With this decision South Korea effectively has two Presidents, one that handles domestic affairs and one for international affairs:
South Korea’s prime minister nominee Kim Byong-joon speaks with reporters in Seoul on Nov. 2, 2016. (Yonhap)
Prime Minister-designate Kim Byong-joon, if approved by parliament, will take control of domestic affairs, presidential aides said Wednesday, indicating President Park Geun-hye will take a back seat in running the country.
Their remarks presaged the introduction of a power-sharing governance structure in which the president takes charge of external affairs such as defense and foreign policy, with the premier calling all the shots on internal matters.
In a move to assuage public outrage over an influence-peddling scandal involving her close confidante, Park nominated Kim, policy advisor to late liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, and two Cabinet ministers. But opposition parties immediately called on her to cancel what they called “unilateral” nominations.
“(The designation of Kim) means that (Park) will virtually take a back seat (in running the country),” a source told Yonhap News Agency, declining to be named. “Nominee Kim will be the chief executive in charge of managing internal affairs.”
After completing a personnel overhaul of her secretariat, Park is expected to publicly explain her decision to delegate part of her executive power to the new prime minister, a source said.
“As soon as President Park openly confirms the authority of Prime Minister-designate Kim, it is fair to say we will have two presidents,” the official said over the phone. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but of course the opposition parties are not happy about this hand over of power because they likely want to drag out this scandal as long as possible.
Some of the most powerful ROK and US military officers were recently in Guam touring United States strategic assets located on the island:
In this photo taken in Guam on Nov. 1 and provided by Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS Chairman Lee Sun-jin (L) and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Vincent K. Brooks hold a joint press conference in front of a nuclear-powered submarine at Naval Base Guam. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s top military officer visited Guam and exchanged views with top U.S. brass on ways to further strengthen their alliance against North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said Tuesday.
JCS Chairman Gen. Lee Sun-jin and U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Vincent K. Brooks examined the range of U.S. strategic assets in Guam along with senior leaders from the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Pacific Command, the JCS said in a statement.
“The Seoul-Washington alliance is capable of immediately responding to any type of provocation from North Korea. The allies will consider all options, including the rotational deployment of U.S. strategic assets near the Korean Peninsula, if the North sticks to developing nuclear weapons,” Lee said in a joint press conference held at Naval Base Guam, according to the statement. (……..)
The military leaders then inspected strategic assets such as the B-1B strategic bombers, nuclear-powered submarines and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery set up in Guam to intercept possible incoming missiles from the communist North. [Yonhap]
It was only a matter of time before the North Koreans began to pile on to the bizarre Choi Soon-sil political scandal rocking South Korean politics:
North Korea is joyfully jumping into a bizarre political scandal rocking Seoul, calling it the inevitable result of a corrupt regime and saying the administration of South Korean President Park Geun-hye is “the most deformed, abnormal and stupid in contemporary society.”
Pyongyang, while allowing none of its media the freedom to point criticism at its own leadership, has wasted no opportunity to lambaste Park in the harshest ways it can.
The North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency on Monday called the scandal a “hideous power-backed corruption case unprecedented in South Korean history.”
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling party, added the “deformed, abnormal and stupid” characterization and, just for good measure, called Park a “colonial stooge.” [Washington Post]
Jeju's haenyeo are one step closer to making the #UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list after a recommendation from a subcommittee. #Jejupic.twitter.com/Pu4ekS66IU
This photo from South Korea’s Navy on Oct. 28, 2016, shows the 2,500-ton frigate Chungbuk that will be sent to the international fleet review at Auckland port in New Zealand. Twelve countries will participate in the fleet review that marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of New Zealand’s navy. (Yonhap)
For those with an interest in the Korean War, PBS is showing a high anticipated documentary about the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir tonight:
On November 1st, the PBS documentary series American Experience premieres a powerful documentary called The Battle of Chosin, one of the most important and least known battles in U.S. military history. The program will air from 9-11pm ET in most cities but, as always with PBS, check your local listings and will be available to stream from the PBS apps and website. We’ve got a video clip from the program below. [Under the Radar]
Due to the Choi scandal the Saenuri Party name seems to be quite radioactive for anyone thinking of running for Korea’s next President to include even Ban Ki-moon:
The political firestorm threatening the presidency of Park Geun-hye is now jeopardizing longtime frontrunner UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s chance in next year’s presidential race.
