Quotes of the Day:

"The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion." 

– G.K. Chesterton

"It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required." 

– Winston Churchill

"A proclivity for science is embedded deeply within us, in all times, places, and cultures. It has been the means for our survival. It is our birthright. When, through indifference, inattention, incompetence, or fear of skepticism, we discourage children from science, we are disenfranchising them, taking from them the tools needed to manage their future." 

– Carl Sagan

1. Russia Vetoes UN Panel of Experts,​ HRNK Calls for Alternative Monitoring Procedure

2. Preparing for a China war, the Marines are retooling how they’ll fight

3. Forging a New Era of U.S.-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Cooperation

4. Command post to field; combined SOF personnel complete semi-annual exercise

5. Why Russia Is Protecting North Korea From Nuclear Monitors

6. South Korea’s Parliament Election 2024: What You Need to Know

7. Wanted in South Korea: Imperialism-Free Cherry Blossoms

8. Returning from China, North Korean workers are paid in dubious IOUs

9. Officials from S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss cooperation against N.K. cyberthreats

10. Failed U.N. panel extension underscores deepening N.K.-Russia ties, security uncertainties

11. US saw NK's call for light water reactors as 'significant opening' in nuclear talks: declassified dossier

1. Russia Vetoes UN Panel of Experts,​ HRNK Calls for Alternative Monitoring Procedure

Commentary from the HRNK Board of Directors.

View this email in your browserRussia Vetoes UN Panel of Experts,

HRNK Calls for Alternative Monitoring Procedure

March 29, 2024

https://mailchi.mp/4c6a553cc3c2/poe-statement?e=46d109134b&utm

A Russian veto has terminated the UN Panel of Experts, a subsidiary body established pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1718, which followed North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006.

For fifteen years, the Panel of Experts reported on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, the threat they posed to international peace and security, and the illicit procurement of resources fueling the regime's tools of death.

Several HRNK Board members react to this distressing development, deploring the failure to renew the Panel's mandate and calling on the UN to establish an alternative monitoring procedure:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper (Chair, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom)

• "Russia’s move to becloud ongoing human rights outrages committed by its ally North Korea must be countered by the United Nations and other member states. Let Secretary-General Guterres announce that he is appointing a personal envoy or rapporteur. Otherwise, the downward moral spiral of the UN will only accelerate."

The Honorable Jack David (Senior Fellow & Trustee, Hudson Institute)

• "North Korea is the world’s worst human-rights abuser of its own people, even as it threatens the rest of the world with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. The Russian veto bringing an end to the UN Panel of Experts, which helped address the North Korean missile and nuclear threat, is morally repugnant and should be condemned."

Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt (Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy, American Enterprise Institute)

• "It should be no surprise that the Kremlin just sabotaged sanctions monitoring for North Korea. Pyongyang is now a supplicant state for Putin, supplying arms for his invasion of Ukraine and cheering for his victory. Countries of conscience must impel the UN to continue to shine a light on the Kim regime's crimes and the villains who finance them, despite this latest betrayal by Moscow."

Ambassador Robert Joseph (Senior Scholar, National Institute for Public Policy)

• "By abetting North Korea’s ongoing evasion of sanctions, Putin’s Russia has become even more complicit in Pyongyang’s many crimes. It is imperative that all civilized nations endeavor to monitor and enforce sanctions imposed on the Kim regime, the world’s most grievous offender of human rights."

Ambassador Jung-Hoon Lee (Dean, Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies)

• "Russia sabotaging the renewal of a UN panel that monitors the enforcement of international sanctions against North Korea is egregious, cowardly, and simply irresponsible. Will the world ever see a Russia deserving of its privileged P5 status?"

Ambassador Winston Lord (Former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State)

• "Russia’s sabotaging of sanctions on North Korea is as ugly as it is unsurprising. The United Nations must find another way to monitor compliance, as well as continuing to shine a light on the world’s worst human rights landscape."

Colonel David Maxwell, USA, Ret. (Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy)

• "Russia, as a founding member of the axis of dictators, again demonstrates that it is not a responsible member of the international community as it exposes its collaboration with the mafia-like crime family cult of the Kim regime and uses its veto power to protect Kim Jong-un's malign activities. The international community spends too much time worrying about what Putin and Kim might do. Instead, the international community should make them worry about what it is capable of doing, and that it has the will to do it."

Dr. Suzanne Scholte (President, Defense Forum Foundation)

• "The UN Panel of Experts has done a vital service for the international community in documenting the Kim regime's evasion of UN sanctions, its illicit activities, and cybercrimes that have enabled the DPRK to develop nuclear weapons while the North Korean people starve. Putin's decision to end this vital initiative shows his further embrace of the brutal Kim dictatorship, which has been found guilty of crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights by the UN's own inquiry."

General John H. Tilelli Jr., USA, Ret. (Former Commander, UNC/CFC/USFK)

• "Once again, Russia has proven that it is not a reliable, stable, or rational member of the international community. Russia's new coalition with the Kim family regime demonstrates Putin's self-interest rather than the greater good, and again defines for us the 'Axis of Evil.' The UN must take a different approach when one member state blocks issues that affect international peace and security."

2. Preparing for a China war, the Marines are retooling how they’ll fight

Perhaps we should look at island hopping in WWII. There were two lines of operation, one commanded by Nimitz and one commanded by MacArthur. Neither could fight the Pacific War alone. Are there lessons to be learned from a command and control perspective? (Of course there are. This was a major study in operational art when I was at CGSC in the 1990s). The parallel I am concerned with is a fight defending both Taiwan and Korea simultaneously or near simultaneously. There is going to have to be a sharing of resources. The question is how will we manage the division of resources and labor? Is INDOPACOM capable of doing that especially when it deems Taiwan defense as the main effort and Korea a secondary consideration (which goes to the question of which is more important to long term US interests Taiwan or Korea)? Or do we need two real commandant commanders in the region (one for the INDOPACIFIC and one for Northeast Asia)? Of course even then someone is going to have to make decisions on division of resources and that will likely have to be the Pentagon which will be adjudicating the decisions and deciding the priorities within the current command arrangements anyway.

Photos at the link. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/29/us-china-taiwan-marines/

Preparing for a China war, the Marines are retooling how they’ll fight

U.S. troops are preparing for conflict on an island-hopping battlefield across Asia, against an enemy force that has home-field advantage

By Ellen Nakashima

March 29, 2024 at 11:55 a.m. EDT

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · March 29, 2024

POHAKULOA TRAINING RANGE, Hawaii — The Marine gunner knelt on the rocky red soil of a 6,000-foot-high volcanic plain. He positioned the rocket launcher on his shoulder, focused the sights on his target, a rusted armored vehicle 400 yards away, and fired.

Two seconds later a BANG.

“Perfect hit,” said his platoon commander.

The gunner, 23-year-old Lance Cpl. Caden Ehrhardt, is a member of the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment, a new formation that reflects the military’s latest concept for fighting adversaries like China from remote, strategic islands in the western Pacific. These units are designed to be smaller, lighter, more mobile — and, their leaders argue, more lethal. Coming out of 20 years of land combat in the Middle East, the Marines are striving to adapt to a maritime fight that could play out across thousands of miles of islands and coastline in Asia.

Instead of launching traditional amphibious assaults, these nimbler groups are intended as an enabler for a larger joint force. Their role is to gather intelligence and target data and share it quickly — as well as occasionally sink ships with medium-range missiles — to help the Pacific Fleet and Air Force repel aggression against the United States and allies and partners like Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.

These new regiments are envisioned as one piece of a broader strategy to synchronize the operations of U.S. soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen, and in turn with the militaries of allies and partners in the Pacific. Their focus is a crucial stretch of territory sweeping from Japan to Indonesia and known as the First Island Chain. China sees this region, which encompasses an area about half the size of the contiguous United States, as within its sphere of influence.

The overall strategy holds promise, analysts say. But it faces significant hurdles, especially if war were to break out: logistical challenges in a vast maritime region, timely delivery of equipment and new technologies complicated by budget battles in Congress, an overstressed defense industry, and uncertainty over whether regional partners like Japan would allow U.S. forces to fight from their islands. That last piece is key. Beijing sees the U.S. strategy of deepening security alliances in the Pacific as escalatory — which unnerves some officials in partner nations, who fear that they could get drawn into a conflict between the two powers.

The stakes have never been higher.

Beijing’s aggressive military modernization and investment over the past two decades have challenged U.S. ability to control the seas and skies in any conflict in the western Pacific. China has vastly expanded its reach in the Pacific, building artificial islands for military outposts in the South China Sea and seeking to expand bases in the Indian and Pacific Oceans — including a naval facility in Cambodia that U.S. intelligence says is for exclusive use by the People’s Liberation Army.

