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Quotes of the Day:
"Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force!
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you...
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking."
– General Eisenhower ,D-Day Order, June 6, 1944
“Our sons, pride of our nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.”
— President Franklin D. Roosevelt
"These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."
– President Ronald Reagan
1. USFK commander honors Korean War veterans on Memorial Day
2. Activists send leaflets to N. Korea urging return of abductees
3. The American left’s misguided crush on Lee Jae-myung
4. South Korean conservatives looking for rebirth after election loss
5. Victor Cha warns of full USFK pullout over policy clash
6. U.S. says N.K. military deployment, Russia's support in return 'must end'
7. South Koreans Have a New President, and Mixed Emotions
8. Israeli official warns North Korea-Syria arms cooperation would cross red line
9. Civic group sends leaflets to North Korea ahead of ROK presidential election
10. Talking With Trump Is One of the New South Korean President’s First Priorities
11. S Korea needs careful China policy
12. Democracy Wins a Referendum in South Korea
13. New president, new pressures put South Korea-U.S. alliance at crossroads
14. On Memorial Day, Lee pledges 'extraordinary rewards for extraordinary sacrifices'
15. Internal Document Leaks Give Kim Regime Headaches... Digitization as Countermeasure (2) Propaganda Website 'Napalsu' Replaces Print Materials... "People Carrying Publications Have Disappeared"
16. After escaping North Korea, a defector fights for a new life inside the ring
17. North Korea will move damaged warship to other shipyard for repairs: State media
1. USFK commander honors Korean War veterans on Memorial Day
While in the US we remember D-Day today, in Korea it is their Memorial Day and it is good that General Brunson honors it.
Unfortunately according to new reports President Lee did not mention the Korean War in his Memorial Day remarks.
USFK commander honors Korean War veterans on Memorial Day | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · June 6, 2025
By Lee Minji
SEOUL, June 6 (Yonhap) -- U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson paid tribute to veterans of the 1950-53 Korean War on Friday as South Korea marked Memorial Day.
Brunson made the remark as he attended a Memorial Day ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery.
"On this solemn occasion when we celebrate not only Republic of Korea Memorial Day, we're also reminded of the 75th anniversary of the U.N. Command and all the nations brought to bear that Koreans might live with freedom and prosperity," Brunson, who also serves as the UNC commander, said in a video message.
"I'm thankful for all the veterans of the Korean War," he said. "I'm also thankful for all the U.N. member states and the sending states for all that they gave in blood and treasure that we might all live free."
The UNC was established under a 1950 U.N. mandate to support South Korea against North Korean aggression during the three-year Korean War, which technically has never ended as a peace treaty was not signed.
A total of 22 countries, including the United States, Britain and Australia, sent troops or medical support to the South during and right after the war.
U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Xavier Brunson speaks in a video message marking South Korea's Memorial Day on June 6, 2025, in this footage provided by his office. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
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en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · June 6, 2025
2. Activists send leaflets to N. Korea urging return of abductees
I hope that President Lee does not try to stop information going to the north. In his inaugural address he did stress freedom and this action is an act of freedom of expression.
Excerpt:
The leaflet campaign has often drawn backlash from border residents and government officials who fear it could provoke retaliation from North Korea, jeopardizing border safety.
Activists send leaflets to N. Korea urging return of abductees | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · June 6, 2025
PAJU, South Korea, June 6 (Yonhap) -- Families of those abducted by North Korea said Friday they sent leaflets to the North this week, calling for the repatriation of their loved ones, in the third such campaign this year.
The families floated four giant latex balloons carrying leaflets from an unspecified location in the border town of Paju, about 30 kilometers northwest of Seoul, at around 9 p.m. Monday, a group representing the families said.
The leaflets contained information on the seven people abducted by the North and urged the regime to confirm the whereabouts of the victims, including Megumi Yokota from Japan and five Koreans abducted as high school students in the 1970s.
It marked the group's third balloon launch this year, following those conducted in Paju in April and the northern county of Cheorwon in May.
The leaflet campaign has often drawn backlash from border residents and government officials who fear it could provoke retaliation from North Korea, jeopardizing border safety.
Against such a backdrop, the group has held the balloon launches away from the public eye.
Still, the group's leader said he will continue to send the leaflet-carrying balloons until the whereabouts of the abductees are verified.
Members of a group representing families of those abducted by North Korea release giant balloons carrying leaflets from the border town of Paju on June 2, 2025, in this photo provided by the group. (PHOTO NOT FOR SALE) (Yonhap)
mlee@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Lee Minji · June 6, 2025
3. The American left’s misguided crush on Lee Jae-myung
Some analysis that I think only Professor Robertson can provide.
Left/liberal - right/conservative are not synonymous in the ROK and the US. It is important for us to understand that. We must not mirror image with the South (or anyone for that matter).
Excerpts:
The important point here is that Americans—on both left and right—persist in applying their own simplistic ideological categories to Korean politics without understanding the local context. The terms “left” and “right” in Korea simply don’t map cleanly onto American counterparts.
In Korea, the “left” has historically been associated with nationalism, chaebol skepticism, and engagement with North Korea. But it has not always meant progressive policies on gender, religion, LGBTQ rights, or press freedom. Likewise, the Korean “right” has often emphasized security, economic growth, and pro-U.S. diplomacy—but that has not automatically translated to small government, free speech, or libertarian economics.
Consider this: under both progressive and conservative administrations, Korea has struggled with press censorship, internet surveillance, and vague security laws that chill academic and journalistic freedoms. Neither side has been a reliable defender of free speech. The same goes for diversity and equality—progressive governments have been no faster at enacting anti-discrimination laws than their conservative counterparts.
Gender equality, especially, remains a political third rail across the spectrum. American observers who assume the Korean left will naturally advance these values misunderstand both the electorate and the institutional pressures Korean politicians face.
Worse still, the human rights halo that American progressives place on figures like Lee Jae-myung blinds them to authoritarian tendencies, precisely because those tendencies come cloaked in populist leftist rhetoric. It’s the same trap some American liberals fell into with leaders like Hugo Chávez or Rafael Correa—figures who claimed to speak for the poor and downtrodden, while centralizing power, undermining checks and balances, and limiting press freedom.
...
What’s needed now is clarity, not romanticism. Korea’s political spectrum is uniquely its own. Its democracy is vigorous but not always liberal. Its populists come from both sides of the aisle. And its leaders—Lee included—must be understood not as avatars of American ideological struggles, but as products of a complex, contested, and evolving Korean political tradition.
...
In the end, America’s misreadings—whether from the right or the left—do not merely cloud analysis, they shape policy, commentary, and public understanding. Unless the commentariat get it right, the Korea-U.S. alliance itself, will ultimately be largely f%^ked. In precise analytical verbiage, long-term largely f%^ked. Yes. This is a rant.
Commentary
The American left’s misguided crush on Lee Jae-myung
Like watching porn in tracksuit pants, America’s left-leaning commentators can’t hide their fondness for Lee Jae-myung.
https://www.junotane.com/p/the-american-lefts-misguided-crush-on-lee-jae-myung?utm
Jun 05, 2025
It was inevitable. Like watching porn in tracksuit pants, America’s left-leaning commentators can’t hide their fondness for Lee Jae-myung. A plucky human rights lawyer who survived child labor in a factory; a human rights lawyer; and someone who stared down authoritarianism at the barricades. It’s classic Western leftist fetishism—a script-ready narrative for a Michael Moore documentary. Unfortunately, this sentimental packaging misunderstands both Lee and Korea.
Wait. Remember just a few years ago? America’s right-leaning commentators couldn’t hide their fondness for Yoon Suk-yeol. To them, he was a brave, hawkish prosecutor who would strengthen rule-of-law, strengthen the alliance, and stand up for democracy (hehehehe). And so enamored were they that it took considerable time for them to mention, let alone condemn, Yoon’s attempt to seize power in South Korea’s authoritarian two-step December debacle! The sentimental packaging led Americans to misunderstand both Yoon and Korea (read about how American right-wing influencers have already labelled South Korea's new president Lee Jae-myung as a “communist”).
America’s right misunderstood Seoul then, just as America’s left misunderstands Seoul now. Here lies the reason why the Korea-U.S. alliance is increasingly in trouble—the commentariat is largely f%^ked.
It’s a shame because I respect the voices of some of these analysts on many issues, but on Korea many miss the mark. The lenses used by the most vocal commentators impose American assumptions on a political landscape that operates on fundamentally different premises. The result is a dangerous misreading of Korean democracy and a poor foundation for understanding how U.S.–Korea relations will unfold, especially under the unpredictable watch of a second Trump administration.
Let’s begin with romantic myth-making. In the American progressive imagination, Lee Jae-myung becomes a kind of Korean Bernie Sanders—anti-elitist, working-class, unpolished, anti-chaebol. They point to his early factory accident and humble roots as proof of ideological purity. His clashes with the elite within his own party are framed as moral crusades against corruption. But this Hollywood tale skips over key aspects.
Every second South Korean of Lee’s age can claim humble roots—I mean the country wasn’t exactly rich when he was born, just ten years after the end of a war that flattened the country and left it bereft of industry. But for a moment, let’s accept the “humble beginnings” schtick.
Like anyone who grew up poor, he knew that you need a never-say-die terrier fighting spirit to make it in Korea. This he has demonstrated. Recall those “moral crusades against corruption”? Most of them were targeted at other leftists as he sought to secure and maintain control of his own party. All politicians do it, especially the successful ones. But it’s not romantically “democratic” in the classical Western sense (although it is rather democratic in the Trumpian sense).
Lee has demonstrated an aggressive use of defamation laws, loose application of electoral laws, combative rhetoric, and a willingness to use the administrative and prosecutorial tools of the state to silence critics. These are not the actions of a liberal democrat in the classical Western sense—they are the moves of a typecast modern populist Korean politician.
To be clear: populism in Korea is not uniquely tied to either the left or the right. Both sides have used it with gusto. But Lee's style—a mix of personalistic politics, aggressive polarization, and selective legal warfare—deserves scrutiny, not hagiography. When American progressives fail to interrogate these tactics because they align with a broader anti-conservative narrative, they play into the same ideological blindness they rightly criticize in their domestic political opponents.
