cooperation partner."
"Together with the South Korean side, the Chinese side is willing to firmly defend the original intentions of our establishment of diplomatic ties and deepen our friendly cooperation to promote the stable and long-term development of the China-South Korea strategic cooperative partnership relationship and bring welfare to the two nations and our peoples," Xi said.
The ambassador added he has served as a diplomat four times in South Korea and twice in North Korea, making him "inseparable" from the South.
"I am willing to work with good intentions," he said.
Yoon was elected on a platform of deepening South Korea's alliance with the United States and "retooling" ties with China.
During the presidential campaign, he said "most South Koreans, especially young people, do not like China" despite the outgoing Moon Jae-in administration's pro-China policies.
"Chinese people don't like our people very much, either," he said at the time.
At a press briefing later Friday, Yoon's spokesperson, Kim Eun-hye, said the president-elect discussed the important role the two countries' leaders play in developing the bilateral relationship at his meeting with Xing.
"(Yoon) said our people look forward to China's responsible role being fulfilled," she said.
The president-elect also proposed holding more frequent high-level meetings between the two countries.
(END)
8. N.K. leader visits satellite launch test site capable of ICBM launches
Check out Kim in his leather bomber jacket.
Again, this is all part of creating the conditions and shaping the information environment to coerce the US and ROK to make concessions on sanctions. Stomping my foot here (or beating a dead horse): political warfare and blackmail diplomacy while simultaneously developing advanced military and warfighting capabilities.
(2nd LD) N.K. leader visits satellite launch test site capable of ICBM launches | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: ADDS unification ministry's reaction in last 2 paras)
SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the country's satellite test site on the west coast and called for its modernization, Pyongyang's state media said Friday.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) announced his visit to the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, as Seoul and Washington jointly concluded Pyongyang's recent purported "reconnaissance satellite" development tests were those of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system.
Kim's inspection came amid concerns that the North could engage in further provocative acts namely an ICBM test under the disguise of a satellite launch following its veiled threat in January to lift its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and ICBM tests.
"He learned about and evaluated the present state of the ground, and advanced
the task to modernize it on an expansion basis so that various rockets could
be launched to carry multi-purpose satellites, including a military reconnaissance satellite, in the future," the KCNA reported in an English-language news article.
"He also set forth the task for building some facilities in the launching ground," it added.
To enable the launch of "large carrier rockets," Kim also assigned tasks for reconstructing the "launching ground zone and the facilities for the general assembly and trial gearing of rocket and for the trial gearing of satellite," according to KCNA.
These tasks also include "establishing extra facilities for the injection and supply of fuel and modernizing parts of the launch control facility and major technical posts on an expansion basis," it added.
In addition, Kim gave instructions about the "matters of expanding the capacity of the engine ground jet test site, ensuring the convenience of carrier rocket transport and improving the ecological environment around the launching ground."
Observers see what the North claims to be a space development program as part of efforts to enhance its ICBM capabilities.
South Korea and the United States have concluded that the North's "reconnaissance satellite" development tests on Feb. 27 and Saturday were aimed at testing a new ICBM system ahead of a potential full-range ICBM launch.
Seoul's defense ministry called on the North to immediately stop acts that escalate regional tensions, while "strongly" condemning the ballistic missile tests as a breach of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The unification ministry handling inter-Korean affairs again urged Pyongyang to respond to calls for dialogue.
"The government will thoroughly prepare for all possibilities while monitoring related moves, such as Kim's visit to the Sohae Satellite Launching Ground, together with the international community, including the U.S.," Cha Duck-chul, deputy spokesman for the unification ministry, told a regular press briefing.
(END)
9. N.Korea Expected to Test More Long-Range Missiles
If they do launch something they will likely call it a satellite launch to provide at least a fig leaf cover for the development of their ICBM capability. I think the signs of this are obvious. That said when the signs are obvious we have to ask what might they be doing that they do not want us to see? What action would they take that would not be obvious? "All warfare is based on deception." Sun Tzu (especially political warfare)
N.Korea Expected to Test More Long-Range Missiles
March 11, 2022 09:23
North Korea hopes it will soon be able to launch its own surveillance satellites to spy on South Korea and the U.S.
