|
Quotes of the Day:
“I understand Inchon is a 500-to-1 gamble, but I am accustomed to such challenges. We shall land at Inchon, and I shall crush them.”
– General Douglas MacArthur
"The Incheon landing thus also represented a trial-by-fire for cooperation between the two countries’ militaries and Katusa integration into U.S. forces, which has lasted to the present day."
– Joongang Ilbo, 2023
“By any measure, the Incheon landing are a feat of military genius that saved this country and ensured its future prosperity.”
– Lee Sang-ho
1. September 2025: Turning the Tide – Incheon Landing and Allied Momentum
2. Incheon landing was turning point for war, nation and world
3. No One-Night Stand – Eugene Clark’s Improbable Mission at Inchon
4. South Korea in the Indo-Pacific: a ‘Force Multiplier’ in the Making?
5. When summit optics meet real-world stakes
6. North Korea berates ‘reckless’ US-ROK-Japan military drills as training starts
7. Don’t Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance
8. Sweden’s Lessons for East Asia: Why Japan and South Korea Should Look to Stockholm in a Dual Contingency
9. Seoul to review rights violations during US raid
10. Hard-won lesson from Hyundai factory raid
11. Lawyer appointed as S. Korean ambassador to U.N.
12. Labor pains on the road to a stronger U.S.-Korea industrial alliance
13. North Korea has likely expanded military spy agency to improve intel: Seoul
14. Kim Seongmin, Defector Who Pierced North Korea by Radio, Dies at 63
15. Pyongyang targets elite privilege in student job placements
1. September 2025: Turning the Tide – Incheon Landing and Allied Momentum
Press Release | Sept. 4, 2025
September 2025: Turning the Tide – Incheon Landing and Allied Momentum
https://www.unc.mil/News/News-Stories-Press-Release/Article/4293211/september-2025-turning-the-tide-incheon-landing-and-allied-momentum/
In early September 1950, the UNC faced a stalemate: while the Pusan Perimeter held in the southeast, the vast majority of Korean territory remained under North Korean control. UNC Commander General Douglas MacArthur proposed a risky and imaginative plan to break the deadlock – an amphibious landing deep behind enemy lines at the port of Incheon, near Seoul. Despite the operation’s high risks (strong tides, narrow channels, and fortified shores), the UNC coalition threw its full support behind the plan. On September 15, 1950, a multinational task force led primarily by U.S. Marines but supported by forces and ships from the UK, Canada, Australia, and other UNC nations, struck at Incheon. The element of surprise was complete. By September 19, UNC forces had secured Incheon and begun a rapid advance inland, liberating Seoul within two weeks. The Incheon Landing was a stunning success – a decisive victory and strategic reversal in favor of the United Nations. It severed North Korean supply lines and forced their armies in the south to retreat in haste. For the first time in the war, momentum swung toward the UNC.
The success at Incheon was a product of bravery, joint planning, and international teamwork. We honor the memory of the troops who landed on the beaches of Incheon under heavy fire, including U.S. Marines, South Korean soldiers, and British commandos who took part in early raiding parties. Casualties were relatively light given the scale of the operation, but every life lost in those crucial days is remembered with respect. Among the heroes was Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez of the U.S. Marines, who famously gave his life in the landing and was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. We also honor the contributions of naval forces from multiple nations – the United States Navy, the Royal Navy, the Royal Australian Navy, and others – whose ships provided bombardment and logistical support. The ROK Navy and Korean Marine Corps, fighting under UNC, reclaimed their homeland alongside international partners. Notably, Canada’s destroyers HMCS Cayuga, Athabaskan, and Sioux were part of the naval task force at Incheon, illustrating UNC’s broad coalition.
By the end of September 1950, the UNC had liberated Seoul and pursued the retreating enemy northward. That same month saw additional UNC allies arriving: on September 19, 1950, the first Filipino troops landed in Korea, and on September 28, 1950, Australian combat forces arrived as well. Notably, while Australian ground troops arrived in late September, their Air Force and Navy has been operating out of Japan since July 7. Sweden also contributed to the UNC effort, providing a hospital in Busan that arrived on September 23, 1950. We honor these allies – the Philippines and Australia – whose troops joined the fight at this pivotal stage. The 10th Battalion Combat Team from the Philippines went on to distinguish itself in battles like Yuldong in 1951. Australian forces, including the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment (3 RAR), would soon prove crucial in battles such as Kapyong in 1951. Their arrival in September 1950 signaled that the UNC was truly a global coalition; nations from Asia-Pacific stood shoulder to shoulder with Western allies and South Korea in defense of freedom.
The triumph at Incheon and the subsequent liberation of Seoul were celebrated by war-weary South Koreans and UNC forces alike. The South Korean flag was raised once more in Seoul on September 27, 1950 – a moment of immense emotional relief for the Korean people. For the UNC, it validated the strategy of combined operations and coalition warfare. Importantly, it also vindicated the sacrifices of July and August: the hardships at Pusan were not in vain, for they set the stage for this dramatic comeback.
The Incheon operation underscores themes that remain relevant to UNC’s mission today. First, the value of innovation and bold decision-making in defending peace. Just as MacArthur and the UNC leadership took an audacious approach to break the stalemate, UNC today must remain agile and forward-thinking. Modern security challenges on the Korean Peninsula – whether they be border incidents, cyber threats, or diplomacy with North Korea – require creative, collective solutions. UNC’s continued presence facilitates such cooperation by uniting many nations’ perspectives and capabilities. Second, Incheon exemplified multinational coordination. The complex landing operation required seamless integration of air, sea, and land forces from multiple countries – a feat of coordination and trust. Today, UNC member states regularly conduct joint exercises and staff exchanges, building the interoperability that was so crucial at Incheon. This ensures that if ever called upon, UNC forces can again act as one cohesive team.
After Incheon, UNC forces pressed their advantage, crossing the 38th Parallel in early October 1950 to pursue the remnants of the North Korean army. There was optimism that the war might be won by Christmas. In hindsight, we know new challenges lay ahead (the entry of Chinese forces in late 1950), but for this moment in time, UNC’s future – the freedom of South Korea – looked secure. The legacy of September 1950 is one of dramatic turnaround: it showed the world that aggression could be rolled back through courage and unity. South Korea’s survival and eventual prosperity owe much to that bold stroke 75 years ago. It is no exaggeration to say that the Incheon Landing rewrote the fate of the Korean Peninsula and laid a cornerstone for the security architecture we still uphold.
This month, UNC commemorated the Incheon Landing’s anniversary with a multinational ceremony at Incheon’s Freedom Park, near the very seawalls scaled by troops in 1950. Representatives from UNC sending states, including veterans and military officers from the U.S., South Korea, UK, Australia, and Philippines, gathered to pay tribute to the operation’s heroes. Such gatherings remind us that the bonds formed in war have become lasting partnerships in peace. Australia and the Philippines – once wartime allies – are today key regional partners in UNC’s ongoing mission, contributing officers to the UNC staff and participating in exercises that promote readiness and stability.
We invite you to delve deeper into the history of the Incheon Landing and the stories of those who made it successful. If you are near Incheon, the landing sites and the Incheon Landing Memorial Hall are open to visitors – a chance to walk the ground where history was made. By understanding the ingenuity and unity that defined September 1950, we strengthen our appreciation for UNC’s role in “securing the future.” The lessons of Incheon – bold action, unity of effort, and international cooperation – continue to guide UNC as we face the security challenges of the 21st century together.
2. Incheon landing was turning point for war, nation and world
From 2 years go but still worth a read.
And Brothers at War by Sheila Miyoshi Jager is an excellent Korean War history.
Maps at the link.
Thursday
September 14, 2023
dictionary + A - A
Incheon landing was turning point for war, nation and world
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-09-14/national/diplomacy/Incheon-landing-was-turning-point-for-war-nation-and-world/1869467
Published: 14 Sep. 2023, 19:27
Military personnel from 22 countries who dispatched troops and medical assistance to South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War hold their respective flags at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of Operation Chromite at the Memorial Hall for the Incheon Landing in Yeonsu District, Incheon, on Sept. 15, 2022. [YONHAP]
Few battles have single-handedly changed the course of a nation’s history as much as the Incheon landing of Sept. 15, 1950.
Code-named Operation Chromite, the landing took place four months after the beginning of the 1950-53 Korean War, which saw 22 countries send a total of 2.16 million military and medical personnel to South Korea’s aid, of whom over 40,000 were killed or went missing in action and 114,900 were wounded.
By successfully landing three amphibious assault groups almost twelve hours apart on the shores of Incheon, located 22 miles from North Korean-occupied Seoul, United Nations forces comprised mostly of U.S. and South Korean troops and 261 ships from seven navies, including Britain, Canada and France, were able to mount a surprise offensive that broke the back of the North Korean military.
“It was a historic incident, almost straight out of a drama, that drew a line through the record of the Korean War,” says Kim Yong-ho, a professor of politics and diplomacy at Yonsei University, who compared it to the Allies’ critical D-Day landings on the beaches of German-occupied Normandy during World War II.
The landing of over 75,000 UN troops at Incheon from Sept. 15 to 19 essentially rewrote the fate of the fledgling South Korean republic, which had been left fighting for survival within the southeastern Pusan Perimeter after losing most of its territory to North Korean leader Kim Il Sung’s invasion.
Today, near the same beachheads where UN forces reversed the tide of the war, modern Incheon stands as a symbol of that success.
Since its designation in 2003, the Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ) has attracted a total of 428,066 residents, including 7,922 foreigners, and the city as a whole has drawn foreign direct investment of $30.4 billion.
To celebrate the city’s growth and the 73rd anniversary of Operation Chromite, the Incheon Metropolitan Government has spent 2.7 billion won to hold commemorations from Sept. 14 to 19, an almost 13-fold increase from previous events to mark the landing.
Likewise, the South Korean Naval Command plans to exhibit various modern amphibious operations equipment, including a K-1 tank, a Korean assault amphibious vehicle and the ROKS Cheon Wang Bong tank landing ship.
This year’s larger-than-usual commemorations come amid rapidly changing alignments surrounding the Korean Peninsula that recall the importance of international security cooperation in the face of escalating threats.
Treacherous waters
While Incheon today is closely linked to the most famous amphibious offensive since World War II, the landing almost didn’t happen at the eponymous port.
Apart from General Douglas MacArthur, few among the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff supported his choice of Incheon as the landing site, for several reasons.
“The tidal range at Incheon is the second highest in the world, and at the time there were only two days in September when the tide was high enough to allow access for large landing craft,” explained Lee Sang-ho, a research fellow at the South Korean Defense Ministry’s Institute of Military History.
On top of Incheon’s tremendous tides, which have an average range of 30 feet, suitable approaches to the harbor were limited to two restricted passages by expansive mud flats and underwater seamounts.
Then, there were also obstacles placed by man: Soviet-manufactured naval mines strewed across the passages by the North Koreans, as well as 20-foot-tall sea walls extending all the way to Wolmi Island, located to the east of Incheon’s harbor.
As United States Navy Commander Arlie G. Capps put it, Incheon possessed “every natural and geographic handicap.”
“There are some who estimated that the probability of the operation’s success was less than one out of 5,000,” Kim remarked.
Element of surprise
Yet these obstacles were precisely why MacArthur preferred to stage the landing behind North Korean lines at Incheon, rather than at more southern — and predictable — potential landing sites along Gunsan or Pyeongtaek, where he thought an attempt to envelop North Korean forces might fall short.
“MacArthur thought Incheon was where the North Koreans wouldn’t expect UN forces to attempt a landing due to the area’s geographic challenges,” Lee said, adding that the general wanted to sever supply lines for the North Korean forces, who were concentrated south of the capital region.
According to the historian, MacArthur convinced the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff during a 45-minute meeting in Tokyo on Aug. 23, 1950, to approve his choice of Incheon by citing the example of British General James Wolfe, who captured Quebec in 1759 by ordering his army to scale 170-foot cliffs behind the city that the French had only lightly garrisoned.
“Like Wolfe, I could take them by surprise,” MacArthur said in the meeting.
According to Kim, U.S. forces kept up the ruse by bombarding other areas along the Yellow Sea, including Gunsan and Wonsan, thus confusing the North Koreans as to where the amphibious landing might take place.
By all accounts, the diversions worked.
“North Korean forces were dispersed throughout the western coast of the peninsula because they didn’t know where the landing might take place,” Kim said.
