Today marks 25 years since founding leader Kim Il Sung died suddenly in North Korea.
— Chad O'Carroll (@chadocl) July 7, 2019
This is the front page of today’s July 8 memorial edition of the state newspaper, Rodong Sinmun. pic.twitter.com/q57LyQdss9
You have to love the irony of President Moon asking for “sincere consultations” with Japan when his administration withdrew from the prior comfort women agreement and have been using the courts to further attack Japan for domestic political purposes:
President Moon Jae-in called on Japan on Monday to withdraw its recent export control against South Korean firms, describing it as an attempt to limit trade for a political purpose.
Breaking his strategic reticence on the sensitive issue, Moon said his administration will first make “calm” efforts to resolve it diplomatically.
In case of “actual damages” to South Korean companies, however, the government will be left with no other choice but to take “necessary” measures, he stressed, presiding over a meeting with senior Cheong Wa Dae officials.
He added he hopes to avoid such a vicious cycle of tit for tat.
“(I) call on the Japanese side to retract the measure and call for sincere consultations between the two countries,” he said.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link, but I don’t see the Abe administration bending on this until the Moon administration agrees to uphold the 1965 treaty that normalized relations between the two countries.
This helps to send a message to China about the rising will of the Japanese government to project naval power:
One of Japan’s largest warships, the helicopter carrier Izumo, offers a glimpse of where its military is headed: For the first time, troops from a newly formed amphibious brigade of the Self-Defense Forces participated in an extended naval deployment.
The Izumo left Subic, a former U.S. naval base in the Philippines, at the end of a two-month deployment in the Indo-Pacific region at a time of prolonged tensions involving China’s sweeping territorial claims in and around the South China Sea. The carrier, along with the destroyers Murasame and Akebono, just finished a series of drills with the United States and other countries.
Japan’s ability to project military power beyond its borders is severely constrained by the commitment to pacifism and rejection of use of military force in conflict enshrined in its post-World War II Constitution, though in 2015 it was reinterpreted to allow the use of force in defending itself and its allies.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made amending the Constitution to allow the military greater leeway one of his lifetime goals. President Donald Trump has sought to help that cause, calling repeatedly for Japan to do more to defend itself under its alliance with the U.S.
In May, Japan conducted its first quadrilateral exercise with France, the U.S. and Australia in the Bay of Bengal. France deployed its flagship nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the FS Charles de Gaulle, while the United States sent a missile destroyer, the William P. Lawrence. Other drills have included Canada, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines.
Japan is preparing to reconfigure the Izumo to accommodate U.S. stealth fighters, including F-35Bs, after announcing it would purchase 42 of its own. The aircraft are designed to operate with short takeoffs and vertical landings, such as on carriers.
Japan Times
You can read more at the link, but the Japanese carriers are going to be able to project quite a bit more power once they are equipped with the F-35B’s.
He will probably eventually regret this, but we will never hear about it:
A South Korean son of Ryu Mi-yong, the late chairwoman of a North Korean minor political party, has arrived in Pyongyang to live in the communist country for good, a North Korean propaganda media outlet said Sunday.
Ryu and her husband, Choe Tok-sin, who served as foreign minister in South Korea during the 1960s, emigrated to the United States in 1976 and defected to the North in 1986, leaving behind two sons and three daughters.
In the North, Ryu served as chairwoman of the central committee of the Chondoist Chongu Party.
On Saturday, Uriminzokkiri, one of the North’s propaganda websites, reported that Ryu’s second son, Choe In-guk, arrived in Pyongyang on Saturday for “permanent residence.”
If confirmed, it would be a rare case of a South Korean national entering North Korea and publicly announcing a decision for permanent residence there.
Upon arriving at a Pyongyang airport, Choe said he will devote his life to helping achieve the feat of national unification in accordance with the desire of his late parents.
“To live in and follow a country for which I feel thankful is a path to protect the will left by my parents. So I’ve decided to permanently live in North Korea, albeit belatedly,” the media outlet quoted Choe as saying.
Yonhap
You can read more at the link.