During a recent visit to the National Aerospace Development Administration, leader Kim Jong-un pledged to put several "military reconnaissance satellites" into orbit within five years, the official Rodong Sinmun reported on Thursday.
But the technology for a space rocket that takes a satellite into orbit and an intercontinental ballistic missile is more or less the same, so one could be camouflage for the other. That would mean Kim is scrapping what remains of a moratorium declared in 2018 on long-range missile tests.
"This urgent project is the supreme revolutionary task, a political and military priority task..." Kim added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (center) gives instructions to officials at the National Aerospace Development Administration, in this photo from the official [North] Korean Central News Agency on Thursday.
The North recently fired two mid-range ballistic missiles and said they were part of the project to develop reconnaissance satellites.
The first announcement hinting at the abandonment of the moratorium came in January, when Kim said certain "trust-building measures" would have to be revised.
"In January, North Korea began laying the groundwork for an increase in tensions that could include ICBM or possibly a nuclear test this year -- actions that Pyongyang has not taken since 2017," said the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which controls 17 intelligence agencies, in its annual Worldwide Threat Assessment report on Monday.
"Technically speaking, there's no big difference between a satellite rocket and an ICBM," said Yoo Sung-ok, a former chief of the Institute for National Security Strategy. "It seems likely that the North will attempt to prove its atmospheric re-entry technology by testing a new ICBM that it has unveiled during a military parade."
The first launch could happen in the next couple of months. "Kim Jong-un has launched a strategic provocation with the inauguration of every new president in South Korea since he came into power in 2012," said Yoo Dong-ryul, the chief of the Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy.
President-elect Yoon Seok-youl is to be inaugurated in May.
10. South Korea’s president-elect promises military buildup
However, we should keep in mind that defense spending went up in the ROK over the past 5 years. Historically (and seemingly counterintuitively) defense budgets rise under liberal administrations and stay flat or decline during conservative administrations.
Will President elect Yoon buck that trend?
South Korea’s president-elect promises military buildup
Defense News · by Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung, AP · March 10, 2022
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s president-elect, Yoon Suk Yeol, said Thursday he would solidify an alliance with the United States, build up a powerful military and sternly cope with North Korean provocations, hours after he won the country’s hard-fought election to become its next leader.
Yoon, whose single five-year term is to begin in May, said during his campaigning he would make a boosted alliance with the United States the center of his foreign policy. He’s accused outgoing liberal President Moon Jae-in of tilting toward Pyongyang and Beijing and away from Washington.
He’s also stressed the need to recognize the strategic importance of repairing ties with Tokyo despite recent bilateral historical disputes.
Some experts say a Yoon government will likely be able to reinforce ties with Washington and improve relations with Tokyo but can’t really avoid frictions with Pyongyang and Beijing.
“I’ll rebuild the South Korea-U.S. alliance. I’ll [make] it a strategic comprehensive alliance while sharing key values like a liberal democracy, a market economy and human rights,” Yoon told a televised news conference.
“I’ll establish a strong military capacity to deter any provocation completely,” Yoon said. “I’ll firmly deal with illicit, unreasonable behavior by North Korea in a principled manner, though I’ll always leave [the] door for South-North talks open.”
After his election win, he spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden on the phone. According to a White House statement, Biden congratulated Yoon on the election and emphasized the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea. The statement said the two also committed to maintain close coordination on addressing the threats posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
On Japan, Yoon said that Seoul and Tokyo should focus on building future-oriented ties. “The focus in South Korea-Japan relations should be finding future paths that would benefit the people of both countries,” he said.
The two countries are both key U.S. allies and closely linked to each other economically and culturally, but their relations sank to post-war lows during Moon’s presidency over disputes related to Japan’s 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Thursday expressed a desire to communicate with Yoon to bring back good ties. But he still said Tokyo will stick to its position that all compensation issues have been settled by a 1965 bilateral treaty.
11. Swing Votes Helped Yoon to Wafer-Thin Victory
The power of the swing vote. We need more swing voters (and fewer ideological partisans) to keep things interesting. :-)
Swing Votes Helped Yoon to Wafer-Thin Victory
March 11, 2022 12:48
The presidential election on Wednesday was a heavy blow to the ruling Minjoo Party but no great triumph for the opposition camp, whose candidate Yoon Seok-youl of the People Power Party was elected by a wafer-thin majority.