Meanwhile, a UN reconnaissance team made up of both South Korean and U.S. intelligence officers landed at nearby Yongheung Island and obtained information about local tide conditions and mud flats, laying the groundwork for the landing.
Forgotten vanguard
But before he could carry out his ambitious plan to storm Incheon, MacArthur had to first rebuild the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division, his last remaining reserve unit in Japan.
The division was tasked with following the marines after the landing to retake Incheon and Seoul but had been depleted from sending men to defend the Pusan Perimeter.
To fill its ranks, South Korean soldiers were crucial.
“While most coverage of the Incheon landing focuses on the role of the U.S. military, we ought to remember the almost equally important part played by the South Korean Marines and the Korean Attachment to the U.S. Army (Katusa),” Lee said, drawing attention to the fact that up to a third of the 7th Division, or almost 9,000 soldiers, were Koreans.
Lieutenant Baldomero Lopez of the Marine Corps scales a seawall after landing on Red Beach Point on Sept. 15, 1950. Lopez was killed covering a live grenade with his body minutes after the photo was taken. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. [U.S. NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND]
Historian Sheila Miyoshi Jager, a professor of East Asian studies at Oberlin College and author of “Brothers at War,” noted that South Korean recruits for the U.S. military “had less than a month to become soldiers and get ready for an amphibious landing, one of the most complex and riskiest military operations.”
According to Jager, the lead-up to the operation entailed “pairing individual Koreans with an American” for “assimilation, training and control.”
The Incheon landing thus also represented a trial-by-fire for cooperation between the two countries’ militaries and Katusa integration into U.S. forces, which has lasted to the present day.
The preinvasion joint reconnaissance operation by South Korean and U.S. intelligence also proved key to the UN forces’ success at Incheon.
At 12:50 a.m. on Sept. 15, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Eugene Clark and his South Korean squad lit the beacon on Palmi Island, signaling conditions were ripe for the beginning of the operation less than six hours later.
South Korean soldiers would soon go on to prove their mettle at Red Beach Point, north of the initial morning landing spot at Green Beach Point on Wolmi Island.
“Troops from not only the U.S. 5th Marine Regiment’s 1st and 2nd Battalions, but also from the 3rd Battalion of the South Korean Marine Corps, scaled the massive sea walls at the beachhead by setting up aluminum ladders that had been hastily manufactured in Japan just weeks before the operation,” Lee explained.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army’s 7th Infantry Division, now comprised of 16,000 Americans and 8,600 South Koreans, landed at Blue Beach Point — which had been stormed in the early evening of Sept. 15 by the U.S. 1st Marine Regiment — and almost immediately entered the fray.
According to Lee, Korean troops “played a key role in guarding the rear of the 7th Division and making sure enemy soldiers could not hide and harass UN forces as they advanced toward Seoul.”
Kim highlighted the fact that “unlike the Normandy landings, where extended supply lines impeded the Allies’ advance toward Paris, UN forces at Incheon made sure to secure facilities like Gimpo airfield on their way to Seoul.”
By Sept. 22, UN forces had unloaded over 6,600 vehicles and 53,800 troops, along with more than 25,500 tons of supplies. Six days later, UN forces recaptured Seoul.
In Kim’s words, the operation “decisively sliced through the waist of the North Korean military,” forcing its retreat from South Korea.
Bittersweet triumph
In her comments, Jager called Operation Chromite a “triumph of operational brilliance” with “few comparables in military history.”
But by bringing about such an “utter reversal of fortunes,” Jager noted that the Incheon landing also “emboldened U.S. President Harry Truman and MacArthur, making them and other senior officials and the United Nations susceptible to ‘mission creep,’” or the gradual expansion of the UN mission in Korea beyond its original scope of restoring peace on the peninsula.
According to Jager, UN forces “could have taken a few more weeks, largely at leisure since the North Korean forces were smashed and in precipitous retreat, to select and establish a desirable defensive line and new border,” but instead decided to invade the North with an “almost giddy sense of optimism that pervaded the UN Command in Tokyo and the leadership in Washington” after the landing succeeded.
The rapidity and scope of the triumph at Incheon, in Jager’s opinion, “led to one of the most significant strategic miscalculations in modern history,” whose consequences reverberate to the present day.
“Ignoring the repeated Chinese warnings against invading and conquering North Korea can perhaps be understood as cultural arrogance and monstrous strategic miscalculation,” Jager argued, adding that MacArthur’s very success at Incheon and decision to press north “may have prolonged the Korean War and turned it into a much larger and unnecessary tragedy.”
By contrast, Lee emphasized that the success of the landing and the subsequent UN offensive beyond the 38th parallel exposed the North Korean military’s tactical mediocrity.
“After the war, Pyongyang’s official state narrative has repeatedly claimed without evidence that its military foresaw the Incheon landing but was betrayed by the officer in charge of the Gyeonggi region,” Lee said, adding that this claim was likely fabricated to cover up the fact that the North Koreans “allowed themselves to be taken by surprise.”
But both Lee and Jager, who have examined wartime communications between Kim Il Sung, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Chinese leader Mao Zedong, also remarked that the subsequent UN offensive into the North led to lasting strain on communist solidarity between Pyongyang, Moscow and Beijing.
“Soviet leader Joseph Stalin didn’t want to intervene militarily to save North Korea. In his letter to Kim Il Sung after the UN offensive began, Stalin said that Pyongyang’s leadership should go into exile in Manchuria,” Lee said, explaining that Kim felt “betrayed and abandoned” by the Soviet leader.
After the war, Kim promulgated his new ideology for the North Korean regime, called juche or self-reliance, purged pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing factions from the ruling Workers’ Party and increased his regime’s isolation from foreigners and foreign influences.
Lee noted that Mao “spent sleepless nights in October arguing alone in favor of intervention in Korea against the rest of Beijing’s leadership” before acceding to Stalin’s request for Chinese military intervention.
But he, too, ended up feeling betrayed by the Soviet leader before the war had ended.
“Stalin reneged on his promise to provide crucial air support at the start of China’s entry into the Korean War, leaving Mao’s forces to face the Americans alone,” Jager said.
Stalin’s inaction was something Mao “never forgot,” imbuing Beijing with self-confidence after it successfully fought UN forces to a stalemate and a belief that it owed Moscow little, sowing the seeds for the Sino-Soviet split of 1960.
Incheon’s legacy
While the Korean War dragged on for almost three years after the Incheon landing, the operation’s impact on South Korea reflects its initial mission: the reclamation of the young republic’s territory and capital and the preservation of its future in the face of aggression.
According to Lee, South Koreans should take pride in the Incheon landing for this legacy.
“There are some who argue that the landing at Incheon wasn’t as significant as claimed, or even that the North chose retreat, but the historical record shows this isn’t the case,” Lee said.
“By any measure, the Incheon landing are a feat of military genius that saved this country and ensured its future prosperity.”
The South Korean government has made its gratitude known in various ways to UN member states that came to its aid in its darkest hour.
In 2014, South Korea donated the ROKS Anyang, a retired Donghae-class corvette, to Colombia, followed by the Pohang-class ROKS Iksan in 2020.
South Korea also gifted a Pohang-class corvette to the Philippines in 2019, which was later christened the BRP Conrado Yap, as well as two retired patrol vessels to Ecuador in 2020.
But perhaps nowhere is the lasting legacy of the operation more evident than in the Incheon itself.
Not far from the same shores where UN forces landed, the city’s high-rise skyline serves as a reminder of the success of the landing.
Little more than a port town of 160,000 people at the time of the war, Incheon’s population surpassed 3 million as of this year and includes 134,000 foreign nationals, making it the most diverse city in the country after the capital.
The city’s modern gross regional domestic product of 98 trillion won ($74.4 billion) is far higher than South Korea’s entire GDP of 47 billion won in 1950.
Today, the city hosts a gleaming international airport and Songdo International Business District, cementing its reputation as the world’s gateway to Korea.
BY MICHAEL LEE,CHO JUNG-WOO [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]
3. No One-Night Stand – Eugene Clark’s Improbable Mission at Inchon
Special Operations and indigenous support to Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO)
https://militaryhistorynow.com/2020/03/24/infiltrating-inchon-meet-the-u-s-navy-officer-who-snuck-ashore-two-weeks-before-the-invasion/
Published Date:24 March, 2020
U.S. Marines scramble over a sea wall at Inchon. The Allied invasion of the South Korean port city on Sept. 15, 1950 turned the tide in the Korean War. But it might not have been the success it was were it not for the heroic efforts of one Navy officer and two Korean agents. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)
“Although an unlikely choice for such a mission, Clark did have unique qualifications.”
By Walter S. Topp
THEY NEEDED a team of Navy SEALs; they got a 39-year-old lieutenant and two Korean intelligence officers.
It was late August, 1950. The Korean War was two months old. Officers on General Douglas MacArthur’s Far East Forces staff were struggling to complete plans for an amphibious assault at Inchon, a coastal city with a deep-water port near the South Korean capital of Seoul. The invasion would land two American divisions in the rear of the North Korean People’s Army, which had pushed U.S. and Allied forces into a small toehold at Pusan.
Somehow MacArthur’s team had scraped together enough ships, supplies, and men for the operation
But with less than three weeks left until the landing, planners knew next to nothing about the geography of the landing area, and what they did know was terrifying. A narrow ten-mile channel to the landing zones. Thirty-foot tides. No beaches. Miles of mud flats. Had the North Koreans mined the approaches to the landing sites? Was the channel threatened by artillery? Was the area heavily defended? Could vehicles cross the mudflats? How strong was the current? Was the tidal range really 30 feet?
Inchon was occupied by North Korean troops. The American Far East Command had never thoroughly surveyed the port and the South Korean government, which might offer some crucial details, was scattered and in disarray. Charts and tide tables available in Tokyo were old and might be inaccurate. If a ship ran aground, struck a mine, or was disabled by shellfire in the narrow channel leading to the landing areas, the entire operation could fail.
Planners needed someone on the ground to survey the area, measure the seawalls, check the consistency of the mud flats, confirm the depth of the water, observe the tides, and locate defensive emplacements for pre-landing bombardments.
Today, if satellite imagery and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) flights couldn’t answer such questions, the task of gathering the information would fall to a team of Navy SEALS – elite special ops experts, fabulously trained, expensively equipped, and ruthlessly determined. In 1950, they sent LT Eugene Clark, a 39-year-old former Chief Yeoman assigned to the Geography Section of MacArthur’s Far East Command in Tokyo.
Eugene Clark (far right) and his team of South Koreans waged a two-week guerrilla war against North Korean forces occupying the islands off Inchon. Clark, an eccentric, continued to wear his peaked officer’s cap throughout the mission. Once the invasion was underway, it would mark him as a ‘friendly’ to American personnel. (Image source: U.S. Navy)
Right Down the Hall
Although an unlikely choice for such a mission, Clark did have unique qualifications. First of all, he was available. Right down the hall, in fact. Also, he had participated in amphibious landings against the Japanese during the Pacific War, so he knew the type of information the planners needed. He had briefly served as captain of both an LST and an attack transport, too, so he was exceptionally familiar with the types of ships that would make the landing. Then there was the fact he had participated in clandestine operations along the Chinese coast, assisting the Chinese Nationalists in their civil war against the Communists. His work on plans for the Inchon landing since July gave him insights into the details of the assault. Finally, he was – apparently – insanely courageous.
And, of course, there were no Navy SEALs in 1950; that program wouldn’t be established until 1962. During World War Two, the U.S. military had employed various amphibious scouting and Underwater Demolition Team (UDT) units to perform beach reconnaissance ahead of amphibious landings. Most of such units were disbanded at the end of the war, but a handful of UDTs remained in service. Two teams supported the Inchon invasion by landing ahead of the assault troops, scouting the mud flats, marking low points in the channel, clearing fouled propellers and searching for mines.
But those operations wouldn’t happen until just hours remained before the landings, and MacArthur’s planners needed information now. So, on Aug. 26, they turned to Clark. The landing was scheduled for Sept. 15 and Clark and whatever team he could assemble needed to be at Inchon by Sept. 1.
A map of the Allied invasion area shows the position of Wolmi-do island, Clark’s base of operations throughout the mission. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)
No One-Night Stand
This would be no dusk-to-dawn recon operation. The plan was for Clark and a small team to set up a base on one of the islands in Inchon’s outer harbor. From there, they would conduct a series of forays to the landing sites, reconnoiter other nearby islands, and obtain as much critical intelligence as they could from local residents and any prisoners they managed to capture. The fact that many of the harbor islands were already occupied by the North Koreans and that Clark and his team would have no boats of their own seemed not to matter.
