Women collect wild tea at a field in Hwagae Village in the southeastern town of Hadong on May 15, 2018. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has designated the region, which was certified in 2008 as the first to grow tea on the Korean Peninsula, as one of its world agricultural heritage systems in recognition of the site’s traditional tea-growing methods that maintain biodiversity. (Yonhap)
Here is who is reportedly replacing General Brooks as the next USFK commander:
Robert B. Abrams
The Donald Trump administration is expected to name Robert B. Abrams, a four-star Army general, as the new U.S. Forces Korea commander, according to a diplomatic source Wednesday.
Abrams will replace Gen. Vincent Brooks, who will leave his post as commander of United States Forces Korea (USFK) possibly as early as this summer. An official announcement naming Abrams, currently commander of the U.S. Army Forces Command, as the new head of the USFK is expected to come at a later date, and the replacement is expected to take place in July or August.
The White House is also expected to soon officially name four-star Adm. Harry Harris, the outgoing chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, as ambassador to Seoul, a long-vacant position. A diplomatic source well informed on the matter told the JoongAng Ilbo, “The duo of Harris, a four-star Navy admiral, and Abrams, a four-star Army general, stand at the front line in the case of any problems arising amid the rapidly changing situation on the Korean Peninsula.”
Their appointments would complete the Trump administration’s reshuffling of the diplomatic and security lineup over the Korean Peninsula. Abrams, 57, is the son of a 1950-53 Korean War veteran, Gen. Creighton W. Abrams Jr., a former Army chief of staff and commander in Vietnam who is known for legendary exploits in World War II. His two brothers are also in the military.
Abrams was born in 1960 in Germany and has spent more than 30 years in active service. A graduate of the United States Military Academy, Abrams received a master of science degree from Central Michigan University and a master of strategic studies degree from the United States Army War College. He has led units in countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Abrams also previously served as a senior military assistant to the secretary of defense and a strategic war planner for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He became the 22nd chief of United States Army Forces Command in 2015, commanding some 229,000 active duty soldiers. The Army Forces Command includes some 776,000 soldiers and 96,000 civilians. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
South Korea urged Japan on Tuesday to retract its repeated territorial claim over Dokdo, a pair of rocky outcroppings in the East Sea, saying it will only impede efforts to move forward bilateral ties.
It was a reminder of longstanding diplomatic rifts between the neighboring countries despite a call for firm unity among regional powers to handle Pyongyang’s recent peace overtures.
In a statement, South Korea’s foreign ministry denounced the description of sovereignty over Dokdo in Japan’s yearly foreign policy document, known as the Diplomatic Bluebook, reported to the Cabinet earlier in the day. [Yonhap]
Maybe the ROK government should summon the Japanese ambassador and have Flag Eater Man, Finger Chopping Lady, Knife in the Gut Man, Weed Killer Man, the Dokdo Riders, and Bee Man all to waiting for him so they can demonstrate their Dokdo patriotism. Despite the hyperbole over this issue, I believe Korea clearly wins on the Dokdo debate, but why muddle this issue with the stupid East Sea issue?:
The ministry summoned Koichi Mizushima, minister at the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, to lodge a formal protest. He refused to answer questions from reporters, entering the ministry building.
Kim Yong-kil, director general for the ministry’s Northeast Asian affairs, told the minister that Seoul can’t accept Tokyo’s unilateral naming of the body of waters between the two nations, officials said.
In the diplomatic paper, Japan said the waters shouldn’t be called the East Sea.
“In particular, (Kim) made clear that (the government) can’t accept Japan’s unjust claim regarding the East Sea name,” the ministry’s spokesman Noh Kyu-duk said at a press briefing. “(He) stressed that the East Sea is the correct name that has been used for more than 2,000 years in our country.”
f Koreans want to call the body of water East Sea I have no problem with that, but internationally the term Sea of Japan makes more sense. That is because East Sea is not East of Japan and thus makes no sense for an international observer not invested in the Dokdo/East Sea issue when they see it on a map. Korea would make a better case for renaming the body of water if they had a more generic description such as “Asian Sea”.