Initial analysis suggests that the swing was mostly due to young voters and supporters in the southwest and Seoul. Yoon won by a just 0.72 percentage points, showing liberals and conservatives almost equally balanced between their lackluster candidates.
But the ruling party dramatically lost the fulsome support that led to its super-majority in the last general election. Voters in their 20s and 30s were considered swing voters during the entire campaign. They tended eventually to rally around the progressives in previous elections, but various surveys during the latest campaign showed them split between Yoon and his rival Lee Jae-myung.
Exit polls of the three major broadcasters still showed the outcome pretty much as it transpired, with Yoon getting 45.5 percent support among voters in their 20s and 48.1 percent among those in their 30s, while Lee garnered 47.8 percent and 46.3 percent.
A closer look shows that men in that age group tended to rally behind Yoon and women behind Lee.
Exit poll results of the presidential election are shown on TVs in an electronics store in Seoul on Wednesday. /Newsis
Seoul was a weak front for the conservative party, which lost six out of seven presidential elections there since Korea began direct elections to choose a leader in 1987. But Yoon surprisingly won 50.6 percent of the capital, beating Lee by a comfortable 4.8 percentage points. He was ahead of Lee in 14 out of 25 districts including the affluent Gangnam area that has been a traditional stronghold of the conservatives.
In contrast, President Moon Jae-in won all districts of Seoul in the 2017 presidential election, while arch-conservative Park Geun-hye beat her rival in only five districts in 2012.
The change in voter sentiment was hugely affected by the Moon administration's failed real estate policies. Yoon beat Lee in Dongdaemun, Dongjak, Gwangjin, Mapo, Seongdong, Yangcheon, Yeongdeungpo, Yongsan as well as Gangnam, which were significantly affected by surging real estate prices and the government's punitive taxes on multiple-home owners.
A majority of voters in their 20s and 30s in the capital, for whom Moon made it nearly impossible to own an apartment in Seoul, shifted their support in favor of the PPP.
But Yoon only won 12.7 percent of the votes in Gwangju, 11.4 percent in South Jeolla Province and 14.4 percent in North Jeolla Province, which are traditional strongholds of the liberals, where Lee won 84.8 percent, 86.1 percent and 83 percent. But Yoon’s combined 12.8 percent in the southwestern region, though pathetic on the surface, was still the best result for a conservative ever and 2.3 percentage points higher than Park's in 2012.
Bae Jong-chan at online news outlet Insight K said, "In previous elections, voters in southwestern Korea overwhelmingly supported the liberal party, but this preference is slowly changing."
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
12. Election Result Shows People's Desire for Change
Election Result Shows People's Desire for Change
Since adopting direct presidential elections in 1987, South Korea had more or less seen the government shift back and forth from conservative to liberal every 10 years, so few expected the presidency to revert to the conservatives so soon after Park Geun-hye disgraced them. When president-elect Yoon Seok-youl quit his job as prosecutor-general in March last year and left his lifetime career behind to pursue his political ambitions, not many thought he would succeed. There have been too many like him, who created a buzz early on but fizzled as the election approached and reality took over. In that sense, Yoon's election win is unprecedented in South Korean politics.
He achieved it largely because many people wanted to see the back of a disastrous government which they had elected without great enthusiasm after Park's ouster five years ago. This is their victory. Now they want Yoon to correct the errors of the Moon Jae-in administration.
The outgoing administration has made a mess of government, from Moon's hasty nuclear phase-out to his failed experiment in "income-led growth" and punitive taxes to tame real estate prices. These must be corrected based on market principles. Most importantly, the country must be saved from the swamp of populist policies.
Over the last five years, the Moon administration caused South Korea's sovereign debt to swell by a staggering W415 trillion (US$1=W1,227). To put that into perspective, the country's sovereign debt from 1948 until Moon took office only totaled W600 trillion. That shows just how reckless Moon has been. What's even more lamentable is that the W415 trillion in borrowed money practically disappeared without a trace.
Once blinded by populism, politicians end up competing with each other to shower more money on voters. This is exactly what happened in this election campaign as candidates pledged hundreds of trillions of money in government spending. Unless this stops, the country could end up walking down the same path as Argentina, Greece and Venezuela. Yoon must be willing to take the flak and have the courage to retract pledges that cannot be realized. Although assistance for businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic is needed, such help must be realistic.
