Members of the Labor Party hold a rally in front of President Park Geun-hye’s private house in southern Seoul on Jan. 16, 2017, to call on the special prosecutor team to raid it as part of an investigation into Park’s alleged involvement in a corruption scandal that led to her impeachment. (Yonhap)
Here is what a Yonsei professor who is an expert in international relations had to say about the incoming Trump administration:
Moon Chung-in, Yonsei University professor emeritus
Hankyoreh (Hani): Can you describe in broad strokes how the Trump administration will affect the Korean Peninsula?
Moon Chung-in (Moon): The Korean Peninsula policy won‘t be taking shape until April or May, when all the assistant secretaries have been appointed and confirmed. There are a lot of variables. But the main question is whether the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” policy will be retained, since that is linked to the global strategy the Trump administration comes up with. One has to bear in mind that Trump will reconsider the alliances according to his “America first” policy and that he’s more interested in geoeconomics [than geopolitics]. It’s also important to remember that Trump has a tendency to acknowledge what is called the Chinese and Russian sphere of influence, so he‘s not on the same page as the geopolitical strategy of checking and blockading China.
Hani: What kind of changes do you expect for the South Korea-US alliance?
Moon: Trump is blunt about the alliances. He has called out South Korea, Japan, NATO, Germany and Saudi Arabia for getting a “free ride.” He has a strong sense that the US is the benefactor and that its allies are the beneficiaries. The primary issue is adjusting how much of the joint cost of the South Korea-US alliance is covered by the two sides. First is defense burden sharing. South Korea spends 2.4% of its GDP on defense, and Trump could ask it to increase this to the US level of 4.3%. Second is defense cost sharing related to US Forces in Korea. South Korea is covering around 50%, and Trump could ask it to cover as much as 100% of this. These adjustments could be complicated by resistance inside South Korea. If a progressive government comes to power in South Korea, the question of pushing forward the transfer of wartime operational control [of South Korean troops to South Korea] would be sure to come up. Trump is likely to say that South Korea can have it right now if it wants it. He tends to act on instinct and impulse. [Hankyoreh]
It will be interesting to see if President Park can be held legally liable for this if she didn’t know the phone was not registered properly in her name:
President Park Geun-hye has a mobile phone under a borrowed name, a former aide said during her impeachment trial Thursday, revealing an act that is punishable by law.
Jeong Ho-seong is escorted by officers as he arrives at the Constitutional Court in Seoul on Jan. 19, 2017. (Yonhap)
Jeong Ho-seong, a former presidential secretary, made the revelation while testifying at the Constitutional Court about an influence-peddling scandal centered on Park and her friend Choi Soon-sil.
According to Jeong, Park used such a phone even as a lawmaker prior to becoming president out of concerns about wiretapping and security in general. The former aide began serving Park in the late 90s. He is known as a member of the “doorknob trio” who had direct access to the president.
“It’s a rather painful side of our politics, but there has long been controversy about wiretapping,” he said in response to a question from a parliamentary impeachment panel, which serves as the prosecution in the trial. “We didn’t use (phones) registered under our names because of the risk of our conversations being tapped.”
South Korea bans the use of phones under borrowed names for most purposes and violations of that law can be punished with up to three years in prison or up to 100 million won (US$85,000) in fines.
Asked whether Park was aware that her phone was registered under a borrowed name, Jeong said she probably used whatever phone was given to her.
He denied that Choi ordered the use of such phones. [Yonhap]
A horrible mass shooting has allegedly occurred at a North Korean town along the Chinese border:
A young North Korean man conscripted to guard a customs post on his country’s border with China in under arrest for shooting dead seven platoon members who had angered him with bullying treatment, RFA’s Korean Service has learned.
After the shootings at dawn on Jan. 7 at Hyesan, a city in North Korea’s northern Yanggang province, the young conscript was arrested and taken to Pyongyang, sources familiar with the shooting told RFA.
“The suspect and one platoon member who survived the shooting were transported to State Security headquarters in Pyongyang. There is no way to find out the exact cause of this incident, since the Yanggang authorities are trying to keep everyone’s mouth shut,” one source said on Jan. 14.
A second source, however, said the shooter apparently snapped after suffering bullying from his colleagues. [Radio Free Asia]
Choe Ryong-hae, North Korea’s virtual No. 2 man and vice chairman of the State Affairs Commission, arrives at an airport in Pyongyang after attending the inaugural ceremony of the Nicaraguan president as a special envoy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, in this photo captured from the North’s Central TV Broadcasting Station on Jan. 16, 2017. (Yonhap)
The Kim regime has some parting words for the outgoing President:
North Korea told outgoing President Barack Obama to get “packing” as it denounced a recent U.S. crackdown against human-rights abuses in the isolated communist state.
The United States blacklisted seven senior North Koreans, including leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, and two agencies last week, citing links to such abuses.
The State Department also released a report saying North Korea’s rights record is among the worst in the world.
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency called the moves “desperate efforts” by the Obama administration “to keep afloat their hostile policy” toward Pyongyang before leaving the White House.
Donald Trump is to be sworn in as U.S. president on Friday.
“Obama would be well advised not to waste time taking issue with [others’] ‘human rights issue’ but make good arrangements for packing in the White House,” KCNA said in a commentary posted Monday.
“He had better repent of the pain and misfortune he has brought to so many Americans and other people of the world by creating the worst human rights situation in the U.S. during his tenure of office,” it added. [Stars & Stripes]
Yonhap is reporting that the North may have two ICBMs ready to launch in the coming days or weeks:
North Korea has probably built two missiles presumed to be intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and placed them on mobile launchers for test-firing in the near future, military officials said Thursday.
The two missiles are estimated to not exceed 15 meters in length, making them shorter than the North’s existing ICBMs, the 19-20 meter-long KN-08 and the 17-18 meter-long KN-14, the officials familiar with the matter told Yonhap News Agency.
The North appears to have intentionally leaked the new missiles to send a “strategic message” to the incoming government of Donald Trump who takes office on Friday, they said.
The officials didn’t provide the exact date for when the missiles were picked up by intelligence, although it is estimated that the U.S. detected them on Monday when the U.S. Navy hurriedly moved its sea-based X-band radar system to the western part of the Pacific Ocean from seas off Hawaii.
Experts say the North is likely to fire off a new ballistic missile that flies some 2,500 kilometers and claim that it has succeeded in launching an ICBM. An ICBM usually has a range exceeding 5,500 kilometers.
“It will take at least two to three years for Pyongyang to master ICBM capabilities and five more years before they can be deployed operationally,” said Kim Dong-yeob, a professor at Kyungnam University’s North Korean studies school.
The North is widely expected to test-fire a missile when the Trump government outlines its policies toward the communist state or around the time of the annual Seoul-Washington joint military drill kickoff in March. [Yonhap]
It must have been a bad year for Korean films because I watched The Wailing on Netflix and was not all that impressed with it. Not very scary and pretty predictable:
“The Wailing,” a supernatural thriller, was named best film of 2016 by an association of South Korean film journalists Wednesday.
Na Hong-jin was chosen best director for the tense drama which features a tranquil rural village embroiled in mysterious serial murders after the arrival of a stranger.
The movie, whose original Korean title is “Goksung,” stars Kwak Do-won, Chun Woo-hee and Hwang Jung-min. Since its premiere at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, it has been invited to even more international film festivals. In South Korea, it attracted 6.8 million viewers. [Yonhap]
Anyone else see The Wailing and think it was the top movie of 2016?