And Lee’s victory? Now there’ll be many haters when I say this, but it was not because he was particularly competent or overwhelmingly popular, despite the polls (read about polls here). His candidancy was controversial and plagued with legal issues. His electoral success was more about being the only person not poisonously tainted by the most pathetic attempt to usurp democracy since the selfies, bullhorn costumes, and livestreamed crimes of the feckless 2021 Capitol Riot. Regardless, he now has a mandate, but does he deserve such sentimental progressive packaging?
A quick note. I consider myself neither left nor right. I’m pretty much an anti-social recluse whose dissatisfaction is spread across the political spectrum. Totally DEI in my dislike. So, don’t get too perturbed if I criticize your side of politics. Just take my rumblings as the analytical takes of a grumpy professor and wannabe novelist whose Cassandra-like takes have been demonstrated to be on the pulse of happenings in Seoul.
Critically, the sentimentalized version of Lee held by the left in America risks obscuring what is at stake in U.S.–Korea relations under a second Trump term. Trump has little patience for moral narratives or human rights-based foreign policy. He operates on spectacle, loyalty, and deal-making.
And Lee Jae-myung, far from being a progressive bulwark against Trump-style populism, mirrors many of the same tendencies: a fondness for direct communication that bypasses institutions, a personalist approach to leadership, and a willingness to weaponize state tools for political ends.
In other words, Trump and Lee might not clash as the American left imagines—they might find in each other an oddly familiar rhythm. Trump is, after all, the most “Korean” politician I’ve seen in American politics!
As will be covered in a future piece, Trump and Lee’s relationship will follow a very similar pattern to that of previous South Korean presidents with their U.S. counterparts. Look at Roh Moo-Hyun and George W. Bush. Roh was not a fan. Bush heard bad things, didn’t have the patience, and made huge demands (participation in the Iraq conflict). Ultimately, Roh conceded. That’s what you do when you’re a junior partner and are unwilling to see the relationship deteriorate further.
The important point here is that Americans—on both left and right—persist in applying their own simplistic ideological categories to Korean politics without understanding the local context. The terms “left” and “right” in Korea simply don’t map cleanly onto American counterparts.
In Korea, the “left” has historically been associated with nationalism, chaebol skepticism, and engagement with North Korea. But it has not always meant progressive policies on gender, religion, LGBTQ rights, or press freedom. Likewise, the Korean “right” has often emphasized security, economic growth, and pro-U.S. diplomacy—but that has not automatically translated to small government, free speech, or libertarian economics.
Consider this: under both progressive and conservative administrations, Korea has struggled with press censorship, internet surveillance, and vague security laws that chill academic and journalistic freedoms. Neither side has been a reliable defender of free speech. The same goes for diversity and equality—progressive governments have been no faster at enacting anti-discrimination laws than their conservative counterparts.
Gender equality, especially, remains a political third rail across the spectrum. American observers who assume the Korean left will naturally advance these values misunderstand both the electorate and the institutional pressures Korean politicians face.
Worse still, the human rights halo that American progressives place on figures like Lee Jae-myung blinds them to authoritarian tendencies, precisely because those tendencies come cloaked in populist leftist rhetoric. It’s the same trap some American liberals fell into with leaders like Hugo Chávez or Rafael Correa—figures who claimed to speak for the poor and downtrodden, while centralizing power, undermining checks and balances, and limiting press freedom.
Lee is certainly no dictator, but his record deserves more critical attention than a tear-streaked backstory and a heralding cry as the defender of democracy at the barricades.
Lee will secure many reforms that Korea needs. However, each reform will be merely be small steps in a long process of social and economic progress.
The American commentariat’s lack of analytical insight matters because the U.S.–Korea relationship is approaching a period of stress and recalibration. Trump is a precipitant to changes long underway. If American commentators inflate Lee Jae-myung into a moral counterweight to Trump, they are likely to be shocked.
What’s needed now is clarity, not romanticism. Korea’s political spectrum is uniquely its own. Its democracy is vigorous but not always liberal. Its populists come from both sides of the aisle. And its leaders—Lee included—must be understood not as avatars of American ideological struggles, but as products of a complex, contested, and evolving Korean political tradition.
Why do so many American commentators get it wrong? It all comes down to distance. They rely on South Korean surveys and polls (often filled in by interns in the backrooms of Seoul thinktank and juniors government offices, but that’s another story) and U.S. government talking points. They undertake five day trips for whirlwind conferences and interact with cosmopolitan “great friends” who know exactly what Americans want to hear. From the moment they land to the moment they get their hunchbacks back to their D.C. office, their interaction with regular Koreans is minimal. They impose their own ideological and political lens on Korea. It’s commentary from a distance.
In the end, America’s misreadings—whether from the right or the left—do not merely cloud analysis, they shape policy, commentary, and public understanding. Unless the commentariat get it right, the Korea-U.S. alliance itself, will ultimately be largely f%^ked. In precise analytical verbiage, long-term largely f%^ked. Yes. This is a rant.
Recommend Junotane Korea to your readers
4.South Korean conservatives looking for rebirth after election loss
Excerpts:
"They failed to draw in moderate voters," said political commentator Park Sangbyoung. "Instead, Yoon Suk Yeol sided with far-right ideas, and Kim Moon-soo, who has a history of working with far-right groups, was their candidate."
Park said the "complete downfall" of the conservatives could damage Korean politics.
"To be a true opposing force against the Lee administration, they need to be reborn, even resorting to blowing up the party and creating a new one," Park said.
South Korea's conservatives have staged unlikely comebacks before. Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be removed from office, after Park Geun-hye was impeached and jailed in a corruption scandal in 2017.
Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University, said "until they clear the mess inside" it will be difficult for the right to stand up to Lee.
South Korean conservatives looking for rebirth after election loss
06 Jun 2025 11:05AM
channelnewsasia.com
SEOUL: South Korea's right is looking to remake itself after a massive defeat in this week's snap presidential election that left it with little power to challenge the ruling Democratic Party.
New leader Lee Jae-myung and his party now control parliament and the presidency with Tuesday (Jun 3)'s polls exposing the smouldering resentment in South Korea over former President Yoon Suk Yeol's botched martial law declaration in December.
The attempt at military rule led to Yoon's removal from office and the eventual defeat of the conservative People Power Party, which was unable to overcome divisions within the right and unify around a single candidate.
The defeat has left conservative leaders pointing fingers and trading blame as the party searches for a new direction. On Thursday, the PPP's floor leader, lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong, stepped down and called for the party to wipe the slate clean and rebuild the conservative movement.
"This defeat in the presidential election is not simply a judgment on martial law and the impeachment of the president," he said. "It is a painful reprimand to the divisions of the ruling People Power Party."
The party's presidential candidate Kim Moon-soo was unable to convince Lee Jun-seok, the nominee from the minor conservative Reform Party, to drop out, likely splitting at least some of the vote.
Former labour minister Kim won 41.15 per cent of the vote and Lee Jun-Seok won 8.34 per cent, to winner Lee Jae-myung's 49.42 per cent.
A controversial figure for championing anti-feminist concerns and wielding support among young men, Lee Jun-seok was briefly the leader of the PPP, and had helped Yoon narrowly win the 2022 presidential election.
He later clashed with Yoon and was ousted from the PPP.
Lee told reporters on Tuesday that the PPP should have focused on reform rather than unifying candidates.
"That's the challenge given to pan-conservatives," he said.
Kim blamed infighting during the primary process that led to him filing legal challenges against the PPP after then-acting President Han Duck-soo resigned to contest the elections despite the party selecting Kim as its candidate.
The two men spent a week clashing over efforts to form a unity ticket.
"We picked our candidate in a way that even a small child thinks doesn't make sense ... I think we need deep soul-searching and reform," Kim said on Wednesday as he kneeled in apology to party members and the public.
"TEAR DOWN OUR HOUSE"
Others pointed to the PPP's failure to fully separate itself from Yoon's unpopular and unconstitutional martial law.
"They failed to draw in moderate voters," said political commentator Park Sangbyoung. "Instead, Yoon Suk Yeol sided with far-right ideas, and Kim Moon-soo, who has a history of working with far-right groups, was their candidate."
Park said the "complete downfall" of the conservatives could damage Korean politics.
"To be a true opposing force against the Lee administration, they need to be reborn, even resorting to blowing up the party and creating a new one," Park said.
South Korea's conservatives have staged unlikely comebacks before. Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be removed from office, after Park Geun-hye was impeached and jailed in a corruption scandal in 2017.
Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University, said "until they clear the mess inside" it will be difficult for the right to stand up to Lee.
"Rather than crisis of conservatives, I would call it the falling of People Power Party because of its leadership that runs the party based on self-interests, not fundamental values," he said.
In the wake of Yoon's impeachment, then-PPP leader Han Dong-hoon promised that the president would resign and the party would help lead an interim government.
When Yoon and his backers rejected that plan and fought his removal, it divided the party and led to Han's resignation.
On Wednesday Han, who unsuccessfully ran for the PPP nomination, said the party needs to cooperate with the new liberal administration on economy and security but it must not compromise on challenging any effort by the ruling party to "destroy the judiciary system".
The PPP has accused the Democratic Party of trying to pass bills that they say are meant to shield President Lee, who faces a slew of corruption charges, from any further legal troubles.
"Please do not give up," Han said. "It is the last chance to end the same old politics and to establish politics that put the people first."
Lawmaker Park Jeong-hoon said in a Facebook post that the party must change if it wants to survive.
"We must tear down our house and rebuild it. This is not a matter of factions but a matter of the party's survival."
Source: Reuters/dy
Newsletter
5. Victor Cha warns of full USFK pullout over policy clash
Victor Cha warns of full USFK pullout over policy clash
https://www.donga.com/en/article/all/20250604/5641099/1
Posted June. 04, 2025 07:40,
Updated June. 04, 2025 07:40
A warning emerged that the Trump administration may withdraw its entire U.S. Forces stationed in South Korea (USFK) if the incoming South Korean government refuses to embrace USFK's "strategic flexibility."