South Korea's diplomacy and national security also suffered over the last five years. Seoul's alliance with the U.S. has deteriorated badly, which is probably why U.S. President Joe Biden telephoned Yoon as soon as he won the election and asked him to meet soon. South Korea's relations with Japan have also sunk to a new low, while ties with China have left Seoul in a position of extreme vulnerability. This must all change.
The Moon administration damaged South Korea's diplomacy and national security because of the president's crush on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Moon would be intent on recognizing North Korea as a nuclear power and easing sanctions as he dreamed of new photo-ops with his friend. This culminated in the absurd spectacle of the military declaring that it will protect the borders through "dialogue." Moon's government has been reluctant even to describe North Korea's missile launches as "provocations," so sensitive is it to any whisper of displeasure from the dictator in Pyongyang. What it has reaped is an increased nuclear threat from the North. Pyongyang did not hesitate to launch another missile as South Koreans elected a new leader, because Kim probably wanted to scare the new president. Such provocations will probably intensify, and North Korea is now expected to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile or even conduct another nuclear test. That might be one of the first challenges the president-elect faces.
Yoon also needs to unite a deeply divided public. He scraped in by just a 0.73 percentage margin or 247,000 votes over his rival, the thinnest of any presidential election. Many people view the vote count as a sign of a deep ideological rift in society. Moon has often divided the public when it came to implementing his populist policies. The new administration must ensure that these rifts heal. Yoon would have a difficult time implementing his policies without the help of the National Assembly, where the Minjoo Partiy still has a super-majority for two more years, so cooperation is of the essence. The only support Yoon will have is from the public that voted for him to achieve a change of leadership. The people want Yoon to lead the country differently. He must take full responsibility for his actions and make sure his words match his deeds. Nobody needs another president who pretends to be an idealist while politicking all the time to protect his own. Favoritism must end.
Yoon's leadership skills will be tested first in the appointments of key officials. People want him to choose officials based only on their merits. That will ensure the least amount of resistance from the opposition. The public, too, will be the judge when the majority opposition seeks to stymie appointments of talented officials simply to give the new president a hard time.
Yoon has pledged to move the top office from Cheong Wa Dae to the government complex in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul and speak to the media often. But Moon made the same pledge five years ago and never got around to it. Voters will watch closely if Yoon lives up to those pledges.
Yoon said he never dreamed of becoming a politician. Every time he faced a wall, he said, he "thought about why the public called on me." Let us the hope continues to ask himself that question over the next five years.
13. Yoon’s victory brings sigh of relief in US, Japan
Excerpts:
“The Japanese will get a South Korean counterpart but one that also looks like it wants to do a lot more with Japan then the traffic seems to be willing to bear on the Japanese side,” says Snyder. The issues of forced labor and comfort women are not going to go away, he says.
The Biden administration will be watching this closely, especially if the President goes ahead with plans to hold a Quad summit in Japan in late May. There will be a crucial period between the election and the inauguration of the new President on May 10 when American officials will be exploring these issues with Yoon.
He will likely send a transition team to Washington led by the next foreign minister and senior officials in the Biden administration are already preparing an agenda for those talks.
Whatever celebration is going on behind closed doors in Washington and Tokyo is not likely to last for very long. The hard work awaits.
Yoon’s victory brings sigh of relief in US, Japan
Yoon pledged to pursue policies Washington and Tokyo are looking for such as a tough line toward North Korea
US and Japanese officials will breathe a sigh of relief behind closed doors at the victory of conservative Yoon Suk-yeol in the South Korean presidential election.
On the campaign trail, and in articles and interviews with senior aides, Yoon pledged to pursue all the policies that Washington and Tokyo are looking for in the next Korean administration:
- a tough line toward North Korea;
- a readiness to take on regional and global roles in coordination with the US and its allies, even at the expense of ties to China; and
- a desire to drag Korea-Japan relations out of the deep hole they have sunk into.
But welcome as these words may be, the new Korean president will find it hard to carry this out in practice.
Yoon will inherit an extremely challenging domestic political environment. Even by the normal standards of Korea’s rough and tumble politics, this election campaign was particularly nasty and neither the progressive nor the conservative candidates could overcome negative perceptions.
