Category: Inter-Korean Issues

The speculation is the Kim Jong-un will send a high ranking political official along with sports officials to the Winter Olympics:

A North Korean delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics could be led by Kim Yo-jong or by Choe Ryong-hae, the second-most powerful person in the North.

During his personally delivered New Year’s address, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed his hope that the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics would be a success and declared his willingness to take the necessary measures, such as sending a delegation to South Korea. The delegation that Kim mentioned would presumably include International Olympic Committee member Jang Ung, National Sports Guidance Committee chairman (NSGC) Choe Hwi and Minister of Sports Kim Il-guk.  [Hankyoreh]

You can read more at the link, but if he sends his sister to South Korea I think that is a sign that Kim Jong-un is really pushing his charm offensive on South Korea to get concessions after an extended period of provocations.  Having his sister attend the games would give North Korea a softer touch internationally with all the cameras on her instead of the sternly faced old men that usually attend these events.

The Moon administration seems giddy after Kim Jong-un’s New Year message offering to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics:

Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon proposed Tuesday holding high-level talks with North Korea, Jan. 9, to discuss its participation in the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Cho’s offer came in response to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s New Year’s message, in which he said he was willing to send a delegation of athletes to the South’s first Winter Olympics.

Minister Cho suggested holding the cross-border dialogue at the truce village of Panmunjeom. He said Seoul is open to discuss the timing, venues, methods and other preparatory steps regarding the talks with Pyongyang.

“We propose to hold high-level talks on Jan. 9 at the Peace House (on the South Korean side of Panmunjeom),” Cho said during a press conference at the ministry in downtown Seoul. “We’re willing to talk with the North freely over the necessary steps both sides must take. To do so, the dialogue channel at Panmunjeom should be restored promptly. We expect to hear a positive response from the North soon.”

If North Korea accepts, this will be the first cross-border dialogue since President Moon Jae-in took office in May 2017. It will also be the highest-level contact between the two Koreas since December 2015 when vice minister-level officials met.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but for long time Korea watchers like myself this is just another example of the pattern with North Korea of raising tensions with provocations and then conducting a charm offensive to get concessions.  Once they get the concessions they will then break whatever agreement they made and blame the US and the ROK and restart the provocation cycle.

What is different this time is President Trump seems determined to enforce stricter sanctions and President Moon seems determined to start another Sunshine Policy particularly trying to reopen the Kaesong Industrial Complex.  I can easily see a return to the failed Sunshine Policy causing tension politically between the US and the ROK which is likely one of the goals of the Kim regime if they do implement a charm offensive.

Since February, when I summarized the UN resolutions that Kaesong violated (https://t.co/YoUoe16R0l) the UNSC has further restricted joint ventures with N. Korea. Sunshine was a conclusive & catastrophic failure policy failure, and Pyongyang has done nothing to deserve reopening. pic.twitter.com/OgPvIV4QgV

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) December 30, 2017

It appears that the Moon administration is trying to develop a political path to bring the Kaesong Industrial Park back from the dead:

Ousted former President Park Geun-hye unilaterally ordered the shutdown of an inter-Korean industrial complex last year without proper consultations or a legitimate process, a panel report showed Thursday.

The report was unveiled by a nine-member committee of civilian experts that has been reviewing the previous conservative governments’ North Korea policies, including Seoul’s closure of the Kaesong Industrial Complex in February 2016. The panel was launched by Seoul’s unification ministry in September.

The Park administration shut down the factory zone, just north of the inter-Korean border, in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in 2016. The move put an end to the last symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation.

“It is verified that the closure was decided by the president’s unilateral verbal order without discussions or consultations at the official decision-making level,” the report showed.

The former government said that the shutdown was decided at a National Security Council meeting on Feb. 10, 2016, right before the announcement. But the report showed that Park made the order two days earlier.