Clark was no commando, and he had a comfortable job and family life in Tokyo. But he agreed to the mission, though he couldn’t tell his wife where he was going or how long he would be gone. For five days he worked with CIA planners at Far East Command headquarters to prepare for his mission. He would be accompanied by two Korean officers who had previously been assigned to the Far East staff: Korean Navy Lieutenant Youn Jong, and a former Korean counterintelligence officer, Colonel Ke In-ju.
With no real idea of the situation they would encounter, Clark and the two Koreans collected a considerable arsenal of small arms from the armory at the naval base at Sasebo, including .45 caliber pistols, submachine guns, rifles, hand grenades, and three .50 caliber machine guns. Time was short, Clark’s mission was urgent, and it was a simpler time. Clark’s former shipmate directed the base supply officer to provide everything on Clark’s list, and if there was something on the list they didn’t have, to get it from the army. They would fill out the paperwork later.
Sacks of rice, dried fish, tents, a shortwave radio, two cases of whiskey (to assist in extracting or purchasing information), and one million South Korean won (about $550 in U.S. currency) were also packed. On Aug. 31, Clark and his team left Japan aboard a British destroyer. The next day, near Inchon, they transferred to a South Korean patrol craft, PC-703, for the final leg of their voyage.
The PC was a former U.S. Navy subchaser that had been given to the South Koreans. Armed with a three-inch gun a battery of machine guns, it would support Clark’s team through much of its two-week mission. At that time, the North Koreans at Inchon lacked naval craft of their own, though they operated a number of armed junks and sampans. But with artillery placed on several islands, and with the risk of mines in the channel, the PC would have to operate with care.
So would Clark, but secrecy wasn’t part of his plan.
Aside from some limited support from South Korean patrol craft PC-703, Clark’s team could count on little help for the duration of their stay.
Building an Army
The first thing Clark did was land his team on an island several miles up the channel from Inchon. One would imagine they’d have looked for a deserted island to keep their presence hidden from the North Koreans. Not Clark. Far from being uninhabited, the island he selected was home to 400 South Koreans and was occupied by a small detachment of communist troops – part of a garrison of 300 North Koreans based on another small island about a mile away. At low tide, it would be possible for North Korean soldiers to wade across the channel separating the islands.
Within hours of landing, Clark and his team had killed four North Korean soldiers who were trying to escape by boat. Enemy reinforcements would surely arrive; it was just a question of when.
But Clark and his team had brought enough weapons to outfit a small army, and that’s what they started to do. Recruiting from among the hundred or so young men on the island, the team created and armed an impromptu defense force which they hoped would be able to fend off any attacks until the United Nations invasion force appeared. Assuming that there must be communist sympathizers on the island who would betray them to the North Koreans at the first opportunity, they would have to maintain constant guard.
Stealing a Navy
Established on the island, their next task was to develop a plan for inspecting the landing sites, the channel, the mud flats, and the island of Wolmi-do, a rocky little peak that overlooked the landing areas that would have to be neutralized before the main landings.
With a need to get closer to Wolmi-do and Inchon, and without boats of their own, the team simply stole a small fleet. Using a steam-powered fishing sampan belonging to an island resident that was christened “the flagship,” Clark and his team motored into the channel and seized a small flotilla of sail-powered sampans and junks.
Brought to Clark’s island base, the operators of most of the captured craft were happy to provide information about the channel, the tides, the currents, and North Korean defenses. Several offered to join Clark’s growing little band, and they were soon sent out on surveillance missions, examining the port of Inchon, Wolmi-do, and surrounding areas to look for signs of enemy troop concentrations and gun emplacements.
For the next week, Clark and his team gathered critical information and radioed it back to planners in Tokyo. But each night, North Korean infiltrators made their way to his island. Some were killed, but Clark knew that an unknown number were now at large on his base.
Allied ships bombard North Korean positions around Inchon. (Image source: WikiCommons)
Staying to the End
On Sept. 7, British warships bombarded Inchon from the outer harbor. That night, a motorized sampan and three sailing sampans filled with North Korean troops were spotted in the channel heading for Clark’s island. Clark and his team quickly set out in their little flagship, hurriedly propping a .50 caliber machine gun atop sandbags. Although the largest North Korean vessel opened fire with an anti-tank gun, Clark bored in and destroyed the vessel along with one of the sailing sampans with machine gun fire.
Back ashore, Clark radioed for assistance from PC-703, as he was certain that a heavier North Korean attack was imminent. But the next day, instead of the South Korean patrol craft, a U.S. destroyer, USS Hanson, appeared. Hanson had been ordered to evacuate the team; Clark refused. There was still a week to go until the invasion and he believed he could provide more critical information. Instead, he asked Hanson to bombard the island where the North Korean attackers were based.
The shore bombardment bought Clark some time, and for the next few nights he and his team surveyed Inchon and tested the mud flats to see if they would support vehicles. They wouldn’t, and Clark sent that info on to Tokyo. He also informed planners that Japanese tidal charts were more accurate than the charts the Americans had prepared and he sent information on the placement of artillery on Wolmi-do. One of his sampans even towed a handful of floating mines out of the navigation channel.
Clark’s reports were forwarded to strike planners and soon Wolmi-do was plastered with explosives from U.S. ships and aircraft.
By daybreak of Sept. 15, Inchon Harbor was filled with an Allied invasion armada. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)
Lighting the Beacon
Finally, Sept. 14 arrived. The invasion would begin that night. Earlier, Clark had figured out how to relight the channel lighthouse on Palmi-do island and had offered to do so. Invasion planners had asked him to light the beacon at midnight. But late that day, as Clark was packing his gear, his lookouts spotted more than 400 North Korean troops approaching by boat and on foot, wading across the narrow channel.
There was no chance that Clark and his small group could beat back this attack. He hastily organized a delaying force and ordered everyone else to escape by boat while he and his original teammates made their way by sampan to Palmi-do and its lighthouse.
Sometime after midnight, Clark managed to relight the lamp in the lighthouse. As he did, he saw the first ships of the invasion force gliding past. By dawn, 230 ships from seven allied navies were in view, blasting North Korean defenses and sending landing craft ashore.
With the invasion finally underway, Clark and his South Korean lieutenants made their way to the force flagship, where they reported the end of their mission. Clark begged the staff to order troops to his former island base, to rescue the civilians that had refused to evacuate and the defenders that had stayed behind.
U.S. Marines secure Wolmi-do Island. (Image source: WikiMedia Commons)
They Paid the Price
But it was 24 hours before Marines could be spared to take the little island. By then, the North Koreans had not only overrun the few defenders that remained, they had also executed at least 50 villagers that they suspected of helping the Americans.
Eugene Clark received the Silver Star for his efforts at Inchon. During his two-week mission, the sleep-deprived and exhausted Clark lost 40 pounds. That might have been enough for most officers. But Clark was not most officers.
For the next two months he led a series of South Korean guerrilla raids along the coast of North Korea, gathering intelligence and capturing small islands that the Americans would use to rescue pilots who had to ditch damaged aircraft. On October, working near the mouth of the Yalu River, Clark’s Korean agents reported that the Chinese were massing for an enormous attack against the UN forces. Clark sent a warning to Tokyo, but his warning, like so many others, was discounted and the eventual Chinese offensive drove the unprepared UN forces south past Seoul.
In 1951, Clark led one final commando-style raid, as he and a small team came ashore at Communist-occupied Wonsan to find out if rumors of an outbreak of bubonic plague were true. Clark’s team penetrated a Chinese Communist hospital and the team doctor examined two patients, who turned out to have smallpox, not plague. That information saved UN forces the formidable task of inoculating hundreds of thousands of soldiers against plague. This mission earned Clark a Navy Cross.
Clark retired from the Navy in 1966, having risen to the rank of commander. He died peacefully in 1968.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Walter Topp is a former U.S. Navy officer, emergency manager, police officer, and newspaper reporter. He is currently a writer and is working on several history and emergency management projects. He speaks regularly on emergency management topics but prefers writing about military history. He is a regular contributor to MilitaryHistoryNow.com.
4. South Korea in the Indo-Pacific: a ‘Force Multiplier’ in the Making?
This is a good description for South Korea. It should adopt this idea.
Excerpts:
As the recent summit between Presidents Lee Jae-myung and Trump has revealed, Seoul has little appetite for “derisking” from Washington (and no desire to ). At the same time, irrespective of South Korea’s earnest desire for a close economic and technological partnership with the U.S., Washington remains eager to reduce its external dependence on major technologies like chips, which U.S. policymakers view as a “strategic necessity.”
In his “Rethinking Geopolitics,” Jeremy Black noted that each state tends to understand its domestic politics, including geopolitics, but not those of other states. The same cardinal rule should also apply to South Korea. Given Trump’s transactional approach and imperial tendencies in foreign policy, Seoul will need a more nimble approach in the country’s geoeconomic statecraft, which will enhance South Korea’s status as a key middle power.
As one expert explained, South Korea has shown its intent to navigate the intense competition between the two superpowers through strategic engagement, especially amid increasing doubts about the U.S. commitment to the region (not to mention tariffs).
The early signs are promising; during his recent summit with the Vietnamese leader, Lee Jae-myung committed to strengthening economic ties with Vietnam (a fellow middle power), leading to memorandums of understanding on nuclear and renewable energy, finance, energy, and technology.
Then there’s Indonesia. The Strait of Malacca, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), is one of the world’s most vital strategic chokepoints. It is a strategic area located in one of the most contested maritime zones (and also encompasses the Indonesian island of Sumatra) between China and the United States. Coincidentally, South Korea has formed a close partnership with Indonesia especially in defense.
Amid Washington’s concern over Beijing’s expanding influence in the Indo-Pacific, South Korea can point to its cooperation with Vietnam and Indonesia as clear examples of a force multiplier. By supporting the defense needs of regional countries, the nation can help bring much-needed stability to the Indo-Pacific region by bridging the gaps in Southeast Asian states’ defense capabilities against the rising hegemonic power, China.
In so doing, Seoul is well-positioned to leverage its newly-gained status as a “force multiplier,” capable of shaping the geopolitical calculations of the two superpowers.
South Korea in the Indo-Pacific: a ‘Force Multiplier’ in the Making?
Seoul is well-positioned to leverage its newly-gained status as a “force multiplier,” capable of shaping the geopolitical calculations of the U.S. and China.
https://thediplomat.com/2025/09/south-korea-in-the-indo-pacific-a-force-multiplier-in-the-making/
By Sangpil Jin
September 12, 2025
Credit: Depositphotos
As the United States redirects its strategic focus from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region, Washington has set its sights on China, the sole peer rival on the world stage. This shift in focus marks a pivotal moment, following a period of near full-spectrum domination that the United States enjoyed after the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Amidst the recent shift in the geopolitical landscape, we are witnessing the emergence of a new multipolar world. This order is a complex and uncertain one, where middle powers like South Korea are increasingly grappling with immense geoeconomic challenges against the backdrop of the relative decline of U.S. hegemony.
Under such circumstances, “geopolitical swing states” – the countries with outsized influence in global supply chains, disproportionate capital, and well-positioned for offshoring/friendshoring – are playing an increasingly instrumental role in international affairs. South Korea is one such state.
Seoul is a globally recognized player in the battery, shipbuilding and semiconductor industries. This means South Korea possesses sufficient capacity to act as a reliable middle power, unhindered by the suspicions of hegemonic intent (which both China and the United States have been accused of).
Moreover, Seoul can play a mediating role in consolidating the multilateral trade regime. While the global headlines have been dominated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff war, other regional actors have resolved to uphold the principles of openness, multilateralism and free trade. Indeed, the U.S. leader’s unpredictability has compelled China, Japan, and South Korea to revisit the hitherto stalled trilateral free trade pact.
The cynics may counter that the harsh reality of the international system (witness how the European Union has succumbed to U.S. demands in recent trade negotiations) constrains the diplomatic leverage of non-major powers, let alone for a middle power like South Korea.
But, is the U.S. as formidable as it is claimed to be? In her recent article for Foreign Affairs, American international relations scholar Kori Schake offered a more sobering view of her country’s power, attributing Trump’s foreign policy to “a significant overestimation of American power.”