The extremely narrow election result, with the two candidates separated by less than one percent of the vote, demonstrated how deeply divided Koreans have become, not only by traditional factors such as regional identity, ideology and class but now also by gender and generation.
The National Assembly will remain under progressive control for the next two years-plus, facing off against a Korean president who has enormous constitutional powers. And Yoon, a former prosecutor and outsider, will also face challenges, as was already clear in the campaign, from within the conservative party.
“Yoon will be better at managing the international community than domestic politics,” predicts Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations. “He could turn out to be exactly what we want to hear, but weak.”
Unfortunately for the new South Korean president, the international situation is particularly problematic. The geostrategic and global economic environment is now fundamentally changed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. No matter what the outcome on the battlefield, we are now plunged into a highly militarized and deeply split world, one where Korea will find it increasingly difficult to avoid hard choices.
South Korean foreign policy, under both conservative and progressive leaders, has always tried to walk a delicate line with the great powers that surround it. While relying on the security alliance with the United States, the Koreans have cultivated close economic ties to China and have reached out to Russia, as well. In large part, that was driven by the goal of using China and Russia to put pressure on North Korea.
Yoon is unlikely to replicate outgoing South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s 2018 bromance with Kim Jong Un. Photo: the Blue House
In an essay in Foreign Affairs, the leading American policy journal, published in early February, Yoon rejected the focus of the Moon Jae-in government on engagement with North Korea at the expense of a broader global role.
He embraced a strategic alignment with the US that goes beyond dealing with Pyongyang, even advocating some participation in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad).
While favoring ongoing cooperation with China, Yoon was notably critical of the Moon administration’s eagerness to yield to Chinese pressure. His views reflect growing anti-Chinese feeling in South Korea, which showed up in polling results. The shift in public opinion, while perhaps not permanent, may have marginally impacted the election results, argues Stanford’s Gi-Wook Shin.
“The divided electorate is partly the result of Korea’s location, having to take into account China, Japan, Russia and the US,” observes former senior State Department Korea hand David Straub. “The deep and angry division makes, and will continue to make, it very difficult for South Korea to forge a viable and sustainable policy toward the great powers.”
The Ukraine crisis has sharpened those policy choices. While Japan moved surprisingly quickly to join the U.S. and EU sanctions regime against Russia, the Moon administration hesitated at first. Publicly the Biden administration praises Korea for its decision to join forces – the President pointedly gave credit to Korea, along with Japan and other countries, in his State of the Union address. But privately senior officials admit that South Korea was shamed into it.
Relations with China pose a particular conundrum for the traditional Korean policy of “the United States for security, China for the economy.” Yoon has pledged a “comprehensive strategic alliance with Washington,” one that includes coordination on multilateral issues in the Indo-Pacific and on issues like supply chain resilience and trade.
But, warns Snyder, “Yoon hasn’t grappled in public with the likelihood that South Korean relations with China will be impacted by enhanced alignment with the US.”
China’s decision to back Russia’s aggression is already leading to threats to impose additional sanctions against Chinese firms that supply Russia with semiconductors and other key technologies. Korea – and Japan – will be pressed to join in those moves.
The North Korea question
Ukraine may also significantly undermine the stated goal of shifting focus away from North Korea. Up until now, the Biden administration has been content to maintain the status quo with Pyongyang.
It has gone out of its way to accommodate the Moon administration’s desire to restart diplomatic engagement with the North, mostly confident that Kim Jong Un is not really interested in talks. The new administration in Seoul would seem to be even more ready to move in step with Washington, as Yoon has made it clear he is not interested in easing pressure on the North.
But Ukraine may shape North Korea’s own readiness to break free from the status quo, well beyond the latest increased tempo of missile testing. The just-issued annual threat assessment report of the US intelligence community states that, in January, “North Korea began laying the ground for an increase in tensions that could include ICBM or possibly a nuclear test this year.” Satellite photos show evidence of early steps to repair the nuclear test site.
Bruce Klingner, a former US intelligence analyst on Korea, sees hints of preparations for something to coincide with the celebration of the 110th anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s birthday on April 15. Some kind of major escalatory test is coming, he believes, “it’s just a question of when.”
While the testing plans have their own internal rationale and timetable, the North Koreans must be carefully watching Russia’s war and its use of nuclear threats to ward off US intervention.
