President Elect Yoon is going to see a full pressure campaign to get him to stop the move to the Ministry of Defense. It doesn’t matter where you work, established interests are always hesitant to embrace change:

The office of President Moon Jae-in voiced concerns Monday about President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to move the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae, saying it could leave a security vacuum at a time of rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Park Soo-hyun, senior presidential secretary for public communication, made the remark to reporters after a National Security Council meeting, saying it is unreasonable to relocate the defense ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and the presidential office in such a short period of time before Yoon’s May 10 inauguration.

“Now is the time to unite security capabilities, as the security crisis on the Korean Peninsula is escalating,” Park said. “Therefore, it is necessary to look sufficiently into concern that sudden, unprepared relocations of the defense ministry, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Cheong Wa Dae crisis management center could cause a security vacuum and confusion.”

Park said Cheong Wa Dae will convey its concerns to Yoon’s transition team. 

Yoon’s spokesperson expressed regret and said they will stick to the relocation plans.

“If President Moon Jae-in refuses to cooperate on an essential part of the most significant project in the transfer of power, there is no way to force him,” Kim Eun-hye said in a statement.

Upon taking office, she said, Yoon will continue to work from his current temporary office in Tongeui-dong near Cheong Wa Dae to handle pressing state affairs, making clear once again that Yoon will not move into Cheong Wa Dae.

“At the stroke of midnight on May 10, President-elect Yoon will fulfill his promise to fully open Cheong Wa Dae without fail,” she added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It will be interesting to see if landlords do drop rents when these property taxes are frozen or just pocket the extra income:

The government is expected to freeze property tax for the entire homeowners including owners of one expensive home with an officially appraised value of over 1.1 billion won ($905,000) subject to the Comprehensive Real Estate Tax, according to government ministries, Sunday. The hefty Comprehensive Real Estate Tax is imposed for retaining expensive homes. 

The measure is part of the real estate market policy revisions pledged by President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol, whose win by a razor-thin margin was underpinned in considerable part by public fury over the housing prices doubling under the Moon Jae-in administration due to two dozen botched government policies. 

Higher housing prices led to a tax spike for homeowners, almost all of whom passed the unexpected burden to tenants in the form of higher rent, threatening their stable living arrangements. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it will also be interesting to see what losing all this property tax revenue will do to the national budget.

You don’t need to be an analyst to predict that the Kim regime is going to test and see what they can get away with from the incoming Yoon administration. This is the standard playbook from the Kim regime:

Amid signs of North Korea abandoning its self-restraint in regards to testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s pledge to take a tougher stance and bolster South Korea’s deterrence against its northern neighbor ― in close cooperation with the United States ― is likely to prolong the period of non-engagement between the two Koreas under his new administration.

Furthermore, Yoon has filled the foreign policy subcommittee of his transition team with officials from the former Lee Myung-bak government, who pursued confrontational policies that almost pushed the two Koreas to the brink of war. 

With the new conservative administration to be inaugurated in May, Pyongyang is likely to test how much bandwidth the Yoon administration will allow in dealing with its provocative actions, and diplomatic observers say how the new government responds to this initial saber-rattling will set the tone for inter-Korean interactions for the next five years.

“Relations between the two Koreas once President-elect Yoon takes office will entirely depend on Pyongyang,” said Ramon Pacheco Pardo, a professor of international relations at King’s College London.

“If North Korea goes down the test route, then I would expect the Yoon government to focus on deterrence, sanctions and denunciation of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses above all. This would strain relations,” he said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like the North Koreans decided to fire something to keep tensions high while they figure out what went wrong with their recent ICBM test:

North Korea on Sunday fired four suspected shots from its multiple rocket launchers into the Yellow Sea, South Korean military officials said, the latest show of force that could heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea’s National Security Council (NSC) held an emergency vice-ministerial meeting over the four shots that fell into the western waters during a span of an hour from 7:20 a.m. from an unspecified location in South Pyongan Province, according to officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is official now that the Presidential office is moving to Yongsan:

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol on Sunday announced a decision to move the presidential office from Cheong Wa Dae to what is now the defense ministry building several kilometers away, saying he wants his office to move out of a “symbol of imperial” presidency and get closer to the people.

The decision is highly symbolic as Cheong Wa Dae has been used for decades as the presidential office and residence, though its secluded location and the way the president’s work office is located away from those of aides sparked criticism it causes the president to be out of touch with the public.

Yoon said he will move into the defense ministry compound in Seoul’s central district of Yongsan immediately after his inauguration on May 10. On the same day, Cheong Wa Dae will be fully opened to the public, he said.

The defense ministry will move into the Joint Chiefs of Staff building in the compound, he said.

Yonhap

There is going to be some offices dislocated from the Defense Ministry that has the Democrat Party lodging complaints about national security:

Yoon admitted that some of the current occupants, including the defense ministry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will have to make partial relocations to make room for the presidential office.

He dismissed the notion that moving their offices will create gaps in national defense, a charge that has been leveled by some lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party. Yoon belongs to the main opposition People Power Party.

I find it interesting now that the Democratic Party is now concerned about national security after years of advocating for appeasement of North Korea.

It also appears the closure of Yongsan Garrison also played into this decision:

Above all, he stressed the advantages of its proximity to a planned national park.

“Starting this year, the (land of the) surrounding U.S. military base is expected to be returned in stages, which will allow us to swiftly construct Yongsan Park, use the defense ministry building as an office and commune and communicate with the people,” Yoon said.

You can read more at the link, but this move does now make it more likely Yongsan will be turned into a park instead of just more apartment towers.

Please leave anything you want to discuss in the comments section.