Schake’s analysis gains credibility when we consider the recent decision by the U.S. Commerce Department to issue licenses allowing Nvidia to export its H20 chips to China, reversing an April ban on selling these chips to Beijing. While Washington’s flip-flop may reflect Trump’s negotiating style, the U.S. leader has (so far) failed to persuade China to end energy imports from Iran and Russia, despite the ongoing standoff between the two superpowers over a trade deal.
Then there are growing doubts about the credibility of the U.S. dollar as the global reserve currency. This skepticism is rooted in the ever-increasing U.S. debt, which, as economist Kenneth Rogoff has argued in recent years, has contributed to sharp rises in long-term interest rates on ten- and 30-year treasury bonds. While the short-term status of the dollar may not be under serious scrutiny, global policymakers (including those in South Korea) would have to hedge their bets in the coming years.
As the recent summit between Presidents Lee Jae-myung and Trump has revealed, Seoul has little appetite for “derisking” from Washington (and no desire to ). At the same time, irrespective of South Korea’s earnest desire for a close economic and technological partnership with the U.S., Washington remains eager to reduce its external dependence on major technologies like chips, which U.S. policymakers view as a “strategic necessity.”
In his “Rethinking Geopolitics,” Jeremy Black noted that each state tends to understand its domestic politics, including geopolitics, but not those of other states. The same cardinal rule should also apply to South Korea. Given Trump’s transactional approach and imperial tendencies in foreign policy, Seoul will need a more nimble approach in the country’s geoeconomic statecraft, which will enhance South Korea’s status as a key middle power.
As one expert explained, South Korea has shown its intent to navigate the intense competition between the two superpowers through strategic engagement, especially amid increasing doubts about the U.S. commitment to the region (not to mention tariffs).
The early signs are promising; during his recent summit with the Vietnamese leader, Lee Jae-myung committed to strengthening economic ties with Vietnam (a fellow middle power), leading to memorandums of understanding on nuclear and renewable energy, finance, energy, and technology.
Then there’s Indonesia. The Strait of Malacca, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), is one of the world’s most vital strategic chokepoints. It is a strategic area located in one of the most contested maritime zones (and also encompasses the Indonesian island of Sumatra) between China and the United States. Coincidentally, South Korea has formed a close partnership with Indonesia especially in defense.
Amid Washington’s concern over Beijing’s expanding influence in the Indo-Pacific, South Korea can point to its cooperation with Vietnam and Indonesia as clear examples of a force multiplier. By supporting the defense needs of regional countries, the nation can help bring much-needed stability to the Indo-Pacific region by bridging the gaps in Southeast Asian states’ defense capabilities against the rising hegemonic power, China.
In so doing, Seoul is well-positioned to leverage its newly-gained status as a “force multiplier,” capable of shaping the geopolitical calculations of the two superpowers.
Authors
Guest Author
Sangpil Jin
Sangpil Jin is an assistant professor in Korean Studies at the University of Copenhagen. He specializes in modern Korean history, diplomatic history, imperial history, and East Asian politics
5. When summit optics meet real-world stakes
Excerpts:
As the events in recent weeks have illustrated, summits provide a necessary, reassuring or even reinforcing optics of harmony between two nations; they are not, however, a panacea to unresolved tensions — from military posturing to trade tensions. In fact, these issues reemerge, often in ways that are more convoluted, riskier and human than any summit photo can convey.
The Washington stage may have been well lit, but the real drama unfolds in the unscripted, unseen moments. And this is where the durability of the alliance is truly tested — away from the applause of a summit crowd. How the leaders manage the tension between performance and reality will define the resilience of the alliance in the days ahead.
Deferred diplomacy is not a failure; rather, it’s a recognition of the complexities involved in managing priorities at home, regional tensions, shifting threats and even personality dynamics with counterparts. The true test for Seoul and Washington will be whether these pauses and delays are used to build resilience and a shared, cohesive strategy — or whether they allow these tensions to harden.
The space between the summits — more than the summits themselves — will determine the path for the alliance.
When summit optics meet real-world stakes - The Korea Times
The Korea Times · ListenListenText SizePrint
Soo Kim
In August, President Lee Jae Myung made his Washington debut, stepping onto the summit stage with U.S. President Donald Trump amid high expectations and the nail-biting, palpable uncertainties of a high-stakes encounter.
Tensions were already visible in the days — hours, even — before the Oval Office handshake. Lee, on his flight from Tokyo following a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, told reporters that Washington’s push for “strategic flexibility” of the 28,500-strong US Forces Korea (USFK) was “not an issue we can easily deal with,” adding that “discussions on a future-oriented strategic transformation of USFK are necessary from Seoul’s perspective.”
By the next day, the drama intensified when Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, questioning the state of affairs in South Korea and referencing alleged domestic upheavals.
The White House theatrics underscored the unpredictable environment Lee was entering: a summit stage framed by optics and ceremony, but shadowed by real policy friction, alliance modernization debates and the unpredictable signals of a U.S. president accustomed to dominating the narrative. As such, the handshake, cameras, light jokes and flattery were less the summit’s substance than its introduction, a prelude to a series of negotiations with subtext and deferred decisions that would play out in subsequent weeks.
Let’s take China’s Victory Day parade on Sept. 3. Beijing’s display of thousands of troops, advanced military systems and hypersonic weapons just a week after the Trump-Lee meeting not only showcased the country’s growing military capabilities, but importantly, its willingness to signal strategic intent. The parade served as a visual declaration to its prime audiences, the U.S., Japan, South Korea and other like-minded countries in the international community: No amount of summit-stage unity can actually rewrite the strategic realities we face on the ground.
For Seoul, the show reinforced a central strategic dilemma. The U.S.-Korea alliance has long been framed around one pivot point: North Korean deterrence. However, Beijing’s growing military confidence and aggressive posture underscore the need for regional calculations beyond the Korean Peninsula. Allies must now calibrate a joint posture not only against Pyongyang but in a broader, regional, latticed context — from Taiwan to the South China Sea — while keeping the optics of unity intact. And in no way is this a modest task.
In a slightly different twist more recently, there was the Hyundai plant raid in Georgia. U.S. law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Georgia State Patrol detained South Korean workers over alleged immigration violations, sending shockwaves through Seoul and Atlanta alike. The episode was barely contained through negotiations; it exposed one stark reality today: Even when political theatre is at work, it cannot indefinitely suspend the consequences of evolving policies and the tensions operating along the margins of decision-making.
For workers caught in the crossfire, diplomacy offered little comfort. And beyond the immediate legal and labor concerns, the raid served as a rare example of how domestic enforcement, trade and investment intersect with decades-old alliances in ways that are rarely visible in summit photos. And as this case illustrated, the uncertainty for affected families, combined with broader corporate and investor unease, casts light on the reality that alliance management extends beyond ceremonial handshakes to the very tangible realities shaping people’s lives.
Managing evolving priorities requires agility. Discussions surrounding U.S. base arrangements, trade and tariff negotiations, North Korea policy and the delicate act of balancing Seoul’s orbit between Washington and Beijing requires dexterity amid shifting circumstances and political pressures at home and abroad. These moments underscore the structural unpredictability inherent in a complex, intertwined bilateral relationship.
The Hyundai plant raid reminds us that areas seemingly mundane compared to missile parades or military posturing — visas, skilled labor, regulatory enforcement — can bear highly tangible consequences. Negotiations over visa rule changes for Korean workers in the U.S. affect livelihoods, corporate planning and public perceptions regarding the reliability of the alliance.
Deferred diplomacy may attract headlines, but for those who live with the aftermath, the effects are immediate and tangible. Delays or ambiguities in policy decisions cascade through supply chains, local economies and even households — a stark reminder that alliance management extends far beyond televised handshakes.
Historically, summits have relied on symbolism to project alliance strength. Leaders have long faced similar balancing acts of projecting unity and solidarity to the global audience while leaving thorny issues — troop levels, trade disputes, checking China’s aggression — to behind-the-scenes, working-level discussions. Lee’s Washington debut follows this tradition but with the added complexity of a U.S. president whose style emphasizes unpredictable policy signals and a bit of media spectacle. Seoul’s challenge, then, is to actualize these high-profile performances into durable, actionable outcomes.
As the events in recent weeks have illustrated, summits provide a necessary, reassuring or even reinforcing optics of harmony between two nations; they are not, however, a panacea to unresolved tensions — from military posturing to trade tensions. In fact, these issues reemerge, often in ways that are more convoluted, riskier and human than any summit photo can convey.
The Washington stage may have been well lit, but the real drama unfolds in the unscripted, unseen moments. And this is where the durability of the alliance is truly tested — away from the applause of a summit crowd. How the leaders manage the tension between performance and reality will define the resilience of the alliance in the days ahead.
Deferred diplomacy is not a failure; rather, it’s a recognition of the complexities involved in managing priorities at home, regional tensions, shifting threats and even personality dynamics with counterparts. The true test for Seoul and Washington will be whether these pauses and delays are used to build resilience and a shared, cohesive strategy — or whether they allow these tensions to harden.
The space between the summits — more than the summits themselves — will determine the path for the alliance.
Soo Kim is a former CIA analyst and strategic risk consultant.
The Korea Times · ListenListenText SizePrint
6. North Korea berates ‘reckless’ US-ROK-Japan military drills as training starts
As expected. Words from the most evil women.
North Korea berates ‘reckless’ US-ROK-Japan military drills as training starts
Kim Yo Jong and top official accuse three countries of continuing ‘anti-DPRK’ stance established under ‘former rulers’
https://www.nknews.org/2025/09/north-korea-berates-reckless-us-rok-japan-military-drills-as-training-starts/
Joon Ha Park September 15, 2025
North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong gives a speech on Aug. 11, 2022, and U.S., ROK and Japanese assets maneuver during the trilateral Freedom Edge exercise in Nov. 2024. | Images: KCTV, ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff, edited by NK News
The North Korean leader’s sister and a top military official have denounced U.S. military drills with South Korea and Japan this week as a “reckless show of force,” issuing a pair of statements threatening unspecified countermeasures.
The rebukes from Kim Yo Jong and senior military official Pak Jong Chon came a day before the start of trilateral Freedom Edge exercises south of the Peninsula, which will reportedly run concurrently with the U.S.-ROK tabletop drill Iron Mace focused on integrating conventional and nuclear forces.
In her statement, Kim warned that if the exercises reflect the continued embrace of joint nuclear guidelines signed under “former rulers,” North Korea would see it as “unfiltered demonstration of their anti-DPRK confrontational stand” and proof of a “succession of confrontational policy.”
“I remind the U.S., Japan and the ROK that the reckless show of strength made by them in real action in the vicinity of the DPRK, which is the wrong place, will inevitably bring bad results to themselves,” according to the statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Sunday,
KCNA issued a separate statement the same day from Pak, vice chairman of the ruling Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, blasting Iron Mace as “an undisguised nuclear war rehearsal.” He also called Freedom Edge “the most comprehensive and offensive war drill for aggression.”
He warned that Pyongyang will continue to strengthen its arsenal, stating that the current situation “proves the most appropriate option for the DPRK is to constantly reinforce strategic power to frustrate hostile forces’ attempts of aggression.”
The allies continue their “muscle-flexing,” North Korea would respond “in a very clear and intensified way,” he said.
Both statements were later published in Monday’s edition of the party-run Rodong Sinmun, which is aimed at the domestic audience.
“If something appears only in KCNA and not in the Rodong Sinmun, it is reasonable to view it as having greater emphasis on the external message, since KCNA is primarily outward-facing,” Yang Moo-jin, a distinguished professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told NK News.
He added that Pyongyang’s statements since the Lee Jae-myung administration took office in Seoul have leaned toward public opinion campaigns, rather than threats of immediate military action.
Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU), said the near-simultaneous statements by Kim and Pak point to a coordinated strategy.
“Kim Yo Jong oversees policy toward Seoul and Washington, and Pak Jong Chon is the No. 2 in the party’s Central Military Commission,” the experts said. “When those two figures issue statements at the same time, it signals a planned, high-level message.”
Hong said the rhetoric appears aimed at providing political cover for its push to modernize both nuclear and conventional weapons.
“North Korea is building the justification for future moves, while signaling that ‘counteractions’ or ‘bad results’ could follow,” he said.
On Saturday, KCNA also carried a commentary denouncing Freedom Edge and Iron Mace as proof of the growing “ war hysteria of the U.S. and its minions to dominate the Korean peninsula and the region.”
The commentary said that the “U.S.-led hostile forces are desperately resorting to the strengthening of military cooperation,” calling this a product of the Camp David “confab” and the “dangerous nuclear war exercises devised by former heads of the three countries.”
