Author: GIKorea

This is making me wonder if Pelosi was going to land in Taiwan in secret and this official just blew her cover:

US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is expected to visit Taiwan as part of her tour of Asia,according to a senior Taiwanese government official and a US official, despite warnings from Biden administration officials, who are worried about China’s response to such a high-profile visit. 

The stop — the first for a US House speaker in 25 years — is not currently on Pelosi’s public itinerary and comes at a time when US-China relations are already at a low point.

The Taiwanese official added that she is expected to stay in Taiwan overnight. It is unclear when exactly Pelosi will land in Taipei.

CNN

You can read more at the link.

It is good to see this trilateral cooperation restarting again after it was stopped when former President Moon Jae-in was elected:

 South Korea, the United States and Japan will kick off a combined ballistic missile defense exercise in waters off Hawaii this week, informed sources said Sunday, amid their stepped-up security coordination against North Korea’s evolving military threats.

The biennial Pacific Dragon exercise is scheduled to take place from Monday through Aug. 14, according to them. In addition to the three countries, Australia and Canada will join the exercise in this year’s edition. 

Featuring the mobilization of eight warships and two aircraft, the exercise is aimed at enhancing cooperation among the participating countries in detecting, tracking and reporting ballistic missile targets. 

The exercise has been arranged as the defense chiefs of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan agreed to reinforce their security coordination during their trilateral gathering on the margins of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on June 11.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The Chinese are making threats against South Korea again:

South Korea must “act prudently” and preserve the status quo rather than deploy a second U.S.-made missile defense system, a Chinese diplomat said Wednesday on Twitter.

The United States, not South Korea, has a “malicious intention to deliberately undermine” Beijing’s security by deploying another Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system in South Korea, Liu Xiaoming, China’s special envoy to the two Koreas, said in a tweet.

Stars & Stripes

First of all the U.S. has never offered to deploy a 2nd THAAD battery to South Korea. These batteries are very limited and it is doubtful the U.S. would want two of them on the peninsula at the same time. Secondly the Yoon administration during the campaign said they wanted South Korea to purchase its own THAAD battery.

However, they have already backtracked on this because a THAAD is not something you just go to a car dealership and buy. This is a multi-year long acquisitions process to purchase, build the battery, and train personnel for billions of dollars.  This acquisition would take longer than the 5 years Yoon has in office and likely not worth the political capital to make it happen.

It looks like the Chinese threats worked:

Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s office released an itinerary for the House Speaker’s planned trip to Asia that listed at least four stops — but made no mention of Taiwan.

Reports that the California Democrat was planning to visit the contested, self-ruled island that Beijing claims as its own had sparked anger and threats in China, where officials vowed to do what was necessary to “firmly safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Pelosi on Sunday set off for the Indo-Pacific, where she is leading a delegation of five Democratic lawmakers focused on “mutual security, economic partnership and democratic governance” in the region, according to a news release from her office.

The delegation will visit Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, according to the release.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

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

Kim Jong-un is not happy that the South Korean military under President Yoon Suk-yeol is taking measures to improve defense readiness:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned that South Korea’s Yoon Suk-yeol government and its “military gangsters” will face annihilation should it make any “dangerous attempt” like a preemptive strike, according to Pyongyang’s state media Thursday.

Kim issued the strongly worded, direct warning against the South’s conservative administration, coupled with biting criticism of the United States, in his speech the previous day marking the 69th anniversary of the armistice that halted the 1950-53 Korean War. Pyongyang calls the anniversary “Victory Day” and commemorates it in a celebratory mood.

Kim mentioned South Korea’s president by name three times in the address and branded its military as gangsters, citing its stated strategy to counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats through the reinforcement of the so-called three-pillar system, including the Kill Chain preemptive strike capabilities.

“Such a dangerous attempt would be punished immediately by powerful forces, and the Yoon Seok-yeol administration and his military would be wiped out,” he said, appearing in public for the first time in 19 days along with his wife Ri Sol-ju for the Pyongyang ceremony.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it is ironic that Kim is calling Yoon a gangster when the North Korean regime has long been called the Sopranos State.