Category: Anti-American Crap

The Yoon administration is demonstrating that all the delays of road access to the THAAD base during the Moon administration was political. This summer access to the site has greatly increased after President Yoon’s election as this recent delivery further demonstrates:

The military delivered equipment to a U.S. THAAD missile defense unit here in the wee hours of Sunday, a civic group said, as the government moves to normalize access to the base despite local residents’ opposition.

The equipment from the U.S. Forces Korea and the South Korean military were brought onto the base in Seongju, 220 kilometers south of Seoul, at around 1:30 a.m., according to the group opposed to the installation of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) unit.

It marked the first time for such items to be delivered on the weekend since May 2021, when the USFK and the defense ministry began sending equipment to remodel troops’ barracks. Around 10 vehicles were delivered on Sunday, including a bulldozer, a fueling vehicle and a van.

Local residents rushed to the site to protest after hearing the sound of the delivery vehicles.

The civic group said the police and the defense ministry had informed them there would be no deliveries during the weekend but used the cover of darkness to make a sudden delivery.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but according to the article ground movements to the THAAD base has increased up to five times a week.

It is amazing that after all these year the Lone Star issue is still coming up in Korea:

An international tribunal ordered South Korea to pay the U.S. private equity firm Lone Star Funds US$216.5 million plus interest, officials said Wednesday, bringing an end to a decadelong legal battle surrounding its sell-off of a local bank.

South Korea said it cannot accept the decision and will actively consider pursuing an appeal.

The Washington, D.C.-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) delivered the verdict in the investor-state dispute settlement suit that Lone Star filed in 2012 to demand US$4.68 billion in compensation from South Korea’s government, according to the justice ministry.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but basically Lone Star made a bunch of much money in Korea and then tried to take its profits outside the country.  Their sale of the Korea Exchange Bank led to large protests which caused the government to try and stop the sale any way it can. This all happened back in 2007 and was just one of a handful of anti-U.S. issues activists were using to stoke anti-American sentiment in Korea at the time.

The KCTU might as well as just say they get their marching orders from Pyongyang:

 Representatives of South Korea’s largest trade unions are warning that Ulchi Freedom Shield, the largest military exercise by the U.S. and South Korea in five years, runs counter to their members’ interests.

The Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions together claim more than 2 million members working in government, schools, public transportation and the automotive and food industries.

Their street demonstrations against the large-scale drills have been frequent sights outside the presidential office in Seoul and U.S. bases like Camp Humphreys since the start of Ulchi Freedom Shield on Aug. 22.

“If a war breaks out, those who will suffer from the war are our people: workers and laborers,” Lee Jihyun, spokeswoman for the Federation of Korean Trade Unions, told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but I find it interesting that not once has the KCTU held a major rally to protest North Korea’s various provocations, missile launches, or nuclear tests. However the ROK holds defensive drills with the U.S. after suspending them for five years for nothing in return and they have a problem with that.

Compared to past anti-US protests targeting the MacArthur statue this is actually pretty mild:

South Korean police arrested a man Thursday suspected of defacing a bronze statue of the late General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in Incheon.

Detectives from the Incheon Jungbu station took a 60-year-old Korean man into custody following a 2:50 a.m. disturbance call at Freedom Park, an Incheon police official told Stars and Stripes by phone on Thursday. Police did not identify the man but said he belongs to an activist group called the Peace Agreement Movement Headquarters.

The group describes itself on its website as a peaceful organization that opposes the deployment of American troops in South Korea and their joint military exercises.

The man is suspected of destroying public property by writing “Deport U.S. troops” in red paint at the base of MacArthur’s statue located at the park, the police official said.

The man is also accused of chiseling a nearby inscription honoring MacArthur’s place in South Korea’s history, as well as defacing MacArthur’s face on a separate memorial with red paint.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but tearing down the MacArthur Statue has been a long time goal of the Korean radical left to tear down the MacArthur Statue. They even attempted to do this on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Unsurprisingly it was found that past attempts to tear down the statue were led by a North Korean spy.

Here we go again with the leftists wanting to tear down the MacArthur Statue in Incheon:

During the Korean War, Ahn Hag-sub was a devoted 22-year-old communist serving in a North Korean militia unit. Seven decades later, he still hates the Americans, and their wartime leader, Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

At age 91, he says his last act of resistance against MacArthur will be lighting on fire a statue of the general that has stood in Incheon since 1957.

“MacArthur is the enemy of our people,” Ahn said in an interview at his home near Incheon, a South Korean port city located an hour’s drive west of Seoul. Ahn has lived there since the late 1990s, when he was released from a South Korean prison on humanitarian grounds, after spending 40 years behind bars. “I will resist for as long as I can,” he added, tightening his lips.

In South Korea, declaring loyalty to North Korea — as Ahn did, something he still refuses to rescind — is a serious national security crime that can land violators in prison for life.

As a free man, Ahn joined a small but dedicated far-left nationalist group calling itself the Peace Treaty Movement. (It’s with several younger colleagues in that group that Ahn said he’d set alight the MacArthur statue.) The movement’s dislike of MacArthur, who died in 1964, reflects a minority opinion in South Korea, but a heated one.

At a time when the statues of historical figures are being reexamined (and in some cases removed) in the United States and Britain, they are trying to bring attention to a debate over this pivotal — and foreign — figure in modern South Korea’s history.

