Author: GIKorea

This is not good for South Korea’s economy by becoming increasingly dependent on Chinese imports, especially semiconductors:

U.S. high-tech restrictions on China are taking a toll on Korea’s trade balance.  
   
For the first time in 30 years, Korea has recorded a trade deficit with China, its biggest trading partner.   

Exports to the country totaled $13.4 billion in May and imports $14.6 billion, resulting in a $1.1 billion deficit, according to the Korea Custom Service. This month, a $690 million shortfall is forecast.    
   
The government is concerned about the growing trade deficit with China, and the Korea International Trade Association (KITA) Beijing office has started to work on damage assessment.    
   
According to a KITA study, 16.5 percent of Korea’s imports from China were semiconductors, 10.3 percent fine chemicals for batteries and 5.5 percent computers.    
   
Last month, Korea imported $2.4 billion of Chinese semiconductors, a 40.9 percent increase year-on-year. Korea’s No.1 export to China was semiconductors. On year, semiconductor exports to China were up 11 percent.    
   
China has been speeding up its semiconductor localization after efforts by the United States to cut it off from certain key technologies.  
   
The development of semiconductors in China is being pursued much as the country pursued the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb and the satellite.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

This is something that the ROK government needs to stop or they are going to end up with a large drug addicted homeless population like we have in the US:

“Do you want to try it? It feels really good, and it helps you lose weight too. One time can’t hurt.”  
   
Those were the words heard by a 17-year-old student as she was handed a syringe by a man in his thirties, whom she met through a slightly older friend.  

He was lying. The first time led to another, and another — and an addiction.

Arrested by the police last year, the 17-year-old student admitted she made a mistake taking that first injection. But the older man wasn’t honest at all with her. “If I knew it was methamphetamine inside that syringe, I would have never done it in the first place.”  

Korea is developing a teen drug problem, its size difficult to estimate. One indication: over 100 million individual purchases every year of drugs from overseas, according to the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office.

Importing, manufacturing, trading, buying, selling, transporting, possessing, and using drugs are all considered drug crimes in Korea.   (……)

“Based on the UN’s standards, if the number of drug offenders exceeds 20 in a population of 100,000, it means that drugs aren’t under control and it is not a drug-free nation,” said Cheon young-hoon, a psychiatric specialist and director of Incheon Chamsarang Hospital.    
   
“Considering Korea’s population of 50 million, the number of drug offenders per 100,000 is actually more than 30.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Former President Lee is temporarily released from prison for health issues, but I would not be surprised if this is a prelude to him being pardoned in the near future:

The prosecution suspended the imprisonment of former President Lee Myung-bak for three months due to health reasons Tuesday, more than a year and a half after the Supreme Court finalized a 17-year sentence for him for corruption.

The Suwon District Prosecutors Office made the decision to release Lee from the Anyang Correctional Institution, after the 81-year-old former president filed for suspension of his imprisonment earlier this month, citing deteriorating health.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

UPDATE: The car of the missing family has been found and we should soon know whether the bodies of the family are in it:

Police on Tuesday said they found the car of a missing family off the southwestern coast after a female elementary school student and her parents disappeared mysteriously from a guesthouse in the region about a month ago.

The car with the same license plate as that of the family — 10-year-old Cho Yu-na and her parents in their 30s — was found at about 5:12 p.m. hanging on the fence of a fishing farm off Wando, according to local police and coast guard. 

Whether there were bodies inside have yet to be confirmed. Police said they plan to raise the car from the water early the next morning after taking necessary measures to protect any evidence.

Yonhap

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This is a very weird story, hopefully this family turns up:

A massive police search has been under way for a family of three missing on a remote island on the southwestern coast, as a female elementary student and her parents disappeared mysteriously from a guesthouse there about a month ago.

Police said Monday the search for 10-year-old Cho Yu-na and her parents in their 30s, who reside in the southwestern metropolitan city of Gwangju, entered its sixth day on Wando, a quiet island about 120 kilometers south of their home.

Cho has been absent from her Gwangju school since May 19 after reporting that she would take part in an out-of-school experiential learning program on Jeju Island together with her parents until June 15.

In South Korea, students applying for out-of-school experiential learning are recognized as attending school.

But Cho did not return to school after her out-of-school field trip ended on June 16. The school then filed a missing persons report with police on June 22 after repeatedly failing to contact the family on their cell phones.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but the parents sold their computer business before driving to Wando. They were seen on camera leaving their guesthouse at 11PM at night and turning off their cell phones near a dock at 4AM in the morning. Their car has not been found as well. This is all very weird circumstances that hopefully authorities can get answers to.

According to the article half of the items in the exchanges are from China. I am actually surprised that number is that low. I try to buy things not manufactured in China and often time every brand of the product I am looking for is made in China. It would be interesting to see what the exchanges would look like without made in China products:

Some military resale experts are warning that a proposal to ban the sale of Chinese-made products in military exchanges and commissaries would be “devastating,” especially to exchanges.

The proposal, an amendment introduced by Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., was approved by the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

“We cannot in good conscience fill post exchanges with products created with slave labor and sponsored by and benefiting financially the authoritarian regime of the Chinese Communist Party,” Green said during the markup of fiscal 2023 defense policy bill. In addition, he said, “The Chinese Communist Party believes they can steal our military technology without consequence. We need to show them that isn’t the case.

“The last thing we want to do is financially contribute to their tyranny. They’re laughing at the idea of American soldiers funding their schemes by filling the shelves of our PXs and BXs with their products.”

Army Times

You can read more at the link.

The KNPA director was highly criticized by President Yoon after he approved a personnel reshuffle without running it by the President for approval. The KNPA director is a hold over from the prior Moon administration so he was probably going to get changed out anyway:

National Police Agency Commissioner General Kim Chang-yong offered to resign Monday, days after President Yoon Suk-yeol strongly chastised police over a recent personnel reshuffle flip-flopping.

Police released the names of new senior superintendents general a week earlier, only to reverse seven of the selections two hours later. Yoon rebuked police, calling the flip-flopping a “serious disturbance of national discipline.”

The resignation offer also came as police have protested the interior ministry’s plan to establish a “police bureau” to increase its control of the law enforcement agency set to take over greater investigative roles from the prosecution.

“I determined that resigning now would be the best way,” Kim said, offering an apology to the public and policemen for “failing” to safeguard the neutrality and independence of police.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.