China not only has the region’s largest army, navy and air force, but also home-field advantage. It has about 1 million troops, more than 3,000 aircraft, and upward of 300 vessels in proximity to any potential battle. Meanwhile, U.S. ships and planes must travel thousands of miles, or rely on the goodwill of allies to station troops and weapons. The PLA also has orders of magnitude more ground-based, long-range missiles than the U.S. military.

Taiwan, a close U.S. partner, is most directly in the crosshairs. President Xi Jinping has promised to reunite, by force if necessary, the self-governing island with mainland China. A successful invasion would not only result in widespread death and destruction in Taiwan, but also have catastrophic economic consequences due to disruption of the world’s most advanced semiconductor industry and of maritime traffic in some of the world’s busiest sea lanes — the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. That would create enormous uncertainty for businesses and consumers around the world.

“We’ve spent most of the last 20 years looking at a terrorist adversary that wasn’t exquisitely armed, that didn’t have access to the full breadth of national power,” said Col. John Lehane, the 3rd Marine Littoral Regiment’s commander. “And now we’ve got to reorient our formations onto someone that might have that capability.”

The vision and the challenge

The U.S. Marine Corps has a blueprint to fight back: a vision called Force Design that stresses the forward deployment of Marines — placing units on the front line — while making them as invisible as possible to radar and other electronic detection. The idea is to use these “stand-in” forces, up to thousands in theater at any one time, to enable the larger joint force to deploy its collective might against a major foe.

The aspiration is for the new formation to be first on the ground in a conflict, where it can gather information to send coordinates to an Air Force B-1 bomber so it can fire a missile at a Chinese frigate hundreds of miles away or send target data to a Philippine counterpart that can aim a cruise missile at a destroyer in the contested South China Sea.

The reality of the mission is daunting, experts say.

Even if you get Marines into these remote locations, “resupplying them over time is something that needs to be rehearsed and practiced repeatedly in simulated combat conditions,” said Colin Smith, a RAND researcher formerly with I Marine Expeditionary Force, whose area of responsibility includes the Pacific. “Just because you can move it in peacetime doesn’t mean you’ll be able to in warfare — especially over long periods of time.”

Though the Marines are no longer weighed down by tanks, the new unit’s Littoral Combat Team, an infantry battalion, will be operating advanced weapons that can fire missiles at enemy ships up to 100 nautical miles away to help deny an enemy access to key maritime chokepoints, such as the Taiwan and Luzon straits. By October, each Marine Littoral Regiment will have 18 Rogue NMESIS unmanned truck-based launchers capable of firing two naval strike missiles at a time.

But a single naval strike missile weighs 2,200 pounds, and resupplying these weapons in austere islands without runways requires watercraft, which move slowly, or helicopters, which can carry only a limited quantity at a time.

“You’re not very lethal with just two missiles, so you’ve got to have a whole bunch at the ready and that’s a lot more stuff to hide, which means your ability to move unpredictably goes down,’’ said Ivan Kanapathy, a Marine veteran with three deployments in the western Pacific. “There’s a trade-off between lethality and mobility — mobility being a huge part of survivability in this environment.”

Though NMESIS vehicles radiate heat, and radar emits signals that can be detected, the Marines try to lower their profile by spacing out the vehicles, camouflaging them and moving them frequently, as well as communicating only intermittently. Similar tactics are being tested by Ukrainian troops on the battlefield, where despite the number of Russian sensors and drones, “if you disperse and conceal yourself, it’s possible to survive,” said Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security.

But on smaller islands, there are fewer areas to hide, fewer road networks to move around on, “so it’s easier for China to search and eventually find what they’re looking for,” she said.

Lehane, the unit’s commander, says that the unit’s most valuable role isn’t conducting lethal strikes; it is the ability to “see things in the battlespace, get targeting data, make sense out of what is going on when maybe other people can’t.” That’s because the Pentagon expects, in a potential war with China, that U.S. satellites will be jammed or destroyed and ships’ computer networks disrupted.

China now has many more sensors — radar, sonar, satellites, electronic signals collection — in the South China Sea than the United States. That gives Beijing a formidable targeting advantage, said Gregory Poling, an expert on Southeast Asia security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The United States would have to expend an unacceptable amount of ordnance to degrade those capabilities to blind China,” he said.

The unit has been practicing techniques to communicate quietly. In a bare room of a cinder block building at its home base in Kaneohe, Hawaii, Marines in the regiment’s command operations center tapped on laptops on portable tables, plastic sheets taped over the windows. In the field, the gear could be set up in a tent, packed up and moved at a moment’s notice. Intelligence analysts, some of whom speak Mandarin, were feeding information to commanders on the range at Pohakuloa, practicing connections between the command on Oahu and the infantry battalion on the Big Island.

But exercises are not real life. Indo-Pacific Command is striving to build a Joint Fires Network that will reliably connect sensors, shooters and decision-makers in the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. But chronic budget shortfalls, and long-standing friction between the combatant commands and the services — each of which decides independently of the commands what hardware and software to buy — have slowed development.

Even when it is fully fielded, Pettyjohn said, “the question is, is this network going to be survivable in a contested electromagnetic space? You’re going to have a lot of jamming going on.”

Shoulder-to-shoulder in the Philippines

Last April, the Marines and the rest of the Joint Force tested the new warfighting concept with their Philippine partner in a sprawling, weeks-long exercise — Balikatan — which in Tagalog means “shoulder-to-shoulder.”

With a command post on the northwestern Philippine island of Luzon, the regiment’s infantry battalion and Philippine Marine Corps’ Coastal Defense Regiment rehearsed air assaults and airfield seizures to gain island footholds, which would then be used as bases from which to gather intelligence and call in strikes.

During one live-fire exercise, the 3rd MLR helped the larger U.S. 3rd Marine Division glean location data on a target vessel — a decommissioned World War II-era Philippine ship — which U.S. and Philippine joint forces promptly sunk. Soon, the Philippine Coastal Defense Regiment expects to be able to fire its own missiles, said Col. Gieram Aragones, the regiment’s commander, in an interview from his headquarters in Manila.

“Our U.S. Marine brothers have been very helpful to us,” Aragones said. “They’ve guided us during our crawl phase. We’re trying to walk now.”

The training goes both ways. The Philippine Marines taught their American counterparts survival skills, like finding and purifying water from bamboo, and cooking pigs and goats in the jungle.

China in recent years has intensified its harassment of Philippine fishing and Coast Guard vessels. As recently as Saturday, Chinese Coast Guard ships fired water cannons at a Philippine boat conducting a lawful resupply mission to a Philippine military outpost at a contested shoal in the South China Sea. Amid such provocations, Manila has stepped up its defense partnership with the United States. A year ago, Manila announced it was granting its longtime ally access to four new military bases.

Although the two countries are treaty allies, bound to come to each other’s defense in an armed attack in the Pacific, how far Manila will go to support U.S. operations in a Taiwan conflict is an open question, said CSIS’s Poling. “Part of the reason for all the military training, the tabletop exercises, and all these new dialogues taking place is feeling out the answer,” he said.

Aragones said it’s important for the United States and the Philippines to jointly strengthen deterrence. “This is not only an issue for the Philippines,” he said. “It’s an issue for all countries whose vessels pass through this body of water [the Chinese are] trying to claim.”

Evolution in Okinawa

Some 800 miles to the north, the Marines’ newest unit, the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment, was created in November. It was formed by repurposing the 12th Marine Regiment based in Okinawa, already home to a large concentration of U.S. military personnel in Japan — a source of tension with local communities dating back decades.

This unit is intended to operate out of the islands southwest of Okinawa, the closest of which are less than 100 miles from Taiwan. Over the years, Tokyo has shifted its military focus away from northern Japan, where the Cold War threat was a Soviet land invasion, to its southwest islands.

Recent events have vindicated that shift in Tokyo’s eyes. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and China’s bellicose response to then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022 — in which the PLA fired five ballistic missiles into waters near Okinawa — rattled Japan. The number of days that Chinese Coast Guard vessels sailed near the Senkaku Islands, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China, reached a record high last year.

As a result, in the last year and a half, Tokyo has announced a dramatic hike in defense spending and deepened its security partnership with the United States, Philippines and Australia. Washington hailed Japan’s endorsement of the new U.S. Marine unit’s positioning in the Southwest Islands last year as a significant advance in allied force posture.

But resentment toward U.S. troops lingers in Okinawa, rooted primarily in the disproportionate burden of hosting a major U.S. military presence. The prefecture is home to half of U.S. military personnel in Japan, while making up less than 1 percent of Japan’s land mass.