It also said that the closure was a decision that transcended law, adding that even a political decision amid a security crisis should be made within the boundary of law and under legal procedures.  [Yonhap]

It was no secret that the Kaesong Industrial Park could be shutdown in retaliation for North Korean provocations.  There were plenty of discussions over a prolonged period of time before the final shutdown in 2016.  Park may have decided she wanted to shutdown Kaesong, but she still clearly held a National Security Council meeting to discuss it before the final decision was announced.  This seems like an extreme reach to try and find fault with the decision making process in my opinion.

Here is the most ridiculous part of the government’s findings:

At that time, the ministry said that the decision was aimed at preventing money generated by the industrial park from bankrolling North Korea’s nuclear and missile development.

But the panel said that there is no sufficient information or evidence to support the claim that funds from the complex had been used for other purposes.

“This hampers the legitimacy of the government’s decision and limits Seoul’s future stance over the resumption of the Kaesong complex,” the report showed.

The Kim regime is paid directly in US dollars which makes it very easy for the Kim regime to divert the money to support their weapons programs as has been previously reported:

South Korea said 70 percent of the U.S. dollars paid as wages and fees for the suspended Kaesong industrial project, run jointly with the North, had been diverted for Pyongyang’s weapons program and luxury goods for leader Kim Jong Un.  (……)

“The wages for the North’s workers and other fees were paid in cash in U.S. dollars to the North’s authorities and not to the workers,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said on Sunday. “This is believed to be channeled in the same way as other foreign currency it earned.”

The cash is then kept and managed by the ruling Workers’ Party’s Office 39 and other agencies, the ministry said. The ministry said it had confirmed the movement of the money through various sources but did not specify them.

Office 39 is widely believed to exist to finance the luxurious lifestyle of the North’s leader. The office is also believed to be part of the North’s agencies that fund the country’s missile and nuclear program.  [Reuters]

For the Moon administration to claim that no money from Kaesong was used to support the Kim regime’s weapons programs is very deceptive.  This is because the Kim regime is not going to provide a financial audit that shows conclusively where the dollars they received went to.  However, reasonable people can conclude that any money received by the Kim regime from Kaesong to fund their government is more money ultimately available to fund their weapons programs.

The Moon administration clearly has a political motive to try and reopen Kaesong, but I would be very surprised if the Trump administration will ever agree to this.  Could you imagine the Tweet storm from President Trump if President Moon announces the reopening of the Kaesong Industrial Complex?

This was pretty stupid that this ship would sail into a South Korean port after illegally delivering oil to North Korea:

A Hong Kong-flagged vessel has been seized and inspected by South Korean authorities after secretly transferring oil to a North Korean vessel in international waters in a ship-to-ship transfer prohibited by the United Nations Security Council, government officials said Friday.

South Korean customs authorities took and searched the vessel, Lighthouse Winmore, when it entered the country’s Yeosu Port on Nov. 24 after transferring 600 tons of refined petroleum to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19, the officials said.

UNSC Resolution 2375, adopted in September, bans member countries from ship-to-ship transfer of any goods for North Korea. Resolution 2397, adopted just a week earlier allows a country to capture and look into a vessel suspected of engaging in prohibited activities with North Korea.

The Hong Kong-flagged ship was chartered by Taiwanese company Billions Bunker Group and previously visited South Korea’s Yeosu Port on Oct. 11 to load up on Japanese refined petroleum and head to its claimed destination in Taiwan four days later, the authorities noted.

Instead of going to Taiwan, however, the vessel transferred the oil to a North Korean ship, the Sam Jong 2, and three other non-North Korean vessels in international waters in the East China Sea, they said.  [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link, but the ROK is expected to hold on to the ship for six months while the legal process plays out.  It seems to me the ROK ought to just auction the ship off.  How many companies would want to do illegal oil transfers with North Korea if they risk having their shipped sold off?

I guess we will see where this leads, but Key Resolve is the joint military exercise that typically happens every March which would be the month after the Pyeongchang Olympics held in February 2018:

South Korea and the United States may consider postponing their joint military exercise as part of efforts to reduce tension and invite North Korea to the Winter Olympic Games to be held in South Korea, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday.

Moon, however, said the move really depends on the way North Korea behaves.

