Author: GIKorea

A ROK Air Force general will now being taking over as the ROK Defense Minister.  This is the first time a ROK Air Force veteran will be defense minister in 24 years.  I wonder if this pick is to counterbalance the influence of the ROK Army that may not be as supportive of removing South Korean defenses along the DMZ as President Moon may like?:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday nominated the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as defense minister.

Jeong Kyeong-doo, 58, a former fighter pilot, would take over the ministry as the government seeks to reduce tension and build trust with North Korea, and at a time of uncertainty over relations with main ally the United States.

Jeong, who is set to replace incumbent Song Young-moo, does not need parliament’s approval but must attend a hearing and answer legislators’ questions.

He would be South Korea’s first defense minister with an air force background in 24 years, media reported.  [Reuters]

You can read more at the link.

After firing the head of Statistics Korea who also happened to be a female, President Moon has replaced the female Labor Minister as well:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s relatively new administration is becoming synonymous with high turnover, as more women appointees are either being replaced or resigning after a year of service.

Seoul’s Labor Minister Kim Young-joo, one of the few women in government to occupy a high position, publicly disclosed her decision to “resign” on her Facebook page, the Korea Times reported Friday.

Kim has weathered several controversies as the Moon administration introduced a 52-hour workweek and raised the minimum wage. The latter policy drew the ire of small to medium-sized South Korean businesses.  (………..)

Kim’s statement appears to be referring to the Moon administration’s decision to replace her with a newly appointed labor minister, Lee Jae-gap, who heads the Korea Workers’ Compensation and Welfare Service, according to the Korea Times.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link, but how much the economic numbers change will be interesting to see.  Expect the now largely state controlled South Korean media to parrot whatever the new economic numbers are in the future.

Central Asian countries—tied to the umbilical cord of Chinese money—have to bite their tongue and not speak out in the face of human rights abuses China is committing in Xinjiang. https://t.co/cVECfvWVUO

— Foreign Policy (@ForeignPolicy) August 31, 2018

Angry self-employed businessmen from across the country call for the government to revoke the recent sharp increase of the minimum wage during a rally amid heavy rains at Gwanghwamun Square in downtown Seoul on Aug. 29, 2018. Many self-employed persons gave up their businesses in the wake of the hike. (Yonhap)

So what do you do as President when you don’t like the economic statistics?  You fire the person giving you the statistics and replace them with someone who will give you statistics you prefer:

The Moon Jae-in government is facing backlash for replacing the head of its economic statistics agency, whose reports have shown the economy spiraling downward amid hikes in the minimum wage and the government’s income-led growth strategy.

On Monday, lawmakers from opposition parties criticized the Blue House decision on Sunday to replace the Statistics Korea commissioner.

Floor leader of the Liberty Korea Party (LKP) Kim Sung-tae said the person that should be replaced is not the head of Statistics Korea but Moon’s top economic adviser Jang Ha-sung, one of the architects of the income-led growth strategy.

“It’s like scolding a person who shouted ‘fire’ instead of the person who started the blaze,” said the LPK floor leader Kim.

Ham Jin-gyu, head of the LKP policy committee, stressed that the sacking threatens the independence of the statistics agency.

“Statistics Korea is not a department that sets up policy but rather announces statistics,” Ham said. “It’s worrying to think of what future statistics releases will be, considering that the Statistics Korea commissioner is changed just because they are not happy [with the statistics showing the state of the economy].”

On Sunday, the Blue House announced it was replacing the commissioner of Statistics Korea, Hwang Soo-kyeong. This came as a surprise since she only served 13 months in the job, considerably shorter than the average two years of her predecessors.

There is widespread speculation that Hwang lost her job due to the recent unfavorable reports including the worst jobs report in eight and half years and several reports describing a widening income gap between the rich and poor.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but to make this look even worse is the fact that one of the few women in the ROK government was fired and replaced with a male.  It will be interesting to see how much the statistics change.

After flying aircraft though the ROK ADIZ now the Chinese military is conducting naval drills off of the Korean peninsula.  I think it is pretty clear that the Chinese government is sending a message to the ROK government to continue to play nice with North Korea and don’t give into demands from the Trump administration:

China’s People’s Liberation Army naval forces have conducted two drills and plan another this week near the Korean Peninsula in a possible show of force, ahead of a planned inter-Korea summit in Pyongyang in September.

According to China’s maritime authorities on Thursday, the Chinese navy is to again conduct drills in its northeastern waters from Friday to Sept. 7, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

Well President Moon is the person that said that people need to shake off the “stereotype that the private sector creates jobs.”  This is what that belief leads to:

The government spent more than W50 trillion in 2017 and this year on its futile attempts to create jobs (US$1=W1,119). A lawmaker who is among candidates to become head of the ruling party blames the high unemployment on the W22 trillion the Lee Myung-bak administration spent a decade ago to dredge the four major rivers and waterways in the country. But the Moon Jae-in administration has spent twice as much money and only 5,000 jobs were created in July. In the past, when the government did not spend a single penny on job creation, jobs increased by around 300,000. Unemployment now stands above 1 million for the seventh straight month, while a record 1 million small businesses are expected to close this year.

W50 trillion is an astronomical amount of money. Not many countries have a total budget that size. After spending that much, the government needs to show some results, but there has been no progress whatsoever. So where has the money gone?

A closer look at the government’s job-stimulus objectives this year gives a vague idea. The government is paying W6 trillion to support the unemployed, while another W4 trillion is going into measures aimed at prodding the jobless to find work. That means around half of this year’s budget earmarked for job creation has in fact gone into supporting the unemployed and forcing companies to keep workers they do not need. And the W2 trillion allocated for job training is focused on short-term positions.

In fact, most of the jobs the government claims to have created have been short-term positions. About half of jobs it created last year by spending W11 trillion from the supplementary budget were for senior citizens, although the government said it aimed to boost youth employment. And those jobs will vanish as soon as government funding dries up. A study by the Labor Ministry shows that six out of 10 workers who found jobs through government programs quit in less than a year. Taxpayers’ money effectively turned into salaries for the jobless.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but you have to love how the Korean left is trying to blame former President Lee Myung-bak for high unemployment when he has been out of office for nearly seven years.

This penalty makes sense to me that if you sign a contract to lose and hold a certain weight over an amount of time and don’t keep your end of the bargain:

Singer Kim Tae-woo of the group g.o.d has to pay tens of millions of won to a weight-watching business he advertised because he got too fat.

The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday found for the plaintiff, weight-loss company Juvis, against Kim and his agency, and ordered them to pay W65 million in compensation.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

That's a fundamental disunity of interests that, if not healed, will certainly lead to decoupling. Better that we should use that leverage while we still have it. https://t.co/aafxfC97yS

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) August 28, 2018

South Korean Justice Minister Park Sang-ki poses with U.S. Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris prior to their meeting at the justice ministry in Gwacheon, south of Seoul, on Aug. 29, 2018, in this photo provided by the ministry. (Yonhap)