“We are concerned about rising tensions with China and the concentration of U.S. military” on Okinawa and the Japanese military buildup in the area, said Kazuyuki Nakazato, director of the Okinawa Prefecture Office in Washington. “Many Okinawan people fear that if a conflict happens, Okinawa will easily become a target.”

He argued the best way to defuse the tension is for Tokyo to deepen diplomacy and dialogue with China, not military deterrence alone.

Other local officials are more receptive to a U.S. presence, arguing that Japan alone cannot deter China. “We have no choice but to strengthen our alliance with the U.S. military,” said Itokazu Kenichi, mayor of Yonaguni town on the island of the same name, the westernmost inhabited Japanese island — just 68 miles from Taiwan.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces has begun to establish a presence on the islands, including a surveillance station on Yonaguni, where they conducted joint exercises with other U.S. Marines last month — an interaction that has begun to accustom residents to the Marines, Kenichi said.

Ultimately, how much latitude to allow the Marines will be a political decision by the prime minister and the Diet, Japan’s parliament.

On the range at Pohakuloa, Hawaii, the littoral combat team trained for a month. They flew Skydio surveillance drones over a distant hill. They practiced machine gun and sniper skills.

As the wind howled on a lava rock bluff one morning, Lt. Col. Mark Lenzi surveyed his gunners firing wire-guided missiles at targets 1,200 yards away. Lenzi, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, said what’s different in the Pacific is that Marines won’t be fighting insurgents directly, but will be assigned to enable others to beat back the enemy.

“It takes the whole joint force” to deter in the Pacific, he said. “We train joint. We fight joint.”

These new forces will be at the heart of the “kill web,” he said, referring to the mix of air, sea, land, space and cyber capabilities whose efficient syncing is crucial if it comes to a battle over Taiwan.

“This one unit alone is not going to save the world,” said Col. Carrie Batson, chief of strategic communications for the Pacific Marines. “But it’s going to be vital in this fight, if it ever comes.”

Regine Cabato in Manila and Julia Mio Inuma in Tokyo contributed to this report.

The Washington Post · by Ellen Nakashima · March 29, 2024

3. Forging a New Era of U.S.-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Cooperation

The 21 page PDF can be downloaded here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/files.cnas.org/documents/U.S.-Japan-KoreaTrilateralCooperation_Report2023_Final-1.pdf

​The EXSUM and Introduction are below.

With all due respect to CNAS and the authors and their very useful report, one area is overlooked especially as they consider the Camp David Summit guidance. There is no mention of Korean unification at all in this report. Not a single use. I am finding this to be a common issue in policy and strategy these days. No one is articulating an "end state" in strategy. Or as LTG Jim Dubik describes, no one is articulating the acceptable durable political arrangement that will protect, serve, and advance US interests.  And I am not just talking only about the Korea problem (and "Korea question") but that of course is my focus here. Below is from remarks I will be making today at an event for the Action for Korea United Society (AKUS). 

10. On a separate but related note, let me mention one more important effort we must undertake together here in the U.S. That is that we have too many Americans, especially among government officials who suffer from a unique disease. They are infected with what I call “U.S. unification dismissiveness.”  They are often myopically concerned with only denuclearization. Or they hear about surveys that say the Korean people no longer desire unification. Or they think unification is only a Korean problem. This leads them to dismiss all discussions and policy and strategy recommendations about unification which means they do not understand the Korea problem and do not know how to solve the “Korea question.” (from paragraph 60 of the Armistice)

Highlights:

In this context, U.S. policymakers should:

Continue to press for expanded trilateral cooperation within the UN. 

Create an interagency working group to identify opportunities and gaps in coordination among different minilateral groups, including the U.S.- Japan-ROK trilateral, the Quad, the “Chip 4,” and the U.S.-Australia-Japan Trilateral Security Dialogue.

Encourage trilateral cooperation beyond the Indo-Pacific.

Increase trilateral intelligence sharing to enhance collective maritime domain awareness. 

Enhance trilateral contingency planning, especially evacuation of civilians.

Plan trilateral defense exercises that expand beyond traditional domains to include cyber and space.

Launch a trilateral biotech industry working group and begin negotiations on a trilateral biotechnology cooperation agreement.

Build consensus both at home and with trilateral counterparts to operationalize the trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework.

Forging a New Era of U.S.-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Cooperation

The Key to a Stable, Secure Indo-Pacific

https://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/forging-a-new-era-of-u-s-japan-south-korea-trilateral-cooperation

By: Lisa Curtis, Evan Wright and Hannah Kelley

Executive Summary

In August 2023, the leaders of Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States met for an unprecedented in-person summit at Camp David to expand and deepen trilateral relations. The meeting resulted in a comprehensive joint statement, “The Spirit of Camp David,” which commits the three nations to increasing the frequency of consultations between their leaders and senior diplomatic, economic, and security officials; raising the tempo and sophistication of their joint military exercises; taking new initiatives such as sharing sensitive missile warning data on North Korea in real time; collaborating on economic security measures and the protection of emerging technologies; and working together to stabilize global supply chains by launching a pilot early warning system. The Biden administration deserves credit for coordinating this watershed moment in trilateral relations, but South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida were responsible for the bilateral rapprochement that laid the foundation for renewed trilateral relations.

A major contributing factor to Japan and South Korea’s interest in improving defense ties with each other and trilaterally with the United States is the intensifying nuclear and missile threats from North Korea. Washington, Seoul, and Tokyo have laid out an ambitious defense cooperation agenda, including reviving trilateral maritime cooperation, initiating trilateral aerial cooperation for the first time, and bringing online a real-time trilateral data sharing system for tracking North Korean missile launches.

The three countries are poised to expand their cooperation across a range of issues and within other minilateral and multilateral settings. This includes the United Nations (UN), where, as of January 2024, both Japan and South Korea serve as non-permanent members of the Security Council—an overlap with the United States, a permanent member, which has not taken place in 27 years. Japan and South Korea are already coordinating their diplomatic activities in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Middle East, demonstrating the potential for trilateral collaboration outside the Indo-Pacific region.

There is both opportunity and appetite to enhance trilateral cooperation across a range of critical technology areas, namely quantum, biotechnology, and cybersecurity.

Economic and technological competition with China also is driving the current push to cooperate trilaterally. Japan-ROK rapprochement has ended the trade dispute between Seoul and Tokyo, and the three partners are now deepening cooperation on economic security to secure supply chains for semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, and critical minerals. President Yoon and Prime Minister Kishida have encouraged industry cooperation, and all three capitals are now in discussions to further cooperation in novel technology areas.

There is both opportunity and appetite to enhance trilateral cooperation across a range of critical technology areas, namely quantum, biotechnology, and cybersecurity. The three nations already have largely complementary national quantum technology strategies, and there are opportunities to align resources to further quantum information science and technology (QIST) research and development and to harness the technology’s economic potential together. All three countries are interested in strengthening their respective biotechnology sectors as well as addressing cybersecurity challenges, especially related to North Korea and its funding for nuclear and missile programs.

Despite the immediate prospects for strengthening trilateral cooperation, there are several obstacles to sustaining meaningful collaboration over the long term. A change in national leadership in Tokyo, Seoul, or Washington could halt the partnership, as it is closely tied to the personal foreign policy agendas of all three leaders. Likewise, institutionalizing trilateral cooperation, regardless of leadership change, will be challenging in the long run. The Indo-Pacific security environment is increasingly severe, and varying perceptions among the three nations of threats posed by China, Russia, and North Korea could lead to cracks in trilateral relations. Similarly, policymakers in all three capitals will need to carefully balance economic security with nationalist or protectionist trade policies to sustain support for trilateral economic and technology cooperation.