U.S. Air Force Col. Mike McCarthy relays information to a ROK Air Force Airman at a mission planning brief during the Korea Flying Training 2024 on April 15. | Image: U.S. 7th Air Force
FREEDOM EDGE AND IRON MACE KICK OFF
On Monday, the U.S., South Korea and Japan kicked off the third iteration of the five-day Freedom Edge exercise in international waters southeast of Jeju Island. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff previously announced on Sept. 5 that the drills will cover operations across the maritime, air and cyber domains to enhance interoperability in countering Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile threats.
The three countries launched the drills in Aug. 2023 in accordance with a multi-year training plan agreed to at the Camp David summit between their leaders.
Past iterations in June and Nov. 2024 featured U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carriers supported by South Korean and Japanese Aegis destroyers and advanced fighter jets. It remains unclear whether the U.S. will deploy strategic assets for this week’s exercise.
South Korean media have reported that the Iron Mace exercise will begin Monday at Camp Humphreys, the U.S. military base in Pyeongtaek. The allies have not publicized any details about the drills, and Seoul’s defense ministry declined to confirm to NK News that Iron Mace would run concurrently.
Iron Mace, jointly hosted by U.S. Forces Korea, the South Korean Joint Chiefs and U.S. Strategic Command, is a tabletop drill focused on integrating nuclear and conventional forces in response to North Korea’s threats. The allies held two previous rounds in July 2023 and April 2024, and this week’s reported iteration marks the first under the Lee Jae-myung administration.
Hong of KINU told NK News that North Korea is likely to stage “counter-drills” in response to Freedom Edge and Iron Mace, mirroring the scope and character of the allied exercises.
He suggested Pyongyang could respond with tactical nuclear drills, long-range cruise missile and submarine-launched missile launches, undersea weapons tests or incremental steps toward intercontinental ballistic missile development. He added that leader Kim Jong Un could also “stage factory visits or weapons inspections” to demonstrate progress without provoking immediate escalation.
However, the expert said Pyongyang may calibrate its actions to avoid over-provocation that could trigger a hardline reaction from Washington or upset recent momentum in ties with China.
“Regional events — including China’s Communist Party plenum, the G20 summit and APEC meetings later this year — may also temper North Korea’s timing.”
In a regular briefing on Monday, the ROK’s defense ministry said the military had detected “no current unusual North Korean activity.”
Edited by Bryan Betts
7. Don’t Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance
I agree with Dr. Kim. But we have to be able to generate synergy among our silk web of friends, partners, and allies to be able to counter this "autocratic alliance." We must exploit its vulnerabilities and its very reasons for being - fear, weakness, desperation, and envy.
Conclusion:
The red carpet moment in Beijing was meant to unsettle Washington—and it should. It underscored how far the United States’ rivals have come in teaming up, even if their interests do not completely align. Yet China, Russia, and North Korea each still have reasons to deal with the United States. If Washington can resist the urge for improvised, optics-driven diplomacy; recognize its sources of leverage; and lean into its comparative strengths—its alliances, military power, economic influence, and diplomatic reach—it can shape the strategic environment instead of just reacting to it.
Don’t Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance
Foreign Affairs · More by Patricia M. Kim · September 15, 2025
Washington Still Has Significant Leverage Over China, North Korea, and Russia
September 15, 2025
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Beijing, September 2025 Alexander Kazakov / Sputnik / Reuters
PATRICIA M. KIM is a Fellow at the Brookings Institution with a joint appointment to the John L. Thornton China Center and the Center for East Asia Policy Studies.
Print Subscribe to unlock this feature or Sign in.
Save Sign in and save to read later
No moment captured the shifting global balance of power more vividly than when Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walked in lockstep on the red carpet at China’s military parade in early September. The three autocrats, despite a long history of mutual suspicion, projected a show of unity against Washington. The message behind the carefully managed scene was unmistakable: China is at the center of a rising anti-Western bloc, while the United States is adrift—divided at home, faltering abroad, and rebuffed by its rivals.
U.S. President Donald Trump has made no secret of what he wants from each of the three leaders: a peace deal with Putin to end the war in Ukraine, a trade pact with Xi to rebalance the U.S.-Chinese economic relationship, and a summit with Kim to revive stalled diplomacy on the Korean Peninsula. But all three have spurned his overtures. Instead of engaging on Washington’s terms, Kim, Putin, and Xi are now linking arms in Beijing, flaunting not only their growing willingness to challenge U.S. leadership but also their ability to do so in concert.
But beneath this show of solidarity, China, North Korea, and Russia remain uneasy partners. What the three countries have is a tactical alignment rooted not in trust or shared values but in overlapping grievances and necessity. History demonstrates that they are not natural allies. Each state remains wary of entrapment and is unwilling to subordinate its national interests to those of the others. And crucially, each still seeks something from the United States—leverage that Washington must wield wisely.
THREE’S A CROWD
The last time China, North Korea, and Russia aligned this closely was during the Korean War, which ended badly for all. Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current North Korean leader, invaded South Korea with Soviet and Chinese support. The gamble failed. North Korea became the isolated, impoverished pariah state it is today, while its southern rival, backed by the United States, flourished. For China, the intervention was costly, in both blood and treasure. Hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers were killed or wounded, and scarce resources were drained from its economy, which was already battered by years of civil war and World War II. Worse, the war entrenched a permanent U.S. military presence on its doorstep and upended Beijing’s plans for Taiwan. Fearing a broader communist advance, the Truman administration reversed its hands-off approach and signed a mutual defense treaty with Taipei, indefinitely forestalling China’s goal of annexing the island, which remains unfinished business for China’s leaders to this day. For Beijing, the Korean War offered a sobering lesson: aligning with volatile partners, such as Pyongyang, out of ideological solidarity can incur enormous costs and generate long-term liabilities.
The Korean War also sowed lasting distrust between China, North Korea, and Russia. Pyongyang believed that Beijing had prioritized its own interests during the Panmunjom armistice talks, sidelining North Korea’s concerns. In the years that followed, North Korea resented what it saw as persistent Chinese interference and overreach. Kim Il Sung purged pro-Chinese figures from his country’s leadership, just as Kim Jong Un would do decades later when he executed his uncle Jang Song Thaek, known for having close ties to Beijing. Meanwhile, Beijing bristled at Moscow’s tepid support during the conflict. This added to a growing list of grievances that would culminate in the Sino-Soviet split, which began to take shape by the mid-1950s.
These fractures deepened over time. North Korea, ever transactional, learned to play Moscow and Beijing against each other, extracting aid and concessions from both countries while refusing to subordinate itself to either. China and the Soviet Union, once comrades in arms, descended into an intense ideological and geopolitical rivalry. For China, fears of Soviet encroachment loomed large. In 1961, just days after Moscow signed a mutual defense treaty with Pyongyang, China inked its own pact with North Korea, despite its bitter lessons from the Korean War. That treaty remains China’s only formal alliance to date. Two decades later, similar fears drove China’s 1979 invasion of Vietnam, its last major war. By resorting to force, Beijing hoped to counter what it saw as Moscow-backed Vietnamese expansionism and Soviet encirclement in Southeast Asia. The throughline is clear: mutual suspicion, not solidarity, has historically defined relations among this trio.
FAIR-WEATHER FRIENDS
Today, more than 30 years after the end of the Cold War, the three countries have found common cause again in seeking to erode Washington’s power and influence. But the carefully choreographed display of unity masks old divisions and simmering distrust. Unlike Pyongyang and Moscow, Beijing seeks to reshape the global order without setting it ablaze. It aims to weaken U.S. influence without fully severing its profitable ties with the West. China has extended Moscow a critical economic lifeline and supplied dual-use goods that have helped sustain the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. But it has done so because the costs have been manageable, limited to reputational damage among Western states. Crucially, the war between Russia and Ukraine has not yet posed a direct threat to China’s own security or economic stability. If that changed, Beijing’s calculus could shift quickly.
The cracks in the Chinese-Russian relationship are especially evident on the Korean Peninsula. China is deeply uneasy about Russia’s expanding ties with North Korea. Moscow has turned to Pyongyang for munitions and troops to sustain its war in Ukraine and the two countries have signed a mutual defense pact. Putin has now eclipsed Xi as Kim’s most important partner—frustrating Beijing’s effort to be the dominant player on the Korean Peninsula. Over the past two years, Russia has added to China’s concerns by transferring sensitive military technology, including air defense missile systems and drone capabilities, to North Korea. In private, Chinese analysts express concerns about the limited visibility over these transfers and their destabilizing potential.
Putin has now eclipsed Xi as Kim’s most important partner.
What Beijing fears is a lack of control. In flash points such as the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, China can calibrate the pace of escalation. But North Korean adventurism, backed by Russia, could create volatility on China’s doorstep that it cannot easily manage. As in the Korean War, China risks being dragged into a crisis by a reckless junior partner supported by Moscow. Russia, for its part, is less concerned about the consequences of instability in Asia. Putin’s focus is squarely on reasserting Russian influence in eastern Europe. Should tensions escalate on the Korean Peninsula or in the Taiwan Strait, it is far from certain that Moscow would be willing to shoulder serious costs to support either of its partners.
Indeed, a deeper rivalry between Moscow and Beijing lingers beneath the surface. In June, for example, The New York Times reported that Russia’s domestic intelligence agency refers to China as “the enemy” and worries about Chinese espionage. Within Russia, there are persistent fears that Beijing harbors long-term ambitions in Siberia and the Russian Far East. Moscow is anxious, in part, because Chinese investment and workers have flooded into these areas in recent years and because China published official maps in 2023 that used historical Chinese names for several Russian regions and cities.
Of the three leaders, Kim Jong Un has the most potential to exploit the trilateral relationship. Pyongyang has long perfected the art of leveraging great-power competition to extract concessions and preserve its autonomy. Today, Kim is simultaneously capitalizing on his ties with Moscow and reengaging Beijing to ensure he doesn’t become too reliant on either patron. Attending the military parade with Xi, the first time the two leaders have met face-to-face since 2019, is part of a calculated recalibration. Kim reaffirmed his ties with China while keeping Russia close, strengthening his position to demand greater concessions from Washington in any future round of diplomacy. In this triangle, each country is hedging as much as aligning—pursuing its own interests under the guise of unity, yet prepared to shift course if either relationship becomes a liability.
PLAYING THE RIGHT CARDS
The uneasy convergence of China, North Korea, and Russia may not give the United States a sweeping strategic opening, but it still leaves Washington room to maneuver if it engages each adversary with purpose and discipline. The United States still holds meaningful leverage with China because Beijing seeks economic stability. It wants to avoid any direct confrontation with the United States that would jeopardize its rise. Beijing also shares, at least in principle, several U.S. objectives: preserving regional stability, preventing a nuclear cascade in northeast Asia, and witnessing a peaceful resolution to the war in Ukraine. Chinese officials have repeatedly emphasized their support for cease-fire negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, portraying dialogue as the only way to resolve the conflict.
But overlapping interests alone are insufficient to spur cooperation. If Washington wants to translate these shared goals into tangible outcomes, it must proceed deliberately. The United States should make clear that progress on a trade deal and a possible Trump-Xi summit are contingent on China demonstrating its willingness to cooperate on areas of mutual concern—particularly curbing North Korea’s unchecked nuclear and missile expansion and ending the war in Ukraine.
The United States does not need to engineer a split between China and Russia, nor could it anytime soon. Beijing will resist overt pressure to publicly break ranks with Moscow or Pyongyang. But private pressure might work to sway China, especially when its larger priorities are on the line. Despite its defiant tone, Beijing still seeks a trade deal with Washington that lowers tariffs and preserves a degree of stability in the U.S.-Chinese relationship. Failure to secure a deal may not be catastrophic for China’s economy. But it would add unwanted volatility, compounding existing economic strains and increasing discontent among the Chinese public. By raising the stakes and conditioning Chinese cooperation on Ukraine and North Korea as integral to a broader bilateral agreement, Washington could force Beijing to make modest but meaningful adjustments, such as slowing purchases of Russian oil, curbing dual-use exports to Moscow, and signaling to Pyongyang that denuclearization must remain a long-term goal.
The red carpet moment in Beijing was meant to unsettle Washington.
