This is something that would greatly tip the balance of power back towards the United States if China had to account for hundreds of tactical ballistic missiles pointed at them from surrounding countries just like the U.S. military has to do for Chinese missiles:
On Aug. 18, 2019, the Defense Department conducted a flight test of a conventionally configured ground-launched cruise missile at San Nicolas Island, Calif.
The first of the new weapons could be in operation within two years, though no decision has been announced about where they will be based. Similar missiles are now carried on U.S. warships and planes based in Asia, but there are no land-based systems.
U.S. officials say that many allies are privately supportive of the missile plan and may come around to permitting them on their territory but don’t want to provoke opposition from Beijing and their own public before decisions are on the table.
The U.S. has a defense treaty with Japan, as it does with South Korea, the Philippines and Australia. Taiwan is not a formal ally but has close, unofficial defense ties with Washington.
“We are very attentive to our allies’ concerns, and we recognized their political challenges,” said a senior defense official, who agreed to discuss Pentagon planning if he was not identified. “Everything that’s said in the media is not necessarily what’s said behind closed doors.”
There is now way these missiles will be allowed in South Korea, but the Philippines would be the ideal location for them in response to a South China Sea scenario. The Philippines of course would demand huge concessions in return which I would not be surprised if this is something being negotiated now.
It is pretty clear that the Kim regime is just putting pressure on the Moon administration to see how much concessions they can extract out of him:
North Korea’s decision to sever all official communication channels with South Korea is further weighing on President Moon Jae-in, who was already frustrated by Pyongyang’s lack of response to his inter-Korean peace initiative.
Experts advise Seoul to take a “timeout” from repeatedly offering something to engage the Kim Jong-un regime, while bracing for any possible fallout from increasing tension on the Korean Peninsula.
On Tuesday, the North cut off all cross-border communication lines, including the hotline between Moon and Kim, due to its apparent anger over the South’s “failure” to prevent North Korean defectors and activists from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border tethered to balloons. In addition, the North said “the work toward the South should thoroughly turn into the one against an enemy.”
At the start of the year, the Moon administration emphasized the importance of inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation. In March, the President offered cross-border healthcare cooperation and made another proposal last month to deal with inter-Korean projects that could be carried out separately from the North’s denuclearization negotiations with the United States.
You can read more at the link, but what does the Kim regime have to lose by playing hard to get? They know the Moon administration will bend over backwards to accommodate them thus they will keep the pressure on them to maximize concessions.
It appears that the Moon administration wants to treat the balloon launch human rights activists like they do conservative journalists by threatening them with jail:
Members of Fighters for Free North Korea, an organization of defectors from North Korea, send balloons carrying anti-North leaflets across the border from the South Korean border city of Paju, in this file photo dated April 2, 2016
The unification ministry said Wednesday that it will file a complaint with police against two North Korean defector groups for sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border, a day after the North cut off all inter-Korean communication lines over such leafleting.
The ministry said that it will also take action to revoke business permits granted to the groups, Fighters for Free North Korea and Keunsaem, accusing them of putting the safety of people living in border regions at risk by sending leaflets into the North.
“They have violated public interests by heightening tensions between the South and the North and by running squarely against the agreements reached by the leaders of the two Koreas, and also caused danger to the lives and safety of residents in the border regions,” the ministry said in a press release.
You can read more at the link, but this is once again another example of how South Korea is a rule by law nation and not a rule of law nation. These activists have been doing this for years and one of their leaders Park Sang-Hak has faced assassination attempts by North Korean agents and had leftist thugs assault him to stop his balloon protests. Now with a change of government and complaints from North Korea, what they are doing is suddenly illegal.
An NHK promotional video, shown in this screenshot from Twitter, has come under fire by the U.S. Embassy Tokyo for its “offensive and insensitive” depictions of black Americans.
The ranking U.S. diplomat in Japan criticized public broadcaster NHK on Tuesday for its “offensive and insensitive” cartoon depiction of Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the United States.