The large number of both opportunities and challenges facing the trilateral partnership means leaders in all three capitals have difficult decisions to make to sustain the momentum of the partnership. It is imperative for Japan, South Korea, and the United States to take the initiative and seize the low-hanging opportunities to further institutionalize and strengthen the ties with each other. In this context, U.S. policymakers should:

• Continue to press for expanded trilateral cooperation within the UN. Both Japan and South Korea are non-permanent members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) at the same time for the first time in 27 years. Using formal, multilateral forums such as the UNSC for trilateral cooperation can help reinforce progress made elsewhere and provides a dedicated means to align on issues the three parties have agreed to tackle together.
• Create an interagency working group to identify opportunities and gaps in coordination among different minilateral groups, including the U.S.- Japan-ROK trilateral, the Quad, the “Chip 4,” and the U.S.-Australia-Japan Trilateral Security Dialogue. In addition to improving diplomatic efficiency, encouraging greater coordination among the various minilaterals can provide opportunities for Japan and South Korea to deepen their security relationships with like-minded partners, contributing to the development of a networked security architecture aligned with U.S. priorities.
• Encourage trilateral cooperation beyond the Indo-Pacific. Japan and South Korea have coordinated some diplomatic activities in response to the Israel-Hamas conflict. The United States should take advantage of this progress and encourage trilateral cooperation in other regional or functional areas of mutual interest, such as energy security in the Middle East or Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• Increase trilateral intelligence sharing to enhance collective maritime domain awareness. The three countries should begin strengthening intelligence sharing beyond the North Korean missile threat by strengthening cooperation on maritime intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.
• Enhance trilateral contingency planning, especially evacuation of civilians. All three countries have an incentive to work together in evacuating civilians in the event of a regional contingency involving Taiwan. Modernizing alliance command and control structures can further enhance trilateral contingency planning and interoperability.
• Plan trilateral defense exercises that expand beyond traditional domains to include cyber and space. China, Russia, and North Korea continue to invest in cyber and space capabilities. U.S. defense planners should consider trilateral exercises outside of traditional domains, such as joint space domain awareness or active cyber defense.
• Encourage trilateral cooperation to further QIST research and development and harness the technology’s economic potential. The three states already have largely complementary national quantum technology strategies and capabilities, with the United States leading in quantum sensing, Japan excelling in quantum communications, and South Korea advancing in the field of quantum computing.
• Launch a trilateral biotech industry working group and begin negotiations on a trilateral biotechnology cooperation agreement. The Biden administration should engage more robustly on emerging biotechnology with Japan and South Korea as a key area for strategic advancement.
• Build consensus both at home and with trilateral counterparts to operationalize the trade pillar of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. This is critical to demonstrate the body’s strength—and by extension the United States' strength as an organizing force—to a watchful China.

Introduction

The recent unprecedented trilateral cooperation between Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States under the administrations of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, President Yoon Suk Yeol, and President Joe Biden is laying a foundation for the three countries to collectively address increasingly critical economic, political, and security challenges in the region. Following a watershed summit at Camp David in August 2023, the trilateral partnership has expanded beyond addressing just the traditional, shared threat posed by North Korea to cover broader security issues in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. At the summit, the leaders jointly announced their commitment to deepen cooperation and align efforts to promote peace and stability and a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific region.1 Following the summit, from mid-August to early December 2023, the three nations met roughly 30 times—averaging nearly one meeting every four days—to operationalize their pledges of closer cooperation.2 These developments show promise for a new era in trilateral relations that could help address nuclear and missile threats from North Korea and contribute to deterrence, stability, and economic prosperity throughout the Indo-Pacific.

(L-R) South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida walk together to deliver a joint press conference following their historic Camp David summit on August 18, 2023. Among other things, the joint statement called for improved information sharing and increased defense, economic security, and technology cooperation. (Chris Somodevilla via Getty Images)

While the recent momentum in trilateral relations has the potential to fundamentally alter the economic and security landscape of the Indo-Pacific, questions about the political sustainability of the initiative have already emerged. A presidential election in the United States, a ruling party presidential election in Japan, and National Assembly elections in South Korea will occur in 2024, and there is concern that new leadership or shifts in political power dynamics in any of the three nations could lead to the deprioritizing of trilateral ties. Historical frictions in the Japan-ROK bilateral relationship also threaten to disrupt the initiative, especially in South Korea, where public support for improving relations with Japan lags behind Yoon’s personal commitment to moving them forward. The ambitious Camp David agenda will also take time and concerted effort to operationalize, and it could lose momentum and support if there are too many obstacles to its implementation. Finally, external security threats, such as Chinese economic coercion and maritime aggression or burgeoning Russia-North Korea defense and technology cooperation, could also reduce support for the initiative among the South Korean or Japanese public, causing either or both countries to back away from it.

This report examines recent developments driving trilateral relations between the United States, Japan, and South Korea, and assesses the opportunities and challenges facing the future of trilateral cooperation. It then offers policy recommendations for how decisionmakers in Tokyo, Seoul, and Washington can leverage the current momentum of the partnership to further institutionalize trilateral relations, strengthen the durability of the relationship, and build on the Camp David agenda to promote peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

4. Command post to field; combined SOF personnel complete semi-annual exercise

I would just add to this comment below.

The presence and readiness of special operations forces on the Korean Peninsula dates back more than 70 years and remains a part of the holistic integrated deterrence posture in the region.

The longest permanently and continuously stationed Special Forces and special operations forces unit serving in Asia is the Special Forces Detachment Korea (now known as Detachment 39) which was established in 1959 with the first permanently stationed Special Forces soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group then in Okinawa. Their mission then and one that continues today is to advise and assist the ROK Special Forces Brigades and there is a senior SF NCO assigned as an advisor to each Brigade to advise and assist, ensure interoperability, and coordinate Joint SOF training. A lot of Special Forces and SOF units have come and gone (and come back again) in Asia, but it is only SFD-K/DET 39 that has served continuously without interruption. And when you talk about SF as an economy of force capability and force multiplier there is no better exemplar than the SFD-K. My biggest regret in my military career was not commanding SFD-K. I went to SAMS (for which I have absolutely no regrets) and by doing so I lost the opportunity to command the detachment as I was already branch qualified have served as an S3, XO and SF Company commander before I went to Leavenworth. So after SAMS I returned to Korea to serve in CFC and then SOCKOR (which I also do not regret).

Command post to field; combined SOF personnel complete semi-annual exercise

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Photo By Tech. Sgt. Jonathan D McCallum | Republic of Korea Air Force combat controllers observe a U.S. Air Force MC-130J from...... read more

Photo By Tech. Sgt. Jonathan D McCallum | Republic of Korea Air Force combat controllers observe a U.S. Air Force MC-130J from the 1st Special Operations Squadron approaching an alternate landing surface on Mar. 7, 2024, near Namji, Republic of Korea during exercise Freedom Shield 24. The controllers worked with USAF personnel from the 320th Special Tactics Squadron, coordinating aircraft landings on an old highway section converted into a landing strip as part of the joint exercise. The training validated combined interoperability between ROK and U.S. personnel and demonstrated the flexible nature of joint special operations capabilities in austere environments. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jon McCallum) | View Image Page

SOUTH KOREA

03.28.2024

Story by Maj. Christopher Mesnard

Special Operations Command Korea

The adage, ‘don’t fight the scenario, fight the problem,’ applies at all levels of military training. During the recent Freedom Shield 24 exercise that took place from Mar. 4-14, 2024, combined special operations elements and personnel in the Republic of Korea maintained the mantra. Centered around multinational staffs in combined command posts, exercises Freedom Shield and Ulchi Freedom Shield, the annual summer equivalent, test headquarters and field elements to solve problems creatively and realistically while also honing their ability to work together.

“The real return on investment for our people is their ability to come together as a combined battle staff, understand and work through the information in the scenario, and then plan unique courses of action based on critical problem solving,” said Brig. Gen. Derek N. Lipson, Special Operations Command Korea commander, United Nations Command Special Operations Component Command commander, and Combined Special Operations Component Command deputy commander. “We challenged the team to think through the problems presented in the exercise, how they would solve them in a real-world context, and then how we would conduct the cross-component coordination with multi-domain effects in mind.”

Throughout Freedom Shield, SOCKOR personnel joined with their ROK counterparts to form the CSOCC staff while also working with various UN Command elements to simulate UNCSOCC roles in the exercise scenarios. The readiness of both special operations commands plays a role in ensuring the credibility of those unique capabilities senior leaders rely on to prevent escalation as a part of a holistic integrated deterrence posture, while remaining ready to prevail against belligerent action if called upon.

According to Lipson, a credible and trained force in the field is fundamental to the readiness of the command post staff’s ability to meet exercise requirements. Concurrent with the CSOCC and UNCSOCC headquarters training, combined special operations personnel participated in a variety of field training scenarios and events.

Demonstrating the ability to flexibly support special operations requirements on the Korean Peninsula, personnel and equipment from all services and around the Indo-Pacific region participated in Freedom Shield. The deployment of Air Force Special Operations Command MC-130J Commando II aircraft and Airmen based at Kadena Air Base, Japan offered the most visible demonstration of flexible response to the Korean Peninsula.

“I am truly inspired and so very proud of the work our Airmen did during Freedom Shield 24,” said Colonel Shawn Young, 353d Special Operations Wing Commander. “This was a small force that deployed forward to join our Korean allies, but our combined team demonstrated extraordinary interoperability, resilience, and capability that far outmatches our size.”

