Author: GIKorea

It looks like Korea may see a surge in Chinese tourists:

A temporary visa waiver program for Chinese group tourists who visit Korea will begin later this month, officials said Sunday, as part of efforts to boost the nation’s tourism market.

Under the visa-free program, a group of Chinese tourists with more than three people can travel to Korea without visas for as many as 15 days from Sept. 29 to June next year, according to a joint statement by justice, culture and other ministries.

Korea Times

You can read at the link.

It looks like Korea’s “Bali-Bali” culture led to the Hyundai and LG workers not wanting to wait and go through the H1B visa process:

Many of those reportedly entered the US using B1 visas — issued for business purposes, such as attending meetings or signing contracts — or through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa waiver program for short-term stays. US immigration officials said that was the central issue in the raid.

Foreign nationals must acquire an appropriate visa such as the H-1B, L1 or E2 to legally obtain employment at workplaces located in the US. But as those visas can take months to obtain and their numbers are capped, they are often deemed impractical for companies that need to dispatch workers frequently or on short notice. Industry officials also complain that wait times for all types of visas have lengthened since the start of the Trump administration.

According to Korean media reports, the US allocates annual H-1B visa quotas to certain countries with which it has free trade agreements, including Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Chile and Australia. Despite having a free trade agreement with the US, South Korea does not receive a quota.

In response to the concern, an official from Seoul’s Foreign Ministry, who requested anonymity, noted that H-1B visas are distributed through a lottery. The official said that the ministry has repeatedly urged the US government and Congress since 2012 to create a separate visa quota for Korean professionals, such as via the proposed Partner With Korea Act.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but I wonder how many of the jobs the detained Joreans were doing could have been done by Americans?

It will be interesting to see if the personnel deported will be allowed back into the country again in the future with a proper work visa. With that said I am sure every Korean business is reviewing visa status of their workers now:

The Korean government said Sunday that talks with U.S. authorities to release more than 300 Korean workers detained in Georgia were finished, and that only administrative steps remained before a chartered plane would be dispatched to bring them home.

Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik announced the development at a high-level policy meeting in Seoul, saying the release as imminent thanks to swift cooperation among government ministries, business groups and companies.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

The real story here is not this botched mission into North Korea, but why is it being leaked now after six years?:

A group of Navy SEALs emerged from the ink-black ocean on a winter night in early 2019 and crept to a rocky shore in North Korea. They were on a top secret mission so complex and consequential that everything had to go exactly right.

The objective was to plant an electronic device that would let the United States intercept the communications of North Korea’s reclusive leader, Kim Jong-un, amid high-level nuclear talks with President Trump.

The mission had the potential to provide the United States with a stream of valuable intelligence. But it meant putting American commandos on North Korean soil — a move that, if detected, not only could sink negotiations but also could lead to a hostage crisis or an escalating conflict with a nuclear-armed foe.

It was so risky that it required the president’s direct approval. 

For the operation, the military chose SEAL Team 6’s Red Squadron — the same unit that killed Osama bin Laden. The SEALs rehearsed for months, aware that every move needed to be perfect. But when they reached what they thought was a deserted shore that night, wearing black wet suits and night-vision goggles, the mission swiftly unraveled.

A North Korean boat appeared out of the dark. Flashlights from the bow swept over the water. Fearing that they had been spotted, the SEALs opened fire. Within seconds, everyone on the North Korean boat was dead.

The SEALs retreated into the sea without planting the listening device.

The 2019 operation has never been publicly acknowledged, or even hinted at, by the United States or North Korea. The details remain classified and are being reported here for the first time.

NY Times

You can read more at the link, but there is a reason someone is leaking this story now. My guess is that someone is trying to make it impossible for Trump to conduct any negotiations with North Korea. Kim Jong-un may ratchet up tensions in response to finding out his own citizens were killed by U.S. Navy Seals.

The Pentagon needs to investigate and find the leaker. Whoever did this should receive a long jail sentence as a future deterrent because this is likely being done for political reasons.

It looks a subcontractor was trying to skirt US immigration laws. With ICE strictly enforcing immigration laws companies need to do their due diligence to comply with them:

Nearly 500 people were arrested as part of an immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor battery plant under construction in Georgia as part of a criminal investigation into employment practices at the site, a Homeland Security official said Friday.

The operation Thursday resulted in the arrest of 475 individuals. More than 300 were South Korean nationals, according to an official from the country.

Those arrested had illegally crossed the border, entered through a visa waiver program that prohibited them from working or had overstayed their visas, Steven Schrank, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Atlant a, said at a press conference Friday morning.

“This was the largest single site enforcement operation in the history of Homeland Security investigations,” Schrank said.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link, but instead of getting an H1B visa the workers had B1 visas. These visas are for attending business meetings not construction work. The subcontractor probably got their workers into the U.S. using the B1 visa because H1Bs are more complicated and highly scrutinized since you have to show an American can’t do the work.

What would Korea do if 300 Americans showed up on a wrong visa and began constructing a building in Seoul? They would probably have the same reaction to what is happening in Georgia.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.

In year North Korea has had almost as many Soldiers killed as the U.S. did in 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan:

The spy agency estimated around 2,000 North Korean troops dispatched to Russia for combat in Ukraine were killed, lawmakers said Tuesday.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) shared the assessment during a closed-door briefing to the parliamentary intelligence committee, Reps. Park Sun-won and Lee Seong-kweun told reporters.

The NIS said Pyongyang is planning to additionally send some 6,000 soldiers to Russia in its third batch of troop deployment to aid Moscow’s war with Ukraine, while around 1,000 combat engineers have already arrived in Russia.

The existing troops are stationed in the “rear front as reserve forces,” the agency said, pointing to the possibility of a leadership change among the dispatched troops.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Wall Street Journal has an article on how the CCP is brainwashing their citizens to believe Communist guerrillas were responsible for defeating Imperial Japan in World War II:

Within China, the party is projecting its war narratives on television and cinema screens. A 10-part documentary, “Victory,” recounted the Communist Party’s “mainstay role” in fighting Japan. One new historical drama depicted how a band of Communist guerrillas in northeastern China, after being routed by Japanese forces, regrouped and fought back.

Promoting the Communists’ “mainstay” role in the resistance will help people understand the party’s “greatness, glory, and correctness,” and “unite the masses more closely around the party center with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,” Zhu Jiamu, a senior historian at the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, wrote in a recent essay.

Wall Street Journal

You can read more at the link, but the then ruling Chinese Nationalists are the ones that fought Japan throughout the war while the Communists largely hid out in the countryside. The attrition of Chinese Nationalist troops during the war is part of the reason the CCP was able to win the Chinese Civil War following World War II.

If Xi cared about history he would be thanking Nationalists troops, the U.S., and its Pacific allies for defeating Imperial Japan, but we know that will never happen. Maintaining a fictional narrative is more important. As George Orwell once said, he who controls the present controls the past.