With Russia, Putin has shown little interest in peace talks that would require him to abandon his maximalist demands in Ukraine. He remains committed to outlasting U.S. and European support for Ukraine. But over time, Russia will need an off-ramp as troop losses mount, economic strains deepen, and public fatigue grows. Neither China nor North Korea can give Putin the diplomatic exit he needs. Only Ukraine and its partners can. Washington should not rush into negotiations; rather, it should use this leverage to carefully shape the conditions for a just and sustainable resolution to the war. The United States should coordinate with European allies to enhance Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense, provide credible security guarantees, and apply mounting economic pressure on Moscow. A key part of that strategy must involve pressuring China and India to scale back their support for Russia’s wartime economy—not through public ultimatums, which often provoke defiance, but through forceful backchannel diplomacy—allowing Beijing and New Delhi to change course without appearing to capitulate to U.S. pressure.
And with North Korea, the United States has bargaining power. Kim wants sanctions relief, regime security, and recognition of North Korea as legitimate nuclear power. There is a limit to how much China and Russia can deliver on these without U.S. cooperation. Despite its anti-American rhetoric, Pyongyang has long pursued a peace deal and normalization with Washington—not just for direct gains, but also because such a breakthrough would unlock broader engagement and economic assistance from Tokyo, Seoul, and beyond. This leverage shouldn’t be squandered in pursuit of a quick Trump-Kim photo op. A workable deal could start with reaffirming the joint statement, signed by Trump and Kim, from the 2018 Singapore summit, which included a clear commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It could be accompanied by interim steps to reduce nuclear risks and expand diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian exchange with North Korea.
The red carpet moment in Beijing was meant to unsettle Washington—and it should. It underscored how far the United States’ rivals have come in teaming up, even if their interests do not completely align. Yet China, Russia, and North Korea each still have reasons to deal with the United States. If Washington can resist the urge for improvised, optics-driven diplomacy; recognize its sources of leverage; and lean into its comparative strengths—its alliances, military power, economic influence, and diplomatic reach—it can shape the strategic environment instead of just reacting to it.
Foreign Affairs · More by Patricia M. Kim · September 15, 2025
8. Sweden’s Lessons for East Asia: Why Japan and South Korea Should Look to Stockholm in a Dual Contingency
Excerpts:
Sweden is not a frontline East Asian power, but its experience in surviving under Russian pressure while integrating into NATO offers practical lessons for Japan and South Korea. By adapting Sweden’s emphasis on household resilience, localized territorial defense, and coalition planning, U.S. allies in East Asia can better prepare for the nightmare scenario of simultaneous crises in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula. At the same time, deepening South Korea–Sweden cooperation—through immediate, medium-term, and longer-term initiatives—would enhance both regions’ ability to deter and endure dual contingencies. In an era where Russia, China, and North Korea increasingly coordinate, democracies must respond in kind, and Stockholm’s lessons—and Stockholm itself—should be part of East Asia’s strategy.
Sweden’s Lessons for East Asia: Why Japan and South Korea Should Look to Stockholm in a Dual Contingency - Institute for Security and Development Policy
isdp.eu · Jagannath Panda · September 4, 2025
As tensions intensify across East Asia, the probability of a dual contingency—a Chinese invasion of Taiwan alongside a North Korean assault on South Korea—can no longer be dismissed as hypothetical. For U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, the challenge is how to prepare for simultaneous high-end conflicts without becoming strategically overstretched. One overlooked source of inspiration lies far from the Pacific: Sweden.
Sweden’s recent NATO accession and its long tradition of Total Defense offer valuable lessons on resilience, deterrence, and multinational cooperation. Just as Sweden built capacity to withstand a Russian crisis while supporting allies, Japan and South Korea can adapt certain practices to deal with a dual East Asian contingency. Moreover, Seoul has an untapped opportunity to expand security cooperation with Sweden—an advanced defense actor whose experience in the Baltic holds direct relevance for Northeast Asia.
Lessons from Sweden for East Asia
South Korea already conducts nationwide civil defense drills, and Japan maintains the J-Alert system, but Sweden offers distinctive advantages in how it embeds preparedness into society. Unlike in East Asia, where exercises can feel routine or narrowly focused, Sweden’s Civil Contingencies Agency ensures that crisis guidance is distributed to every household, with detailed instructions on food, water, communications, and shelter. The emphasis is not only on government-led drills but also on cultivating a culture of individual responsibility and local-level resilience. This Swedish approach could complement existing systems in Japan and South Korea by broadening preparedness beyond alerts and centralized exercises to household-level readiness and sustained public education.
On the military side, South Korea already maintains a significant home front reserve force, while Japan has limited but growing auxiliary capabilities. What Sweden adds is the model of its Home Guard: lightly armed, locally rooted units that specialize in guarding infrastructure such as ports, power lines, transport hubs, and communication networks. The Home Guard is tightly integrated into national defense planning, trained regularly, and able to mobilize quickly for infrastructure defense while conventional forces concentrate on frontline tasks. For South Korea, where reservists often focus on reinforcing frontline brigades, a shift toward Sweden’s system could mean assigning portions of the reserve exclusively to infrastructure protection, cyber-physical security, and territorial denial operations in urban or coastal areas. Japan, too, could adapt this approach to enhance resilience around bases and critical facilities.
Sweden’s pre-NATO practice of developing Host Nation Support arrangements also holds lessons. Japan and South Korea have already made progress in codifying legal and logistical mechanisms to host U.S. reinforcements, but the Swedish example underlines the importance of rehearsing these plans regularly and simplifying bureaucratic clearance. Similarly, Sweden’s involvement in the Joint Expeditionary Force demonstrates how small, mission-specific coalitions can plug into larger frameworks. East Asian allies could borrow this concept by preparing ad hoc multinational naval or air groups tailored to anti-submarine warfare or mine clearance.
Electronic warfare and counter-drone resilience represent another important area of convergence. Sweden has long recognized the importance of mobility and survivability in the electromagnetic spectrum, investing in systems designed to reduce vulnerability to adversary targeting. Recent procurement of the Lockheed Martin TPY-4 radar, available in mobile configurations, highlights Stockholm’s emphasis on radars that can be relocated and dispersed to complicate enemy strikes. Sweden has also continued to upgrade the electronic warfare payloads on its JAS 39 Gripen fighters, drawing lessons from Russia’s intensive use of spectrum warfare in Ukraine. These measures reflect a broader Swedish approach that stresses agility, redundancy, and the avoidance of static, easily targetable nodes.
Japan and South Korea are already moving in parallel directions—Tokyo with its investments in counter-UAS technologies and advanced early-warning radars, and Seoul with its growing portfolio of mobile radar units and counter-drone defenses. Yet Sweden’s example underscores the operational benefits of integrating mobility and dispersal into doctrine. While Japan and South Korea primarily focus on strengthening sensor coverage and air-defense layers, Sweden emphasizes how those assets are deployed and managed: through relocation, dispersion, and spectrum discipline. Although Sweden’s doctrinal publications remain limited, its recent acquisitions and training patterns suggest a deliberate strategy of enhancing survivability by reducing electromagnetic signatures and denying adversaries predictable targets.
For East Asia’s front-line states, this lesson is particularly relevant. China and North Korea have both invested heavily in electronic attack capabilities and precision missile systems designed to blind or suppress allied radars early in a conflict. Adopting Swedish-style practices—training to relocate radars rapidly, dispersing them across redundant sites, and enforcing tighter emission control protocols—could complement Japan and South Korea’s existing counter-drone and sensor programs. By pairing their current hardware investments with operational concepts that prioritize mobility and spectrum discipline, Tokyo and Seoul would significantly increase the resilience of their sensor networks in the opening stages of a dual contingency.
Finally, Sweden’s integration into NATO has underscored the reality of global stockpile competition. Japan and South Korea have already begun expanding munitions production and reserves, but the European experience shows the importance of establishing pre-arranged stockpile agreements to prevent sudden shortfalls during simultaneous crises in Europe and Asia. This requires close coordination with the United States, but also potentially with European partners.
South Korea and Sweden: Building a New Security Link
While Japan has well-established ties with NATO, South Korea’s cooperation with Sweden remains underdeveloped. While South Korea increasingly participates in dialogues on Indo-Pacific security through frameworks like NATO’s ITPP, there is no public evidence of direct consultations with Nordic countries—such as Sweden—on issues spanning both Indo-Pacific and Arctic security in 2023. Nevertheless, both countries face revisionist neighbors, rely on high-tech defense industries, and share commitments to a liberal security order. There have already been promising steps. Sweden and South Korea have engaged in dialogues under NATO’s partnership frameworks, and Swedish defense companies such as Saab have participated in defense exhibitions in Seoul, exploring potential collaboration in aerospace, radar, and counter-drone systems.
To move this forward, cooperation can be understood in three layers of feasibility:
In the short term, Seoul and Stockholm could launch a civil-defense memorandum of understanding focused on crisis communication and household resilience. They might also hold joint counter-drone exercises and technology trials, since both sides already prioritize this area. Cold-weather and electronic warfare training exchanges, as well as continued defense-industry engagement through exhibitions and joint projects, could likewise be implemented quickly.
In the medium term, South Korea could restructure part of its reserve force to resemble Sweden’s Home Guard by assigning units specifically to infrastructure defense and territorial denial. Joint crisis wargames alternating between Seoul and Stockholm could be developed within NATO partner frameworks. Cooperation on critical minerals—drawing on Sweden’s rare-earth deposits and Korea’s processing capabilities—would require industrial agreements but could become a highly strategic initiative.
In the longer term, co-production of munitions and surge mechanisms for crisis-time stockpiles would demand extensive government-to-government coordination and industry alignment. Staff exchanges within NATO contexts may also be possible, though they would depend on South Korea deepening its political agreements with the Alliance. Finally, coordination on inter-theater munitions planning that links European and Asian allies would be politically logical but would require U.S. willingness to integrate middle powers like Sweden and South Korea into its planning.
Conclusion
Sweden is not a frontline East Asian power, but its experience in surviving under Russian pressure while integrating into NATO offers practical lessons for Japan and South Korea. By adapting Sweden’s emphasis on household resilience, localized territorial defense, and coalition planning, U.S. allies in East Asia can better prepare for the nightmare scenario of simultaneous crises in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula. At the same time, deepening South Korea–Sweden cooperation—through immediate, medium-term, and longer-term initiatives—would enhance both regions’ ability to deter and endure dual contingencies. In an era where Russia, China, and North Korea increasingly coordinate, democracies must respond in kind, and Stockholm’s lessons—and Stockholm itself—should be part of East Asia’s strategy.
isdp.eu · Jagannath Panda · September 4, 2025
9. Seoul to review rights violations during US raid
Seoul to review rights violations during US raid
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/east-asia/south-korea-seoul-us-immigration-raid-review-human-rights-violations-5350006
South Korean protesters hold signs reading "Trump, apologise!" during an anti-US rally against the detention of South Korean workers after a US immigration raid in Georgia, near the US embassy in Seoul on Sep 12, 2025. (File photo: AFP/Jung…see more
15 Sep 2025 06:03PM
(Updated: 15 Sep 2025 06:09PM)
Bookmark
Read a summary of this article on FAST.
FAST
SEOUL: The South Korean government said on Monday (Sep 15) it would review whether there were any human rights violations when hundreds of its citizens were detained in a massive United States immigration raid.
Around 475 people, mostly South Korean nationals, were arrested at the construction site of an electric vehicle battery factory in the US state of Georgia on Sep 4.
The raid was the largest single-site operation conducted since US President Donald Trump launched a sweeping immigration crackdown.
Images of the workers chained and handcuffed shocked South Korea, prompting a stern rebuke from Seoul.
Subscribe to our Chief Editor’s Week in Review
Our chief editor shares analysis and picks of the week's biggest news every Saturday.
This service is not intended for persons residing in the E.U. By clicking subscribe, I agree to receive news updates and promotional material from Mediacorp and Mediacorp’s partners.
After delicate diplomatic negotiations, the detained South Korean workers were released and flown back to Seoul.
Some of the workers told local media about appalling conditions during their arrest, including alleging they were held without being informed of their rights.
When asked about the allegations, the presidential office in Seoul said it was conducting a "thorough review".
"Both our side and the US are checking if there were any shortcomings in the measures taken and companies are also looking into it," presidential spokeswoman Kang Yu-jung told a press briefing.
"Together with the company concerned, we are conducting a more thorough review into possible human-rights infringements."
Related:
US diplomat expresses regret over immigration raid on Korean workers, South Korea says
US immigration raid on Hyundai plant: What you need to know
One of the workers told Yonhap News Agency that their rights were not read when they were arrested.