Victor Cha, Korean Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), stated on June 2 in his written Q&A-style commentary posted on the CSIS website that South Korea's new government must make a critical decision whether to accept the "strategic flexibility," which entails repositioning the role of the USFK. Cha added that if South Korea rejects the concept, President Trump may consider it a free rider and take retaliatory measures, which may lead to the complete withdrawal of the USFK.
Regarding the background of the Trump administration’s consideration of USFK reductions, Cha said that "this measure derives from a stated objective of the Trump administration to reposition and augment its forces in the Indo-Pacific to focus on prevailing in a conflict with China over Taiwan and within the First Island Chain (which spans from Japan’s Okinawa through to Taiwan and the Philippines)." He further explained that the move also reflects the principle of the Trump administration, which is that American allies should assume more responsibility for their national defense. It indicates that the Trump administration believes that South Korea is capable of managing its own defense.
The Pentagon denied the possibility of reducing USFK, as recently reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ); however, Cha noted that such discussions are likely taking place among U.S. authorities. Stating that if the withdrawal plan currently under discussion may be executed, he argued the number of U.S. troops in Korea would fall below 20,000, marking the lowest level since the Korean War, adding that the 4,500 troops mentioned in the WSF report "approximate the size of the Stryker Brigade Combat Team." The Stryker Brigade Combat Team, mainly specializing in lightweight wheeled armored vehicles, has been rotationally deployed since 2022 and typically consists of around 5,000 personnel.
Cha predicted that whether to embrace the USFK’s strategic flexibility may trigger sensitive political repercussions. He assessed that South Korea's acceptance of strategic flexibility could send a positive signal to the U.S. but convey an opposite message to China that it would stand with the U.S. in the event of a Taiwan-related contingency. He further noted that at this critical juncture, when such a strategic decision must be made, the South Korean government is simultaneously facing economic pressures from the Trump administration, including reciprocal tariffs as well as tariffs on cars and steel.
Jin-Woo Shin niceshin@donga.com
6. U.S. says N.K. military deployment, Russia's support in return 'must end'
U.S. says N.K. military deployment, Russia's support in return 'must end' | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr
Song Sang-ho
All News 04:33 June 06, 2025
By Song Sang-ho
WASHINGTON, June 5 (Yonhap) -- A State Department spokesperson reiterated Thursday that North Korea's troop deployment to Russia and Moscow's support to the North in return "must end."
Tommy Pigott, the department's principal deputy spokesperson, made the remarks, after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un vowed to "unconditionally" support Russia over the war against Ukraine during a meeting with Russia's Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu in Pyongyang earlier this week.
"We continue to be concerned about North Korea's direct involvement in the war," he told a press briefing.
"North Korea's military deployment to Russia and any support provided by the Russian Federation to the DPRK in return must end," he added. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
He also stressed that third countries, like North Korea, "bear responsibility" for their role in the war against Ukraine.
During the meeting with Shoigu, Kim said that Pyongyang will "unconditionally support the stand of Russia and its foreign policies in all the crucial international political issues, including the Ukrainian issue," according to the Korean Central News Agency.
Kim also said his country will "responsibly" observe the articles of the comprehensive strategic partnership treaty signed in June last year.
The State Department in Washington (Yonhap)
sshluck@yna.co.kr
(END)
Keywords
#N Korea
en.yna.co.kr
7. South Koreans Have a New President, and Mixed Emotions
South Koreans Have a New President, and Mixed Emotions
After six months of turmoil, citizens hope for better times. But political polarization and international tensions over trade mean many worries remain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/world/asia/south-korea-president-reaction.html?searchResultPosition=8
Lee Jae-myung, South Korea’s new president, appearing at a post-election rally with his wife, Kim Hye-kyeong, in Seoul on Wednesday.Credit...Jun Michael Park for The New York Times
By Jin Yu Young
Reporting from Seoul
June 6, 2025,
12:01 a.m. ET
After half a year of political upheaval, many South Koreans heaved a sigh of relief as a new president was sworn in this week, promising to unify a divided nation and bolster a sagging economy.
But for many, hope was also mixed with anxiety about scale of challenges facing their new leader, even among some who voted for him.
Lee Jae-myung, the more progressive candidate, won a five-year term in the snap election to succeed his longtime rival, Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached and ousted for declaring martial law in December, setting off a political crisis.
“It feels like we’re starting to get our country back,” said Lee Hye-ye, a 34-year-old office worker in the beauty industry in Seoul. Ms. Lee said she had faith that if the new president was “strong enough to get rid of Yoon, he’s strong enough to put the nation back on track.”
Her main concern when voting was the growing divide in the nation. Throughout his campaign, Mr. Lee spoke of the need to heal this division. He struck the same note on Wednesday, as supporters watching his speech on a large screen outside the Parliament building waved the South Korean flag and cheered. The mood was a contrast to six months earlier, when protesters galvanized by Mr. Lee gathered there to angrily demand Mr. Yoon’s removal.
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“It is time to build a bridge of coexistence, reconciliation and solidarity,” Mr. Lee said. “The future beckons us.”
But Mr. Lee has also vowed to punish Mr. Yoon and his allies who attempted to take South Korea back decades to military rule. That effort may test his resolve to bring unity to the nation, where more than 40 percent voted this week for the party that Mr. Yoon used to belong to.
Mr. Lee’s “aggressive and vindictive behavior” toward his critics is “dangerous,” said Andrew Kim, 29, a management consultant living in Seoul who voted for Mr. Lee’s main election opponent, Kim Moon-soo. Mr. Kim said he also worried that Mr. Lee’s agenda was leftist and friendlier to China and North Korea, risking its alliance with the United States, South Korea’s only ally.
“Lee Jae-myung doesn’t have the ability to make any real change. I hope he just keeps the status quo until his term is over,” Mr. Kim said.
Some fear that Mr. Lee wields too much power. His Democratic Party has a majority of almost two-thirds in Parliament, making him one of the strongest presidents in recent history, able to pass legislation without effective opposition.
Many voters cast their ballots on more day-to-day concerns, like who they thought would best manage the nation’s economy, which shrank 0.2 percent in the first quarter. The currency and stock market plummeted after martial law and the announcement of Washington’s tariffs on the steel and auto industries, two key sectors in South Korea’s economy.
Park Hee-jun, a 42-year-old electronics manufacturing worker in Seoul, said he had tired of working long hours with little recognition and few legal safeguards. Mr. Park said legal loopholes have led to his chronic overworking, sometimes in excess of 80 hours a week.
Mr. Lee “used to be one of us. He knows what we need,” he said. Before his decades-long career as a politician, Mr. Lee toiled as a factory worker.
Turnout for the election was almost 80 percent, the highest since 1997, according to the National Election Commission, reflecting the high stakes.
Lee June-seong, a 25-year-old university student in Seoul, said he was excited that Mr. Lee won, because he expects the new president to be more attentive to the needs of the people. But he had concerns about South Korea on the international stage, such as the new government’s ability to successfully continue the tariff negotiations with the United States that began before Mr. Lee took office.
The student said he and many of his peers were worried about the limited openings for entry-level jobs and the dim prospects of ever becoming a homeowner. But he felt encouraged by the prospect of South Korea’s return to a more stable political environment.
“I hope the government can help recover our country into a society that is led by democracy,” he said.
Jin Yu Young reports on South Korea, the Asia Pacific region and global breaking news from Seoul.
8. Israeli official warns North Korea-Syria arms cooperation would cross red line
I wonder if our diplomats and negotiators who are dealing with Syria and the current situation are aware of north Korean activities with Syria and throughout the Middle East. (think the nuclear facility destroyed by Israel in 2007)
Israeli official warns North Korea-Syria arms cooperation would cross red line
Senior diplomat says Israel is ready to act if new Syrian government seeks to revive weapons ties with Pyongyang
https://www.nknews.org/2025/06/israeli-official-warns-north-korea-syria-arms-cooperation-would-cross-red-line/
Chad O'Carroll June 4, 2025
Aviv Ezra, deputy director general for Asia and the Pacific at Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue on May 31, 2025 | Image: NK News
Israel will not tolerate the transfer of non-conventional weapons capabilities from North Korea to Syria’s new government, a senior Israeli official told NK News, while noting there is currently no indication such cooperation is underway.
“We will do whatever needs to be done, kinetically and non-kinetically … to make sure that [North Korea] is not continuously playing a role in that,” Aviv Ezra, deputy director general for Asia and the Pacific at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview at the Shangri-La Dialogue security summit.
Though Ezra affirmed that Israel currently has no understanding that Syria’s new leadership under Ahmed al-Sharaa is moving in this direction, he made clear that any attempt to revive Bashar Assad-era cooperation with Pyongyang on nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would cross a red line for Israel.
Syria and DPRK previously engaged in intimate non-conventional weapons development cooperation under Assad, who was driven from power in December.
“If Syria will conduct an additional relationship that will allow them to acquire capabilities … outside of the scope of the accepted, we will need to respond,” Ezra said, referring to potential future WMD cooperation between Damascus and Pyongyang.
However, he said that the mere existence of diplomatic ties between the two countries is not a showstopper for Israel, aside from its impact on public diplomacy.
The warning comes as Syria’s transitional government, formed in March following the ouster of Assad, seeks to establish its legitimacy both domestically and internationally. The new 23-member cabinet includes figures from Syria’s minority communities and some technocrats who served under Assad before the civil war began.
Though DPRK Embassy personnel fled to Russia once the regime fell, Syria’s new government maintains multiple diplomatic personnel in Pyongyang, multiple informed sources have told NK News, indicating that the relationship has not officially ended.
North Korea had been a key supplier of weapons technology to the Assad regime for decades. Pyongyang allegedly provided missile technology and chemical weapons assistance to Damascus throughout the Syrian civil war.
Most notably, Israeli jets destroyed a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor under construction at Al-Kibar in 2007, an attack Ezra acknowledged.
“We know in a previous junction, today we can talk about it, that Israel was involved in taking out their (North Korea-Syrian) nuclear capabilities,” he said.