According to Realmeter’s latest poll, announced on Monday, Ban was supported as the next president by 20.9 percent in the fourth week of October, down by 1.3 percentage points from the previous week.
Moon Jae-in, former chairman of the Minjoo Party of Korea, who was defeated by President Park in the 2012 race, was ranked second with 20.3 percent, up by 1.4 percentage points.
While Ban managed to remain the frontrunner for 13 consecutive weeks, the 0.6-percentage-point gap against Moon is within a margin of error.
Ban has never formally declared his bid, but Park loyalists in the Saenuri Party have enthusiastically expressed their desire to recruit him as their presidential candidate.
His tenure at the United Nations ends at the end of this year, and Ban said in September that he will return to Korea in January and address the people.
The latest poll was conducted from Monday to Friday of last week, and President Park and the Saenuri Party’s plummeting support was reflected in Ban’s popularity in the aftermath of the corruption scandal involving Park’s friend, Choi Soon-sil. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
That is what Kim Jong-un is thinking after having 7 of his past 8 Musudan missile launches end in failure:
North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un has ordered a full-blown investigation into the recent missile launch failures, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing a North Korean defectors’ group. The test firing of two intermediate-range ballistic missiles, or Musudan, ended in failure about two weeks ago.
The investigation will reportedly include all those who were involved in the making of the missiles amid suspicion of a sabotage by the US and South Korea. (………….)
“Officials and workers who engaged in the launches of the missiles are now banned from travelling and their mobiles phones are confiscated to check their conversation records,” he added.
The North Korean leader believes spies from the US and South Korea were responsible for the Musudan missile failures, he said. North Korean authorities believe the spies could have meddled with the missile parts that were imported from foreign countries, leading to the launch failure, [IBT via reader tip]
You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if they try and scapegoat someone for these missile launch failures and claim they were working for the US.
Ask A Korean has a great post that really summarizes why Koreans so used to political corruption and scandals are so shocked by the revelations coming out of the Choi Soon-sil mess:
But the English language coverage of this scandal is missing something. The newspapers do have most of the facts, which they recount diligently. But they fail to fully account for the Korean public’s stunned disbelief. Although the scale of the corruption here is significant, Koreans have seen much, much worse. Not long ago, Korean people have seen Chun Doo-hwan, the former president/dictator, made off with nearly $1 billion, and this was back in the mid-1980s when the money was worth more than $4 billion in today’s dollars. Even the democratically elected presidents of Korea–every single one of them–suffered from corruption charges. Lee Myung-bak, the immediate predecessor to Park, saw his older brother (himself a National Assemblyman) go to prison over bribery. Lee’s controversial Four Rivers Project, which cost nearly $20 billion, was widely seen as a massive graft project to push government funding to his cronies who were operating construction companies.
For better or worse (mostly worse,) Korean people have come to expect corruption from their presidents. So why is this one by Park Geun-hye causing such a strong reaction? It is not because Korean people discovered that Park was corrupt; it is because they discovered Park was irrationally corrupt. Koreans are not being dismayed at the scale of the corruption; they are shocked to see what the scale of the corruption signifies.
Park Geun-hye’s corruption scandal revolves around a central question: why would the president risk her administration for Choi Soon-sil? In fact, one of Park’s selling points as the presidential candidate was that she was less likely to be corrupt because she had no family. Her parents–former dictator Park Chung-hee and his wife Yuk Yeong-su–were dead, and she was estranged from her sister and brother. This argument had a modicum of plausibility, since all the previous president’s corruption involved their family in some way. (Kim Young-sam and Kim Dae-jung had issues with their sons; Roh Moo-hyun and Lee Myung-bak, their brothers.)
But the lack of family did not stop Park Geun-hye from being corrupt, because she apparently had to give money to Choi Soon-sil. But why did Park Geun-hye, the president, even bother with Choi Soon-sil, a nobody? To answer this question, we must look back into modern Korean history to trace the relationship between Park and Choi.
