Quotes of the Day:
"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is visible and invisible labor. To contemplate is to toil. To think is to do."
- Victor Hugo
"Today we need a special kind of courage. Not the kind needed in battle, but a kind which makes us stand up for everything that we know is right, everything that is true and honest. We need the kind of courage that can withstand the subtle corruption of the cynics, so that we can show the world that we are not afraid of the future."
- Elizabeth II
"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."
- Aristotle
1. Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s Prosecutor-Turned-President, Wants a World That Follows the Rules
2. N. Korea likely to hold military parade at midnight, showcase latest ICBM: sources
3. Japan, South Korea look to salve ties that festered under Moon
4. Yoon's delegation arrives in Japan with letter outlining will for 'new relations'
5. N. Korea vows to expand relations with Russia on eve of summit anniversary
6. Yoon to commute to office from private home while official residence is renovated
7. Rethinking the Korea-Japan impasse
8. As world reopens, North Korea is one of two countries without vaccines
9. North Korea boasts of 'invincible power' world cannot ignore ahead of holiday
10. U.S. hasn’t stopped N. Korean gang from laundering its crypto haul
11. Surviving the ‘time machine’: Helping North Korean defectors to the South
12. In North Korea, a soldier’s biggest threat may be the censor
13. Beijing quiet as North Korea turns up the heat with missile tests
1. Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s Prosecutor-Turned-President, Wants a World That Follows the Rules
This comports with the descriptions I have heard from a number of Korean friends who know the president-elect: he is very focused on the rule of law both domestically and internationally. But I do hope he will reconsider support for Ukraine to be consistent with this:
“As president one of my most critical responsibilities is to uphold values as contained within our constitution, which is to uphold liberal free democracy, the market economy,” Mr. Yoon said. “That is the core and crux of South Korea whether it’s foreign policy or domestic policy.”
Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s Prosecutor-Turned-President, Wants a World That Follows the Rules
Leader takes office next month wanting to improve ties with U.S., Japan and hoping transparency works with North Korea, China
Apr. 24, 2022 8:54 am ET
SEOUL—Behind the desk of Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s 61-year-old president-elect, a pair of red boxing gloves is displayed prominently on a shelf. They belonged to one of the country’s most famous professional fighters, who became a world champion in 1977—despite getting knocked down four times in the title match. Decades later, the boxer gave the gloves to Mr. Yoon at a campaign rally.
“He got back up, and he was able to win,” said Mr. Yoon, in an interview. “That has a symbolism to it: You don’t give up. You keep fighting till the end.”
Mr. Yoon, a prosecutor who entered politics only last year, won last month’s election for Korea’s main conservative party by a razor thin margin. He takes office May 10 for a five-year term at a time of significant friction between Washington, a longtime military ally, and Beijing, the country’s largest trading partner. He will need to navigate the security fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and contend with a North Korea that has embarked on a new round of weapons tests.
In a weekend interview at his transition office in Seoul, he signaled a pragmatic approach to foreign policy. On North Korea? He would offer significant economic incentives if Kim Jong Un takes concrete steps toward disarmament. On the U.S. and Japan: He wants to improve ties with both. On Washington-Beijing tensions? Not a zero-sum matter for Seoul. On Ukraine? No plans to offer lethal weapons.
“As president one of my most critical responsibilities is to uphold values as contained within our constitution, which is to uphold liberal free democracy, the market economy,” Mr. Yoon said. “That is the core and crux of South Korea whether it’s foreign policy or domestic policy.”
Mr. Yoon has pledged to broaden South Korea’s involvement in working groups of the Quad—a security partnership involving the U.S., Australia, India and Japan that seeks to counter China. Mr. Yoon said he doesn’t expect South Korea to get an invitation any time soon. But if approached, South Korea “will positively review joining.”
In a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Biden, which could come before a planned Quad meeting in Tokyo in late May, Mr. Yoon said he would talk about strengthening the two countries’ alliance. South Korea is home to America’s largest overseas military base with about 28,500 military personnel. But he would also bring up his goal of improving Seoul’s ties with Japan, which have frayed over trade disputes and historical issues.
Yoon Suk-yeol dined with U.S. military officials during a visit to Camp Humphreys in South Korea earlier this month.
PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seoul, in recent years, hasn’t taken as active a stance on the security risks posed by an increasingly well-armed China as have other U.S. allies in the region. “In the U.S. strategy to maintain a free and open Indo-Pacific against China expansion, the weak link is Korea,” said Michael J. Green, a former U.S. National Security Council official who is now senior vice president for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank.
On Saturday, Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, stood aboard an American warship that had recently deployed to the waters between Japan and Korea—a show of military force following a string of Kim regime missile tests. Pointing to the imminent arrival of a South Korean delegation in Tokyo, he proclaimed, “A new day, a new chapter in the trilateral relationship based on renewed friendship.”
South Korea is the world’s 10th largest economy and home to global conglomerates like Samsung, Hyundai and LG. Mr. Yoon wants to attract more investment by ensuring there is no discrimination against foreign companies. He said he seeks to eliminate unnecessary regulations that could hamper business activity or foreign investment.
“The government’s role is not to get involved and dictate how the market operates,” Mr. Yoon said. “My government will pursue a policy so that we can correct and normalize so that the market can operate as it should.”
As a prosecutor, Mr. Yoon focused on corruption and misdeeds by the nation’s elites, even earning the nickname “the angel of death.” He put behind bars a pair of presidents who were his immediate predecessors as conservative leaders. He hunted malfeasance at big business, including a corruption case involving the de facto head of Samsung. On his transition-office desk sat a single iPhone.
Only about half of the country believes he will do a good job as president, according to recent polls. His recent predecessors, conservative and progressive alike, came into office having received some benefit of the doubt with South Koreans, attracting favorability ratings of roughly 80% or more.
Yoon Suk-yeol plans to move the presidential compound from the Blue House, pictured, to central Seoul where the country’s Defense Ministry is located.
PHOTO: AHN YOUNG-JOON/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Mr. Yoon, for his part, hasn’t made many lofty promises, and lower expectations from voters could mean he later wins over some detractors should he land some initial achievements, such as boosting employment or taming inflation, said Chung Min Lee, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Asia program. That would contrast with prior presidents who started out with higher approval ratings, then disappointed after stumbling, he added.
“Unless he really craters, I think he’ll actually build up his cachet,” Mr. Lee said.
Mr. Yoon promises a tougher line on North Korea than the outgoing, left-leaning President Moon Jae-in, who prioritized peace talks. The Yoon administration’s stance will be to call for the complete denuclearization of the Kim regime.
But Mr. Yoon said he is willing to offer incentives to Pyongyang that go beyond the humanitarian assistance pledged by the Moon administration—so long as North Korea takes a first step toward disarmament. He pointed to allowing outside inspectors to visit the North’s nuclear sites as an example of a first step Pyongyang could take. In return, Seoul would help galvanize investment in North Korea and consider providing critical information on technology.
North Korea has allowed such inspections before, though not for many years. But the prospects today look low, given Pyongyang’s border restrictions over pandemic fears and disinterest in diplomacy. North Korea has unleashed a string of weapons launches in recent months, including its first full-range intercontinental ballistic missile test in more than four years.
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Mr. Yoon has expressed a desire to boost deterrence against North Korea, including advocating for pre-strike capabilities should a Pyongyang attack look imminent. But sharing or deploying nuclear weapons with the U.S. in South Korea aren’t options under consideration, he said. He backs what he calls extended deterrence that could include more vigorous intelligence sharing or carrying out more field exercises.