They could always go with my suggestion and just call it the “Nameless Sea”.
Here is what one man said he saw happening at a closed USFK base in the Western Corridor:
A closed U.S. military base in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, is open to public access on May 12. A truck reportedly stopped at this bend in the road last Dec. 2 to dump unidentified chemicals.
A dump truck pulled into view ahead, coming up from the back gate down to the front gate, both of which had been left wide open. Maybe it was just taking a shortcut?
As I followed it down, a few minutes later I heard another truck behind me. I jumped into the brush again. But this truck stopped at a corner, engine idling. I heard what sounded like someone dumping out fluids from containers onto the ground.
Finally, after at least 10 minutes, a door slammed and the truck pulled out. I hugged the brush as the truck trundled past me on its way downhill.
Once it was out of sight, I hiked up to where it had parked, but couldn’t find any trace of whatever was dumped out. So I escaped before a third truck could come.
Heading downhill, the front gate was still wide open and several dump trucks were parked in front.
Months earlier, the Seoul City Government tested the soil and groundwater around six USFK sites in the city, searching for signs of contamination by U.S. forces. One site was the Eighth U.S. Army Religious Retreat compound, which would’ve been used for weddings, not storing Agent Orange or formaldehyde.
The contamination tests in Seoul didn’t reveal anything too scandalous, but even if they had, I’d remember that U.S. base that once stood proudly between Seoul and North Korea, turned into a toxic waste dump. [Korea Times via a reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but local nationals illegally dumping is something I have seen plenty of times before in Korea from mechanics dumping oil into storm drains and septic trucks pumping their waste directly into a stream.
This photo taken on May 14, 2018, shows Korea’s former legation building in Washington after renovations to turn it into a museum. The building, set to reopen on May 22, was used as Korea’s diplomatic mission to the United States, sold off by Japan after it colonized Korea and repurchased by South Korea. (Yonhap)
Here are some details about the Max Thunder exercise that North Korea is complaining about:
An F-22 Raptor stealth fighter lands at a military base in Gwangju, Wednesday, amid Max Thunder, a joint military drill between the Air Forces of South Korea and the U.S. / Yonhap
Max Thunder, which North Korea claims is the cause of its decision to cancel high-level talks with the South, is a joint military drill between the Air Forces of South Korea and the United States.
It has been held every May since 2009, with this year’s drill starting May 11 and continuing for two weeks.
The drills include annual defensive exercises with mock combat, and the number of fighter jets and troops this year is similar to those in years past, with some 100 aircraft from both countries participating, according to the Korean Air Force.
This year, eight of the U.S.’s F-22 Raptor stealth fighters were deployed for the drills for the first time. It is said the Raptor fighters can penetrate North Korea’s radar fence and make surgical strikes against strategic facilities.
But unlike the initial plan, B-52 strategic bombers, one of the U.S.’s strategic assets, will not be deployed, amid ongoing talks about North Korea’s denuclearization. Pyongyang has been sensitive about the bomber which can carry nuclear weapons. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but this is a fairly low level exercise compared to the Key Resolve and UFG exercises. Plus as the article states this low level exercise was even further downgraded by not including the B-52’s. So it is pretty clear to me that it is just being used as an excuse by the Kim regime to send a message to the Trump administration to reign in officials bringing up suggestions to discuss forbidden topics such as human rights at the upcoming June 12th summit.
The pre-summit gamesmanship has already started by the North Koreans cancelling high level talks with the South Koreans yesterday and threatening to cancel the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore:
Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon enters his office building in Seoul, Wednesday, after North Korea cancelled high-level inter-Korean talks unilaterally. / Yonhap
Political analysts presume North Korea’s abrupt cancellation of high-level inter-Korean talks and threats to reconsider the Washington-Pyongyang summit are aimed at taking the lead ahead of talks over its denuclearization.