The main gate of the DPRK Embassy in Damascus | Image: NK News (Dec. 19, 2024)
IRAN-DPRK COOPERATION
Beyond Syria, Ezra expressed deep concern about continuing missile and weapons cooperation between Iran and North Korea, characterizing it as a threat to regional stability.
“Our understanding is that the coalition on the other side is continuously working together to enhance the cooperation over there,” Ezra said, referring to Iran and North Korea. “Our understanding is that they are working … [with] other players, too.”
While the official declined to provide specific details about the nature of current cooperation, he emphasized that Israel actively shares its concerns with other nations.
“We make sure to express our, I would say, concern, dissatisfaction, worries [about such proliferation],” he said. “[And] we urge them to make sure that these activities stop because they are not assisting in any way, shape or form. They’re not assisting in stability in the region.”
The cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang has been well-documented over the years, with both countries facing heavy international sanctions for their nuclear and missile programs.
In April 2024, North Korea sent its first high-level delegation to Iran in nearly five years, led by Minister of External Economic Relations Yun Jong Ho.
Iran later denied that the visit, officially to discuss economic ties, had anything to do with potential military cooperation between the two nations.
NORTH KOREA NON-RECOGNITION
Meanwhile, Ezra warned that any shift in U.S. policy toward accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state could have dangerous implications for preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capabilities.
“A message of appeasement and acceptance of a nuclear capability is not a positive message,” he stated, noting that the incoming U.S. administration’s strategy is still being formulated.
The Israeli official pointed to North Korea as a cautionary example of what happens when the international community fails to prevent nuclear proliferation.
“Is it something that the world wants to see now with Iran? I don’t think so. Is it something that we want to see as Israel? The answer is: hell no. Are we going to be active about it? The answer is: hell yes.”
While expressing support for diplomatic solutions to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Ezra firmly rejected any approach that would merely delay Tehran’s nuclear ambitions without permanently ending them, as was South Korea’s experience with the DPRK during the 1990s and early 2000s.
“We are not in favor of sending messages that tell them, ‘Hey, you know what? Let’s kick the can down the road,” he said.
Edited by Alannah Hill
9. Civic group sends leaflets to North Korea ahead of ROK presidential election
Again, I hope the new President will not hinder these activities.
Civic group sends leaflets to North Korea ahead of ROK presidential election
Launch calling for answers about abductees could offer insight into how Lee administration will address such activities
https://www.nknews.org/2025/06/civic-group-sends-leaflets-to-north-korea-ahead-of-rok-presidential-election/
Jooheon Kim June 6, 2025
Choi Sung-yong (right) sends a video message urging North Korea to provide information about abductees, prior to launching balloons. | Image: Abductee’s Family Union (June 2, 2025)
A South Korean civic group representing families of North Korean abduction victims launched balloons carrying leaflets across the border this week, demanding answers about the fate of their loved ones.
According to the Abductee’s Family Union, four balloons each carrying bundles of leaflets were released on Monday in the border city of Paju, a day ahead of South Korea’s presidential election.
The balloons carried newsletters featuring the names, photos and abduction details of six South Koreans and one Japanese, along with demands for confirmation of their survival and repatriation.
“As long as wind conditions allow, we will keep sending messages until we hear news about our families, my father, the students and all those who were abducted,” Choi Sung-yong, head of the organization, said in a video message before the balloon launch.
Choi told NK News that there was a southwesterly breeze at the time of the launch, suggesting the balloons traveled northward. “We always check the wind direction before launching,” he said.
(Clockwise from top left) Abductees Megumi Yokota, Kim Young-nam, Choi Won-mo, Hong Geon-pyo, Choi Seung-min, Lee Min-gyo, and Lee Myung-woo | Image: Abductee’s Family Union, edited by NK News
It marks the group’s third leaflet campaign this year, following similar efforts in Paju on April 27 and Cheorwon on May 8. A previous attempt last October was thwarted by residents, police and local officials, who intervened after organizer Choi publicly announced the plan.
Authorities and critics at the time warned that such actions risk provoking retaliation from North Korea and could endanger nearby communities.The activist also intended to use boats to send leaflets to the North last November, but the plan was canceled after boat owners withdrew due to similar concerns over potential backlash from Pyongyang.
Despite debates in South Korea over the legality and risks of cross-border leaflet campaigns, South Korea’s Constitutional Court ruled in Sept. 2023 that the law banning the sending of anti-regime leaflets into North Korea was unconstitutional, stating that it excessively restricted freedom of expression.
The most recent leaflet launch may offer an insight into future relations between activist groups and South Korea’s newly elected President Lee Jae-myung, whose administration has signaled a sharp turn toward dialogue and de-escalation in inter-Korean relations.
Lee has previously criticized leaflet campaigns and military loudspeaker broadcasts along the border as provocations that unnecessarily heighten tensions.
Pyongyang has long been extremely sensitive to balloon launches by South Korean activists, repeatedly denouncing leafleting in state media and even blowing up the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong in June 2020 in protest against Seoul’s failure to stop such leafleting.
North Korea later claimed without evidence during the pandemic that activist balloons spread COVID-19 into the country.
In retaliation against ROK activist leafleting, the DPRK started sending balloons carrying trash toward South Korea last May. However, Pyongyang has not sent any trash balloons over the border since Nov. 2024.
Since the Korean War, North Korea has abducted thousands of South Koreans, mostly fishermen, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Unification. Despite repeated U.N. inquiries regarding its role in enforced or involuntary disappearances, Pyongyang has remained unresponsive.
Japanese officials have also called for resolving the abductee issue and have shown willingness to engage directly with North Korea.
Despite these efforts, progress has been limited. Pyongyang has returned only five of the 17 individuals officially recognized by Japan as abductees and maintains that the issue has been “resolved.” The fate of the remaining victims remains unclear.
Edited by Alannah Hill
10. Talking With Trump Is One of the New South Korean President’s First Priorities
First impressions.
Again my recommendations for talking points:
He should describe Korea as a global pivotal state that chooses to be a peaceful nuclear power, that is a partner in the arsenal of democracies, that seeks a free and open Asia/Indo-Pacific and that supports the rules based internal order.
My recommendation to President Lee should stress South Korea owns its defense burden and shares strategic interests toward north Korea and China with the US and therefore supports the stationing of US forces at the largest US military based outside of the US (provided by the ROK government) to assist in deterrence and defense and along with South Korean forces, provides the US strategic agility for addressing multiple contingencies in the Asia/Indo-Pacific region.
President Lee must pitch things to PresidentTrump to show him how he can help Trump 'win" - economically and national security wise. And a key point for him to make is that Korea truly owns its defense burden on the Korean Peninsula and throughout the Asia/indo-Pacific but that are interests are aligned and we are stronger together and together are better able to protect our individual and common interests. Try the following: "America First, Allies Always – Allies are America's Asymmetric Advantage." So when President Trump says, America First, President Lee (and all allied leaders) should respond with "Allies Always."
And as a final reminder, the ROK is a blood ally of the US.
Talking With Trump Is One of the New South Korean President’s First Priorities
As far as Koreans are concerned, the chance for their leader to chat with the American president comes not a moment too soon, considering Trump has just imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum on top of other tariffs.
South Korea's new president, Lee Jae-myung, campaigning at Seoul, May 1, 2025. Suh Myung-geon/Yonhap via AP
DONALD KIRK
Jun. 4, 2025 03:37 PM ET
nysun.com
SEOUL — South Korea’s newly minted president, Lee Jae-myung, should be on the phone with President Trump in the next day or so, when the two are expected to talk about such hypersensitive issues as tariffs and security.
Almost immediately after Mr. Lee formally took office, his representative told Korean reporters that aides were setting up the exact time for the crucial conversation — something that was so elusive in the six-month hiatus between a failed attempt at martial law and Tuesday’s “snap election” for a new president.
As far as Koreans are concerned, the chance for their leader to chat with the American president comes not a moment too soon. Mr. Trump has just imposed 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum, on top of 25 percent tariffs on motor vehicle imports and 10 percent on almost everything else.
Mr. Lee “has high-stakes foreign policy challenges” including economic issues, a professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School, Aram Hur, said. The question, she said, talking at the Korea Society in New York, is “how to balance the U.S. alliance” with “economic pressure,” from China, Korea’s biggest trading partner and an aggressive investor in Korea’s economy.
Mr. Lee may not be able to persuade Mr. Trump to suspend the tariffs right away, but he is sure to profess his desire to strengthen the Korean-American alliance while rebuilding strong relations with Communist China.
Intrinsic in achieving those conflicting goals is the need to buttress an economy that the Korea Development Institute says is increasing by less than 1 percent this year, in stark contrast to the double-digit rises of previous years. In the “battle against recession,” Mr. Lee said in his inaugural address, he plans to set up an emergency task force “to revive a virtuous economic cycle.”
Mr. Lee’s dealings with Mr. Trump will raise the issue of how to redefine the basis of this alliance, Ms. Hur said. Even if Mr. Trump wants to withdraw some of America’s 28,500 troops from Korea, “U.S. troops based in South Korea are clearly a hedge against China,” she noted. Linkage of economic and security concerns appears inevitable.
For Mr. Lee, that he’ll be talking to Mr. Trump at all represents a sharp improvement over the past six months, when significant communications between leaders in Seoul and Washington were virtually nonexistent.
The man who was serving as “acting president,” Han Duck-soo, a former ambassador to Washington, did get through to Mr. Trump in April, but the conversation was pro forma — Mr. Han did not have the authority to make deals in the vacuum created by the impeachment of the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol as president in the aftermath of his ill-fated attempt at imposing martial law on December 3. Mr. Trump had turned down previous entreaties to talk.
Mr. Lee is widely expected to pull back from the close ties formed with Washington during the Biden presidency. To the delight of President Biden, Mr. Yoon endorsed large-scale joint American-Korean military exercises that the previous Korean president, the leftist Moon Jae-in, had banned. American military officials are waiting anxiously to see if Mr. Lee approves annual American-Korean war games set for August.
Mr. Lee may be more interested in reviving talks with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who has refused to deal with South Korea since Mr. Trump stalked out of their summit in Hanoi in February 2019. “We will keep channels of communication with North Korea open and pursue peace on the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and cooperation,” he said at his inauguration.
