Category: Uncategorized

According to Ambassador Harris timing is running out for a US-ROK cost sharing deal:

Washington has compromised in its demands that South Korea should pay billions of dollars towards US troop presence and it was Seoul’s turn to reciprocate before time ran out, the American ambassador said Thursday.

The two allies are in a security alliance and Washington stations 28,500 troops in South Korea to defend it from the nuclear-armed North, which invaded in 1950.

They are a key part of US forces’ deployment in Asia, but the Trump administration has been insisting Seoul pay more towards their costs.

The initial US demand was around $5 billion a year — a more than fivefold increase on the roughly $900 million paid in 2019 — provoking consternation in Seoul.

The latest round of negotiations concluded without an agreement in Washington on Wednesday.

US negotiators had “adjusted our position, our top line number”, said Ambassador Harry Harris. “We are now waiting for the Korean side to do the same.”

“South Korea as an equal partner in the preservation of peace on the peninsula, and its position as the 12th largest economy in the entire world, can and should do more.”

Time was “of the essence”, he told reporters in a group interview at his residence in the centre of Seoul.

Around 10,000 South Koreans working for United States Forces Korea (USFK) are paid from funds from last year’s deal and when they run out, they will have to be put on furlough, he said. “That notice is going to go out soon.”

AFP

You can read more at the link.

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:

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.

One Free Korea

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.

Even without a denuclearization deal it appears that President Trump is going to continue to try and keep a friendly relationship with Kim Jong-un:

U.S. President Donald Trump has congratulated North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his birthday, South Korea’s top presidential security adviser said Friday after returning from his trip to Washington, D.C.

Chung Eui-yong, head of Cheong Wa Dae’s national security office, had a brief meeting with Trump at the White House during the three-day visit.

Trump had some congratulatory words for Kim on the occasion of his Jan. 8 birthday and asked President Moon Jae-in to deliver the message, according to the Cheong Wa Dae official.

“As far as I know, the message was conveyed to North Korea yesterday in an appropriate manner,” Chung told reporters at Incheon International Airport.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest on the election meddling investigation in Ulsan that has been linked back to the Blue House:

Prosecutors raided the Ulsan government office on Saturday amid rising allegations that the city’s vice mayor colluded with the presidential office to help the president’s close friend in the 2018 mayoral election.

The raid of Ulsan Metropolitan City Hall, some 400 kilometers southeast of the capital city, came amid suspicions that Song Byung-gi, Ulsan’s vice mayor for economic affairs, conspired with several presidential aides to influence the city’s mayoral poll last year.

Prosecutors also suspect that the presidential office and the ruling Democratic Party intervened in establishing campaign pledges for the incumbent mayor.

The vice mayor is suspected of tipping off the presidential office to bribery allegations involving ex-Ulsan Mayor Kim Gi-hyeon’s confidants, which led to investigations ahead of the 2018 election.

Kim, who was seeking reelection as mayor in June 2018 as a candidate of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party, lost the race to current mayor Song Cheol-ho of the ruling Democratic Party, a longtime friend of President Moon Jae-in.

Kim claimed publicly that the Ulsan Metropolitan Police Agency deliberately raided his office a few months ahead of the election, with Cheong Wa Dae behind the move.

Yonhap

With the Blue House installing their new Justice Minister I guess we will see how long this investigation in Ulsan is allowed to continue.

It has been nearly a decade since these bases were closed and they have finally been handed over to the South Korean government:

The United States on Wednesday returned four of its military bases in South Korea in a decision to end a yearslong delay caused by differences on decontamination procedures and to allay worries over the adverse impact of the delay on regional development schemes.

South Korea and the U.S. also initiated the long-awaited return process for the Yongsan Garrison in central Seoul, once home to the headquarters of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK), to ensure that a mega project to establish a national park there proceeds as scheduled.

The four returned bases are Camps Eagle and Long in Wonju, 130 kilometers east of Seoul; parcels of Camp Market in Bupyeong, just west of the capital; and the Shea Range parcel at Camp Hovey in Dongducheon, just north of Seoul. They were already closed between 2009 and 2011.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but USFK made no concessions on the environmental clean up concerns that South Korea keeps making. The article speculates that the environmental clean up costs for the U.S. bases may be something they try to tie to the ongoing cost sharing negotiations.

A strategy they could use is that the cleanup of the closed out U.S. bases costs X amount of money to the ROK government and thus should lower the amount of money that the U.S. government is saying Seoul should pay each year.

It appears that South Korea has been conquered by all things Frozen:

Retailers are rolling out a variety of “Frozen”-themed merchandise for fans of all ages, as Korean moviegoers join the worldwide frenzy over Disney’s latest release “Frozen 2,” according to industry officials Tuesday.

According to the Korean Film Council (KOFIC), the latest Disney film has attracted 4.79 million viewers in Korea as of Monday, just five days after its opening here. 

Along with the movie’s soaring popularity, sales of Frozen-themed products are going up. 

7-Eleven rolled out “Frozen” character figures, capsule toys, snow globe DIY kits, Lego sets and sticker books. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

There is already much tension facing the alliance between the U.S. and the ROK and now the Russians want to create tension between Japan and the U.S. as well:

 Russia’s foreign minister says the U.S.-Japan security alliance poses “a problem” for Russia-Japan relations and complicates peace treaty talks.

The two countries have been struggling to negotiate a peace treaty after World War II because of a territorial dispute. The Soviet Union took the four southernmost Kuril Islands during the final days of the war, which Japan asserts territorial rights to.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Saturday that Japan’s “military alliance with Washington, of course, is a problem” when it comes to changing the nature of the country’s relationship with Russia.

Lavrov said the Japanese government promised to address Russia’s concerns.

He added that implementation of the 1956 Soviet-Japanese Declaration, which outlined conditions for a peace treaty, was not possible with the U.S. military presence in Japan.

Military Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is what General Milley recently told reporters about the US troop presence in South Korea:

 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley has said the American public poses questions about why the United States should station troops in South Korea and Japan and why the Asian allies can’t pay for their own defense, according to a Pentagon account of his recent conversation with reporters.

Milley made the remark Sunday as he departed for the Indo-Pacific region, his first overseas trip since taking office in September.

He was emphasizing the importance of the U.S. alliances with South Korea and Japan, countries he will visit in the coming week.

“He said the average American looking at the forward deployed U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan ask some fundamental questions: Why are they needed there? How much does it cost? These are very rich and wealthy countries, why can’t they defend themselves?” the general was quoted as telling reporters traveling with him, according to the post on the Pentagon’s website.

“These are main street USA questions,” Milley added. “It is incumbent on us … to make sure we adequately explain how the U.S. military is a stabilizing force in Northeast Asia in preventing and deterring the outbreak of armed conflict.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Another major US-ROK exercise has been cancelled:

South Korea and the United States are expected to skip a combined wintertime air exercise just as they did last year to support ongoing diplomacy for the denuclearization of North Korea, sources said Sunday. 

Military authorities of the two countries “shared the understanding” on the postponement of the Vigilant Ace air exercise that usually takes place around December, a source said, adding that a final decision will be made when the two countries hold annual defense ministers talks later this month.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but as I have been saying I think the intent of the cancellation of these exercises is to show the world community that the U.S. has been greatly reasonable in making concessions in order to work out a deal with the Kim regime. So if the Kim regime begins a cycle of major provocations again, the U.S. can make a strong case that they have tried all other measures with North Korea and can justify taking tougher actions that have not been tried yet.