Of the 47 surviving South Korean ‘comfort women’ 36 agreed to accept money from a fund paid for by Japan before it was closed by Seoul for not being part of a sufficient solution to the WWII legacy. https://t.co/KchOm3QDf4
— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) July 6, 2019
It appears there is momentum moving towards reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park:
Nuclear negotiators of South Korea and the United States are set to discuss the possible reopening of now-shuttered Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea through the upcoming working-level talks on North Korea’s denuclearization, officials at the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said Sunday.
“South Korea unofficially sent a message about the normalization of the Gaeseong joint border industrial park to North Korea. The North has yet to respond. However, Seoul will be working on how to come to an agreement on conditions, terms and other differentiations with the United States about reopening the complex,” a DPK lawmaker who is involved with the matter said by telephone.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but this report comes on the heels of another recent report that the Trump administration is now looking at making a “Small Deal”. It appears the small deal could be reopening Kaesong for little to nothing in return which what has been tried before and failed to lead to any North Korean denuclearization.
If it reopens, the Kim regime will be able to use the estimated $110 million a year from the Kaesong Industrial Complex to help maintain the lifestyle of the regime elite and further develop their nuclear and missile capabilities. In return they may give the Trump administration a “cooling tower moment“. I guess we will see if this is what the Trump administration decides to sign up before.
I don’t see the Japanese backing down on their economic retaliation until the ROK government resolves the forced labor court ruling issue:
“Japan may suffer from the government’s strategy in the long term, but by then, the damage on our companies will be even greater,” Kang said.
Park Won-gon, an international relations professor at Handong Global University, speculated Korea will “never beat Japan in the economic tit-for-tat.”
“It’s apparent Japan has planned its retaliatory measures carefully and meticulously, whereas Korea has come up with a counterstrategy hastily and hurriedly,” Park said. “I bet Japan has more cards to play as the economic showdown intensifies. I’m afraid that’s not the case for Korea.”
Shin Yul, a political science professor at Myongji University, said, “Our countermeasures are not very practical.”
The analysts suggested going “back to the beginning” and resolving the dispute diplomatically.
“Everything started from the diplomatic dispute over Japan’s wartime past. Korea should resume talks with Japan and concentrate on forced labor,” Park said.
As an option, he cited the need for President Moon to send a special envoy, such as National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong, to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Shin Yul voiced a similar view.
“I’m not sure whether sending a special envoy is a good idea, but I’m certain mobilizing all possible diplomatic means is necessary at this point,” he said.
Korea Times
You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration may have woken a sleeping giant. If the economic retaliation by Japan is ultimately effective, this could be something the Japanese government continues to turn to every time the ROK government pushes an anti-Japanese issue for domestic political purposes.
If the Trump administration goes with the “small deal” approach with North Korea, they are essentially doing what has already been tried before and did not work:
An editorial published by the Washington Post has put forward the argument that a step-by-step “small deal” is the only diplomatic way forward with North Korea.
Columnist Josh Rogin said in an op-ed Thursday that the United States and North Korea are resuming negotiations in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s impromptu meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last weekend, and that a fight over North Korea policy has rekindled within the Trump administration.
He said, “What we’re seeing now is a return to the idea of a step-by-step approach known as the ‘small deal,’” which he called the only diplomatic path with any chance of success.
He asserted that the Trump administration, led on this issue by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and special representative Stephen Biegun, is now returning to an incremental and phased approach to persuading North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.
KBS World Radio
You can read more at the link, but a small deal would politically get the Trump administration through the 2020 election cycle which is what I think the North Koreans are counting on. The longer they wait and the harder they negotiate up to the 2020 election cycle the better deal they will likely get. Their goal is to get sanctions relief and keep their nukes and the small deal allows them to do this.
If a small deal is signed it will likely be marketed as a “Big Deal” if it includes a path to full denuclearization of North Korea. This politically allows the Trump administration to claim they have achieved a deal to completely denuclearize North Korea as a foreign policy achievement during the 2020 election. However, as we have seen in the past it is likely that the Kim regime will tear up the agreement at a time of their choosing and blame the U.S. for the deal’s failure. By the time this happens their treasury will be flush with cash due to the easing of sanctions and maybe even get major political concessions such as a Korean War peace treaty and USFK troop reductions.
I guess we will see where this is headed to in the next few months.