Mr. Kim, however, now has formed close ties with President Putin, to whom he agreed to provide arms, ammunition, and even troops for his war against Ukraine.
Yet what if Mr. Lee convinces Mr. Trump of his influence with Mr. Kim? If he “can bring North Korea back in a way that helps Trump’s ambition to be a global peace-maker,” Ms. Hur said, “that can become a bargaining chip in a three-way triangulation.”
Mr. Lee’s desire to see Mr. Kim may make it difficult, though, to uphold the trilateral deal formed by Mr. Biden, Mr. Yoon, and Japan’s then-prime minister, Fumio Kishida, at Camp David in August 2023. “You can’t have both North Korea and Japan,” Ms. Hur said. “If South Korea had to choose, it would try to bring North Korea back into the fold. I’m skeptical how relations with Japan will be pursued.”
nysun.com
11. S Korea needs careful China policy
Excerpts:
China poses a massive strategic challenge to all of East Asia. Together, the long standing military risks in the Taiwan Strait, “gray zone” tactics in the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula’s tense and endless state of confrontation form a precarious triangle in the region. The former two issues are directly tied to China, while North Korea indirectly influences the latter.
There are warnings in South Korea that if China were to invade Taiwan, North Korea would likely seize the opportunity to provoke South Korea. Therefore, a problem for Taiwan is a problem for South Korea.
In South Korea, China’s unofficial ban on South Korean cultural influence for the past decade has led to increasingly negative public sentiment toward China — even surpassing that directed at Japan, which once colonized the Korean Peninsula. As such, any miscalculations in Lee’s China policy would be certain to trigger a public backlash.
As an aside I hope our administration officials who developed this memorandum feel just as strongly that the US should help prevent a fait accompli seizure of South Korea by north Korea with Chinese support. We must not have Taiwan strategic myopia.
Additionally, a strategic memorandum signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in March explicitly listed “a denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan” as one of the US military’s top priorities. This implies that the role of US forces in South Korea is likely to expand to include assisting Taiwan’s national defense and deterring a Chinese invasion.
Fri, Jun 06, 2025 page8
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/06/06/2003838121
S Korea needs careful China policy
- By Chang Ling-ling 張玲玲
-
-
- South Korean President Lee Jae-myung of the left-leaning Democratic Party was officially elected on Tuesday, earning 49 percent of the vote.
- During a campaign speech in March last year, Lee said that the South Korean government should thank “both China and Taiwan,” which was viewed as a deliberate gesture of goodwill toward China.
- In a recent interview with Time, Lee was asked whether South Korea would come to Taiwan’s aid if it were attacked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
- “I will think about that answer when aliens are about to invade the Earth,” he said.
- As noted by Japanese media, Lee appears to have quite a weak understanding of the Taiwan Strait issue.
- When the Korean War broke out in 1950, then-US General Douglas MacArthur — who also served as commander-in-chief of a 16-nation UN force — traveled to Taiwan seeking support, referring to Taiwan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Aside from being an important logistics and intelligence base to support the UN’s forces in Korea, it was even more crucial to prevent Taiwan from falling into the CCP’s hands.
- From then on, Taiwan was included in the US-led first island chain and — along with South Korea — became an important hub in the Cold War effort to prevent communist expansion.
- US Army General Xavier Brunson — commander of the Combined Forces Command and US Forces Korea — during this year’s Land Forces Pacific Symposium in Hawaii said that the presence of US forces in South Korea plays a critical role in maintaining deterrence and ensuring regional security in Northeast Asia in light of the threats posed by China, Russia and North Korea.
- Brunson described South Korea as an “island” or a “fixed aircraft carrier” floating in the water between Japan and China, capable of overcoming geographic limitations for Indo-Pacific operations.
- Additionally, a strategic memorandum signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in March explicitly listed “a denial of a Chinese fait accompli seizure of Taiwan” as one of the US military’s top priorities. This implies that the role of US forces in South Korea is likely to expand to include assisting Taiwan’s national defense and deterring a Chinese invasion.
- China poses a massive strategic challenge to all of East Asia. Together, the long standing military risks in the Taiwan Strait, “gray zone” tactics in the South China Sea, and the Korean Peninsula’s tense and endless state of confrontation form a precarious triangle in the region. The former two issues are directly tied to China, while North Korea indirectly influences the latter.
- There are warnings in South Korea that if China were to invade Taiwan, North Korea would likely seize the opportunity to provoke South Korea. Therefore, a problem for Taiwan is a problem for South Korea.
- In South Korea, China’s unofficial ban on South Korean cultural influence for the past decade has led to increasingly negative public sentiment toward China — even surpassing that directed at Japan, which once colonized the Korean Peninsula. As such, any miscalculations in Lee’s China policy would be certain to trigger a public backlash.
- Chang Ling-ling is a retired colonel in the armed forces reserves. She is a resident of New Taipei City.
- Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
12. Democracy Wins a Referendum in South Korea
Ms Kim has fully bought into the narrative from the DPK.
Excerpt:
Lee wants to go beyond correcting Yoon’s strongman Presidency. But his victory feels more like a reassertion of reality than a referendum on the values of either major party. It is a vote against Yoon and others who would embrace a return to the military dictatorships of the nineteen-seventies and eighties. “Finally, that day of martial law is over,” said a man who celebrated the results in front of the National Assembly, to the news site Pressian.
Democracy Wins a Referendum in South Korea
The newly elected President defeated an increasingly authoritarian rival party. Can he bring the country back together?
By E. Tammy Kim
June 4, 2025
The New Yorker · by E. Tammy Kim · June 4, 2025
The Lede
The newly elected President defeated an increasingly authoritarian rival party. Can he bring the country back together?
June 4, 2025
Lee Jae-myung at a campaign rally in Seongnam, on Monday.Photograph by Woohae Cho / Getty
Just before 11 P.M. this past December 3rd, the Korean legislator Lee Jae-myung issued a dire warning from a moving car. “My fellow-Koreans, you must come out to the National Assembly,” he said, in a live stream from his phone. The video showed Lee in a dark suit and a royal-blue tie, the color of his Democratic Party. He looked weary and frightened. “Our democracy is collapsing,” he said. “Please come together to protect it.”
The nation’s President, Yoon Suk-yeol, who was a prosecutor before being groomed for leadership by the People Power Party, had spent the past few years turning the machinery of the state against political opponents, trade unions, and journalists who criticized him. Now he had declared martial law and sent troops to lock down the parliamentary complex. But Lee and his allies hoped that they could prevail: because of South Korea’s recent history of military dictatorships, its constitution allows the legislature to constrain orders of martial law. The night that Lee issued his call, thousands of citizens showed up at the National Assembly. They helped Democratic Party legislators, and even a few conservatives typically aligned with Yoon, make their way past the soldiers and break into the building to vote down the order. It was an uncommon instance of coöperation across party lines in extreme circumstances—and, I argued at the time, a model for fighting authoritarianism elsewhere.
A great deal has happened since. From December through April, there were ecstatic daily protests, demanding that Yoon be ousted. These were followed by Yoon’s impeachment by the National Assembly, his criminal indictment, his formal removal by the Constitutional Court—and, this Tuesday, a snap election to replace him. In the 2022 Presidential election, Lee lost to Yoon by less than one per cent. This time, he won by more than eight points. He will be inaugurated on Wednesday, beginning a five-year term.
Lee is sixty-one years old, a scrapper with a potent backstory. He grew up in poverty, in the eastern part of the country, and got a job instead of attending middle school; his left arm was later crushed in a factory accident, causing it to splay at the elbow. He went on to become a human-rights lawyer, a mayor, and the governor of Korea’s most populous province. He has pushed redistributive policies, including universal basic income, while sticking to the Democratic mainstream. He is pro-development and pro-welfare state, loyal to the United States but respectably independent. Last year, he survived an assassination attempt at a public appearance: a man in his sixties, posing as a supporter and wearing a paper crown that read “I am Lee Jae-myung,” plunged a knife into his neck. The attacker had written a screed saying that he intended to save Korea from “left-wing forces.”
Lee has been involved in numerous controversies. In the early two-thousands, he was found to have misrepresented himself as a prosecutor to help a journalist investigate a mayor suspected of corruption; he was accused of having an extramarital affair; his son reportedly posted misogynistic comments online. He has faced multiple prosecutions, including one for lying about his relationship to a real-estate developer during an election debate, in 2021. (Korea strictly regulates election-related speech; that case was appealed and is on hold.) The episodes provoked criticism that was often tinged with classist disdain; conservatives described Lee as a “petty criminal” who swims in “dirty waters.” But a liberal friend also surprised me by writing him off as “dangerous” and “too messy” to run the country. Far-right and evangelical groups targeted him for his views, labelling him a “pinko commie” and organizing campaigns to smear him online.
In the recent election, Lee’s main rival was Kim Moon-soo, a former labor minister who served as Yoon’s proxy. Kim is not a dynamic presence, but he upheld the party line. In one of three debates, he called Lee the country’s “most corrupt government official.” He argued that Yoon had been driven to declare martial law because Lee and the rest of the Democratic Party had repeatedly blocked legislation in the National Assembly. The People Power Party downplayed the attempted self-coup as a silly misstep. “There was quick action to lift the martial law, and it got lifted, didn’t it?” Kim said in the final debate.
I travelled around Korea in the days leading up to the election. In Cheonan, one of Kim’s campaign trucks blared music, while a surrogate shouted slogans through a muffled P.A. system. In Namyangju, a city in the province where Lee was governor, banners read, “A vote in this election is a win for the people” and “Cast your vote to stop the treason!” Early voters in Seoul took selfies outside a polling station; there were long lines and lots of buzz, mostly in Lee’s favor.