Mr. Yoon envisions a return to field exercises by the fall or next spring. He’s not sure of the size or precise timing, and any decision would require consultation with the U.S. But, he added, “In some way, we will see a resumption of these joint field exercises.”
Continuing tensions between the U.S. and China could be both an opportunity and a risk, Mr. Yoon said. He believes there are ways to ensure peace, co-prosperity and co-existence with the two countries. On the campaign trail, Mr. Yoon stated a desire to have mutual respect with Beijing.
“However, if we are seen as being ambiguous or flip-flopping in our foreign policy, then it could very well become a risk,” Mr. Yoon said.
Upon taking office, Mr. Yoon said his top domestic priorities would be to help businesses and individuals recover from the pandemic. He criticized the current Moon administration for keeping restrictions for too long. He also promised to pursue deregulation—even by working with executive orders or other maneuvers that don’t require legislative signoff.
South Korea’s official presidential compound, located at the foot of a mountain in northern Seoul, was long called the Blue House, named after the color of the roof tiles. But Mr. Yoon will relocate the entire compound to central Seoul where the country’s Defense Ministry is located. He plans to ask fellow South Koreans to help name it.
But in the interim, Mr. Yoon has come up with his own name: the “People’s House.”
Peter Landers in Tokyo contributed to this article.
2. N. Korea likely to hold military parade at midnight, showcase latest ICBM: sources
We should soon know.
We should understand the importance of the regime's legitimacy resting on the myth of anti-Japanese partisan warfare.
Excerpts:
Observers say the North appears to have decided to hold the parade to mark the day the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces were created during Japan's colonial rule, in an apparent effort to rally internal support and show off its strategic weapons.
N. Korea likely to hold military parade at midnight, showcase latest ICBM: sources | Yonhap News Agency
By Yi Wonju
SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has detected signs of North Korea preparing to hold a massive military parade around midnight Sunday to show off its latest strategic weapons in time for a key anniversary, government sources said.
According to the sources, the North is likely to mobilize around 20,000 troops for the parade at Kim Il Sung Square to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the North Korean People's Revolutionary Army (KPRA), the anti-Japanese guerrilla force that the North claims late national founder Kim Il-sung established in 1932.
During rehearsals, over 250 pieces of military equipment have been paraded, including a hypersonic Hwasong-8 missile, a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), according to the sources.
The North also appears to have built two pontoon bridges across the Taedong River connecting Kim Il Sung Square to the Tower of the Juche Idea, raising possibilities that troops could use the bridges to enter the square amid fireworks so as to boost the festive mood.
The North has held nine military parades so far since leader Kim came to power in 2012 following the death of late leader and his father Kim Jong-il, but none of them were held to mark the founding anniversary of the KPRA.
The North has usually held such a parade on the birth anniversary of national founder Kim Il-sung on April 15, the founding anniversary of the ruling Workers' Party on Oct. 10 and the nation's foundation on Sept. 9.
Observers say the North appears to have decided to hold the parade to mark the day the anti-Japanese guerrilla forces were created during Japan's colonial rule, in an apparent effort to rally internal support and show off its strategic weapons.
Kim could deliver a speech during the parade to send a message to both his people and the outside world.
The military parade also comes ahead of South Korean President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's inauguration next month. Yoon is expected to take a hard-line stance on North Korea.
Pyongyang is likely to broadcast recorded footage of the parade on state television Monday.
julesyi@yna.co.kr
(END)
3.Japan, South Korea look to salve ties that festered under Moon
Japan, South Korea look to salve ties that festered under Moon
By Hermes Auto The Straits Times3 min
Japan PM Fumio Kishida
TOKYO (BLOOMBERG) - Japan and South Korea look set to try to revive a relationship that has hit new depths in recent years, with President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol offering an olive branch to Tokyo weeks before US President Joe Biden is likely to visit both countries.
He has already sent a delegation to the United States and will next send envoys to China before his inauguration.
Warming ties between the two US allies would be a welcome development for the Biden administration as it seeks cooperation from Seoul and Tokyo to counter security threats posed by China and North Korea, while securing supply chains for key goods such as semiconductors free from interference from Beijing.
Mr Yoon, a conservative, has signalled he wants to take a hawkish diplomatic course, which would also be in line with some of the security priorities of the conservative government of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The new leadership in Seoul may offer a chance to inch back relations to something more like normal, with the war in Ukraine providing a reminder to both countries of their reliance on their mutual ally amid growing regional threats.
"Under the Yoon administration, we can see a way forward to restoring ties," said Professor Yasuyo Sakata of Kanda University of Foreign Studies in Chiba, Japan, who specialises in East Asian security, adding that there will be chances to show that the neighbours "are more on the same wavelength".
The delegation's visit to Japan is set for a month before Mr Biden - a staunch advocate of alliances - is expected to arrive in the region and visit both South Korea and Japan.
Ties between Tokyo and Seoul plunged to their worst state in decades under outgoing president Moon Jae-in - a progressive - and former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe - a conservative - over whether Tokyo had shown proper contrition and sufficiently compensated for its 1910 to 1945 colonisation of the Korean peninsula.
That led to strains in security cooperation and frequent bickering between the two countries that host the bulk of US troops in the region.
"Yoon realises the US is needed for South Korea's security, and therefore the need to mend ties with another major US ally in the region: Japan," said political science professor Shin Yul at Myongji University in Seoul.
"The question is whether to prioritise history or security, and Yoon is likely to prioritise the latter, given his vows during the election campaign and his actions after the victory."
But there are limits to how close Mr Yoon can get after his two conservative predecessors as president faced backlash at home for being seen as being too accommodating to Japan, which caused sharp falls in support and hampered their policy agendas.
4. Yoon's delegation arrives in Japan with letter outlining will for 'new relations'
The only way for relations to improve is for the incoming president and the prime minister to publicly declare they are going to prioritize national security and national prosperity in relations and all decisions making while pledging to work on the historical issues separately and will not allow historical issues to impact on national security and national prosperity.
(3rd LD) Yoon's delegation arrives in Japan with letter outlining will for 'new relations' | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with arrival, more quotes; CHANGES dateline)
TOKYO/SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- A delegation of President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol arrived in Tokyo on Sunday for meetings with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and other top officials, carrying a letter from Yoon that outlines his will for "new relations with Japan."
The visit by the seven-member delegation, led by Rep. Chung Jin-suk of Yoon's People Power Party, came as Yoon has stressed the importance of restoring relations with Japan that have been frayed badly over the past few years due to rows over issues like wartime sexual slavery and forced labor.
Japan is the second foreign country that Yoon has sent a delegation to after the United States.
"I think the letter carries President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's will and expectations for new relations with Japan, as well as his expectations for positive responses from Japan," Chung told reporters after arriving at Narita International Airport.
The delegation is expected to meet with Kishida on Wednesday and hand him the letter from Yoon.
Upon arrival in Tokyo, the delegation planned to pay tribute at the monument honoring Lee Soo-hyun, a Korean hero who died trying to rescue a drunk Japanese man who had fallen onto the subway tracks in Tokyo in 2001. The late Lee is regarded as a symbol of friendly ties between the two nations.
On Monday, the delegation is expected to hold a meeting with Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, according to sources. Meetings with former Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe and Yoshihide Suga are also being pushed for, they said.
