If South Korea’s conscripts get paid minimum wage this will probably lead eventually to a major push to professionalize the force and do away with mandatory service:
The wage for drafted soldiers recorded a 33 percent on-year jump in 2020 and is expected to rise further in 2022, when it will reach half of the monthly minimum wage workers received on average in 2017.
Both the public and the government are increasingly aware of soldiers’ right to due monetary compensation, shifting away from considering military service as a statutory civic duty without adequate financial return, experts say.
“There’s the growing public understanding that we can no longer urge soldiers to serve active duty out of their allegiance or commitment to the country,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University.
Besides, the intense debate regarding the legal minimum wage here has had an impact, he said.
“We’ve recently had and continue to see a heated debate about setting the minimum wage, and while doing that, I think, we’ve come across the military sector as well — whether conscripted soldiers are paid right doing what they do.”
Starting this year, sergeants will receive an increased monthly stipend of 540,900 won ($466). Corporals and privates will receive slightly less. The hike marks a 33 percent on-year jump.
That is about 40 percent of the country’s minimum monthly wage in 2017.
A Seoul court is set to begin a review this week of its ruling over disgraced former President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached in 2017 following a bribery scandal that rocked the country.
Park was impeached midterm in March 2017 on allegations she and her close friend abused their power and received billions of won in bribery from top conglomerates, including Samsung and Lotte.
The Seoul High Court is scheduled to begin the retrial Wednesday, roughly five months after the country’s top court ordered the appeals court to review the case, citing procedural issues.
You can read more at the link, but since Korea is largely a rule by law country and not a rule of law country, I figured President Park would sit in jail until another President from the Korean right is elected. I guess we will see what happens.
What is the point of negotiations if the U.S. is supposed to give in to all of Pyongyang’s demands before the so called negotiations:
Kim Kye-gwan
Former North Korean chief nuclear envoy Kim Kye-gwan said Saturday that dialogue with the United States can resume only when it fully accepts Pyongyang’s demands.
Kim, currently foreign ministry adviser, also stressed the North would never engage in a negotiation to exchange its core nuclear facility for partial sanctions relief as it did in the no-deal Hanoi summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in February last year.
If anyone is wondering why President Moon is going after Korea’s prosecutorial system here is the supposed reason:
Roh Moo-hyun
Moon, who once worked as a lawyer, saw the need for an institutional framework to end what he saw as a vicious cycle: The prosecution was used as a tool for “political retaliation” every time a government changed.
Roh died by suicide in 2009, the year after he completed his term, after prosecutors under conservative President Lee Myung-bak questioned him over bribery allegations.
“The conflict between the participatory (Roh Moo-hyun) government and the prosecution over the reform resulted in Roh’s tragic death,” Moon wrote in the book.
In reality the prosecutors were not responsible for Roh’s death, the corruption surrounding Roh was responsible for his death. Long time ROK Heads may remember that Roh used to go around claiming he was the “cleanest” ROK president ever; essentially attacking past Korean conservative Presidents as being corrupt. When President Lee Myung-bak took over after Roh Presidency ended, he had prosecutors look into Roh’s finances and found corruption involving family members and former aides. Roh had to eventually admit to his part in the corruption:
“I want to make public something in advance,” Roh wrote. “Right now, Chung Sang-moon, former Blue House secretary, is being questioned on charges of receiving money from Park. I am concerned that Chung might have testified that he had actually done so. The accusation should be directed toward us, not Chung.
“My home made the request, received money and used it,” the former president confessed. “We have done so because we still had outstanding debts.”
Roh wrote that he will cooperate with the prosecution’s investigation and testify concerning details. “I will face legal action in accordance with the case. I apologize again,” he wrote.
Instead of facing an embarrassing trial for the multiple corruption cases that surrounded him and his family he decided to commit suicide. His suicide effectively made him a martyr to the Korean left and protected his kids from being charged by the prosecutors.
So when President Moon Jae-in took over as President he immediately went after former President Lee for corruption and had him thrown in jail. So it is pretty ironic that Moon claims in his book that the prosecution system needs to be reformed because it gets used for political retaliation when he in fact did the same thing once in power.
Then last week he executed his “Wednesday Night Massacre” to stifle corruption investigations into his administration by Korean prosecutors. His administration also implemented so called “reforms” that will ensure that the current government can continue to cover up internal corruption.
N.K. leader’s new year field tripNorth Korean leader Kim Jong-un (C) speaks during an inspection of a fertilizer factory under construction in Sunchon, north of the capital Pyongyang, his first “field guidance” of the new year, in this photo provided by the Korean Central News Agency on Jan. 7, 2020. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap)
ROK Drop favorite One Free Korea has a great run down on the Wednesday Night Massacre that President Moon executed to stop the investigation into the corruption allegations surrounding his administration:
New ROK Justice Ministe Choo Mi-ae who executed the Wednesday Night Massacre to help stop the corruption investigations into the Moon administration.
IF ONLY HE’D MASSACRED THEM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, the metaphor would have been impeccable. But when South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, directs his Justice Minister, Choo Mi-ae, to reassign 32 prosecutors as they closed in on political corruption in his office—four months before elections will decide whether his party will have a majority to pass laws or a supermajority to amend the Constitution—it should have been the biggest news since the impeachment of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Last night, the “liberal” “human rights lawyer” may have inflicted a death blow to the rule of law in Korea’s “vibrant democracy.” When a government ceases to be accountable, it ceases to be democratic, because the people are denied the knowledge to govern themselves intelligently.
I highly recommend reading the whole thing at the link which lays out all the corruption allegations and what the Moon administration is doing to cover up each one of them before April’s National Assembly elections.
People protested and demanded impeachment of the prior President Park Geun-hye for far less then this.
I hope no one is surprised that the Moon administration is busy removing private sector hires from the government and replacing them with bureaucrat allies:
The Gwanfia is back, though it may never have left to begin with.
It seems that more senior bureaucrats than ever are parachuting into top posts at government-controlled institutions since the start of the Moon Jae-in administration.
Gwanfia is a portmanteau of the Korean word gwanryo, meaning “bureaucrat,” and Mafia.
The latest is the appointment of former Blue House economic chief Yoon Jong-won as the chief executive of the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK).
Almost all positions filled during the Park Geun-hye administration by executives from the private sector are now held by bureaucrats.
The heads of three major state-run banks – Korea Development Bank (KDB), Export-Import Bank of Korea (Exim Bank), Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) – and the leaders of the major financial associations – the General Insurance Association of Korea (GIAK), the Credit Finance Association and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (Kodit) – had been selected from the private sector.