Nearly eighty per cent of eligible voters turned out—Election Day was a national holiday—but at the polls I visited the mood was subdued. I kept thinking about two other recent elections. The first was the Korean snap election in 2017, to replace President Park Geun-hye. Its contours were nearly identical to this year’s: misconduct by a conservative President, months of mass protests, impeachment, removal, criminal prosecution, and the election of a liberal replacement—Moon Jae-in, who, like Lee, had been a human-rights lawyer. The second was the U.S. election of 2020, which Joe Biden framed as a plebiscite on a dangerously venal leader, and which came just after that year’s Black Lives Matter demonstrations, the largest in American history. Both Moon and Biden campaigned on who they were not—presenting themselves as antidotes or correctives—while promising not to forget the social movements that brought them to power. Both ended up struggling to hold their country together, let alone effect the changes that their activist supporters had hoped to see.
What will come of the resistance to Yoon? The movement—large, diverse, and energetic—was largely sustained by young women, who waved “Impeach Yoon” signs to the beat of K-pop and adapted flashing L.E.D. batons, concertgoers’ accessories, to the purpose of ousting a would-be autocrat. Yoon had made women-bashing a core principle. As a candidate and as President, he had fixated on abolishing South Korea’s gender ministry, and implied that feminism was the cause of many social ills, such as overpriced housing, underemployment among young men, and a record-low fertility rate. He surrounded himself with military generals. In a different world, the Democratic Party would have chosen a woman—perhaps a member of the National Assembly, which is about one-fifth female—to run for President to succeed Yoon, pushing for an omnibus anti-discrimination law that has been a perennial goal of women and minority groups.
Instead, Lee largely avoided questions of gender during the campaign, and made no particular appeal to the labor movement or to poor people, constituencies he had previously courted. Determined not to alienate all of Yoon’s supporters, he called himself a “real conservative”—as distinct from the radicals who would institute martial law. Yet, as polls showed him taking a comfortable lead, Lee began to sound more like his old self. “Do you know why they’re against Lee Jae-myung?” he said to a crowd in Cheongju last weekend, referring to himself in the third person. “It’s because Lee Jae-myung is from the periphery. He’s on the side of small and medium-sized businesses, not big corporations. He stands with the poor and working class.”
Lee wants to go beyond correcting Yoon’s strongman Presidency. But his victory feels more like a reassertion of reality than a referendum on the values of either major party. It is a vote against Yoon and others who would embrace a return to the military dictatorships of the nineteen-seventies and eighties. “Finally, that day of martial law is over,” said a man who celebrated the results in front of the National Assembly, to the news site Pressian.
In office, Lee must contend with an unenviable pile of problems. Though some seventeen million voters got behind him, there is no consensus; the nation is split—by gender, class, and geography—and recovering from a prolonged political trauma, including multiple Presidential impeachments and prosecutions. The other, historic split, from North Korea, continues to inspire an arms buildup and a lingering paranoia over Communism. South Korea’s unemployment rate is around three per cent, but higher for younger workers. About half of the population lives in greater Seoul, for lack of jobs in the provinces. Outside Lee’s campaign headquarters, I attended a rally meant to highlight the precarious conditions of temporary and subcontracted employees; a few days later, a subcontracted worker died in a lathe accident at a power plant that was known to be unsafe. The auto and semiconductor industries, which together supplied more than thirty per cent of Korea’s exports in 2024, have been stunned by Donald Trump’s whipsawing tariffs.
Still, Lee has reason to feel optimistic. His win is the sign of a functioning democracy and a refutation of authoritarianism. Late last night, on a stage near the National Assembly, he raised his good arm and pumped a fist to the chants of the crowd. “The people are the masters of this country,” he said. “The President’s job is to bring the people together.”
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E. Tammy Kim is a contributing writer at The New Yorker.
The New Yorker · by E. Tammy Kim · June 4, 2025
13. New president, new pressures put South Korea-U.S. alliance at crossroads
It pains me to read the question of "Are you really our ally" if asked by either a Korean or an American. Either side asking that question is what supports the Chinese and north Korean political warfare strategy.
For the US national security interests we must ensure the strength of the ROK/US alliance. And of course it is also in Korea's national security interests. I hope everyone on both sides of the Pacific will commit themselves to making the alliance strong.
Excerpts:
Mr. Lee needs solutions to several issues, but a South Korean expert who has studied the alliance said the U.S. is really asking just one question of the new South Korean regime.
“Reduction of forces, burden sharing, force flexibility — these are all the same question from the U.S.,” said Yang Uk, a security analyst at Seoul think tank the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “It asks, ‘Are you really our ally?’”
...
Seoul’s reluctance to defend a fellow democracy “could have significant repercussions for its alliance with the United States,” he said.
If GIs fight a regional conflict, USFK must engage, Gen. Chun said.
“Though USFK’s main mission is absolutely the defense of Korea and the stability of Northeast Asia, if the U.S. is in trouble in another Indo-Pacific area, it is only natural that it would send troops and request its allies for help,” he said. “That’s common sense.”
That makes South Korea a potential Chinese target, a possibility that goes largely unspoken.
“If conflict happens between the U.S. and China, any USFK installation would naturally be a target for China … We’d be drawn into war,” said Mr. Yang. “The risk is there, but Korean politicians and generals don’t want to accept it in public.”
New president, new pressures put South Korea-U.S. alliance at crossroads
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
By - The Washington Times - Wednesday, June 4, 2025
SEOUL, South Korea — Lee Jae-myung, sworn in on Wednesday as South Korea’s president, faces an immediate problem with the tariffs President Trump has threatened to put into effect next month.
If the career politician can defuse that crisis, a bigger one is waiting in the wings. It’s a complicated bilateral reevaluation of U.S. forces’ role in defending South Korea against its longtime antagonist, North Korea, or an increasingly aggressive China.
The Trump administration wants South Koreans to pay more for U.S. protection. Mr. Lee and other prominent South Korean leaders are openly questioning whether it’s time to reduce the country’s dependence on the U.S.
“We will strengthen South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation based on a solid Korea-U.S. alliance,” said Mr. Lee, who affirmed the importance of the U.S. relationship in his first speech as president while signaling his country was at a crossroads.
South Korea will “approach relations with neighboring countries from the perspective of practicality and national interest,” he said.
That may raise eyebrows in regional democracies and Washington, where the Trump administration seeks to end conflicts in Europe and the Middle East to free up U.S. resources to concentrate on China and the Indo-Pacific.
As Mr. Lee, 61, takes office, reports and rumors in Washington and Seoul raise questions about the future of the 28,000-strong U.S. Forces Korea.
One question is whether Mr. Lee and Mr. Trump can cut a deal on “cost sharing” to pay for U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula. On April 8, Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social that he had discussed and was making progress on “payment for the big time Military Protection we provide to South Korea” with Mr. Lee’s predecessor.
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Mr. Lee has indicated openness to an agreement tying tariffs and cost sharing, as Mr. Trump has suggested.
Those negotiations will almost surely include discussions on whether Mr. Trump will downsize the number of U.S. troops in South Korea, perhaps by as many as 4,000 soldiers. More crucially, the two sides will discuss whether the American forces will defend South Korea not just against the North Koreans but also against the worst-case scenario of an attack by China.
Mr. Lee needs solutions to several issues, but a South Korean expert who has studied the alliance said the U.S. is really asking just one question of the new South Korean regime.
“Reduction of forces, burden sharing, force flexibility — these are all the same question from the U.S.,” said Yang Uk, a security analyst at Seoul think tank the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “It asks, ‘Are you really our ally?’”
Shifting security sands
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Per a 1953 security arrangement, U.S. forces remain deployed on the peninsula to deter North Korea, while Seoul and Washington are bound by a mutual defense treaty.
Now, matters are more complex.
China’s rise to the world’s No. 2 economic position makes it a key trade partner for South Korea. Meanwhile, Beijing’s expansionist pressures in the region pit it against regional democracies.
These factors have Seoul policymakers on a tightrope, doubly so as senior U.S. officials talk less about North Korea and more about China.
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Last month, the top U.S. commander in South Korea, Gen. Xavier Brunson, discussed South Korea’s geopolitical position during a speech at the U.S. Army’s Land Forces Pacific Symposium in Hawaii.
“Korea is on the Asian continent, has a sizable U.S. force posture, is inside the First Island Chain and is the closest allied presence to Beijing,” he said. “At night, from a satellite image, [South Korea] looks like an island or fixed aircraft carrier floating in the water between Japan and mainland China.”
“This is a really important piece of real estate for U.S. interests,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “A lot of Koreans don’t agree with me; they need to change their minds, pronto.”
A traditional proverb calls Korea a “shrimp between whales,” a small kingdom crushed between larger powers. The cliche retains millennial resonance.
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In 2017, U.S. forces deployed a THAAD missile defense battery in South Korea, complete with powerful radar that can scan the atmosphere of northeast China’s. Beijing retaliated with economic pressure, but not against the U.S. South Korean businesses suffered the fallout.
America’s forward operating base?
Gen. Brunson made clear that U.S. forces in South Korea are not postured solely against North Korea, as many South Koreans assume.
“Our presence in Korea imposes costs and changes the calculations and decisions of leaders of [North Korea], Russia and China,” he said. “We can … lever our geography and positional advantage to great effect.”
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Although Chinese and South Korean claims in the Yellow Sea have some overlap, Chinese forces are not actively operating against South Korean forces. They are against Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan.
However, South Korea may lose its immunity to regional crises.
“Take a look at a map,” Gen. Brunson said. “Draw a line from Korea to Japan to the Philippines. … What you find there is a triangle of nations inextricably linked by mutual defense treaties to the U.S. and nations who will undoubtedly be impacted by any crisis or conflict in the Taiwan Strait.”
The changing U.S. boot print on the peninsula backs Gen. Brunson’s words.
The bulk of United States Forces Korea, no longer positioned near the Demilitarized Zone, are heavily concentrated in a string of bases south of Seoul on Korea’s west coast facing China across the Yellow Sea.
Forty miles south of Seoul, the biggest U.S. overseas base is Camp Humphreys, headquarters of the U.S. 8th Army, near the seaport city of Pyeongtaek.
North of Pyeongtaek is the 7th Air Force base at Osan, which includes a Space Force command element. South of Pyeongtaek, in Kunsan, is K-8 Air Base, which has more U.S. aerial assets.
Although the U.S. naval presence is lacking, South Korea’s naval base at Pyeongtaek frequently hosts U.S. warships, as does another South Korean naval base on Jeju Island at the entrance to the Yellow Sea.