“It is possible for South Korea and the U.S. to review the possibility of postponing the exercises. I have made such a suggestion to the U.S. and the U.S is currently reviewing it. However, all this depends on how North Korea behaves,” he said in an interview with U.S. broadcaster NBC on Tuesday (local time).  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

It appears that 2019 is the timeframe that the Moon administration will push to get a freeze deal agreed to with North Korea:

South Korea should push for a summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in the first half of Moon’s term, a senior ruling party lawmaker said Thursday.

Rep. Lee Hae-chan of the Democratic Party made the suggestion in a speech set to be delivered at a security conference, saying 2019 will be good for a summit because the year is meaningful as the 100th anniversary of the 1919 nationwide uprising against Japanese colonial rule and the establishment of a provisional government.

“If possible, it’s important to push for a South-North summit in the first half (of Moon’s five-year term),” Lee said during the conference organized to mark late former President Kim Dae-jung’s winning of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize following the first inter-Korean summit ever earlier that year.

“If a summit takes places in the second half, it would be difficult to guarantee its effectiveness,” he said.  [Korea Times]

That last sentence leads me to believe that the Moon administration has little confidence that what they have planned will be popular enough with voters to elect another liberal President to follow through with whatever is agreed to at this summit.

Here we go again with yet more momentum building towards a freeze deal:

A South Korean ruling party lawmaker said Thursday that President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping share an understanding that suspending North Korea’s nuclear and missile development and joint South Korea-U.S. military exercises at the same time is the most realistic way to start resolving the standoff.

Rep. Lee Hae-chan of the Democratic Party also said during a security conference that Moon and Xi talked a lot in their meetings about the simultaneous suspension, as well as the idea of seeking the North’s denuclearization and a Korean War peace treaty at the same time.

“I can say that (Moon and Xi) have come to a point where they share an understanding that it is perhaps the most realistic way,” Lee said during the conference organized to mark late former President Kim Dae-jung’s winning of the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize.  [Yonhap]

I have been saying this for quite sometime, but signing a peace treaty would mean the end of the US-ROK alliance.  That is because if there is “peace” then why does the US need troops in Korea?  This would play into the North Koreans strategy of separating the US from South Korea to set the stage for coopting South Korea with their nuclear weapons.  There is a false belief that North Korea is solely pursuing nuclear weapons for regime survival when the regime has survived just fine with the threat of a massive artillery strike on Seoul.  The ultimate goal of the North’s nuclear weapons program is to co-opt the ROK into a confederation on North Korean terms.  A freeze deal followed by a peace treaty plays right into the Kim regime’s hands.

Additionally the freeze deal for treaty plays into China’s hands who have also long wanted to separate the ROK from the US in a bid to increase their hegemony over the region.

Pyongyang can subjugate the ROK without invading it, by suppressing freedom of speech & the ROK's capacity to defend itself, step by step. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Elements of this have already happened or are, now. https://t.co/DzLq8xFwTz https://t.co/sp9Hj8NUKd

— Joshua Stanton (@freekorea_us) December 3, 2017

Here we go again with more talk of a freeze deal with North Korea where the international community rewards North Korea for violating United Nations sanctions and receive little to nothing in return:

South Korea and the international community may begin discussions on possible rewards for North Korea if the reclusive state decides to at least freeze its nuclear program and come to the denuclearization dialogue, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday.

“I believe it will not be easy realistically to move on to complete dismantlement of North Korean nukes in the near future, considering recent advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs,” the president said at a press conference.

“That means it will likely be North Korea first freezing its nuclear program and then moving onto complete dismantlement, and if that happens, I believe we and the international community may discuss what we can do in return,” he added.

The South Korean president was attending a regional forum hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Manila. He arrived here Sunday following trips to Indonesia and Vietnam.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but President Moon is also once again urging the North Koreans to take part in the Winter Olympics being held this upcoming February in South Korea.

I would love it if some journalist would ask President Moon if he would have advocated for Apartheid South Africa to participate in the Olympic Games?  Apartheid South Africa was shunned from the Olympics and they were not a threat to world peace or have any where near the level of human rights violations going in North Korea right now.