The training spanned a broad breadth of combined U.S. and ROK special operations capabilities, including MC-130J landings on an alternate surface, over-the-beach training between U.S. Naval Special Warfare and ROK Naval Special Warfare Flotilla personnel, and airborne and infiltration training operations between U.S. Army Special Forces and ROK SWC personnel.

“Whenever we work with our ROK counterparts, we always know to expect a well-trained and proficient partner” said a U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier participating in combined field training events and whose name is withheld for personal security reasons. “It really opens up the training options we can work through and allows us to collaboratively plan out more advanced and specialized scenarios that can be used to meet a range of potential requirements.”

Over the course of Freedom Shield 24, SOCKOR personnel contributed to the broader readiness of the U.S. Forces Korea personnel stationed on the Korean Peninsula in support of mutual defense priorities between the U.S. and ROK homelands.

The presence and readiness of special operations forces on the Korean Peninsula dates back more than 70 years and remains a part of the holistic integrated deterrence posture in the region.

NEWS INFO

Date Taken: 03.28.2024 Date Posted: 03.29.2024 02:50 Story ID: 467209 Location: KR Web Views: 44 Downloads: 0

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5. Why Russia Is Protecting North Korea From Nuclear Monitors

Mr. Sanger calls on Robert Einhorn, Jenny Town, Robert Carlin, Sig Hecker for analysis. There are other views.

We are more worried about what Kim and Putin will do when we need to be making them understand what we will do. And although counterintuitive to most, we should understand that Kim is taking these actions because his strategy is failing and he is unable to keep his promises to the elite and the Korean people in the north. Kim's actions should be seen as an opportunity for us to execute a new strategy. 

Please someone answer these questions:

1. What do we want to achieve in Korea?
2. What is the acceptable durable political arrangement that will protect, serve, and advance US and ROK/US Alliance interests on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia?
3. Who does Kim fear more: The US or the Korean people in the north? (Note it is the Korean people armed with information knowledge of life in South Korea)
4. Do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the seven decades old strategy of subversion, coercion-extortion (blackmail diplomacy), and use of force to achieve unification dominated by the Guerrilla Dynasty and Gulag State in order to ensure the survival of the mafia like crime family cult known as Kim family regime?
5. In support of that strategy do we believe that Kim Jong-un has abandoned the objective to split the ROK/US Alliance and get US forces off the peninsula? Has KJU given up his divide to conquer strategy - divide the alliance to conquer the ROK?

The answers to these questions should guide us to the strategy to solve the "Korea question" (para 60 of the Armistice) and lead to the only acceptable durable political arrangement: A secure, stable, economically vibrant, non-nuclear Korean peninsula unified under a liberal constitutional form of government with respect for individual liberty, the rule of law, and human rights, determined by the Korean people.  A free and unified Korea or, in short, a United Republic of Korea (UROK),

But we suffer from the disease of US unficiation dismissiveness.

Why Russia Is Protecting North Korea From Nuclear Monitors

The monitors have provided vivid evidence of how Russia is keeping Pyongyang brimming with fuel and other goods, presumably in return for weapons that Russia can use in Ukraine.

• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/us/politics/russia-north-korea-nuclear-weapons.html?searchResultPosition=3

A state media broadcast of a meeting between Kim Jong-un of North Korea and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in September.Credit...Jeon Heon-Kyun/EPA, via Shutterstock

By David E. Sanger

Reporting from Washington

March 29, 2024

Want to stay updated on what’s happening in North Korea and Russia? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox.

Through the most tense encounters with President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia over the past decade, there has been one project in which Washington and Moscow have claimed common cause: keeping North Korea from expanding its arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Now, even that has fallen apart.

On Thursday, Russia used its veto power in the United Nations Security Council to kill off a U.N. panel of experts that has been monitoring North Korea’s efforts to evade sanctions over its nuclear program for the past 15 years.

Russia’s discomfort with the group is a new development. Moscow once welcomed the panel’s detailed reports about sanctions violations and considered Pyongyang’s nuclear program to be a threat to global security.

But more recently, the panel has provided vivid evidence of how Russia is keeping the North brimming with fuel and other goods, presumably in return for the artillery shells and missiles that the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, is shipping to Russia for use against Ukraine. The group has produced satellite images of ship-to-ship transfers of oil, showing how the war in Ukraine has proved to be a bonanza for the North.

The apparent dismantlement of the panel, which had no enforcement power, is one more piece of evidence of how what was once a global effort to constrain nuclear proliferation has eroded rapidly over the past two years.

“It’s a remarkable shift,” said Robert Einhorn, a State Department official during the Obama administration who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Relations Between Russia and the U.S.

• A New Round of Sanctions: Reacting to news of the death of the Russian dissident Aleksei Navalny in prison, the United States imposed sanctions on more than 500 targets, the largest single package in a flurry of economic restrictions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
• A Warning to Allies: The United States told its European allies that if Russia were to launch a nuclear weapon into orbit, it would probably do so this year. Still, American intelligence agencies are sharply divided about what President Vladimir Putin of Russia is planning.
• Dual Citizen Arrest: Russia’s main security agency said that it had arrested a 33-year-old woman who was a citizen of both Russia and the United States on accusations of committing state treason by raising funds for Ukraine.

“For much of the post-Cold War period, the United States, Russia and China were partners in dealing with proliferation challenges, especially with North Korea and Iran. They were fully on the American and European side during the Iran negotiations, and helped with North Korea during the ‘fire and fury’ period in 2016 to 2017,” he said, referring to the Obama administration’s final negotiations with the North and former President Donald J. Trump’s threats when he came to office.

In that era, Russia regularly voted for sanctions against North Korea, as did China, even while they all did a fair bit of business, and more than a little smuggling at sea and over their narrow border crossing, especially a rail bridge where the three all meet.

Image

Remains of a missile believed to have been made in North Korea that struck Kharkiv, Ukraine, in January.Credit...Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/Reuters

But as Mr. Einhorn noted, that unity has fractured with the re-emergence of great power competition. The partnership on containing nuclear threats, even from North Korea, whose nuclear facilities pose a safety challenge to both China and Russia, has vanished.

Russia is now helping North Korea evade sanctions, and neither Russia nor China is actively working to pressure Iran to slow its accumulation of enriched uranium, the critical step needed if it ever decides to build nuclear weapons.

When resolutions have come up to condemn North Korea for its constant barrage of missile tests, Russia and China have rejected them. But eliminating the “experts committee,” which began its work in 2009, cuts new territory in relieving pressure on the country.

The Russian government made no apologies for killing off the panel.

“It is obvious to us that the U.N. Security Council can no longer use old templates in relation to the problems of the Korean Peninsula,” a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “The United States and its allies have clearly demonstrated that their interest does not extend beyond the task of ‘strangling’ the D.P.R.K. by all available means,” she added, using the abbreviation for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The committee had no great investigative powers, but it was thorough — and its findings often created headlines. It followed oil shipments, and explained what happened when ships turned off their transponders so they would not be tracked at sea. The group looked at banking relationships and luxury goods that made it to North Korea, despite sanctions passed 18 years ago. It also inspired private groups to dig deeper, explaining mysteries like how Mr. Kim got his luxury cars.

The experts were outsiders, and their findings were often not adopted. “Everything that goes into the report has to be approved by Security Council members,” Jenny Town, a North Korea expert and senior fellow at the Stimson Center, a nonproliferation think tank, noted on Friday. “So while it is an investigative body, its findings exist in a political process.”

Still, the existence of the committee gave an international, neutral imprimatur to the charges of sanctions evasion. “They have been very useful in producing some gravitas on sanctions implementation,” said Ms. Town, who is also the director of 38 North, which publishes analysis of North Korea’s capabilities and pronouncements.

The State Department denounced Russia’s decision, saying that the country had “cynically undermined international peace and security,” and declaring that “Russia alone will own the outcome of this veto: a D.P.R.K. more emboldened to reckless behavior and destabilizing provocations.”

No one is quite sure how many nuclear weapons the North Koreans have produced since the first nuclear crisis with the country, in 1994, or since it first tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006 during the George W. Bush administration.

Experts outside the government believe the arsenal is around 50 or 60 weapons now, though the estimates range from as low as 40 to as high as 100 — a reflection of how little is understood in the absence of inspections by another arm of the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

But the biggest concern about the North is not the size of the arsenal but its intentions. Two leading North Korea experts, Robert L. Carlin, a former top intelligence official who was often involved in North Korea negotiations, and Siegfried S. Hecker, the former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, argued late last year that “the situation on the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950,” when the Korean War broke out.