Yoon has called for strengthening relations with Japan, as well as trilateral cooperation among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, saying his focus will be on building a "future-oriented" partnership with the neighboring country.
A day after his election last month, Yoon spoke by phone with Kishida and agreed to work together to promote "friendly cooperation" between their countries. Kishida was the second foreign leader that Yoon spoke to after U.S. President Joe Biden.
"We are going on this trip with a mindset that we're fastening the first button of a new Korea-Japan relationship under the Yoon Suk-yeol government," Chung told reporters before departure from Incheon International Airport earlier in the day.
"We will meet with figures from various circles of Japan and convey the president-elect's thought that we need to make efforts for an early improvement and restoration of Korea-Japan relations that have been left unattended for a long period time," he said.
Restoring bilateral cooperation with Japan and trilateral cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan will contribute greatly to peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula and beyond amid uncertainties in the international order in the wake of a series of North Korean provocations and the war in Ukraine, Chung said.
The delegation could discuss the possibility of Kishida attending Yoon's May 10 inauguration ceremony and ways to improve relations between the two countries frayed badly over issues related to Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula, such as wartime sexual slavery and forced labor.
The delegation also includes Rep. Kim Seok-ki; Yun Duk-min, former head of the Korea National Diplomatic Academy; Park Cheol-hee, a professor at Seoul National University's Graduate School of International Studies; former Ambassador to Singapore Lee Sang-deok; former Ambassador to Cambodia Chang Ho-jin; and Woo Jung-yeop, a Sejong Institute expert on the U.S.
jschang@yna.co.kr
(END)
5. N. Korea vows to expand relations with Russia on eve of summit anniversary
Will north Korea provide support to Russia in Ukraine?
N. Korea vows to expand relations with Russia on eve of summit anniversary | Yonhap News Agency
SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea vowed Sunday to continue to expand and develop relations with Russia on the eve of the third anniversary of a summit between leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Kim and Putin held the summit in Russia's Far East city of Vladivostok on April 25, 2019. The third anniversary comes as the North stressed the friendly ties with Russia amid deepening tensions between Moscow and Washington in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"Today, the DPRK-Russia relations, even in the face of challenges and pressure of the U.S. and its vassal forces, continue to develop and strengthen ... and are contributing to ensuring peace and security in the region and to establishing the international order based on independence and justice," the North's foreign ministry said in an article posted on its website.
"It is an invariable stand of the DPRK government to expand and develop in all fields the friendly and cooperative relations with Russia, our friend and friendly neighbor, according to the agreement reached at the historic DPRK-Russia summit meeting," the ministry said.
DPRK stands for the North's official name, Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
It said that Kim's visit to Russia "was of a historic event that served as a turning point in putting the friendly ties between the two countries onto a new higher stage."
"After the historic Vladivostok DPRK-Russia summit, the long-standing relations of the DPRK-Russia friendship are developing more vigorously thanks to the special care of the leaders of the two countries," the ministry said.
(END)
6. Yoon to commute to office from private home while official residence is renovated
I wonder how this will affect traffic? Will this be like a presidential motorcade in DC?
(LEAD) Yoon to commute to office from private home while official residence is renovated | Yonhap News Agency
(ATTN: UPDATES with more info in paras 6-7)
SEOUL, April 24 (Yonhap) -- President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to commute to the new presidential office in central Seoul from his private home for about a month after his inauguration while his official residence is renovated, officials said Sunday.
Yoon has decided to remodel what is now the foreign minister's residence into his official residence in line with his plan to move the presidential office and residence out of Cheong Wa Dae in an effort to connect better with the people.
Renovation work on the foreign minister's residence in Hannam-dong will begin on Yoon's inauguration on May 10 and is expected to take around a month, and Yoon plans to commute to his new office from his private home in Seocho-dong in southern Seoul, transition team officials said.
"We will be mainly taking the Banpo Bridge on our commute as it is the closest one to Seocho Ward. ... The route could change depending on the situation," an official told Yonhap News Agency.
Yoon's commute could worsen traffic congestion because roads are blocked for his motorcade.
Bae Hyun-jin, Yoon's spokesperson, told a press briefing his team is working to come up with the best possible measure to prevent traffic during his commute.
"I believe we already said we are conducting simulation exercises and looking for the best way to avoid causing inconvenience to citizens, considering the morning and evening commute hours," she said.
The official residence of the Army chief of staff had originally been considered a top candidate for Yoon's residence, but the foreign minister's residence emerged as a better option as the Army chief's home, built in the mid-1970s, requires extensive remodeling.
"We chose the foreign minister's residence as the new official residence because the remodeling work will take only a short period of time to finish even if starts May 10, as the previous foreign ministers have consistently renovated the residence during their stays," the official said.
(END)
7. Rethinking the Korea-Japan impasse
Excerpts:
I believe the historical issues at this time are not a matter of primary anger but of secondary anger. Korea and Japan have resolved much in terms of primary issues. But secondary issues are hindering the efforts, and the damages are too big and too painful.
Can we blame the offender exclusively for all the secondary problems? Can the offender’s side really resolve the secondary rage of the victim’s side with apologies and compensation to the actual victims? I don’t think this type of reconciliation can solve it. We must shift to embracive reconciliation. We should stop pressuring Japan to take responsibility, and we should redefine our identity to meet our elevated stature by engaging Japan. We should arm ourselves with a new philosophy of embracive reconciliation and suspend our secondary anger temporarily.
We must understand Japan’s stance that Korea should present a resolution. In December 2016, then National Assembly speaker Moon Hee-sang and 13 other ruling and opposition lawmakers sponsored a bill to resolve the issue, but it was discarded without a vote at the end of the session. It could be a good start to revive the bill.
The incoming Yoon Suk-yeol administration is facing difficult problems at home and abroad. Unity and cooperative politics are demanded by the people. But the people are skeptical and uncertain if this can be accomplished given the national division and the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party.
The Korea-Japan Parliamentarian Union includes 154 incumbent Korean lawmakers. Since it is a bipartisan body, it can put aside the ideology and interests of each party and judge and act for the sake of national interest. I hope the bill will be revised and passed by the ruling and opposition lawmakers. It will be a touchstone that will access the unity and cooperative politics in the conservative Yoon administration.
Rethinking the Korea-Japan impasse
Sunday
April 24, 2022
Park Hong-kyu
The author is a professor of political science at Korea University.
The time has come to resolve the tangle of Korea-Japan historical disputes and improve relations between the two countries. President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol recently had a phone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and the two leaders agreed to cooperate on improving relations. Although they exchanged hopeful remarks for the future, the real issue is how and where to start efforts to solve the complicated problems.
Kishida maintains Tokyo’s existing position that Seoul must present a preemptive solution to improve relations, which deteriorated after the Korean Supreme Court ruled that Japan must compensate wartime forced-labor victims. For cooperation to be realized, the Yoon administration needs to take an approach different from the Moon Jae-in administration’s.
I hope the Yoon administration comes up with a bold scheme commensurate with Korea’s position globally to create a breakthrough in the stalled relations and takes the initiative to cut the Gordian knot. “Embracive reconciliation” is the philosophical foundation on which to build solution.
Until now, all attempts to address Korea-Japan historical issues were made based on “reconciliation after admission of accountability.” The concept is based on the offender offering an apology and the victim’s forgiveness, and it has played a critical role in facilitating reconciliation among European countries after World War II. As the method was effective in Europe — and coupled with the birth of the European Union — the nations on the continent have been free of disputes between them for decades.