“The longer-term and more consequential impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine lies with whether Russia’s attempt to erase an international border might stand as a precedent for North Korea, which harbors its own revisionist aspirations regarding the erasure of the armistice line dividing the Korean peninsula,” Scott Snyder wrote this week in a Council on Foreign Relations blog post.
The Japan-Korea question
The thorniest issues for a Yoon administration’s foreign policy may involve Japan. During the election campaign, Yoon and his aides repeatedly criticized the Moon administration for its mishandling of relations with Japan.
He called for a “rethink” of relations with Tokyo, harkening back to the spirit of the joint declaration issued in 1998 between South Korean leader Kim Dae Jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi.
The Biden administration has been pounding away at both Seoul and Tokyo to improve relations and to tighten trilateral security coordination. Senior State Department officials express some hope that the advent of the new government in Seoul could provide a window of opportunity to break through the current impasse in ties.
South Korean protesters hold a sign during a weekly anti-Japanese demonstration supporting comfort women who served as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II, near the Japanese embassy in Seoul on July 24, 2019. Photo: AFP / Jung Yeon-je
They point to the small progress represented by the recent meeting of Japanese and Korean foreign ministers in Hawaii, under the watchful aegis of the US.
Privately, however, US officials express some frustration not only with Korean insistence on dealing with the history issues but also with Japan’s continued actions that have only worsened ties.
The idea that trilateral relations can be improved without confronting the problems of wartime history simply ignores the role as well of Korean public opinion, and of Japanese domestic politics.
“With Japan, there is a better chance that relations could be improved under Yoon,” says Klingner, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, “but any Korean is going to set a high bar for Japan to improve relations. Yoon is more likely to focus on current threats but there will always be conditions that Japan will have to fulfill.”
And this puts pressure on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who seems to be unwilling to break free from more hardline conservatives in the ruling party. Ironically, having a conservative government in power in Seoul, ready to engage, may pose even more of a problem for Japan.
“The Japanese will get a South Korean counterpart but one that also looks like it wants to do a lot more with Japan then the traffic seems to be willing to bear on the Japanese side,” says Snyder. The issues of forced labor and comfort women are not going to go away, he says.
The Biden administration will be watching this closely, especially if the President goes ahead with plans to hold a Quad summit in Japan in late May. There will be a crucial period between the election and the inauguration of the new President on May 10 when American officials will be exploring these issues with Yoon.
He will likely send a transition team to Washington led by the next foreign minister and senior officials in the Biden administration are already preparing an agenda for those talks.
Whatever celebration is going on behind closed doors in Washington and Tokyo is not likely to last for very long. The hard work awaits.
Daniel Sneider is a lecturer on international policy at Stanford University and a former Christian Science Monitor foreign correspondent. Follow him on Twitter @DCSneider.
14. N. Korean state media reports Yoon's election as S. Korea's new president
Note they put the party and "presidential election" in quotes. north Korean propaganda is all about delegitimizing ROK leaders and the ROK political system.
(LEAD) N. Korean state media reports Yoon's election as S. Korea's new president | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with more details in last 3 paras; ADDS photo)
SEOUL, March 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's state media on Friday reported conservative opposition candidate Yoon Suk-yeol was elected as South Korea's president in the first coverage of the news by Pyongyang since the election.
"Yoon Suk-yeol, a candidate of the conservative opposition 'People Power Party,' won by a narrow margin in the 20th 'presidential election' held in South Korea on March 9," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in a one paragraph report.
Yoon was elected president earlier Thursday with the smallest-ever 0.73 percentage-point gap over liberal Democratic Party (DP) candidate Lee Jae-myung.
It is deemed unusual for the North to be so quick in responding to the election of a conservative South Korean president through a report by its stated-controlled media, even with his or her name mentioned. The South's conservative leaders have taken a relatively hawkish stance on the nuclear-armed North.
The KCNA carried a report on the election of Park Geun-hye in 2012 a day after in a brief report without using her name. When Lee Myung-bak won the presidential election in 2007, North Korean media kept mum for a week.
(END)
15. Group of street sellers in Hyesan pelt local police officer with stones
Indicators of instability and resistance potential. As always, these incidents bear watching, And they may be getting worse for the regime. It could be why Kim is "externalizing" security issues right now. He needs to increase the external threat to justify crushing the internal one.