New declarations by North Korea, they said, make it clear the country has given up on the idea of reunification and may be preparing for a military solution to the division of the peninsula.

“Like his grandfather in 1950, Kim Jong-un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” they argued, a position many of their former colleagues in the intelligence world said was overly wrought. “We do not know when or how Kim plans to pull the trigger, but the danger is already far beyond the routine warnings in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo about Pyongyang’s provocations.”

In fact, the North’s language has changed, and it now talks more openly — as Russian officials do — about using nuclear weapons if provoked on matters large or small.

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

A version of this article appears in print on March 30, 2024, Section A, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Russia Is Protecting North Korea From Being Monitored. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

6. South Korea’s Parliament Election 2024: What You Need to Know

​April 10th will soon be upon us.

Some useful analysis to help us somewhat  understand South Korean politics.

South Korea’s Parliament Election 2024: What You Need to Know

• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/28/world/asia/south-korea-parliament-election-2024.html?searchResultPosition=2

By Choe Sang-Hun

March 28, 2024

• Why does this election matter?
• What are the big election issues?
• How do they select the Assembly?
• When will we learn the result?
• Where can I find out more?

Why does this election matter?

South Korea​ns go to the polls on April 10 to select a new 300-member National Assembly. The parliamentary elections are widely seen as a midterm referendum on President Yoon Suk Yeol. They will also serve as a vote of confidence on the opposition Democratic Party, which has held majority control in the Assembly for the past four years.

Mr. Yoon won the presidential election in March 2022 by a razor-thin margin, and three months later, his People Power Party won the most big-city mayor and provincial governor races. But two major handicaps have hobbled his presidency: his party’s lack of control in the single-chamber Assembly and Mr. Yoon’s low approval ratings.

​An electoral victory by his party could add momentum to Mr. Yoon’s four major reform programs involving the country’s health care, education, labor and national pension systems, as well as his promise to abolish the nation’s ministry of gender equality. Mr. Yoon will also see it as lending political legitimacy to his policy of aligning South Korea more closely with the United States.

But if the opposition scores a decisive win, it will further weaken Mr. Yoon’s leadership and may turn him into an early lame duck, political analysts say.

What are the big election issues?

South Korea faces a host of issues with no easy solution: a slowing economy, runaway housing prices, a rapidly aging population, a widening income gap, a gender divide especially among its young generation and a growing nuclear and missile threat from North Korea.

More on South Korea

• Parliament Election 2024: South Korea faces a host of issues with no easy solution: a slowing economy, runaway housing prices, a rapidly aging population, a widening income gap, a gender divide especially among its young generation and a growing nuclear threat from North Korea.
• Baseball: Fans of the sport in South Korea have embraced Shohei Ohtani, the superstar from Japan, despite a longtime rivalry and history between the two countries.
• Protesting Doctors: The South Korean government said that it was moving to suspend the licenses of thousands of doctors who recently walked off the job, threatening to escalate a dispute that has shaken the nation’s health care system.
• Foreign Workers: Due to its shrinking and aging population, South Korea is more dependent than ever before on foreign labor. But migrant workers routinely face predatory employers, inhumane conditions and other abuse.

But South Korea’s worsening political polarization means that practically every sensitive issue is seen through a partisan lens. And political analysts say that it also means that this election is run not on any sustained policy debate but more on stoking and playing to voters’ fears and resentments of the other side.

Surveys in recent weeks showed that a majority of South Koreans disapproved of Mr. Yoon’s performance, which has emerged as a key election issue. He was unpopular especially among voters in their 50s and younger. But the same surveys also found respondents distrustful of the opposition Democratic Party, with its leader, Lee Jae-myung, standing trial on bribery and other criminal charges.

Mr. Yoon’s party appeals to conservative voters by arguing that its election victory would propel his campaign to drive out what he calls corrupt “anti-state” progressives from the center of South Korean politics.

The liberal opposition’s main catchphrase is to “punish” the Yoon government for everything from rising consumer prices to its veto of a parliamentary bill that would have launched an independent investigation into allegations of corruption against the first lady, Kim Keon Hee.

How do they select the Assembly?

Of the 300 parliamentary seats up for grabs, 254 are elected through voting at as many electoral districts across the country. Those races will largely be a contest between the two main parties: Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party and the opposition Democratic Party. The other 46 seats, not attached to any voting districts, are distributed among smaller political parties, roughly according to the numbers of votes they win in a parallel nationwide polling.

Political parties did not finish nominating their candidates until less than a month before election day, giving voters little time to study them and the issues they stand for. But in South Korea, parliamentary elections are often decided more by the popularity of political parties and the sitting president than by the individual candidates.

When will we learn the result?

Voting begins at 6 a.m. local time, and, unless there’s an extremely tight race, it should be clear by early the next day which party has won.

Where can I find out more?

The President’s War Against ‘Fake News’ Raises Alarms in South Korea

The First Lady’s Dior Pouch Scandal Triggers Political Uproar

South Korea’s Political Polarization

Knife Attack on Opposition Leader Raises Alarms about South Korea’s Political Polarization

Read more about elections happening in 2024.

International Elections 2024: What You Need to Know

Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun

7. Wanted in South Korea: Imperialism-Free Cherry Blossoms

Those pesky historical issues even affect science.

Wanted in South Korea: Imperialism-Free Cherry Blossoms

Activists want to replace a variety of cherry tree associated with the Japanese colonial era with one they say is Korean. The science is messy.

• Share full article
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By John Yoon, Mike Ives and Hisako UenoPhotographs and Video by Chang W. Lee

John Yoon and Chang W. Lee reported from Gyeongju, South Korea. Mike Ives reported from Seoul, and Hisako Ueno from Tokyo.

• March 29, 2024

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/world/asia/cherry-blossom-tree-japan-korea.html?searchResultPosition=1

​ ​ 

Shin Joon Hwan, an ecologist, walked along a road lined with cherry trees on the verge of blooming last week, examining the fine hairs around their dark red buds.

The flowers in Gyeongju, South Korea, an ancient capital, belong to a common Japanese variety called the Yoshino, or Tokyo cherry. Mr. Shin’s advocacy group wants to replace those trees with a kind that it insists is native to South Korea, called the king cherry.

“These are Japanese trees that are growing here, in the land of our ancestors,” said Mr. Shin, 67, a former director of South Korea’s national arboretum.

Mr. Shin’s nascent project, with a few dozen members, is the latest wrinkle in a complex debate over the origins of South Korea’s cherry trees. The science has been entangled with more than a century of nationalist propaganda and genetic evolution.

Image

The ecologist Shin Joon Hwan and a volunteer, Heo Yunseok, examining a gnarled Yoshino cherry tree in Gyeongju.

Cherry blossoms, celebrated by poets as symbols of impermanence, occupy a major place in Japanese culture. In medieval times they were associated with elite warriors, the “flower among flowers,” said Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, an anthropologist who has written about the cherry tree.

During the Edo period, which began in the 17th century, the blossoms were nationalized as a symbol of Japanese identity, she said. And propagandists in Japan’s 20th-century military government compared killed soldiers to falling cherry petals, saying they had died after a “brief but beautiful life.”

During Japan’s rule over the Korean Peninsula, from 1910 to 1945, Yoshinos were planted as part of an effort to instill “cultural refinement” in colonial subjects, said David Fedman, the author of “Seeds of Control,” a 2020 book about Japanese forestry in colonial Korea.

Image

A Yoshino bud in Gyeongju. Mr. Shin’s advocacy group argues that the Yoshino should be replaced by a cherry tree it considers native to South Korea.

Yoshinos have been intertwined with the thorny politics of colonialism ever since. South Koreans have occasionally cut them down in protest. And some argue that Yoshinos, which Japanese officials also sent to the United States in the early 1900s, should be replaced with king cherries — distinguishable by the lack of hair on their buds — claiming the latter are more Korean.

The politics of cherry trees have ebbed and flowed along with Japanese-Korean relations, and nationalist claims about them have mostly crowded out scientific nuances, said Professor Fedman, who teaches history at the University of California, Irvine.

“Even the genetics look complicated, and don’t give us the easy answers that we’re looking for,” he said.

Mr. Shin’s project is a reaction to decisions made by the Japanese authorities more than a century ago.

In the early 1900s, Japanese scientists described king cherries, found on Jeju Island, south of the Korean Peninsula, as the parent of the Yoshino. The claim that Yoshinos originated on Jeju then motivated South Koreans to spread them throughout the country in the 1960s.