After the shocking testimony in 1991 by comfort woman victim Kim Hak-soon, wartime historical issues surfaced in East Asia. Given the considerable delay in historical reconciliation in the region, the paradigm of responsible reconciliation was applied to effectively explain and address the historical issues. Korea and Japan actively sought reconciliation through Japan’s apology and Korea’s forgiveness, which led to the Kono Statement in 1993 and the Murayama Statement two years later. In 1998, President Kim Dae-jung and Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi hammered out the Korea-Japan Joint Declaration.
But Kim’s efforts faced various obstacles, such as Japan’s distortion of history in text books, territorial claims, visits by Japanese leaders to the Yasukuni Shrine and comfort women issues. Rather than achieving progress through reconciliation, historical issues remained unresolved and Korea-Japan relations deteriorated to a recent low following the 2018 Supreme Court ruling, which ordered compensation for wartime forced labor. The paradigm of reconciliation based on accepting responsibility no longer looks valid.
Such reconciliation is closely related to religious reconciliation in the Western Christian tradition primarily based on the relations between God and human beings — starting with a sinner realizing his or her sin, confessing and repenting, being forgiven, and then making efforts to correct the sin. Reconciliation was possible in Europe as it was applied at the state level so that Germany offered apologies and compensation to the victimized countries.
Japan’s cultural basis — starting from the Edo period and developing through Meiji era and the imperial period — is far from Christianity in Europe. As a result, it was hard to expect a convincing response from the Japanese when Korea demanded a “true” apology based on reconciliation and accountability. Though the idea has its justification in terms of morality, we need to find a new reconciliation path if the old one fails to achieve substantial outcomes in reality. I propose “embracive reconciliation” to help improve Korea-Japan relations and reconciliation.
Today, Korea is the world’s 10th largest economy and is a military power. Its cultural power ranks even higher. Korea’s prestige is dramatically different from what it was in 1965, when the Claims Settlement Agreement was signed between Seoul and Tokyo. We must feel proud of ourselves and think and act to meet the elevated stature in the international community. Instead of persistently demanding the offender’s infinite responsibility from the perspective of a victim, we need to shift our thinking to a more embracive view by listening to the offender’s argument, trying to understand them and healing wounds together.
The argument is not that we just need to forgive them because they will never apologize. Inclusiveness is a way of seeking reconciliation beyond the frame of apology and forgiveness.
To change our identity from holding the offender accountable for its responsibility to embracing the offender, we must seriously look into ourselves. In other words, we need to see ourselves more objectively. To this end, we must study the logical structure of reconciling after holding an offender accountable for excesses.
The concepts of an offender and a victim are very ambiguous. The concept of victim includes the actual victims, support groups for the victims, victimized people and entire countries. Moreover, if the damages are totaled when the time between the offense and the reconciliation is too far apart, it further complicates the issue. To help accurately grasp the essence of Korea-Japan historical issues, let me expand the definition of victim to include various groups.
During the reconciliation process since the 1990s, the offender’s efforts offered an opportunity to resolve the rage of the actual victims — and some of the rage was actually addressed. But during the course of reconciliation, the rage of the victim increased. They believed the offender’s efforts were not enough. Such suspicions from the victim prompted anti-Korea sentiment on the offender’s side, and that fueled more rage on the victim’s side. During the vicious cycle of anti-Japan and anti-Korea sentiment with escalating rage, secondary rage overwhelmed the primary rage of the actual victims.
Nationalism, public sentiment and labeling some Koreans as “Japanese collaborators” amplified the secondary anger. Secondary anger snowballed due to misunderstanding, bias, ignorance, headstrongness, cowardice and silence on the part of vulgar politicians and dogmatic groups that seek gains by holding Japan responsible, not to mention irresponsible media and intellectuals.
I believe the historical issues at this time are not a matter of primary anger but of secondary anger. Korea and Japan have resolved much in terms of primary issues. But secondary issues are hindering the efforts, and the damages are too big and too painful.
Can we blame the offender exclusively for all the secondary problems? Can the offender’s side really resolve the secondary rage of the victim’s side with apologies and compensation to the actual victims? I don’t think this type of reconciliation can solve it. We must shift to embracive reconciliation. We should stop pressuring Japan to take responsibility, and we should redefine our identity to meet our elevated stature by engaging Japan. We should arm ourselves with a new philosophy of embracive reconciliation and suspend our secondary anger temporarily.
We must understand Japan’s stance that Korea should present a resolution. In December 2016, then National Assembly speaker Moon Hee-sang and 13 other ruling and opposition lawmakers sponsored a bill to resolve the issue, but it was discarded without a vote at the end of the session. It could be a good start to revive the bill.
The incoming Yoon Suk-yeol administration is facing difficult problems at home and abroad. Unity and cooperative politics are demanded by the people. But the people are skeptical and uncertain if this can be accomplished given the national division and the overwhelming majority of the Democratic Party.
The Korea-Japan Parliamentarian Union includes 154 incumbent Korean lawmakers. Since it is a bipartisan body, it can put aside the ideology and interests of each party and judge and act for the sake of national interest. I hope the bill will be revised and passed by the ruling and opposition lawmakers. It will be a touchstone that will access the unity and cooperative politics in the conservative Yoon administration.
Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
8. As world reopens, North Korea is one of two countries without vaccines
Gives real meaning to isolation.
Excerpts:
North Korean officials have privately indicated that they would prefer mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer or Moderna, according to a report by a panel of experts convened by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. The panel concluded that North Korea probably would be interested in a high-volume offer of an mRNA vaccine.
With no vaccines at all, North Korea risks becoming the epicenter of new variants as a result of the population’s low immunity to the virus, the panel found.
“It is inevitable that they will have to reopen the border, and when they do, the best way to protect their population — which is what they’re already interested in — is to vaccinate the population as much as possible, which they are capable of doing,” said Kee Park, a global health expert at Harvard Medical School who has worked on health-care projects in North Korea.
“They have to take a different strategy at this point. Zero covid strategy is starting to crumble,” Park said.
As world reopens, North Korea is one of two countries without vaccines
Today at 2:00 a.m. EDT
SEOUL — As mask mandates and social distancing requirements lift around the world, North Korea remains one of two countries that have not administered any coronavirus vaccines, with no sign of how it can ever begin to reopen despite a brewing humanitarian crisis for its people.
The vaccines that were allocated for North Korea through a United Nations-backed global vaccination effort are no longer available, officials said this month, after Pyongyang repeatedly rejected the initiative’s offers of millions of doses.
North Korea, already one of the most closed societies in the world, remains in a strict pandemic lockdown and has shuttered its borders except to a minimal level of trade with China, with grave implications for the health and food security of its population.
The pandemic closure has exacerbated the food crisis, said Tomás Ojea Quintana, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on North Korean human rights. In a recent report, Quintana said the country’s “covid restrictions, including border closures, appear to have prevented an outbreak inside the country, though likely at considerable cost to the wider health situation and further exacerbating economic deprivation.”
No one is clear on the exact situation inside the country, however, because North Korea’s retreat inward in the pandemic has restricted remaining channels of information — with diplomats, humanitarian aid groups and tourists no longer able to enter.
In light of the impending crisis, Quintana urged the international community to find some way to get the needed 60 million doses into the country to immunize its population of 25 million.