South Koreans with similar views to Ahn’s see MacArthur as a ruthless commander whose forces killed Korean civilians. MacArthur’s statue should be removed, they say, and sent to the war museum in Seoul. Or, better, it should be dismantled.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but this has been a long time goal of the Korean radical left to tear down the MacArthur Statue. They even attempted to do this on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Unsurprisingly it was found that past attempts to tear down the statue were led by a North Korean spy.

The THAAD controversy has now become a major political issue in the ROK presidential campaign:

Yoon, the statement said, believes the sole battery in Seongju has limited capabilities to defend the Seoul metropolitan region.

“Peace is not a thing which clamors by mouth but shows by doing actions,” the statement said. “We will build peace through power.”

Lee, the Democratic Party candidate, cautioned against deploying an additional THAAD battery, during a presidential debate with Yoon and two other challengers on Thursday.

Lee has described the existing system, deployed under South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s conservative administration, as a harsh “reality,” and on Thursday said he would judge its usage based on future circumstances. 

Lee, in a recent campaign statement, accused Yoon of “escalating tension and intensifying confrontation.” Yoon’s pro-THAAD stance would “ruin our economy” by way of provoking China, Lee said during Thursday’s debate.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but someone should grill Lee on what he means by future circumstances? Does that mean he will demand THAAD be withdrawn and expose South Korea more to a missile attack as part of North Korean negotiations?

Something the Stars & Stripes article does not point out is that Yoon wants Korea to purchase their own THAAD battery just like they have purchased Patriot missile defense batteries:

Concerning North Korea’s continued missile tests, People Power Party (PPP) presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol said on Tuesday that, if elected, he would “establish a multi-level missile defense system that includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)” in order to “ensure the safety of the Korean people against the threat of nuclear missiles from North Korea, from the greater Seoul area to northern Gyeonggi.”

In a press conference Monday, a subsidiary of Yoon’s election committee in charge of the candidate’s foreign and security policy platform stated that under a Yoon presidency, the South Korean government would purchase THAAD from the US with 1.5 trillion won and directly operate the system through the South Korean military. 

The THAAD base in Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province, was established with US government funds and is being operated by US Forces Korea (USFK). As the THAAD interceptor in Seongju has a maximum range of 200 km and thus cannot reach missiles attacking the greater Seoul area, the Yoon campaign is arguing for an additional THAAD battery to protect the 20 million residents of Seoul and its surrounding areas from the threat of North Korean missiles.

Hankyoreh

You can read more at the link, but I think Yoon should be more clear in his argument that THAAD can better protect the Seoul area from certain ballistic missile threats, however it does nothing against the artillery and short range rockets that can easily range Seoul. THAAD is not a magic bullet that can stop all threats to the Seoul area.

It appears we may be beginning to see the playing of the anti-U.S. card by the Korean left:

Amid deteriorating inter-Korean relations, a South Korea-U.S. working group is taking flak for hampering progress in bilateral ties due to its excessively harsh standards adopted on North Korea. 

Critics say unlike its initial goal of coordinating policy on the North, the group is obsessed with whether Seoul-driven initiatives to engage with Pyongyang violate economic sanctions on the reclusive state, with some even calling for its breakup.

The working group, co-chaired by Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs and U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun, was set up in November 2018 following three inter-Korean summits earlier that year. 

Upon its establishment, the government had high hopes that it would be in close communication with the U.S. via the organization. But due to Washington’s stern stance that inter-Korean economic cooperation should proceed in step with significant progress in denuclearizing the North, the group has been more focused on whether inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation violate international and U.S. sanctions.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration has been holding off on playing the anti-U.S. card because of the efforts of the Trump administration to work out a deal with North Korea. However, no deal to end sanctions was ever reached. The Kim regime has lost patience thinks now is the time to pressure the Moon administration to unilaterally violate sanctions. This is because the Moon administration firmly won the April parliamentary elections and the Trump administration is bogged down with a number of issues.

To unilaterally violate sanctions the Moon administration will need to set conditions to blame the U.S. for the new tensions with North Korea. Sending out the activist groups to blame the South Korea-U.S. Work Group is just the start of this effort.

Good luck with trying to get these protests to stop:

The U.S. Embassy in Seoul last week asked local police if there was any way to block rallies held under the guise of press conferences in front of the embassy, according to a police source.    
   
The People’s Democracy Party, a Korean progressive group, has held anti-American rallies in front of the embassy in Gwanghwamun, central Seoul, for the past three years. The political party, established in 2016, has advocated for workers, farmers and small business owners while calling for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Korea.    
   
On June 3, about 20 members of the People’s Democracy Party held a rally in the form of a press conference in Gwanghwamun Square, protesting the death of George Floyd, who died from suffocation in Minneapolis police custody last month. Protesters held up a sign that read: “U.S. imperialism means ‘I can’t breathe.’”  
   
The next day, the protesters again gathered in Gwanghwamun and called for the expulsion of U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris from Korea.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the Korean government can get these protests stopped anytime they want. They have likely made a decision to keep a small undercurrent of anti-Americanism brewing that they can stoke at anytime when needed.

Today is the 18th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks. This is usually a day of solemn memorials, but in South Korea back in 2005 it was used as day to bash Americans. Leftist protesters took to the streets of Incheon and battled with riot police in their attempt to topple the statue of General MacArthur at Jayu Park. As bad as the anti-Americanism of some of these leftists groups may be today in South Korea, we fortunately have not seen anything yet like we saw in the 2002-2006 period in South Korea. Hopefully it stays that way.