The worker also told the agency they were angry that ICE agents mocked them with remarks about "North Korea" and "rocket man" - an insult Trump has previously used about Pyongyang's leader, Kim Jong Un.
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called the raid "bewildering" and noted it could have a chilling effect on future investment.
South Korean companies "can't help but question whether setting up a plant in the US is worth the potential risks," Lee said.
In what seemed to be a response, Trump said on Sunday that foreign workers are "welcome" and he does not want to "frighten off" investors.
"I don't want to frighten off or disincentivise investment," he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
10. Hard-won lesson from Hyundai factory raid
Hard-won lesson from Hyundai factory raid - The Korea Times
President Lee should urge Washington to streamline work visa process
The Korea Times · ListenListenText SizePrint
U.S. President Donald Trump has shown a subtle yet clear shift in rhetoric following a large-scale immigration raid on Sept. 4 (local time), in which 475 workers — including more than 300 Koreans — were arrested and detained while working at a Hyundai Motor-LG Energy Solution battery plant under construction in Georgia.
Initially, Trump downplayed the incident, referring to the detainees as “illegal aliens” and stating that Department of Homeland Security officials were simply “doing their job.” However, amid growing backlash in both Korea and the United States, Trump softened his stance, stating that he would “look at the whole situation.”
On Sunday (local time), Trump expressed hope that foreign experts could continue to work in the U.S. to transfer their skills to American workers.
"When Foreign Companies who are building extremely complex products, machines, and various other 'things,' come into the United States with massive Investments, I want them to bring their people of expertise for a period of time to teach and train our people how to make these very unique and complex products, as they phase out of our Country, and back into their land,” Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social.
It remains unclear whether this message was a direct response to the repatriation of hundreds of Korean workers, many of whom had entered the U.S. under tourist visas through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization program. However, one thing is becoming evident: The incident has likely deepened Trump’s understanding of the essential role skilled foreign labor plays in reviving U.S. manufacturing.
The repatriated Korean workers are highly skilled specialists — currently irreplaceable in the U.S. — who were dispatched to help construct the battery plant. Their absence has raised serious concerns about delays in completing the facility, and exposed a major gap in U.S. workforce capabilities.
Trump’s evolving view should now translate into concrete policy. His remarks should ignite a productive debate on the need for a specialized short-term work visa that allows skilled Korean workers, particularly those employed by companies making significant investments in the U.S., to legally work and train American employees.
President Lee Jae Myung should play a crucial role in advancing the interests of the Korean people. He should urge Washington to streamline the work visa issuance process for Korean nationals. As president, Lee stated that he is responsible for the safety and well-being of the Korean public. Now is the time for him to act on those words by engaging in proactive summit diplomacy to ensure better protection and opportunities for Korean citizens abroad.
The arrests and repatriation of the Korean workers were an unfortunate and avoidable episode that must not be repeated. All three parties involved — the U.S. and Korean governments, and the Korean companies — have suffered from the fallout of what many see as an excessive enforcement action.
The incident has further strained already tense Seoul-Washington relations. In Korea, public sentiment toward the U.S. has deteriorated sharply. Many Koreans were outraged at the treatment of the detained workers, who were seen as vital to a major economic project, yet were paraded in shackles — hands, waists and ankles bound — as if they were dangerous criminals.
Since the workers’ return to Korea last week, more disturbing accounts have surfaced about their time in the U.S. detention center. One detainee described being forced to eat near a toilet and drink foul-smelling tap water. Others recounted being crammed into cells with as many as 70 people, unable to sleep properly. Some of the arrested workers had valid work visas, which has further fueled anger and confusion.
Construction of the Georgia battery plant has now been suspended, with Hyundai and LG Energy Solution caught in the middle of the diplomatic fallout. Other Korean companies with major U.S. investments are reportedly on edge, fearing similar immigration enforcement actions.
The U.S. also risks significant consequences. During a news conference last week to mark his first 100 days in office, Lee warned that aggressive immigration crackdowns could jeopardize future Korean investment in the U.S.
Within the U.S., the raid has sparked heated debate over the Trump administration’s policy priorities. Some experts argue that immigration authorities overstepped its bounds, noting that the practice of sending specialized workers from home countries to help build overseas factories is a longstanding norm. Ben Armstrong, executive director of the Industrial Performance Center at MIT, told Associated Press that he was "baffled" by the raid. “The existence of these workers shouldn’t have been a surprise,” he said.
Media outlets in the U.S. have highlighted the tension between Trump’s drive to revive U.S. manufacturing and his administration’s hardline immigration enforcement. The Hyundai-LG factory raid stands as a stark example of these conflicting goals.
A streamlined process for issuing short-term work visas to skilled Korean professionals is now the only realistic solution to prevent a repeat of this damaging episode. Such a system would provide legal certainty for foreign workers, reassure Korean investors and ultimately help the U.S. achieve its goal of rebuilding its manufacturing base.
The Korea Times · ListenListenText SizePrint
11. Lawyer appointed as S. Korean ambassador to U.N.
Lawyer appointed as S. Korean ambassador to U.N. | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · Kim Seung-yeon · September 15, 2025
By Kim Seung-yeon
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Jae Myung has appointed a senior lawyer as the ambassador to the United Nations, the foreign ministry said Monday
Cha Ji-hoon, a partner at Yoon & Yang, also known as the Hwawoo law firm, will head the New York-based South Korean mission as the first top envoy to the international organization under the Lee government, the ministry said.
The appointment takes effect immediately as, unlike other ambassadorial positions, the post to the U.N. does not require prior consent from the host country, known as agrement.
Cha, a longtime associate of Lee, was part of Lee's defense team in 2020, when the president, then the governor of Gyeonggi Province, stood trial on charges of election law violations. The Supreme Court overturned the lower court's guilty verdict and sent the case back to an appeals court, effectively acquitting Lee.
Born in 1963 and a native of South Jeolla Province, Cha has spent much of his legal career with Minbyun, a progressive lawyers' group, while also serving at the National Human Rights Commission and on legal advisory committees for the justice ministry and the Korea Deposit Insurance Corp.
Cha is expected to accompany Lee to the 80th session of the U.N. General Assembly's High-level Week next week.
South Korea is also the rotating chair of the U.N. Security Council this month.
Cha Ji-hoon, new South Korean ambassador to the United Nations (Yonhap)
elly@yna.co.kr
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · Kim Seung-yeon · September 15, 2025
12. Labor pains on the road to a stronger U.S.-Korea industrial alliance
Conclusion:
Ultimately, the detention of 316 Korean workers should be seen less as a rupture than as a painful, but necessary, correction -- one that, if handled wisely, could lay the foundation for a more resilient U.S.-Korea industrial alliance.
World News Sept. 11, 2025 / 1:17 PM
Labor pains on the road to a stronger U.S.-Korea industrial alliance
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2025/09/11/perspective-workers-leave-United-States/4551757609451/
By Nohsok Choi
A Korean Air Lines Boeing 747-800 charter flight departs for Seoul with previously detained Korean workers from Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International Airport in Atlanta on Thursday. Photo by Erik Lesser/EPA
SEOUL, Sept. 11 (UPI) -- The shock of the "mass detention of 316 Koreans" in Georgia was eventually eased as arrangements were made for their return. According to Seoul, 316 Korean workers are scheduled to arrive in Incheon on Friday about 4 p.m.
Soon after the apprehensions, President Donald Trump sought to steady the alliance by striking an optimistic note, suggesting that lawful entry for skilled Korean labor might be allowed if Seoul also invested in training and employing more Americans.
Yet, the episode laid bare deeper challenges that must be addressed if the U.S.-Korea industrial alliance is to rest on firm foundations. At its core, this was a cultural collision -- one that forced both nations to confront long-deferred issues.
If handled wisely, the dispute may prove less a rupture than a painful, but ultimately fortifying, correction, delivered just as Korean investments in America are accelerating in the wake of tariff negotiations.
Roots of the crisis
The immediate trigger was the presence of unauthorized Korean workers at the joint Hyundai-LG Energy Solution battery plant in Georgia. Instead of having H-1B visas for skilled laborers, some entered on ESTA waivers or short-stay B1/B2 visas -- statuses that do not allow employment.
Reports suggested that this practice, while long known to occur in various industries, was widespread enough to draw the attention of local politicians such, as Georgia Republican congressional candidate Tory Branum, who warned that it could depress opportunities for American workers.
Trump, meanwhile, has been consistent in his strict enforcement of immigration law. To expect special leniency for Koreans on the basis of alliance politics was unrealistic. From Washington's vantage point, this was not a political slight, but rather the application of existing law.
Nor is this the first time Korean automakers in the United States have faced scrutiny. In 2006, Hyundai's Alabama plant was investigated over labor violations; in 2010, suppliers for Kia's Georgia factory were cited for employing unauthorized workers; and in 2022, Hyundai was linked to child labor issues among subcontractors. From the American side, the Georgia arrests fit into a broader pattern of compliance failures.
Blow to Korean pride
For many in Korea, however, the images of workers in chains, escorted by DHS and FBI agents as if they were hardened criminals, were deeply jarring. To a country that has pledged hundreds of billions in new investment, it felt like a humiliation. In Korean parlance, it was being "stabbed in the back." A frontal rebuke might have been tolerated; betrayal from behind was not. Small wonder that anti-Trump sentiment spiked sharply in the aftermath.
This reaction reflects a distinctly Korean ethos, shaped by the bonds of jeong -- an emotional glue that often blurs the line between public and private duty. In Korean culture, loyalty and relationship can mitigate infractions. In the United States, by contrast, the supremacy of law leaves little room for gray zones.
Cultural collision
For Korean firms, the logic seemed practical: better to send workers on short-term visas than delay multimillion-dollar projects while waiting for scarce H-1Bs. Within Korea's ppalli-ppalli (hurry-up) culture, such shortcuts are often rationalized as necessary, even patriotic.
But in Washington, the perception is starkly different. A factory built on visa violations undermines the very rule of law that Americans see as foundational.
Necessary wake-up call
If nothing else, the Georgia crisis has delivered a wake-up call to Korean corporations. However much they wish to support the U.S. economy, they must do so within the American legal framework. Having matured into global players, Korean firms must now meet the highest international standards -- not resort to practices that Americans perceive as illegal.
The timing, paradoxically, may be fortunate. The controversy erupted before the largest wave of Korean investment into the United States had fully materialized, allowing both sides to treat it as a corrective warning rather than a rupture.
Trump himself offered a note of flexibility. "If this country lacks expertise in batteries," he said in New York on Sunday, "then we should bring in some people to train our workforce in batteries, computers, shipbuilding -- whatever complex work we need."
Still, Washington bears part of the responsibility. For more than a decade, Seoul has urged the United States to create a special visa track for Korean workers, similar to arrangements granted to Australia, Singapore and Chile under free-trade agreements.
Canada and Mexico, under NAFTA, face no numerical limits. By contrast, Koreans must compete in the H-1B lottery, capped at 85,000 annually, with long delays. Little wonder that companies resorted to workarounds.
Legislation known as the Korea Partner Act, reintroduced in Congress in July, would allocate 15,000 visas annually for Korean workers. With Korea committing some $500 billion in new investment, the need for a predictable labor channel is urgent. Resolving this issue could turn a source of friction into the basis for a stronger partnership.
Growing pains worth bearing
Ultimately, the detention of 316 Korean workers should be seen less as a rupture than as a painful, but necessary, correction -- one that, if handled wisely, could lay the foundation for a more resilient U.S.-Korea industrial alliance.
Nohsok Choi is the former Chief Editor of the Kyunghyang Shinmun and former Paris correspondent. He currently serves as president of the Kyunghyang Shinmun Alumni Association, President of the Korean Media & Culture Forum, and CEO of the YouTube channel One World TV.
13. North Korea has likely expanded military spy agency to improve intel: Seoul
North Korea has likely expanded military spy agency to improve intel: Seoul
Unification ministry says reorganization of Reconnaissance General Bureau may stem from push to launch spy satellites
https://www.nknews.org/2025/09/north-korea-has-likely-expanded-military-spy-agency-to-improve-intel-seoul/
Jooheon Kim September 15, 2025
A Pyongyang citizen looks at the Nov. 22 edition of the Rodong Sinmun announcing the successful satellite launch | Image: KCTV (Nov. 24, 2023)
North Korea has likely expanded and reorganized its military spy agency as part of efforts to strengthen foreign intelligence gathering by placing more satellites into orbit, according to Seoul’s unification ministry.