Last year, North Korea rejected nearly 3 million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine, saying shipments should go to other countries that need them more. North Korea also rejected 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine out of apparent concerns about potential side effects.
North Korean officials have privately indicated that they would prefer mRNA vaccines, such as Pfizer or Moderna, according to a report by a panel of experts convened by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. The panel concluded that North Korea probably would be interested in a high-volume offer of an mRNA vaccine.
With no vaccines at all, North Korea risks becoming the epicenter of new variants as a result of the population’s low immunity to the virus, the panel found.
“It is inevitable that they will have to reopen the border, and when they do, the best way to protect their population — which is what they’re already interested in — is to vaccinate the population as much as possible, which they are capable of doing,” said Kee Park, a global health expert at Harvard Medical School who has worked on health-care projects in North Korea.
“They have to take a different strategy at this point. Zero covid strategy is starting to crumble,” Park said.
Officials at the North Korean Mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on whether the country intends to accept vaccines or what it hopes to see before moving forward on an immunization program.
North Korea and Eritrea are now the only two countries in the world that have not administered vaccines.
The Gavi Alliance, part of the Covax initiative that aims to deliver vaccines to the world’s most vulnerable people, said this month that it no longer has vaccine doses allocated for North Korea but that they could be made available again if the country changes its mind and starts an immunization program and meets technical requirements.
North Korea had completed some of the requirements for accepting Covax deliveries, but there were ongoing negotiations on whether North Korea is willing to indemnify the vaccine manufacturer against unexpected side effects.
Two years since North Korea’s declaration of a “national emergency response” to the coronavirus, the lockdown shows no signs of letting up, with state media this week urging the public to “strengthen the anti-epidemic work in preparation for the prolonged emergency.” A piece published in the state newspaper Rodong Sinmun warned against “sloppiness and idleness” in anti-epidemic work.
Still, at the year-end party plenum in December, North Korea announced it will shift from a “control-based anti-epidemic work” to an “advanced and people-oriented” measure that seeks to “strengthen the anti-epidemic stronghold while overcoming circumstances that ignore convenience for our people,” according to state media.
“Such a change in the basis of their anti-virus approach is a confession that there are limitations to fundamentally solving the problem with control and restriction alone, and that the long-term restrictions caused fatigue and discontent among the people,” said Kim Ho-hong, a researcher at Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy, in a report.
Ahn Kyung-su of the Seoul-based research center dprkhealth.org said Pyongyang’s “people-oriented” slogan was probably an effort to alleviate pandemic fatigue, and he noted that the restrictions remain in place partly because of the virus resurgence in China, which is being closely tracked in state media.
“North Korea showed signs of reopening earlier this year in January, when trains briefly ran across the Chinese border, but the virus spike in mainland China led North Korea back into a strict isolation,” he said.
Anti-viral drugs could be a potential route for North Korea to reopen without needing to accept outside monitoring of its technical capabilities, the CSIS panel suggested. While the mRNA vaccine requires a sophisticated cold-chain and other logistics, anti-viral pills can be distributed more easily.
In light of what could possibly be an unfolding humanitarian crisis, the international community needs to find some way to persuade Pyongyang to reopen, U.N. special rapporteur Quintana asserted.
“A new way of thinking needs to take hold. This will require vision and initiative, driven by the needs of the North Korean people rather than any other agenda,” he said in his report.
9. North Korea boasts of 'invincible power' world cannot ignore ahead of holiday
Excerpts:
It praised Kim's "genius military ideology and outstanding military command and unparalleled courage and guts," and his leadership in gaining the country's "invincible power."
South Korea had detected signs of North Korea preparing to hold a massive military parade around midnight Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed government sources.
The parade could include around 20,000 troops and showcase the North's latest major weapons, including its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a hypersonic missile, and missiles launched from submarines, the sources told Yonhap.
For weeks commercial satellite imagery has shown thousands of North Korean troops practicing marching in formation at a parade training ground in Pyongyang, according to 38 North, a U.S.-based programme, and NK News, a Seoul-based website that tracks the North.
North Korea boasts of 'invincible power' world cannot ignore ahead of holiday
April 24, 2022
2:51 AM EDT
Last Updated 6 hours ago
SEOUL, April 24 (Reuters) - North Korean state media on Sunday trumpeted how the country has gained an "invincible power that the world cannot ignore and no one can touch" under Kim Jong Un, an apparent reference to its nuclear weapons, as Pyongyang prepares for a military holiday.
Monday will mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People's Revolutionary Army, and international monitors expect North Korea to stage a major military parade and possibly conduct other weapons displays.
North Korea has conducted an unprecedented flurry of ballistic missile tests this year, and American and South Korean officials say there are signs it could resume nuclear weapons testing for the first time since 2017.
A report by state news agency KCNA on Sunday listed the history of North Korea's military achievements, from its battles against the United States in the 1950-1953 Korean War and smaller skirmishes throughout the Cold War to the 2010 bombardment of South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island, which hit both military and civilian targets.
The North's military is equipped with offensive and defensive capabilities that can "cope with any modern warfare," KCNA said.
It praised Kim's "genius military ideology and outstanding military command and unparalleled courage and guts," and his leadership in gaining the country's "invincible power."
South Korea had detected signs of North Korea preparing to hold a massive military parade around midnight Sunday, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unnamed government sources.
The parade could include around 20,000 troops and showcase the North's latest major weapons, including its Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a hypersonic missile, and missiles launched from submarines, the sources told Yonhap.
For weeks commercial satellite imagery has shown thousands of North Korean troops practicing marching in formation at a parade training ground in Pyongyang, according to 38 North, a U.S.-based programme, and NK News, a Seoul-based website that tracks the North.
Reporting by Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Byungwook Kim; Editing by Paul Simao and Jacqueline Wong
10. U.S. hasn’t stopped N. Korean gang from laundering its crypto haul
The all purpose sword supporting the mafia like crime family cult and helping it to survive, thrive, and build nuclear weapons and missiles.
U.S. hasn’t stopped N. Korean gang from laundering its crypto haul
Despite U.S. law enforcement identifying the Lazarus Group as the thieves, the hackers have laundered 17 percent of their $600 million haul
Yesterday at 11:02 a.m. EDT
North Korean hackers who last month carried out one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts ever are still laundering their haul more than a week after they were identified as the thieves.
The cybercriminals’ continued access to the money, more than $600 million stolen from the Axie Infinity video game, underscores the limits of law enforcement’s ability to stop the flow of illicit cryptocurrency across the globe. The hackers are still moving their loot, most recently about $4.5 million worth of the Ethereum currency on Friday, according to data from cryptocurrency tracking site Etherscan — eight days after the Treasury Department attempted to freeze those assets by sanctioning the digital wallet the group used in its attack.
The gang, which the Treasury Department identified as the Lazarus Group, also known for the 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures, so far has laundered nearly $100 million — about 17 percent — of the stolen crypto, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. They moved their haul beyond the immediate reach of U.S. authorities by converting it into the cryptocurrency Ethereum, which unlike the cryptocurrency they stole cannot be hobbled remotely. Since then, the gang has worked to obscure the crypto’s origins primarily by sending installments of it through a program called Tornado Cash, a service known as a mixer that pools digital assets to hide their owners.
Authorities and major crypto industry players are scrambling to keep up. Treasury sanctioned three more addresses associated with the gang on Friday, as Binance, a large international crypto exchange, announced it had frozen $5.8 million worth of crypto the hackers had transferred onto its platform.