A Chinese fleet command, naval bases and naval shipyards are set around the Yellow Sea.
The U.S. Army’s website calls Camp Humphreys “the largest power projection platform in the Pacific.”
“Korea is a really, really good place to monitor and counter China,” Mr. Yang said.
Statements like that do not sit well with Wi Sung-lac, a South Korean lawmaker appointed Wednesday as Mr. Lee’s national security adviser.
“I understand what you mean by force projection,” he told The Washington Times last month. “I don’t believe these bases were designed to deal with the China problem. … We believe, still, that the main purpose of USFK and bases in Korea are to deal with the threat from the North.”
Maintaining defenses against North Korea is a strong argument against using USFK forces off the peninsula. There are also legal issues.
U.S. bases are “on the sovereign territory of South Korea,” said Dan Pinkston, an international relations professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University. He recalled that some European nations refused U.S. forces overflight permissions during the Persian Gulf War.
“U.S. assets could fly out, but South Korea could deny them landing rights coming back,” he said.
That would have ramifications.
“There are … tangible costs of not supporting an international defense of Taiwan,” said Bruce Klingner of The Heritage Foundation. “South Korea exists today because 70 years ago an international coalition defended it against attack and guaranteed its sovereignty.”
Seoul’s reluctance to defend a fellow democracy “could have significant repercussions for its alliance with the United States,” he said.
If GIs fight a regional conflict, USFK must engage, Gen. Chun said.
“Though USFK’s main mission is absolutely the defense of Korea and the stability of Northeast Asia, if the U.S. is in trouble in another Indo-Pacific area, it is only natural that it would send troops and request its allies for help,” he said. “That’s common sense.”
That makes South Korea a potential Chinese target, a possibility that goes largely unspoken.
“If conflict happens between the U.S. and China, any USFK installation would naturally be a target for China … We’d be drawn into war,” said Mr. Yang. “The risk is there, but Korean politicians and generals don’t want to accept it in public.”
Correction: A previous version of the story incorrectly listed the location of the United States Forces Korea.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
Copyright © 2025 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
washingtontimes.com · by Andrew Salmon
14. On Memorial Day, Lee pledges 'extraordinary rewards for extraordinary sacrifices'
Great words about unifiormed personnel and veterans but no specific mention of the Korean War by the president though it might be inferred from his remarks that he was honoring the sacrifices of those who fought and died int he wr.
On Memorial Day, Lee pledges 'extraordinary rewards for extraordinary sacrifices'
koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · June 6, 2025
President Lee Jae-myung delivers a memorial address at the 70th Memorial Day ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery on Friday. The banner behind him reads, “Great Devotion, Forever in Our Hearts.” (Pool Photo via Yonhap)
On Memorial Day Friday, President Lee Jae-myung pledged to provide “extraordinary rewards for extraordinary sacrifices,” committing to greater honor and support for Korea’s heroes and their families at his first national commemoration since taking office.
Addressing 4,000 attendees — including national merit honorees and their families — Lee also promised to improve working conditions for soldiers, police and firefighters.
"Honoring those who have served is the minimum respect owed for sacrifice and dedication — and it is a responsibility and duty the state must fulfill," Lee said, addressing the audience at the 70th Memorial Day ceremony, held annually on June 6 at the Seoul National Cemetery.
“Extraordinary sacrifices made for the good of all deserve to be met with extraordinary rewards,” Lee underscored at the ceremony, which was also attended by the grieving families of four Navy service members who lost their lives in a maritime patrol aircraft crash in May.
Lee's televised speech came after a nationwide siren sounded at 10 a.m., marking a minute of silence to honor those who sacrificed their lives for the nation.
Lee underscored that "there have always been those who willingly dedicated and sacrificed themselves when our people and nation were in danger."
Lee paid tribute to independence activists during Japan’s colonial rule from 1910 to 1945, soldiers and youth during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953, and those who fought for democracy against dictatorship through the 1980s.
"Thanks to their noble dedication, we were able to regain the light," Lee said. "We must never forget the origins of the freedom, peace, affluence and prosperity we enjoy today."
President Lee Jae-myung delivers a memorial address at the 70th Memorial Day ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery on Friday. (Pool Photo via Yonhap)
In his speech, Lee promised to "elevate the honor and substantially strengthen the support afforded to national merit honorees and their families."
"The saying that ‘three generations suffer for having fought for independence, while three generations prosper for collaborating with colonial powers’ must disappear once and for all," Lee told participants.
To ensure the well-being of national merit honorees, he also pledged to establish a comprehensive veterans’ medical care system, enabling timely and convenient access to medical benefits close to home.
For bereaved families, Lee committed to strengthening support and addressing gaps in the system so that the surviving spouses of veterans do not face hardship.
Lee promised “fair compensation” for military careers, ensuring that both national merit honorees and discharged veterans receive the recognition befitting their dedication.
He further vowed to enhance service and working conditions for the military, police and firefighters so that "they can devote themselves solely to serving the nation and its people without any concerns."
President Lee Jae-myung offers words of comfort to Song Jae-sook, daughter of the late Korean War veteran Pfc. Song Young-hwan, after she read a letter to her late father at the 70th Memorial Day ceremony at Seoul National Cemetery on Friday. (Photo Pool via Yonhap)
At the memorial event, Song Jae-sook, a bereaved family member of a Korean War veteran, read her letter expressing her longing and respect for her father, the late Pfc. Song Young-hwan.
After her father perished during the Korean War in 1951, when she was just 3 years old and her parents’ marriage had not been officially registered, she was listed as the daughter of her father’s older brother on official documents.
"After living through more than seventy long and distant years, finally being able to meet my father again now fills me with indescribable joy and brings me to tears," Song read the letter to her father, recounting years of missing her father without being able to recall his face.
Song Young-hwan’s remains were discovered in 2013, but his family relationship was not confirmed until 11 years later in October 2024. The Defense Ministry restored his portrait based on his remains and delivered it to his daughter on May 8, marking Parents’ Day in Korea this year.
"I understand a little now. Is there anyone who is not afraid of death? There must have been something you wanted to protect, even at the cost of your life," She read the letter with tears in her eyes.
"What you protected, father, was the Republic of Korea, was my mother, was my grandmother, was me. That is why you threw yourself into that rain of shells and bullets,"
Bringing the letter to a close, Song said, "Because of your sacrifice, countless lives — those who were left behind, protected, or newly born — are living today under the name of the Republic of Korea. Thank you so much."
In his speech, the president underscored, "It is a shared responsibility entrusted to those of us who enjoy today to ensure that the nation safeguarded by our patriotic martyrs and fallen heroes shines even more brightly."
"To build a peaceful country free from the fear of war and a safe country where daily life remains undisturbed is the most responsible response to their noble sacrifice and dedication."
dagyumji@heraldcorp.com
koreaherald.com · by Ji Da-gyum · June 6, 2025
15. Internal Document Leaks Give Kim Regime Headaches... Digitization as Countermeasure (2) Propaganda Website 'Napalsu' Replaces Print Materials... "People Carrying Publications Have Disappeared"
Internal Document Leaks Give Kim Regime Headaches... Digitization as Countermeasure (2) Propaganda Website 'Napalsu' Replaces Print Materials... "People Carrying Publications Have Disappeared"
asiapress.org
North Korea, which still lacks internet access, has steadily developed its domestic intranet while creating internal applications that can simultaneously enhance population control and work efficiency, used through smartphones, tablets, and personal PCs. The photo shows North Korea's tablet PC "Ryongaksan" obtained by ASIAPRESS in 2021. (ASIAPRESS)
North Korea's regime is digitalizing its propaganda documents through a dedicated PC platform called "Napalsu" designed specifically for propaganda activities. According to ASIAPRESS reporting partners, customized materials for different organizations are now being distributed through this platform, with paper documents becoming increasingly rare. This appears to be an effort to prevent information leaks and improve administrative efficiency. (JEON Sung-jun / KANG Ji-won)
◆ Digitized Propaganda Methods Make Paper Materials Hard to Find
Until the early 2010s, North Korean internal documents were primarily leaked to overseas media in physical form across the border. Gradually, these evolved into photographed images of internal documents being transmitted and leaked. However, recent government policies show a shift toward electronic document distribution.
A female reporting partner living in the northern region reported the following about recent changes in propaganda methods in mid-May:
"It's hard to see paper lecture materials now. Lecture materials are being distributed through computers connected to company intranets. Materials for studying greatness, political situation briefings, and anti-socialist criticism materials are used daily during reading sessions."
※ "Reading sessions" (dokbo) are a uniquely North Korean propaganda method where members of schools or workplaces gather each morning before starting their daily activities to listen to readings from the Rodong Sinmun newspaper or current party policies, typically led by cell secretaries or propaganda officials assigned to each unit.
※ A "cell" refers to the lowest-level organization of North Korea's Workers' Party, responsible for directly organizing and guiding individual party members.
◆ What is 'Napalsu'?
Customized materials produced centrally are transmitted to various institutions through a PC platform called "Napalsu," with access limited to propaganda personnel only, according to the source.
"They call the platform 'Napalsu,' and only cell secretaries and propagandists can access it. You can view it using portable computers (laptops)."
"Napalsu" is a conventional term in North Korea referring to propaganda institutions and their workers mobilized to disseminate and implement the authorities' ideology and intentions to the masses. This is likely why the Kim Jong-un regime named the platform "Napalsu."
◆ Paper Publications Tracked Through Recovery Reports
The circulation of printed materials is also declining rapidly. Reporting Partner A said it's difficult to encounter printed materials other than the Rodong Sinmun newspaper:
"Magazines are gradually disappearing, and documents are being processed by computer, citing paper waste. Even printing houses have established a system to report the recovery status of printed materials."
It appears that once any document is printed, it must be recovered and disposed of by the respective printing house after use.
The reporting partner noted that control intensity is particularly high in border areas, explaining that "access to publications is limited to designated people, and unlike before, it's now impossible to go to propaganda department officials' homes to get discarded documents as scrap paper due to strict management."