Group of street sellers in Hyesan pelt local police officer with stones - Daily NK
Local authorities had banned locals from the streets last Friday and Saturday because of seasonal yellow dust, claiming it could carry the COVID-19 virus
2022.03.11 1:36pm
In this undated photograph, North Koreans are seen peddling goods at a street market in Hyesan, Yanggang Province / Image: Daily NK
A group of street sellers in Hyesan, a city in North Korea’s Yanggang Province, recently threw stones at a police officer on lock-down duty.
According to a Daily NK source in the province on Tuesday, the authorities in Hyesan banned locals from the streets last Friday and Saturday because of seasonal yellow dust.
The authorities claimed the measure was because the dust could carry the COVID-19 virus, although this claim has not been verified scientifically.
The ban was met with vigorous protests from locals who have been eking by through street commerce.
In fact, many locals apparently engaged in commerce on the streets despite threats from the authorities.
When the yellow dust lightened up on Saturday, streetside merchants gathered as if on cue in the alleyways of the city’s Hyesin-dong.
That is when a local beat cop appeared and a scuffle ensued.
At first, the police officer tried to handle the situation quietly. He told the merchants that the Workers’ Party had enacted the travel ban to protect the lives of the people, and that if they got infected with COVID-19, the virus would spread to the entire nation.
The locals were not so easily persuaded, however.
The street merchants, including a rice cake seller in her 30s identified by her family name of Chon, asked the officer to imagine himself a parent with children. They pleaded with the officer not to hinder their businesses, explaining that it was not yellow dust that was killing them, but hunger.
The police officer then switched to threats, warning the merchants to scatter before they all ended up in forced labor brigades.
According to the source, the merchants responded by grabbing the officer’s clothes and pelting him with stones that were lying nearby.
Neighbors who heard the noise gathered around, and the head of the local inminban (people’s unit) reported the matter to the city branch of the Ministry of Social Security. Six of the merchants scattered, recognizing the severity of the situation. The police dragged off the remaining five.
The source said the merchants must have been so desperate due to economic difficulties to assault a police officer as a group. He said the streetside merchants who were busted got six months of forced labor, and the others were dragged off to labor brigades as well.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
16. South Korea’s New President Is Welcome Development for US Policy
Conclusion:
Strong alliances are in the strategic interests of the United States, augmenting the nation’s military, intelligence, and diplomatic capabilities. South Korea is a stalwart ally that has fought alongside U.S. forces in every major conflict since the Korean War. The policies of incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol will remove impediments to closer alliance coordination and will more closely align with comprehensive efforts to address growing regional security challenges.
South Korea’s New President Is Welcome Development for US Policy
South Korea concluded a bitterly divisive presidential campaign season with the election of Yoon Suk-yeol on March 9. Both he and his opponent, Lee Jae-myung, engaged in a battle of mudslinging and accusations, making this an acrimonious campaign. Both candidates were highly unfavorable, making this a true “election of the undesirables.”
The contest was unusual since, for the first time, neither candidate had legislative or Cabinet experience, nor were seen as reflecting the mainstream of their party. Both were unconventional candidates, but their foreign and security policies were conventionally conservative and progressive, pro-U.S. and less so, respectively.
Yoon, of the conservative People Power Party, will bring South Korea’s foreign and security policies into greater alignment with those of the United States. This holds great promise for improved coordination on issues related to the U.S.-South Korea alliance, including bilateral policy toward North Korea and China.
Yoon sees a strong alliance with the United States as the basis for South Korea’s foreign relations with North Korea, Japan, and China. He criticized incumbent President Moon Jae-in’s premature push for a return of wartime operational control of South Korean forces from the United Nations Command prior to Seoul having fulfilled agreed upon conditions. Instead, Yoon advocated for strengthening the alliance by resuming bilateral military exercises, which have been curtailed since 2018.
Yoon also disagreed with Moon and progressive candidate Lee’s advocacy for offering benefits and concessions to North Korea in hopes of inducing the regime back to the negotiating table. While Yoon called for continued diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang, he instead conditioned any benefits on attaining negotiated progress toward North Korean denuclearization. He rejected having any more photo-op summits without prior diplomatic progress.