The cat-and-mouse game unfolding between law enforcement and the North Korean hackers is another example of how criminals have learned to target the growing crypto economy’s weak points. They exploit faulty code in decentralized crypto platforms, use tools that help them hide their tracks such as converting assets to privacy-enhancing cryptocurrencies like Monero, and take advantage of spotty law enforcement coordination across international borders.
The North Korean case also trains a spotlight on a crypto industry eager to demonstrate its trustworthiness to regulators, investors and customers, while retaining crypto’s freewheeling ethos. Some of the largest companies in the sector say they welcome government oversight and tout their investments in internal compliance programs.
Yet a review by The Washington Post of crypto accounts sanctioned by the Treasury Department over the last year-and-a-half found four wallets that remained free to transact months after being placed on the administration’s blacklist. The apparent lapses are owed to flawed or incomplete compliance programs by Tether and Centre Consortium, a pair of companies involved in issuing so-called stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency whose value is pegged to an external asset, typically the dollar.
“We’re at a particularly important moment: Everyone is still learning what’s possible and how attacks might occur, and the borderless nature of crypto makes it difficult to enforce standards globally,” said Chris DePow, a compliance official at Elliptic. “These are people acting all over the world. Even if you enforce very well in one jurisdiction, if there are other jurisdictions with weaker enforcement, you're still going to end up with a problem.”
Digital thieves are on track for a record-breaking year. They stole $1.3 billion worth of cryptocurrency in the first three months of the year, after seizing $3.2 billion in 2021, according to blockchain data firm Chainalysis. Hackers pulled off another major heist last Sunday, stealing about $76 million worth of digital assets from a crypto project called Beanstalk, according to Etherscan data.
As cybercriminals’ successes mount, so does the urgency for U.S. authorities, who have come to view the attacks as threats to national security. The Lazarus Group, for one, is an important funding source for North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to United Nations investigators. And Russian hackers last spring temporarily hobbled the operations of a critical American fuel pipeline and the world’s largest meat supplier, relenting only after collecting multimillion-dollar ransoms in cryptocurrency. (Much of the Colonial Pipeline ransom was later recovered.)
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has sharpened policymakers’ focus on the issue. Some lawmakers have worried that Russian government and oligarchs could use crypto to evade the international sanctions choking off their access to traditional financial channels.
So far, they haven’t. “It’s hard to imagine that occurring using crypto,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Thursday. But the department is also signaling it is not taking chances. It leveled sanctions against Russian crypto mining firm Bitriver and 10 of its subsidiaries on Wednesday, explaining in a statement the Biden administration “is committed to ensuring that no asset, no matter how complex, becomes a mechanism for the Putin regime to offset the impact of sanctions.”
U.S. authorities are also continuing to target Russian cybercriminals and the crypto platforms they rely on to enable their attacks. Earlier this month, U.S. law enforcement announced the shutdown of Russia-based Hydra Market, a dark net marketplace allegedly selling hacked personal info, drugs and hacking services.
As part of the crackdown, Treasury also sanctioned Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange that the department said had processed more than $100 million in illegal transactions, including $2.6 million associated with Hydra. Treasury said the move built on sanctions it enacted last year against two other Russian crypto exchanges, Suex and Chatex, which all operated out of the same office tower in Moscow’s financial district.
The designations mean any crypto company interacting with the U.S. financial system should block transactions with the sanctioned entities, Elliptic’s DePow said. Yet The Post’s review found that neither Tether nor Centre Consortium have blocked all transactions involving sanctioned addresses.
Tether continues to allow transactions with crypto accounts that allegedly belong to Chatex, over half of whose business was tied to illicit or high-risk activities including ransomware attacks, according to Treasury. One Tether address received and then sent about $15,000 as recently as April 19, according to a Post review of blockchain data from Etherscan. Another received, then sent, nearly $42,000 in the past six months.
In a statement, Tether said that it “conducts constant market monitoring to ensure that there are no irregular movements or measures that might be in contravention of applicable international sanctions.” Chatex didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Not all transactions involving sanctioned addresses are nefarious: Sometimes mainstream exchanges consolidate funds held in sanctioned accounts that no longer benefit the accused hackers who formerly owned them. And sometimes Treasury approves individual transactions with sanctioned accounts
Separately, Centre Consortium — a joint venture between U.S. crypto companies Coinbase and Circle that issues USD Coin, the second-largest stablecoin — failed to freeze three wallets belonging to Russian hackers until months after Treasury sanctioned them. Two of the accounts, blacklisted in September 2020, belong to Artem Lifshits and Anton Andreyev, employees of the Russian hacking group that spearheaded the country’s interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A third was associated with Yevgeniy Polyanin, whom Treasury sanctioned in November for conducting ransomware attacks as part of the REvil cybercriminal gang.
Centre did not freeze those wallets until March 29, when a spokesman said the company conducted a review of sanctioned accounts and discovered it “just hadn’t caught those addresses.” The wallets didn’t transact during that time.
“We’re constantly reviewing what we’re doing to ensure we’re state of the art in our compliance,” the Centre spokesperson said. “Through that review we identified three addresses that had been missed, and we acted immediately.”
Treasury requires U.S. companies to freeze sanctioned accounts as soon as it blacklists them and report they have done so within 10 days, said John Smith, a former director of the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a partner at Morrison & Foerster. The department can apply stiff penalties to violators even if they didn’t know they were out of compliance, he said, though it tends to focus on more egregious cases.
“They go after entities or individuals they think intentionally or recklessly violated sanctions,” Smith said.
A Treasury spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Neither did Tornado, when approached through a founder. That mixer is how whoever stole $75 million from the Beanstalk project also laundered their proceeds. That has upset investor A.J. Pikul, who says he lost about $150,000 in the hack. “I’m not super happy about the ability to launder funds through crypto at all, to be honest,” he told The Post by email.
“I feel like we’re in a digital arms race between the good guys and the bad guys,” he said.
11. Surviving the ‘time machine’: Helping North Korean defectors to the South
In addition to the deep and thorough planning the Ministry of Unification should be conducting, the MOU should also establish a Korean Defector Information Institute and provide strong support to escapees/defectors. Escapees are one of the most important resources for unification. Among them are key communicators who can explain and provide legitimacy to the unification process. They can serve as a bridge between north and South and serve in key leadership and advisory positions. They should be effectively employed for preparing for eventual unification.
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Establish a Korea Defector Information Institute (KDII): There is no single organization in the United States or South Korea that harnesses the information of defectors to support IIA. If both nations worked together to establish a KDII, it could serve as a repository for defector information to inform policymakers, strategists, and those responsible for developing IIA themes and messages. This institute should utilize defector knowledge and advice in devising appropriate messages and communications techniques. It could also encourage North Koreans to defect, particularly members of Office 39 (also known as Department 39), who are knowledgeable of the Kim family regime’s finances. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2019/12/3/maximum-pressure-2/#:~:text=Establish%20a%20Korea,family%20regime%E2%80%99s%20finances.
Surviving the ‘time machine’: Helping North Korean defectors to the South
Yesterday at 4:00 a.m. EDT
SEOUL — There’s a saying in South Korea that “you only see what you know,” which has particular resonance for defectors from North Korea who have moved from one of the most isolated countries on earth to one of the most connected and feel like they “know” very little.