◆ Women's Union Education Also Digitized... Regular Computer Training for Officials
These changes extend beyond document delivery methods to include learning approaches for various organizations, including the Women's Union, and digital capacity training for officials.
"The Women's Union conducted all lectures this way this year, and there are hardly any study session materials carried around on paper. Officials receive regular computer training."
※ Women's Union refers to the "Korean Socialist Women's Union," mainly composed of housewives without workplace affiliations.
This trend appears to go beyond digitization in specific sectors, representing the authorities' strategy to prevent domestic information from being exposed to the outside world using new technology while enhancing surveillance and control efficiency.
※ ASIAPRESS communicates with its reporting partners through Chinese cell phones smuggled into North Korea.
Map of North Korea (ASIAPRESS)
asiapress.org
16. After escaping North Korea, a defector fights for a new life inside the ring
The photos look AI generated.
After escaping North Korea, a defector fights for a new life inside the ring
Jang Jung-hyuk fled hunger and abuse before settling in the South, now fighting on his own terms in pursuit of MMA glory
https://www.nknews.org/2025/06/after-escaping-north-korea-a-defector-fights-for-a-new-life-inside-the-ring/
Jooheon Kim June 6, 2025
Mixed martial artist Jang Jung-hyuk | Image: Courtesy of Jang Jung-hyuk
Jang Jung-hyuk was 18-years-old and studying at a school in Seoul when, realizing that academics didn’t suit him, he decided to give mixed martial arts (MMA) a try.
Just six weeks later, he entered a kickboxing tournament at a local university, stepping into the ring for his first real fight against a far more experienced competitor. He walked out a winner. “I completely beat up my opponent,” he recalled.
That bout marked Jang’s entry into the world of competitive fighting, where he has been toiling ever since in a bid to make it big in professional MMA.
But what the spectators on hand for his debut likely didn’t realize was that Jang, a North Korean defector who fled hunger and abuse and was subjected to forced labor before resettling in the South, had been fighting his whole life. It just took him entering the ring for people to finally pay attention.
AN ARDUOUS CHILDHOOD
Jang was born in 1997 in a little-known mountain village in North Hamgyeong, the far northeast province on the border with China. He never met his father: A few months after he was born, his mother, unable to endure her husband’s violent tendencies, took him and returned to her parents’ home.
His earliest memories are of hunger, growing up at a time when North Korea was just emerging from the devastating Arduous March famine. Then his mother vanished when he was around seven, and he lived as a child without parents, ridiculed and alienated by his peers.
Three years later, his mother reappeared. It turned out that she had been imprisoned in a labor camp the whole time, and the experience had left her body beaten and bruised.
But his mother hadn’t lost her resolve. When Jang was 12 years old, they crossed the frozen Tumen River into China, led by guides who he said treated them like cattle and then tried to sell his mom into an arranged marriage.
They were eventually trafficked to a remote Chinese farming village, where Jang, still a child, began working at a construction site and a chicken farm.
“I almost never got paid properly,” he told NK News. “I did hard labor. Getting slapped with slippers was just a basic part of the job, and there were so many terrible things that happened.”
Despite suffering a foot injury, Jang said he couldn’t get treatment due to his lack of official documents.
“Since I had no ID and was illegally in the country as a North Korean defector, I couldn’t even go to the hospital, and they wouldn’t support the treatment costs.”
The people he worked for bullied him and denigrated him for being a foreigner. He dreamed of getting revenge, and he started working out to get stronger.
After four years in China, Jang and his mother escaped again — this time over through Laos and into Thailand, and finally onto a plane to Seoul.
Jang Jung-hyuk strikes his opponent during a match | Image: Courtesy of Jang Jung-hyuk
NEW LIFE
Once in South Korea, Jang enrolled in an alternative school for North Korean defectors, which provided him with the education that he had largely been denied while living on the margins in China.
It was during this time that he tried MMA and experienced his first success at the kickboxing competition held at the university, a result that shocked his coach and demonstrated his natural talent for the sport.
A few years later, in 2018, Jang debuted as a professional fighter at the TFC Dream 5 MMA event in South Korea, facing Japanese undefeated lightweight champion Yamato Nishikawa. Early in the first round, Nishikawa landed a spinning backfist that knocked Jang down. The referee almost stopped the fight, but Jang got up.
“I wasn’t fighting a person — I was fighting the border guards, the labor camps, the people who said we didn’t deserve to live,” he said.
Jang rallied, dropped Nishikawa with a flurry and secured a shocking technical knockout — handing the Japanese phenom his first and only KO loss.
That victory made him a professional, and he has gone on to fight in over a dozen more MMA competitions, currently boasting an official record of 6 wins, 4 losses and 3 draws.
But Jang says he has also fought in nearly 70 bouts including unofficial and smaller events, winning more than 70 percent of them.
“Now I want to compete in a bigger organization. Getting into the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is every fighter’s dream,” he said.
Jang acknowledged that the American MMA competition circuit, regarded as the pinnacle of the sport, “still feels a little distant to me.” Even so, he aspires to go head-to-head with the best.
“I’d love to get smashed by Khabib,” he said with a grin, referring to the retired UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov. “He’s on another level in wrestling. I’d like to feel what that level is like — just once, through grappling.”
Jang Jung-hyuk speaks during an interview with NK News at a coffee shop in southern Seoul. | Image: NK News (April 25, 2025)
STILL FIGHTING
Jang’s journey as a fighter hasn’t been without its challenges.
His mother, now suffering from blood cancer, struggles with the high costs of medical treatment. To cover the expenses, Jang has taken on brutal fights, including barefoot brawls, a slapping contest and a low kick contest, not usually seen in mainstream MMA.
Jang also supplements his income by working as a barista at a Seoul coffee shop and as a personal trainer, while training in the evenings at a local MMA gym. Last month, he unveiled his plan to open his own MMA gym in southern Seoul.
Since appearing on the YouTube fighting show Black Combat in 2023, he has frequently appeared on other combat sports channels as well. In July 2024, he became the welterweight champion at an event hosted by the Japanese MMA organization A-Toys Challenge Fight.
Despite his growing notoriety, Jang continues to face prejudice due to his North Korean background, with trash-talking opponents sometimes belittling his origins.
He said he once got extremely angry when his opponent mocked him over his North Korean origin, claiming he couldn’t understand the rules of the game. He later defeated that person in a separate match.
Jang used to get annoyed at being labeled a “defector fighter” in ROK media, instead seeking recognition as an ordinary South Korean athlete.
But he said he now strives to live without worrying about what others think, even using his platform to draw attention to the plight that people in the DPRK face.
“I have risked my life to escape from dictatorship. Responsibility comes with freedom, and pain comes with dictatorship,” he said in an interview after one of his matches. “I feel sorry for many North Koreans, and I would be grateful if you showed more interest in them.”
In the future, Jang said he hopes to become involved in North Korean human rights activism, showing his passion not just for fighting but for a cause greater than himself.
Asked what drives him, he didn’t hesitate.
“I don’t want anyone to go through what I did. But if they do, I want them to know they can survive.”
Mixed martial artist Jang Jung-hyuk | Image: Courtesy of Jang Jung-hyuk
Edited by Bryan Betts
17. North Korea will move damaged warship to other shipyard for repairs: State media
North Korea will move damaged warship to other shipyard for repairs: State media
New satellite imagery confirms destroyer relaunched Thursday after capsizing at ceremony in May
https://www.nknews.org/2025/06/north-korea-will-move-damaged-warship-to-other-shipyard-for-repairs-state-media/
Colin Zwirko June 6, 2025
North Korea's second Choe Hyon-class destroyer appeared to be finally launched into the water on June 5 after it appeared half submerged underwater on its side between May 21 and June 2 | Image: Planet Labs (June 5, 2025)
North Korea will move its damaged warship to a different shipyard on the east coast for repairs, state media reported Friday, after lifting it out of the water this week and successfully relaunching it on Thursday.
“The detailed recovery work of the next phase will be carried out at the dry dock of the Rajin Shipyard,” the Rodong Sinmun stated in a short status update.
Planet Labs high-resolution satellite imagery confirms North Korea’s claim that the new 5,000-ton Choe Hyon-class destroyer was launched into the water on Thursday afternoon, as an image taken in the morning showed it still partly attached to the slipway and another taken after 3 p.m. local time showed it floating in the bay.
North Korea attempted to side-launch the ship at Chongjin Shipyard on May 21, but its bow got stuck on the slipway and it ended up half-submerged in the water on its starboard side. Satellite imagery showed it was finally lifted upright between Saturday and Monday, while still partly up on the slipway.
Experts will “conduct a reinspection of the overall condition of the destroyer’s hull” before moving it to Rajin Shipyard in Rason, located around 50 miles (80 km) up the coast.
The Rajin Shipyard has experience with warships — unlike Chongjin Shipyard prior to the destroyer — most recently building two corvettes slowly over the course of more than a decade. One was officially launched in Aug. 2023.
The work in Rason is “expected to take 7-10 days,” the report added, though it did not indicate how long the reinspection work at Chongjin would take. It’s also unclear if the destroyer will be tugged or if it can sail under its own power.
Toggle between this image (June 5 at 8:32 a.m. KST) and the next (June 5 at 3:12 p.m. KST) to see the destroyer move Thursday from its position partially up on the slipway and into the bay at Chongjin Shipyard | Image: Planet Labs, edited by NK News
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Party munitions industry department director Jo Chun Ryong, leader of the on-site recovery team, “emphasized that the complete recovery of the ship will without fail be completed before” a party plenum convenes to discuss the incident in late June, the Rodong Sinmun reported.
State media previously said in its initial report on the disaster, a day after it occurred, that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un demanded the complete recovery of the vessel before the party plenum.
The Rodong Sinmun released four reports in the five days following the accident detailing arrests of factory managers and workers and a party munitions department official, but the Friday report is the first update since May 26. State media has yet to release any photos of the ship at Chongjin.
While the May 26 launch resulted in disaster, North Korea successfully unveiled the first Choe Hyon-class destroyer on the west coast in late April.
Edited by Kristen Talman
Updated on June 6 at 7:37 a.m. KST with additional background details
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
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