NHK posted the 85-second promotional video, or teaser, for its weekly children’s program “This Makes Me Understand! The World Now” on Sunday via Twitter.
Joseph M. Young, the chargé d’affaires ad interim for the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, found fault with the video’s depiction of black people and oversimplification of protests against racism and police brutality, often marked by rioting but later by peaceful demonstrations, that erupted after the May 25 killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
It's not my direct business, and I understand the POTROK has a moral & constitutional obligation to seek peaceful unification, but if it were up to me, I'd say, "Fine. You better watch what you wish for." Then I'd let NK stew for a long time & not pick up when Pyongyang calls. https://t.co/IYZZQtdQVv
— Daniel A. Pinkston (康大植) (@dpinkston) June 9, 2020
Baby Shark, Pinkfong named promotional envoys for Seoul Popular characters — the Baby Shark (L) and Pinkfong — pose for a photo with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon during a ceremony at Seoul City Hall on June 8, 2020, to mark their appointment as new ambassadors to promote visits to the South Korean capital. (Yonhap)
It never made much sense to me to have U.S. military bases named after Confederates other than an olive branch towards southerners that live in those states:
There are 10 U.S. Army posts named after men who were Confederate generals during the Civil War. Top row, from left: Braxton Bragg, George Edward Pickett, Henry Benning, A.P. Hill and Leonidas Polk. Bottom row, from left: John Brown Gordon, John Bell Hood, Robert E. Lee, Edmund Rucker and Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy is open to starting a conversation about changing the names of 10 of the service’s posts named for prominent Confederates, an Army officials said Monday.
McCarthy wants to have a “bipartisan discussion” about the controversial issue, the official said. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide further details, including what sparked McCarthy’s willingness to discuss the topic.
It marks a substantial change in the Army’s position on the naming of the 10 Army posts: Camp Beauregard and Fort Polk in Louisiana; Fort Benning and Fort Gordon in Georgia; Fort Bragg in North Carolina; Fort A.P. Hill, Fort Lee and Fort Pickett in Virginia; Fort Rucker in Alabama, and Fort Hood in Texas.
You can read more at the link, but renaming these bases can become a slippery slope. What happens when Navajos, Apaches, and Blackfeet demand that Ft. Carson be renamed because Kit Carson brutally defeated and subjugated them? Or the Nez Perce demanding that Ft. Lewis be renamed since Meriwether Lewis was an explorer that opened the door to their later subjugation by the U.S. government?
I could probably find more examples of bases named after people who did not have perfect backgrounds. The Army just needs to be careful on this issue or next thing you know every base will need to be renamed because of demands from various activist groups.
Besides some schools in the Seoul area the vast majority of South Korea’s schools are now open:
A Covid-19 testing center in Songpa District, southern Seoul, is packed with people wanting tests Monday after health officials announced that a high school senior who visited Lotte World in Jamsil, Songpa, last Friday tested positive for the virus on Sunday. [YONHAP]
The final batch of students returned to school Monday, completing a three-week phased reopening of schools as Korea steps into the post-Covid-19 age.
Yet even as fifth, sixth and seventh graders finally began their school year after a three-month delay, anxiety loomed in many parts of the Seoul metropolitan area, where several clusters of coronavirus infections have popped up lately.
The Ministry of Education announced that 517 schools remained closed Monday, almost all in Seoul, Incheon or Gyeonggi, due to fear of infections. The closed schools account for about 2.5 percent of 20,902 nationwide schools.
![A Covid-19 testing center in Songpa District, southern Seoul, is packed with people wanting tests Monday after health officials announced that a high school senior who visited Lotte World in Jamsil, Songpa, last Friday tested positive for the virus on Sunday. [YONHAP]](https://i0.wp.com/koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2020/06/08/a0c4e2d0-4487-41c7-b5fc-3b7a0045b182.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)