Image

Young king cherry trees growing in Jecheon, South Korea. Mr. Shin’s group hopes to replace all of the country’s Yoshinos by 2050.

Scientists have since debunked that theory. But another — that king cherries are Korean — lives on.

The theory has its own critics.

Wybe Kuitert, a retired professor of environmental studies at Seoul National University, said that “king cherry” refers to a set of hybrids, not a species with a geographically defined habitat. He characterized efforts by Korean scientists to pinpoint a “correct,” or original, king cherry species as misguided.

Video

People grafting king cherries in Jecheon. “Ultimately, I’d like to see Yoshino cherries go away,” said Jin-Oh Hyun, the secretary general of Mr. Shin’s advocacy group.CreditCredit...

“In such a mess of hybrids, which is the correct one?” he said. “You don’t know. You can’t decide it by genomic sequences or DNA sampling.”

But Seung-Chul Kim, an American plant taxonomist at Sungkyunkwan University in South Korea, whose cherry research has been funded partly by the government, said the initiative to replace Yoshinos was worthwhile. Even if the evolutionary trajectory of king cherries is unclear, he said, they evolved independently on Jeju.

Only about 200 king cherries grow naturally in South Korea, Mr. Shin said. His group aspires to replace all of the country’s Yoshinos by 2050, when they near the end of their roughly 60-year life span.

“Ultimately, I’d like to see Yoshino cherries go away,” said Jin-Oh Hyun, the group’s secretary general, a botanist who propagates king cherries in the central city of Jecheon. “But we need to replace them in stages, starting in areas that are the most meaningful.”

Image

Jin-Oh Hyun searching for wild cherry trees on Geoje Island, off the southern coast of South Korea, last week.

In 2022, the group surveyed the cherry trees lining a promenade near the National Assembly in Seoul that is thronged with visitors every cherry blossom season. And last year, it studied cherries in the southeastern port district of Jinhae, where a festival celebrating Yi Sun-shin, a Korean admiral who helped repel a 16th-century Japanese invasion, is held every spring.

The trees in both places were predominantly Yoshinos, the group found.

Image

Mr. Shin photographing cherry blossoms on Geoje Island.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

When Mr. Shin surveyed cherry trees in Gyeongju last week, the landscape included pines, bamboos, pansies, plums and a 400-year-old zelkova tree. But the cherries, which had not yet bloomed, consumed him.

“It would be great if people around the world could enjoy both the Korean and the Japanese trees,” he said, adding that the distinction was not widely known. “But things are one-sided now.”

Two arborists in Japan said that they respected South Korean efforts to replace Yoshinos.

“Cherry trees alone have no meaning,” said one, Nobuyuki Asada, the secretary general of the Japan Cherry Blossom Association. “That depends on how people choose to see and manage them.”

Image

Cherry trees blooming white and pink beside a road on Geoje Island.

Cherry Blossoms

Japan in Bloom

Nov. 15, 2019

Washington’s Cherry Blossoms Reach Near-Record Early Bloom

March 18, 2024

Some of Washington’s Iconic Cherry Trees Are About to Disappear

March 13, 2024

John Yoon is a Times reporter based in Seoul who covers breaking and trending news. More about John Yoon

Mike Ives is a reporter for The Times based in Seoul, covering breaking news around the world. More about Mike Ives

Hisako Ueno has been reporting on Japanese politics, business, gender, labor and culture for The Times since 2012. She previously worked for the Tokyo bureau of The Los Angeles Times from 1999 to 2009. More about Hisako Ueno

Chang W. Lee has been a photographer for The Times for 30 years, covering events throughout the world. He is currently based in Seoul. Follow him on Instagram @nytchangster. More about Chang W. Lee

A version of this article appears in print on March 30, 2024, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Japanese Cherry Blossoms Ruffle South Korea. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

8. Returning from China, North Korean workers are paid in dubious IOUs

A scam. How can anyone trust the mafia-like crime family cult known as the Kim family regime?

Returning from China, North Korean workers are paid in dubious IOUs

The money vouchers were issued during the pandemic, and workers fear they may become worthless.

By Kim Jieun for RFA Korean

2024.03.29

rfa.org

North Korean workers returning from China with hopes of a big payday are incensed because the government is not paying them in cash. Instead, it’s giving them bank-issued money vouchers, which the workers are worried might end up being worthless, residents told Radio Free Asia.

The vouchers, essentially IOUs, were issued in 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Authorities explained that they could be used just like cash, and that they would be phased out once the pandemic ended.

Until then, the vouchers – printed on lower quality paper than the currency – are supposed to be traded with cash on a 1:1 ratio, but nobody knows how long they will be good.

North Koreans are already distrustful of their government on money matters because in 2009 it revalued the won, issued new currency and limited the amount of older currency that could be traded for the newer one, wiping out the life savings of many.

Since then, faith in the won has been shaky, so dollars, euros and yuan are therefore freely traded in North Korean marketplaces. Faith in the vouchers is even shakier than the won.

“Most of the workers feel like they have returned empty-handed, so they are angry,” a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Although the party emphasizes that the money vouchers should be used without restrictions like cash, people distrust them because the authorities clearly stated that they are a temporary measure due to the prolonged COVID-19 crisis,” she said.

Assumptions

When workers are sent overseas – mostly to China – there’s already an understanding that the lion’s share of their wages will be forwarded to the cash-strapped government in Pyongyang.

The remainder, however, is several times more than what they would earn doing the same job in North Korea.

So the Chinese companies get cheap labor, the government gets a lot of foreign cash, and the workers still come out ahead – or such was the assumption.

The workers, mostly young women working in factories, had been in China since before the pandemic, some for six years or more.

Because they were earning yuan in China the workers thought they would be paid in yuan upon their return.

But they are now told to accept payment in money vouchers, which the people have very little confidence in, the North Pyongan resident said.

Red tape and unfair exchange rates

On top of this, the government appears to be exploiting the workers further through red tape and unfair exchange rates, the sources said.

“The market exchange rate is 1,700 to 1,800 won per Chinese yuan,” she said. “But the announced rate is fixed at 1,260 won per yuan, so the workers are getting screwed.”

The Chinese companies paid 2,500 yuan (about US$350) for each worker every month, but about two-thirds of this money was sent to the state.

The workers were said to be earning about 800 yuan ($110) per month, but then red tape fees cut into even that amount.

“There’s management fees at headquarters, maintenance costs at the consular department, insurance costs, social subsidies, and accommodation fees,” the resident said. “When all is said and done the workers are said to be getting between 100 and 300 yuan (US$13-41) for the whole month.”

Remarkably, that is still above the paltry salaries for government-assigned jobs in North Korea.

Another North Pyongan resident said that the workers are getting a raw deal after putting in 14-hour days in China and now have to accept payment in money vouchers.

“The selection of workers dispatched overseas is still ongoing these days, but not many workers are willing to go to China,” she said. “The poor working environment and intensive labor exploitation in China, as well as the fact that the payment is not properly compensated, have become widely known facts.”

She said that some of the workers who returned this time gave up all of their wages and returned with nothing, after the authorities compelled them to donate to various funds and subsidies.

These include supporting national and local construction projects, condolence donations for the late former leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il on their death anniversaries, and funds to strengthen national defense.

“They won’t see even a single yuan coin for all their hard work in China,” the first resident said.

Translated by Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.

rfa.org

9. Officials from S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss cooperation against N.K. cyberthreats

Good news.

Officials from S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss cooperation against N.K. cyberthreats

en.yna.co.kr

Officials from S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss cooperation against N.K. cyberthreats | Yonhap News Agency

Song Sang-ho

North Korea 06:52 March 30, 2024

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, March 29 (Yonhap) — Diplomats from South Korea, the United States and Japan discussed trilateral cooperation to counter North Korea’s evolving cyberthreats during their working group talks in Washington on Friday, Seoul’s foreign ministry said.

Lee Jun-il, director general for North Korean nuclear affairs at the ministry, and U.S. and Japanese representatives, Lyn Debevoise and Naoki Kumagai, respectively, led the second session of the trilateral working group tasked with responding to the North’s threats from the cyber domain.

The working group was launched in December as a follow-up to a cooperation agreement that President Yoon Suk Yeol, U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reached during their landmark summit at Camp David in August.

The three sides shared concerns that North Korean IT workers are obtaining employment under disguised identities from IT companies abroad, generating revenue to help fund the North’s nuclear and missile programs, and engaging in malicious cyberactivities, according to the ministry.

To prevent the North’s cyberthreats, they discussed various ways to strengthen cooperation, including enhancing collaboration with private companies, engaging countries where North Korean IT workers operate, and bolstering international cybersecurity capacity, the ministry said.