In a country where everything is online and usually accessed via a smartphone — both of which are inaccessible in much of the North — these newcomers can feel like they’ve traveled forward in time. Although they speak the same language and look the same as those living in the South, life here can feel so utterly foreign.
“My defector friends describe it as feeling like they took a time machine, from the 1900s to the 21st century,” said Daehyeon Park, who himself defected to the South, but only after spending several years in Britain, giving him the computer skills — and the English — needed to navigate the globalized city of Seoul.
Recognizing the difficulty and alienation his fellow defectors face, Park sat down with several at a coffee shop and compared notes on what they knew when they first arrived. They found that although there were about 40 organizations helping defectors, each had its own website, and there was no central place to go to learn about them.
That coffee meeting grew into Woorion, a deeply connected and influential network of defectors that Park now leads, serving a third of South Korea’s defector community. Woorion is a one-stop information hub, connecting North Koreans with the resources and community they need to successfully integrate their new lives in the South.
Woorion is a household name among defector circles, but for years, it kept a low profile so that it could focus on its community. Now, Park has big dreams for the future of his organization and wants to showcase to the international community what his generation of defectors is capable of.
“I want to explore my community’s voice. I want to do something good for our community and the future with more people,” said Park, 31. “It’s now time to build a community overseas.”
The first few years after a defector’s arrival is when they are most vulnerable and can fall through the cracks — an issue underscored by a rare re-defection of a North Korean who struggled to adjust in Seoul and decided to return to the North.
The only official support for defectors is a three-month orientation course run by the South Korean government, which provides just a glimpse into what it takes to survive and thrive in the cutthroat capitalistic society of South Korea, which has high youth unemployment and soaring housing prices.
As of last fall, there were at least 33,815 North Korean defectors living in the South, according to the Unification Ministry’s official figures. The majority are women, and more than half of those who defect are in their 20s and 30s — in need of education and careers, and in search of stability, like marriage and a family. They usually escape alone.
Adulting is hard as it is, and it’s even more so as a refugee fleeing a poor and socialist country under a totalitarian regime to South Korea, the 10th biggest economy in the world. Many are already distrustful of people and institutions, and often struggle with trauma, which can create additional barriers to assimilation.
They are vulnerable to financial fraud schemes, often from multilevel marketing and “get rich quick” investment deals targeting the newly arrived defectors. They also face fake brokers who promise to help them send money back to their families in the North but instead just bilk them.
Park’s organization, which works out of an unassuming office space in Seoul, is run by a team of seven millennials and Gen Zers who especially want to help the younger generation who make up the largest share of defectors.
“The problem they face is getting information. They never had experience with IT, technology, emails, Internet,” Park said. “The majority of my community is facing this problem, so I decided to solve this problem.”
In the early years of Woorion, Park started a messaging group on KakaoTalk, the main South Korean messaging app, blasting out information that would help other refugees. More than 5,000 signed up within the first year. People started donating clothes and household items to each other. Older North Korean refugees made meals for younger ones who yearned for their mom’s homemade food back home.
“I knew that if we continued this, it would be life-changing for my community,” he said.
In recent years, a younger generation of North Koreans in South Korea has emerged as ambitious and creative entrepreneurs, with many determined to show North Korean defectors as resilient contributors to South Korean society rather than victims.
Park is “a good example of this new generation of North Korean entrepreneurs and how they’re not just receiving, but creating solutions for themselves and their communities and their broader society,” said Sokeel Park, South Korea country director of Liberty in North Korea, which helps North Koreans resettle in the South.
Woorion maintains a robust database, which allows his group to poll members and use data to evolve and curate the information their community needs the most. The organization is looking for international research partners to help bring more attention to the experience of these North Koreans.
The group also has a YouTube channel with life and job tips, including pros and cons of talking about your defector background during job interviews, benefits of going to therapy and avoiding fraud.
“Everybody needs those kinds of networks and connections, and the simple truth is that the vast majority of North Korean refugees leave their whole community, their network, in North Korea, and there’s no way to lean back on that,” said Sokeel Park. “They’re completely dislocated from it, having to start from scratch.”
Inspired by the Forbes “30 Under 30” list, Woorion launched an online magazine for millennial and Gen Z defectors, which shares the experiences of those who have become entrepreneurs and corporate executives.
Woorion’s Park now aspires to more directly address some of the most common obstacles faced by defectors, like creating a credit union so that North Koreans can access loans at affordable rates. With no credit history, defectors struggle to obtain loans to start businesses and often are charged high interest rates.
With post-traumatic stress disorder common among North Korean defectors, Woorion also plans to increase mental health resources.
Park said he wants to see the community step up for each other and fill the gaps that no amount of support from the South Korean government can fill.
“Society is moving fast … and even though they’re learning from [the government upon arrival], it’s impossible to understand fully about this society,” he said. “It’s now up to North Korean communities. We need to have the ownership of our community and understand the importance of our roles for our community.”
12. In North Korea, a soldier’s biggest threat may be the censor
The military in north Korea has a chain of control versus a traditional chain of command. It is all about controlling every aspect of the military.
In North Korea, a soldier’s biggest threat may be the censor
Members of the military can face harsh consequences for inadvertently telling family members ‘secret’ information
By Chang Gyu Ahn
2022.04.22
The North Korean military is harshly punishing soldiers for divulging “sensitive” information —including their location or unit’s size — in letters back home, sources in the military told RFA.
In most of the world’s militaries, especially during wartime, soldiers are typically forbidden from relaying certain facts about their deployment.
But in secretive North Korea, which is still technically at war with South Korea, even honest mistakes can bring consequences that last a lifetime.
One soldier was recently punished when censors found that a letter he wrote revealed where the unit was located and the name of the battleship he served on, a military source from Sinpo, a city in the eastern province of South Hamgyong, told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
“The soldier was arrested and interrogated by the State Security Department for nearly two months and was eventually separated from the service with a dishonorable discharge,” he said.
“If you fail to fulfil your military service time and are punished and discharged this way, that’s the end of any prospect for a good life.”
Every North Korean male serves about seven years in the armed forces, according to South Korean intelligence. All the mail that they write is read and censored. Soldiers are supposed to use military postcards to write to their families or sweethearts to make it easier for censors to identify offending passages.
But postcard supplies are down, so soldiers are sending more letters written on ordinary paper, in makeshift envelopes, according to the source. That affords more opportunities for mistakes.
“Military mail takes more than a month or two for the letters to come and go, and the soldiers are never able to write down everything they want to say on the postcard,” the source said.
If letters containing sensitive information are caught by censors, the person who delivered the letter to the post office can be punished alongside the sender, he said.
“Earlier this month, an East Coast squadron naval unit in the city of Sinpo held an educational session on how not to divulge military secrets in letters,” the military source said.
“The session pointed out how soldiers have been sending letters to civilian addresses with confidential information that the public should not know. The soldiers were warned not to reveal the location of troops, details about combat missions and troop movements. These are acts of treason and in violation of the military oath,” he said.
Another soldier who was caught by censors was sent to work in a coal mine, a resident of the South Hamgyong province told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.
“My friend’s younger brother, who enlisted to the army, was punished and separated from the military with a dishonorable discharge earlier this year. He bragged about his unit’s arms equipment in a letter to a friend at home who couldn’t join the military due to his physical condition, and this was caught in postal censorship,” said the second source.