At a briefing on Monday, spokesperson Koo Byung-sam said the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB) appears to have been upgraded to a larger entity called the General Reconnaissance Information Bureau, citing the first mention of the new name in a statement by a senior DPRK military official.
The unification ministry is “monitoring the likelihood that the North has enhanced its capacity for gathering and analyzing external intelligence” following the launch of its military reconnaissance satellite in Nov. 2023, Koo said.
The RGB has carried out most of Pyongyang’s espionage and covert operations under Kim Jong Un, and it has been targeted with unilateral sanctions by both the U.S. and the EU, while Japanese authorities have linked the organization to North Korea’s weapons programs.
Pak Jong Chon, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, mentioned the RGB’s apparent replacement for the first time on Sunday, stating that the General Reconnaissance Information Bureau alerted him about U.S. military drills with South Korea and Japan this week.
North Korea has only successfully launched one military reconnaissance satellite with limited capabilities to date, but it has plans to create a network of spy satellites to monitor the military activities of its rivals, requiring greater resources to analyze the imagery that such satellites capture.
Meanwhile, Koo also stated on Monday that North Korea’s decision to pursue both nuclear and conventional weapons development reflects lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, which have shown that “nuclear weapons are not practical for battlefield use and that conventional capabilities remain essential.”
DPRK leader Kim Jong Un announced that he plans to introduce a policy to develop both nuclear and conventional weapons at the ruling party’s Ninth Party Congress, which is expected to take place in 2026.
Edited by Bryan Betts
14. Kim Seongmin, Defector Who Pierced North Korea by Radio, Dies at 63
So young. I wonder if he died of a broken heart because the ROK and US governments have stopped broadcasting into the north.
Kim Seongmin, Defector Who Pierced North Korea by Radio, Dies at 63
As a military propagandist, he fled the North by jumping off a train. In the South, he broadcast forbidden outside news to isolated North Koreans.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/world/asia/kim-seongmin-dead.html?utm
Listen to this article · 7:28 min Learn more
Kim Seongmin last November. His shortwave radio reports brought North Koreans information they could not get through their government-controlled news media. Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
By Choe Sang-Hun
Reporting from Seoul
Sept. 14, 2025
Kim Seongmin, a former military propagandist who fled North Korea by jumping off a train, defected to the South and from there, as a human rights campaigner, broadcast news to his isolated home country in the face of death threats, died on Friday in Seoul. He was 63.
His death, in a hospital, was announced by his station, Free North Korea Radio, which is based in Seoul. He told The New York Times last November that cancer that had started in his lungs had spread to his liver and brain, and that doctors were giving him only months to live.
Although he could not work or sleep without painkillers, Mr. Kim continued to broadcast twice a day into his last weeks. His reports, by shortwave radio, brought North Koreans information that they could not get at home because all news media there is controlled by the government.
Free North Korea Radio has aimed to chip away at the personality cult that underpins the totalitarian rule of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. North Korea has compared South Korean television shows known as K-drama and other outside media content reaching its people to a “vicious cancer.”
It has enacted new laws in recent years to suppress such material by imprisoning people who watch or possess it and exacting even harsher punishment, including execution by firing squad, of those who put movies, K-pop videos and other material in the hands of North Koreans.
Image
Mr. Kim in the newsroom of Free North Korea Radio in 2007. “Our goal is to help North Koreans realize that they are living not like free humans but like trapped animals,” he said.Credit...Tim Johnson/MCT/Tribune News Service, via Getty Images
“Our goal is to help North Koreans realize that they are living not like free humans but like trapped animals,” Mr. Kim said.
How The Times decides who gets an obituary. There is no formula, scoring system or checklist in determining the news value of a life. We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects. If you know of someone who might be a candidate for a Times obituary, please suggest it here.
Learn more about our process.
Kim Seongmin was born in 1962 in Huichon, North Korea, the only son in a family of seven. His father, Kim Sun-sok, was a poet and professor at the prestigious Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang. Mr. Kim joined the military at 17 and composed poems while marching and training. He eventually became an officer in charge of propaganda in his artillery unit.
Propaganda was a key part of military life.
“It’s all about patriotism — anti-American, anti-Japanese and anti-imperialist,” he told The Times in November, speaking in his home, in a rural area west of Seoul, where he recorded and edited programs while fighting cancer. “In a skit I wrote, a soldier on the stage didn’t know rice prices, he didn’t know medicine prices, he didn’t know anything — except that he should be ready to give up his life for the party and the leader.”
“As a writer,” he added, “I had to write it in such a way that soldiers watching the play went wild clapping.”
His military career began unraveling when other soldiers in his unit stole trumpets, a drum set and other Japanese musical instruments from an arts troupe in a nearby town. An investigation began. Soon, political officers learned about a letter that Mr. Kim had tried to send to an uncle of his in South Korea by first sending it to relatives of a fellow soldier in China.
Mr. Kim was a captain when he fled to China in 1995. He reached Tianjin, where he hoped to get aboard a ship as a stowaway to escape to South Korea. But he was caught by the local police at the harbor. Handed over to North Korean agents, he was put on a train to take him home to a certain death penalty. One agent shackled one hand to one of Mr. Kim’s and even followed him into the toilet. It was a long journey: Because of inadequate electricity in North Korea, the train would crawl, stop and crawl again.
Image
Mr. Kim during a human-rights rally in Seoul in 2014, protesting conditions in North Korea. Credit...Lee Jin-man/Associated Press
“After three days, the train toilet became so incredibly dirty that the officer uncuffed me and let me use it alone,” Mr. Kim said. “That was the last and only chance I had to jump out the window and run.”
He made it back to China, where he worked in a coal briquette factory in Yanji and married an ethnic Korean woman there. In China, he saw a banana for the first time.
“I was at a loss how to eat it. I tried eating the peel first,” he said. “When I later saw a monkey in the Yanji zoo peeling bananas to eat the fruit inside, it was one of those moments that I realized what a cheated life I had had in North Korea.”
He finally succeeded in connecting with his uncle in South Korea, who helped him escape to that country from China in 1999. During a 10-month debriefing at a government facility in the South, Mr. Kim marveled that the faucet in his room could produce both hot and cold water. In the buffet cafeteria, he found, people were free to decide how much they wanted to eat — something unimaginable in the famine-stricken North.
“I took five fried eggs from the tray to see what would happen,” he said. “The chef glanced at me and refilled the tray without comment.”
Mr. Kim was leading an association of North Korean defectors in Seoul in 2004 when he saw that the two Korean governments had suspended their propaganda war in a rare détente, with the South agreeing to switch off its government-funded loudspeaker broadcasts along the inter-Korean border. Mr. Kim said he considered that pact a huge mistake, because it deprived many North Koreans of their only source of outside information.
In the North, the authorities required all radio sets to be registered and altered them to receive only government channels. But many people tinkered with them themselves to receive broadcasts from the South.
In the North, Mr. Kim had kept two sets: one for government broadcasts and the other for signals from the South. It was through South Korean broadcasts that he learned that North Korea’s supreme leader, Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un, was not born on the slopes of the North’s sacred Mount Baekdu, as Northern propaganda said, but in Russia’s Far East.
“If the government didn’t want to do it, I thought defectors like me should do it,” he said of South Korea’s decision to dial down broadcasts.
Mr. Kim launched Free North Korea Radio in 2004, with a staff of several defectors and volunteers, and the backlash was swift.
Image
Although he could not work or sleep without painkillers, Mr. Kim continued to broadcast twice a day into his last weeks.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Untraceable postal packages were delivered to his office containing dolls smeared with red paint and stuck with knives. One package contained seven dead mice. One day, a call came in from China. On the other end was an officer Mr. Kim had befriended in North Korea. He warned that Mr. Kim should stop criticizing the North in his broadcasts if he didn’t want his sisters in the North hurt.
In 2012, North Korea arrested a defector who it said had slipped back into the North from South Korea to dynamite statues of its leaders. It fingered Mr. Kim as the mastermind behind the plot and vowed “merciless retaliation.” He denied involvement. But like other outspoken North Korean defectors in the South, he lived under round-the-clock police protection.
Seoul has turned its official propaganda broadcasts on and off, depending on the inter-Korean mood. Under President Lee Jae Myung, who supported reconciliation with the North, it again stopped those broadcasts, saying that they did little other than provoke Pyongyang.
Mr. Kim is survived by his wife, Moon Myong-ok, and their daughter, Kim Ye-rim.
“I will miss him greatly, but I promised him before he died that we would continue this work,” said Suzanne Scholte, president of the Defense Forum Foundation, a nonprofit human rights group based in Falls Church, Va., that has supported Mr. Kim’s work.
And Lee Si-young, a leader of Free North Korea Radio, has vowed to pick up where Mr. Kim left off. On Friday, the day he died, the radio station began the morning with his familiar, prerecorded opening: “Hello, my compatriots in the North!”
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
15. Pyongyang targets elite privilege in student job placements
Rampant corruption. Hard lives in north Korea.
Excerpts:
“If you join a large workplace after graduation, you can avoid getting dragged off to volunteer in labor shock brigades or on farms, so families with little power or money welcome the order,” the source said.
Indeed, with the latest order, parents and students from families who couldn’t bribe officials or use connections during workplace assignment now hope they can find employment at such places.
On the other hand, families who wanted to leverage power or money during workplace assignment are less enthusiastic about the order.
“If these control measures continue, officials won’t send their children to technical high schools,” the source said. “There are already signs that families are steering clear of enrolling children in technical high schools.”
“The state wants to expand technical high schools, but if officials’ children abandon such schools, the state will have no choice but to turn a blind eye to officials paying bribes to place their children in good workplaces,” the source said. “Preventing bribery in this society is impossible.”
Whether the latest order proves effective in preventing class privilege in workplace assignments therefore remains unclear, the source said.
Pyongyang targets elite privilege in student job placements
"If you join a large workplace after graduation, you can avoid getting dragged off to volunteer in labor shock brigades or on farms...," a source told Daily NK
By Eun Seol - September 15, 2025
dailynk.com · September 14, 2025
A group of North Korean students in Pyongyang. (fresh888, Flickr, Creative Commons)
North Korean authorities are cracking down on corruption in workplace assignments for technical high school graduates, aiming to prevent wealthy and powerful families from bribing their way into desirable jobs.
According to a Daily NK source in South Pyongan province recently, the Cabinet’s education ministry issued a special order to provincial and city education departments late last month, instructing them to assign workplaces to technical high school graduates fairly.
In response, the education department of Nampo’s people’s committee pressured schools to “assign the right graduates to the right workplaces,” instructing schools that they must “take full responsibility for the results of workplace assignments.”
Typically, schools send graduate lists to the city’s labor department, where guidance officials assign graduates to workplaces. During this process, officials often accept bribes to place children from powerful or wealthy families in desirable positions. The latest education ministry order broadly aims to stop this practice, the source said.
“Some graduates used to get assigned to good workplaces regardless of their grades because they were officials’ children,” the source said. “To stop this, the Cabinet made provincial and city education departments directly responsible for implementing graduates’ workplace assignments, with Pyongyang warning it would conduct a survey on the order’s execution.”
The system in practice
For example, Chungsong Technical High School in Nampo’s Taean district specializes in electrical engineering—its students conduct hands-on training with motors, transformers and generators at the Taean Heavy Machine Complex. Large workplaces like Taean Heavy Machine Complex can avoid collective “volunteer work” and long-term mobilizations, which is why most technical high school graduates prefer them.
“If you join a large workplace after graduation, you can avoid getting dragged off to volunteer in labor shock brigades or on farms, so families with little power or money welcome the order,” the source said.
Indeed, with the latest order, parents and students from families who couldn’t bribe officials or use connections during workplace assignment now hope they can find employment at such places.
On the other hand, families who wanted to leverage power or money during workplace assignment are less enthusiastic about the order.
“If these control measures continue, officials won’t send their children to technical high schools,” the source said. “There are already signs that families are steering clear of enrolling children in technical high schools.”
“The state wants to expand technical high schools, but if officials’ children abandon such schools, the state will have no choice but to turn a blind eye to officials paying bribes to place their children in good workplaces,” the source said. “Preventing bribery in this society is impossible.”
Whether the latest order proves effective in preventing class privilege in workplace assignments therefore remains unclear, the source said.
Read in Korean
dailynk.com · September 14, 2025
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
| 
