Category: Korea-General Topics

A 2% drop in air travel to Japan is really not that impressive, but airlines are getting themselves prepared in case it gets worse:

Korean airlines are suspending flights and reducing the size of planes on Japanese routes as demand for seats plummets in the wake of a diplomatic-trade dispute between the neighbors.

Asiana Airlines said Tuesday that it will use smaller airplanes on flights to three major Japanese cities – Osaka, Okinawa and Fukuoka – due to the growing boycott in Korea of things Japanese. 

While Airbus 330 planes were used on those routes, the smaller Airbus 321 or Boeing 767s will be used starting mid-September, the company said. 

“While A330 planes can carry some 290 passengers, A321 planes offer 174 seats,” a spokesperson for Asiana said. “Reservations for flights to Japan have fallen by roughly 2 percent year on year at this point, but we decided to change airplane models in case the [diplomatic-trade row] lasts longer.”

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

According to the article more South Korean women are foregoing marriage and having kids which is contributing to a population decline:

Baeck Ha-na works in accounting during the week. On weekends, she’s a YouTube star in South Korea, promoting the “live-alone life.”

Baeck, whose YouTube channel in English is called “Solo-darity,” objects to being called a “mi-hon” — someone who is not yet married. She’s part of a growing and determined group of Korean women rejecting marriage and motherhood.

Such decisions are intensifying demographic and economic challenges for the government as the country faces one of the world’s lowest birth rates and a shortfall in pension funding that is getting harder to close with fewer workers joining the labor force.

“Society made me feel like a failure for being in my 30’s and not yet a wife or a mother,” Baeck said. “Instead of belonging to someone, I now have a more ambitious future for myself.”

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.

Moon's son-in-law bought a house in Seoul in 2010. #MoonJaein & his wife move in 2012-16. Moon moves in 2016 to another house. The son-in-law gives the house to his wife, Moon Da-hye, also Moon's daughter. 3 months later, Da-hye sells the house. Why such complex transactions? https://t.co/eBzbJBypsH

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) December 29, 2018

It looks like it is still a tough job market for younger and even middle aged Koreans. More part time work to older people and retirees is contributing to the the tight job market:

Korea has been losing its economic vitality as the Moon Jae-in administration’s efforts to boost employment have led to more part-time jobs for retirees and fewer full-time positions for young jobseekers, according to economists here and overseas, last Friday. 

Criticizing the government for its short-sighted labor policies, the economists urged the administration to devise long-term strategies for the country’s sustainable growth.

“The government’s labor policy is more like a measure to help senior citizens maintain their incomes,” said Lee Phil-sang, an economics professor at Seoul National University. “The economy lacks the ability to create jobs. It has lost the ability since the nation’s key industries have lost their global competitiveness.”

According to Statistics Korea, the number of employees in their 30s and 40s in June 2019 dropped by 32,000 and 182,000 respectively from a year earlier. The number of workers aged between 15 and 29 also decreased, by 4,000.

In addition, 66,000 people lost manufacturing jobs ― the number of workers in the sector has fallen for 15 straight months.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like more gas stations in Korea are going to become more like their counterparts in the U.S.:

Gas stations are soon to become something very different, as charging units and hydrogen compressors are added across the land. But there’s more, as operators in the business look to diversify and make the outlets more profitable.

They are adding a wide range of goods and services, including maintenance centers, convenience stores, fast food restaurants and even coffee shops. Parcel delivery is also on the list.

Such changes come as gas stations struggle under intense competition. On average, 170 of them are driven out of business annually, forcing the adoption of new strategies to survive.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Found this picture by chance. It seems about right. pic.twitter.com/i2KRRvGZqS

— John Lee (The Korean Foreigner) (@koreanforeigner) July 25, 2019

Weekly Chosun says the current friction btwn ROK and JPN is the one btwn ROK politicians who are incompetent and ideology-oriented and JPN officials who are experts in their work. https://t.co/91QZr4nzGX

— bmk218 (@bmk218) July 24, 2019

If the Moon administration allows the auctioning of the assets of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in South Korea, I wonder what the Japanese response will be? Would they try and auction off the assets of a major Korean company like Hyundai in Japan in response? If so this dispute could get even uglier:

Plaintiffs who won a compensation suit against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for its wartime forced labor filed a formal request to a local court Tuesday to seize and liquidate the Japanese firm’s assets in Korea, after the company refused to abide by a November Supreme Court ruling in their favor.

The request came amid an escalating feud between the two countries following the court verdict and Japan’s alleged retaliatory move restricting exports of key materials to Korea. 

The action comes eight months after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, which sided with 87-year-old Yang Geum-deok and four other plaintiffs who were forced to work without pay at a Mitsubishi aircraft plant in Nagoya during World War II. The court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay between 100 million won ($85,000) and 150 million won to each victim in legal compensation. 

But the company refused to pay, and also ignored multiple requests to negotiate an agreement, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. During this time, three plaintiffs passed away. 

“There is a limit to waiting,” civic groups that supported the five said in a press conference on behalf of the plaintiffs, Tuesday. “As we warned, we have asked the court to order the sale of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s assets in Korea.” 

The request was filed with Daejeon District Court, targeting the “liquidation of six patents and two trademark rights” which the company was granted in Korea, including its new MHI English logo. Earlier in March, they asked a court to allow them to “seize the intellectual properties,” a request that was accepted. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

#MoonJaeIn's Deobureo Minjoo Party (Democratic Party of #Korea) created a "Special Committee to Respond to #Japan's Economic Retaliation," then quickly renamed it "Special Committee to Respond to Japan's Economic Invasion." An invasion? Ruling party stoking anti-Japan sentiment. https://t.co/fWfdY8jByO

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) July 23, 2019

The Japanese government is looking for every opportunity now to stick it to the Moon administration:

Anchor: Amid Seoul and Tokyo’s ongoing trade spat over the Abe administration’s export curbs, tensions between the neighboring countries have been further exacerbated after Tokyo renewed its claim over South Korea’s Dokdo islets in the East Sea. South Korea dismissed Japan’s renewed territorial claim over the Dokdo islets, reiterating that the islets are Korean territory historically, geographically and by international law.

Kim Bum-soo has more. 

Report: As a Russian warplane violated South Korean airspace above the easternmost Dokdo islets Tuesday, Tokyo used the opportunity to renew its claim over the East Sea territory.

[Sound bite: Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga (Japanese)] 

“Regarding the airspace invasion by the Russian military aircraft yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Japanese Embassy in Russia, strongly objected the violation and at the same time urged efforts to prevent a recurrence. The government will solve the territorial issue, raise a peace treaty and continue to work persistently under this basic policy.”

Tokyo’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga also said Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force scrambled fighter jets in response.

Seoul, however, finds Tokyo’s response to be preposterous. South Korea’s presidential office refuted Japan’s claim on Wednesday, saying it should confine its concerns to its own air defense identification zone while South Korea responds to matters in its own airspace. The foreign and defense ministries in Seoul also issued statements.

KBS World Radio

You can read more at the link, but it seems it would have been better for Japan to keep quiet on this. The Dokdo issue is one thing that 99% of Koreans seem to agree and Japan’s comments are just causing Koreans to rally around President Moon.