“My friend’s brother was then deployed as a coal miner in a rural county. If you are discharged from the military for a mistake, you are placed in the most difficult areas of society and will be excluded from all personnel appointments. This includes membership in the Workers' Party, commendations and university recommendations,” she said.
Party membership unlocks certain privileges like better education, housing and food rations — perks no longer available to the former soldier.
“Mining work is difficult and dangerous, so my friend’s parents tried to get their son out of the mine any way they could, but it didn’t work,” the second source said.
“My friend’s parents found out that there was a note in their son’s discharge document, saying ‘He must be assigned as a coal mine worker at the toughest coal mine. He should never be transferred to another company,’” she said.
Though a market economy has begun to emerge in recent years, North Koreans still must report to their government-assigned jobs. Toiling away in the mine provides no opportunity for the former soldier to earn money on the side.
“What I know about my friend’s younger brother is that he was bright and active. Now he is quiet and rarely speaks. He doesn’t meet his friends and he is very lonely. His parents are so sad,” she said.
“It seems excessive to impose a lifetime of punishment on young soldiers for inadvertently bragging about information related to military secrets. The fact that every letter we send and receive is inspected by the state security department is also terrifying,” she said.
Translated by Claire Lee and Leejin Jun. Written in English by Eugene Whong.
13. Beijing quiet as North Korea turns up the heat with missile tests
China is complicit in north Korean malign behavior from human rights atrocities and sanctions evasions to developing military capabilities and threats to the ROK, the region, and the US.
Beijing quiet as North Korea turns up the heat with missile tests
As North Korea test-fired a new tactical guided weapon last week under the supervision of Kim Jong Un, its closest ally Beijing barely seemed to raise an eyebrow despite the high stakes.
Missile tests have taken place with increasing frequency in North Korea in recent months, but this time it was testing a new weapons system aimed at improving its nuclear capability.
North Korean media described the weapon as one of “great significance” that would drastically improve the “firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes”.
The test, coinciding with the 110th anniversary of the birth of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung, also followed a series of launches this year that have raised alarm in South Korea and Japan, as well as in the United States. In March, the North test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time in four years, breaking its self-imposed moratorium by firing off their “largest nuclear-capable missile,” according to NK News.
Satellite imagery has also shown renewed activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, which was officially closed in 2018.
Following the tests, Beijing dispatched a special envoy to Washington this week, said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, DC, but it has also been holding back as it bides its time with the US and South Korea.
Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, notes the contrast with previous incidents when China has stepped in as the middleman between North Korea, South Korea and Seoul’s close ally, the US.
“In the past, China constructively hosted the Six-party Talks and was willing to join UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes. But now Beijing is hardly pressuring Pyongyang on denuclearization or returning to diplomacy,” Easley said.
Historic ties
As two of the few Communist countries left in the world, North Korea and China are each other’s only treaty allies, and Beijing yields enormous influence over the deeply isolated nation. China played an instrumental role in helping North Korea push back US-led forces during the Korean War, and the two sides have maintained close ties ever since.
China is North Korea’s most significant source of trade and economic assistance, and its importance has grown since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. While new sanctions dealt a serious blow to cross-border trade in 2018 before the pandemic, informal trade continued while North Koreans worked in Chinese factories just over the border in Dandong.
In January, cross-border trains resumed service, bringing goods north from China, probably to meet food shortages exacerbated by Pyongyang’s decision to close its borders when COVID-19 first emerged.
Yun, who is also a senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program at the Stimson Center, said the ongoing competition between Beijing and Washington “means China is hoarding strategic leverage, and its relations with North Korea, and potential influence.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (centre R) reviewed an honour guard at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing when he visited China in early 2019 [File: KCNA via AFP}
While always tense, relations between the US and China soured under the presidency of Donald Trump, and they have not markedly improved since President Joe Biden took office last year. Now, she tells Al Jazeera by email, Beijing has “less incentive and willingness” to act.
Isaac Stone Fish, founder and chief executive of the China-focused research firm Strategy Risks, agrees. “I think North Korea is trying to get attention for what it wants, and China would love for other countries to give it to it,” he told Al Jazeera. “It just doesn’t want to have to do it itself.”
The US imposed a new round of sanctions in early April following the ICBM tests, but Stone Fish says North Korea’s leader is hoping for financial support in exchange for halting tests.
Pyongyang has traditionally used tests to extract diplomatic and financial concessions and was often successful.
Sung-Yoon Lee, a Korean Studies professor at Tufts University in the US, told CNBC in 2017 that Pyongyang had extracted close to $20 bn in “cash, food, fuel and medicine” from South Korea, Japan, the US and China in the previous 25 years.
A flurry of summits after North Korea’s 2017 nuclear tests finally broke down when Pyongyang demanded sanctions be lifted completely, suggesting to some experts that their motivation may have in part been financial.
China may have been wearied by some of its neighbour’s manoeuvring, and Beijing’s top leaders have their own domestic challenges, including the worst COVID-19 outbreak since the virus first emerged in Wuhan in late 2019. Forty-five Chinese cities, including its important economic centre of Shanghai, are under partial or full lockdown as authorities continue to pursue a policy of “Covid Zero.”
China’s leadership is also gearing up for the all-important National Party Congress in October, when major policies will be set for the next five years.
“Beijing is focusing on Covid, but also there’s a lot of political jockeying going on among elite politicians in China right now because there are a lot of very important positions up for grabs,” Stone Fish said.
The Punggye-ri test site was closed down in what was seen as a diplomatic breakthrough in 2018, but experts there are signs of renewed activity [File: APTN via AP Photo]
Chief among them is Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is set to secure a third and unprecedented term in office after removing term limits in 2018.
But analysts say while Beijing can remain quiet for now, it may be forced to act if North Korea resumes nuclear testing, which has been suspended since 2017.
More tests expected
Pyongyang oftentimes tests and displays new weapons to coincide with important national holidays, and attention is now focused on April 25, when Pyongyang marks the anniversary of the Korean People’s Army.
North Korea did not hold a military parade during last week’s celebration of Kim Il Sung’s birth as many had expected, despite signs of practices taking place on the parade ground. Experts say the evidence suggests the event may instead take place on the military anniversary.
For now, Beijing continues to walk a fine line – hoping Washington remains distracted by North Korea and the war in Ukraine while the situation on the Korean peninsula does not become so tense that Seoul and Tokyo feel backed into a corner.
Military helicopters at US Army base Camp Humphreys south of Seoul as South Korea and the United States began their major springtime military exercises [Yonhap via EPA]
Incoming South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is expected to take a more hawkish approach towards North Korea than current President Moon Jae-in.
He has already indicated that he wants to expand US-South Korean military drills and also install additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile launchers on South Korean territory.
Japan’s ruling party, meanwhile, has called for the country to raise defence spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product in response to changing dynamics in the Asia Pacific. Together, the two countries host nearly 80,000 US troops at military bases built at the end of World War Two.
Stone Fish says such developments are potentially concerning for China as well as for North Korea because the US could use the opportunity provided by regional concern about the North to try and further contain Beijing’s reach.
This week the US began a nine-day joint military exercise with South Korea, while earlier in the month the US, Japan, and South Korea held joint naval exercises.
“It’s in China’s interest for the US to be distracted,” Stone Fish said. “It’s not in China’s interest to have a regional military build-up in South Korea and Japan that people pretend is just about North Korea, but it’s actually also about countering and constraining China.”
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.