While in Washington, Lee met with U.S. officials, scholars and experts for discussions on relations between Pyongyang and Moscow, efforts to cut North Korea’s illicit sources of revenue and other related issues.

Lee Jun-il (R), director general for North Korean nuclear affairs at the ministry, and U.S. and Japanese representatives, Lyn Debevoise (C) and Naoki Kumagai, respectively, pose for a photo as they meet for the second session of a trilateral working group on North Korean cyberthreats in Washington on March 29, 2024 in this photo released by the ministry. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

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10. Failed U.N. panel extension underscores deepening N.K.-Russia ties, security uncertainties

Let us not show fear here.

(LEAD) (News Focus) Failed U.N. panel extension underscores deepening N.K.-Russia ties, security uncertainties | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · March 29, 2024

(ATTN: RECASTS 3rd para)

By Song Sang-ho

WASHINGTON, March 28 (Yonhap) -- This week's failure to extend the mandate of a U.N. expert panel monitoring the enforcement of anti-North Korea sanctions served as a sobering reminder of the unpalatable reality: burgeoning ties between Moscow and Pyongyang that have heightened security uncertainties on the Korean Peninsula.

During a session of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday, Russia vetoed a new resolution to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts by another year, with China abstaining. Absent the resolution, the panel's mandate is set to expire on April 30.

Although the veto was a largely anticipated move, concerns have heightened that the panel receding into history will embolden North Korea to conduct banned actions with further impunity and chip away at international efforts to curb its growing nuclear and missile threats.

Russia's exercise of the veto came as Moscow and Pyongyang have been deepening their military cooperation, under which the former has received munitions and ballistic missiles for its war in Ukraine with the latter seeking military technology assistance in return.

Closer alignment between the Cold War-era allies has raised worries about the prospects of a jelling geopolitical bloc involving China, which has boasted the "no-limits" partnership with Russia against the backdrop of a hardening Sino-U.S. rivalry over security, technology and trade.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un (L) holds talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome space launch center in the Russian Far East on Sept. 13, 2023, in this photo released by the North's official Korean Central News Agency the next day. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)

"It is a portentous strategic shift," Patrick Cronin, Asia-Pacific security chair at the Hudson Institute, told Yonhap News Agency via email. "It means a hardening of the axis of revisionist powers even though their axis remains more transactional and opportunistic."

Cronin cast Russia's veto as a feat for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un seeking to close ranks with Russia.

"Kim Jong-un's Kremlin courtship pays off. Pyongyang wants to end sanctions without slowing its strategic weapons programs," he said.

In the negotiations leading up to the UNSC vote on the resolution, Russia is said to have proposed a "sunset clause" for UNSC sanctions against Pyongyang -- a demand apparently unacceptable to Seoul, Washington and other members.

The sunset clause, if adopted, would leave sanctions in effect for a certain period of time unless there was a UNSC consensus to keep them in place for an additional period of time.

"Russia has called for the council to adopt a decision to hold an open and honest review of the council sanctions measures in respect of the DPRK, moving the restrictions onto an annual basis," Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya said before the vote. DPRK stands for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"If an agreement is reached for an annual extension of the sanctions, the mandate of the Panel of Experts would then make sense," he added.

The absence of the panel whose mainstay task is to monitor sanctions violations would make it easier for Russia to engage in arms transactions with the North that constitute a violation of multiple UNSC sanctions resolutions, analysts said.

Pyongyang has shipped over 10,000 containers of munitions or munition-related materials to Russia since September, as well as several dozen ballistic missiles, according to the U.S. government, as Moscow strives to replenish its weapons stockpile for use in Ukraine.

This image, provided by the White House, shows Russia's launch of North Korean ballistic missiles into Ukraine. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)

"Russia's vetoing the extension is basically a proxy for them trying to undo some sanctions, because it'll now be easier for them to violate the sanctions," Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at RAND Corp., told Yonhap News Agency over the phone.

"(The violations) could be more weapons from North Korea, could be Russia giving military aid to North Korea ... The lack of this panel of experts is going to undermine the monitoring of that and the reporting of that," he added.

Bennett warned that the abolition of the panel could lead Pyongyang to conduct more military provocations down the road.

"It'll embolden them to acquire new technologies, new capabilities, new sources, and have hard currency," he said. "If they have new capabilities, they probably will be tempted to do (provocations). They're going to want to test new missiles and new other technologies that will lead to provocations."

Signs of Russia flouting sanctions in support for the North have been widely reported.

Those reports include those on the recent arrival of North Korean workers in Russia and President Vladimir Putin's delivery of a luxury car to the North Korean leader to say nothing of the continued arms transfers from the North to Russia.

A deepening of the bilateral ties has been evidenced by recent high-level exchanges between the two countries. Sergei E. Naryshkin, director of Russia's External Intelligence Bureau (SVR), visited Pyongyang between Monday and Wednesday, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The strategic alignment between the North and Russia, coupled with China's apparent aversion to stringent anti-Pyongyang sanctions, bodes ill for the implementation of the sanctions regime against the North.

But Seoul, Washington and other like-minded countries are expected to ramp up their coordination through standalone or multilateral sanctions to tighten the screw on Pyongyang, observers said.

Just on Wednesday, South Korea and the U.S. imposed joint sanctions on less than 10 North Korean nationals and third-country entities accused of helping finance the North's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.

"Despite today's veto and abstention, all Security Council resolutions and U.N. measures addressing the DPRK's unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs remain in effect," Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson, told a press briefing.

"We will continue to work to counter the DPRK's unlawful actions, work with like-minded states through all available means to limit the threat posed by the DPRK, and respond to efforts by its enablers to shield the DPRK from responsibility," he added.

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by Song Sang-ho · March 29, 2024

11. US saw NK's call for light water reactors as 'significant opening' in nuclear talks: declassified dossier

Hmmm... Indeed to track down these declassified dossiers.

US saw NK's call for light water reactors as 'significant opening' in nuclear talks: declassified dossier

The Korea Times · March 29, 2024

Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. special envoy to North Korea, speaks in the National Assembly, Seoul, Dec. 18, 2017. Yonhap

The United States had believed that North Korea's demand for light water reactors in return for dismantling its nuclear facilities could be a "significant opening" to resolving Pyongyang's nuclear issues, declassified documents showed Friday.

The 30-year-old diplomatic dossiers, released by the South Korean government, show a glimpse behind the whirlwind diplomacy in 1993, also known as the "first North Korean nuclear crisis" that began when the North declared that it would withdraw from the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), an international treaty on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

In March 12, the North said it would drop out of the treaty, citing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) pressuring for a special inspection of its nuclear facilities and the Team Spirit joint military drills between the South and the U.S.

The North's threat led to Washington and Pyongyang holding high-level talks later that year and the ensuing grueling negotiations in Geneva that paved the way for the now-defunct landmark Agreed Framework in 1994 on dismantling the North's nuclear programs.

The first round of the high-level talks took place in New York in June, led by Robert Gallucci, the then U.S. assistant secretary of state for political and military affairs, and Kang Sok-ju, the North's first vice foreign minister.

The talks had hit a deadlock at first, but the working-level talks made headway, with the two sides adopting a joint statement on the North's postponement of its NPT withdrawal and the U.S. commitment to the non-use of military power against the North, among other terms.

During the second round of the high-level talks in Geneva in July, the North proposed that "all nuclear issues will be resolved if the U.S. cooperates in the North's transition of its graphite-moderated nuclear reactors to light water models," the documents said.

Gallucci and his team believed that the North's offer could be conducive to a potential breakthrough, according to the dossier.

Former South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-joo / Korea Times photo

In the talks with then South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-joo, Gallucci said that the dialogue with the North made "a small but important progress," and that the light water reactors issue can be a "significant opening" for both Seoul and Washington.

But South Korea remained doubtful about the North's intent.

In the meeting with Congressman Gary Ackerman in Pyongyang, Kim Il-sung assured that his regime had "no nuclear weapons, no ability to produce any, nor has it any reason or motive or money to produce them."

Hearing this from Ackerman, then President Kim Young-sam called that a "complete lie," saying that the satellites and other intelligence show how the North is "making every effort to make the nuclear weapons."

The 1994 agreement committed the North to freezing and ultimately dismantling its nuclear program in exchange for two light water reactors for power generation and the normalization of relations with the United States.

But it fell apart with the second nuclear crisis in late 2002, with revelations that Pyongyang had pursued a clandestine uranium enrichment program. The six-party talks were then launched in 2003 to defuse the crisis, but the nuclear standoff remains ongoing. (Yonhap)

The Korea Times · March 29, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com