Most predict the North is unlikely to spoil the current mood for dialogue but is trying to strengthen its bargaining power before negotiations and send a warning ― to the U.S., rather than to South Korea ― not to underestimate the country.
About 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, Pyongyang notified Seoul that it had cancelled the high-level talks, which were to take place in less than 10 hours, citing the ongoing South Korea-U.S. joint military drills, which it sees as a rehearsal of war.
Later in the day, North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan also said in a statement the country would reconsider the summit between its leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump, slated for June 12, if the U.S. forces the North to unilaterally give up nuclear weapons.
Experts say the exercises may not be the true reason for the North canceling talks, considering that the drills started May 11 and the North suggested the meeting four days later. Kim Jong-un also earlier told South Korean envoys that he understood the allies’ joint military drills.
“With the drills as a pretext, Pyongyang is indirectly expressing discontent at the recent hard-line stances from Washington, such as moving the North’s nuclear weapons to the U.S., removing biochemical weapons and raising an issue of human rights abuse,” said Shin Beom-chul, senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. “The North is making use of the high-level talks as a chance (to express its discomfort).”
Indeed, Kim Kye-gwan said American officials’ remarks, such as “denuclearization first and reward later” and “complete abandonment of nuclear, missile and biochemical weapons,” are “thoughtless words that provoke its counterpart.” [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but what I suspect is happening is that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Kim Jong-un what the US expects of the regime from the summit during his recent trip to North Korea, but in the US media other things are being said that were not discussed previously. People bringing up that human rights should be included in the summit is an especially sensitive topic in North Korea. Threatening to cancel the summit sends a message to the Trump administration that these topics will not be discussed at the summit.
Unless something drastic happens I would be highly surprised if this summit does not happen because the Kim regime has too much to lose. South Korea’s Moon administration at least needs the Kim regime to pretend to denuclearize to justify the massive aid package they have planned to give to Kim Jong-un. They can’t attempt a denuclearization facade if they don’t even show up to the summit.
As I have been saying for some time, if a peace treaty is agreed to with North Korea, the South Korean left will then challenge the relevancy of the US-ROK alliance:
This photo, taken May 3, 2018, shows the two progressive civic groups, the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, holding a forum on the evaluation of the Moon Jae-in government’s first year in Seoul. (Yonhap)
Two progressive civic groups on Sunday called for a review of the character of U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) in line with the two Koreas’ efforts for reconciliation and peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The , and Minbyun-Lawyers for a Democratic Society issued the call, with Seoul and Washington set to hold a third round of negotiations this week on sharing the cost for the upkeep of 28,500 American troops in the South.
“As (the two Koreas) are in the process of implementing the Panmunjom Declaration and establishing a peace regime, the character and size of the USFK, and the scope of its activities should be reviewed,” the two groups said in a joint statement. [Yonhap]
ROK President Moon Jae-in has said that after a peace treaty he wants US forces to stay.
Moon, however, has said that the USFK is a matter of the Seoul-Washington alliance and that it has “nothing to do with” a peace treaty that the two Koreas agreed to pursue to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended only with a truce.
Remember though that Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down. If he advocated openly for a USFK withdrawal that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces. That is why I think it is a possibility that the Moon administration may publicly say they support USFK, but will then have their surrogates do things to make life difficult for USFK such as what Minbyun is proposing:
Regarding the allies’ talks on the cost of American troops here, the civic groups called for more transparency in spending procedures, more parliamentary oversight and a ban on the use of money for supporting the deployment of U.S. strategic assets.
Possibly the future of USFK could look a lot like the current THAAD site in Seongju. President Moon will say all the right things that he supports USFK, just like he supposedly supports the THAAD site, but will set conditions to make it difficult for its continued existence. Minbyun and PSPD’s current efforts could just be the start of a larger strategy to make life more difficult for USFK if a peace treaty is signed. All the while expect the Moon administration to say how much they support USFK.