The conservative candidate dismissed Moon’s and Lee’s proposal for an end-of-war declaration with North Korea as a meaningless gesture if it wasn’t accompanied by progress toward reducing Pyongyang’s military threat to South Korea. Yoon also indicated he would resume South Korean criticism of North Korean human rights violations, which had atrophied under progressive administrations.
South Korean-Japanese relations have always been strained due to contentious historic issues and sovereignty disputes. But relations nosedived further after Moon undermined a 2015 “final and irreversible” agreement in which Tokyo apologized for imperial Japan forcing South Korean woman into sexual slavery during World War II. Subsequent reciprocal actions by both sides further exacerbated tensions.
Yoon indicated a greater willingness than Lee to reach out to Tokyo with fewer conditions, striving to separate historic issues from present-day security and economic cooperation. The United States has been engaged in behind-the-scenes efforts to bring about reconciliation of America’s two important allies to enable trilateral military cooperation toward the growing Chinese and North Korean threats.
A Yoon presidency may lead to South Korea being more willing to assume a larger regional security role. Seoul has been reluctant to antagonize Beijing, and more recently, Moscow, due to concerns over the impact on its economic interests or jeopardizing Chinese and Russian support for facilitating improved inter-Korean relations.
Yoon indicated that he would more explicitly align South Korea with the United States, rejecting Moon’s attempts to balance Seoul’s relationship with Washington and Beijing. Yoon promised to expand South Korea’s role in U.S.-led multilateral initiatives “based on the shared values and principles of freedom, democracy, the market economy, constitutionalism, and human rights.”
Washington will privately welcome greater solidarity with Seoul on foreign and security issues. The Moon presidency was marked by strong policy divergences with the U.S., which Washington sought to publicly minimize rather than risking a rift with an important ally.
However, Yoon will face great resistance to implementing his policies, due to the narrowness of his victory amongst a highly polarized electorate as well as the National Assembly being controlled by the opposition party.
North Korea will likely conduct additional prohibited missile launches and may further ratchet up tensions by returning to nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile tests. North Korea will blame any future provocations on Yoon’s “hardline” policies, but the regime continued its threats, insults, and missile launches despite Moon’s obsequious toward Pyongyang.
Strong alliances are in the strategic interests of the United States, augmenting the nation’s military, intelligence, and diplomatic capabilities. South Korea is a stalwart ally that has fought alongside U.S. forces in every major conflict since the Korean War. The policies of incoming President Yoon Suk-yeol will remove impediments to closer alliance coordination and will more closely align with comprehensive efforts to address growing regional security challenges.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email [email protected] and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
17. Meng promises “to request to amend H.R. 3446” - OKN
An interesting development. Small victory.
Meng promises “to request to amend H.R. 3446” - OKN
U.S. Representative Grace Meng (D-NY) has expressed her position on amending the contents of H.R. 3446, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, which includes declaring the end of the Korean War and a signing of a peace treaty.
In a meeting between Representative Meng and the America Korea United Society (AKUS) in New York on the 4th, Meng agreed that signing a peace treaty following a declaration to the end of the Korean War at a time when North Korea’s continued military provocations could cause a security crisis on the Korean peninsula. She even promised that she would request U.S. Representative Brad Sherman, who first introduced H.R. 3446, to make revisions. She even revealed on the 6th that she will ask for cooperation from U.S. Representative Andy Kim (D-NJ), who is a fellow co-sponsor of the bill.
H.R. 3446, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, introduced by Rep. Sherman to the U.S. House of Representatives in May of last year, calls for the end of the Korean War, a signing of a peace treaty, and establishing a liaison office between North Korea and the U.S. It is co-sponsored by Grace Meng, Andy Kim, Ro Khanna, and others.
However, conservatives within the Korean-American community, as well as those in South Korea, are concerned that “if an end-of-war declaration is made and a peace treaty becomes a reality without North Korea’s promise of denuclearization, the security risk on the Korean peninsula will increase.”
At the meeting with Rep. Meng, AKUS relayed such concerns to Meng, and according to AKUS, she promised to take appropriate measures, including a request to amend the bill.
AKUS argued, “Although Rep. Meng acknowledged the need to revise the contents of the bill, the bill should be revised to include humanitarian values, not points that could cause a security crisis on the Korean peninsula.”
Author
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
