No apology will ever make the Korean left happy on this issue. Just like with the comfort women issue, they need to keep this issue alive to bash their political enemies with. So in the grand scheme of things this apology is meaningless to the Korean left:

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Nam Yeong-shin apologized Friday for the military’s brutal crackdown on protestors during a 1980 pro-democracy uprising in the southwestern city of Gwangju, vowing to fully cooperate with an ongoing probe into the case. 

This is the first time in 40 years that an Army chief officially apologized for the bloody incident.

“I believe that the military’s involvement in the May 18 Democratization Movement is gravely wrong,” Nam said during a parliamentary audit of the Army on Friday. “I’d like to offer a sincere apology to victims and bereaved families.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is another example of how Korea’s libel laws are used to attack people for political reasons. In this example they were used by the Moon administration to attack a liberal political rival for the Presidency. The fact that the verdict has now been overturned is likely a sign that a deal has been struck that Lee will be the next Presidential candidate for the Korean left:

 Gyeonggi Gov. Lee Jae-myung was acquitted on Friday of violating election law, winning a high-profile retrial that could have cost him his governorship. 

The Suwon High Court overturned its previous verdict and found him not guilty of spreading false information during televised debate shows in the runup to the 2018 local elections. 

In July, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the appeals court in a ruling that said Lee should not be punished for what he said during the debates, as they were not intended to deliberately disseminate misinformation.

“It is more important to guarantee freedom of expression (during a debate) to offer (debaters) room, free of legal responsibilities,” Chief Justice Kim Myung-soo said while delivering the livestreamed verdict, adding that it is impossible to hold a politician accountable for every inaccurate expression he or she makes.

In the retrial, the court echoed the view of the highest court, saying that Lee’s comments during the debates were no more than “answers to the questions” from a rival debater and that they were not seen as deliberate acts of disseminating false information, even if they might sound evasive and defensive.

You can read more at the link, but the libel laws were also used to go after his wife as well for posting supposed false information on Twitter. She was previously cleared of the allegations as well. Could you imagine if in the U.S. politicians and their supporters could be charged for libel for giving false information on Twitter and during debates? We would have no politicians left. 

Anyway this is just an example of how clever and ruthless the Moon administration was to win the Presidency. ROK Heads may also remember that they got Ban Ki-moon to drop out of the race by using what he called deliberate “fake news” against him. With Ban and Lee out of the race Moon then had a clear path to the Presidency after former President Park’s impeachment.

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

Considering Beijing’s territorial grab in the South China Sea, it is easy to imagine that they are setting conditions now to make similar territorial grabs from Korea in the future:

Activities by Chinese warships in waters near the Korean Peninsula have increased in recent years, military data showed Friday.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff data released by Rep. Kim Min-ki of the ruling Democratic Party, Chinese war vessels crossed the tentative median line in South Korea’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) around 290 times last year.

An EEZ is a sea zone that a country has special rights over regarding the exploration and use of marine resources. It stretches out to 200 nautical miles from the shore.

Seoul has demanded that the EEZs of South Korea and China be demarcated by drawing a median line between the two countries’ overlapping areas. But Beijing has demanded that a proportional EEZ line be drawn by taking into account coastlines and the population along them.

Chinese warships crossing the median line accounted for nearly 80 percent of the total 370 tallied during the cited period, including 50 and 30 times by Russian and Japanese warships, respectively.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but despite these facts the Korean leftists want people to believe the Japanese are the real territorial threat to South Korea.

Famed Korean author Jo Jung-rae thinks that any Korean who studied in Japan should be prosecuted:

“People who studied in Japan are doomed to become pro-Japanese. They become traitors. Some call them ‘homegrown Japanese pirates’…,” he said during a news conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his literary debut at the Press Center in central Seoul. 

“I know there is a campaign going on and it aims to purge Koreans who are sympathetic about Japan regarding its past evil acts and distortion of history. People like them must be punished in accordance to law. I’m willing to actively participate in the campaign.”

His remarks created a stir. 

Critic Chin Jung-kwon said Jo’s remarks reflect “insanity” and “outdated nationalism.” Chin wrote on social media that if all Koreans who spent some years studying in Japan are Japan sympathizers, then President Moon Jae-in’s daughter must be pro-Japanese as she studied at Tokyo’s Kokushikan University. 

Jo is a respected novelist having authored many best-selling books. His award-winning historical fiction work “The Taebaek Mountains” is considered the best novel of the 1980s.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but Jo wants to put people in jail who studied in Japan because a group of authors wrote a book based on facts about the Japanese colonial period that dispute much of what Jo has written in his historical fiction books. So instead of disputing the facts he rather have people jailed.

It is pretty obvious what the diplomatic difference between the U.S. and the Moon administration are on declaring the end of the Korean War. The Moon administration wants a Korean War peace treaty regardless of progress on the North Korean nuclear issue while U.S. wants significant progress on denuclearization before reaching a deal:

Suh Hoon, director of the Blue House’s National Security Office, said Thursday that President Moon Jae-in’s proposal to formally end the Korean War is part of the process to denuclearize North Korea, dismissing speculation that Seoul and Washington are at odds over the initiative.    

“It is common sense that the end-of-war declaration cannot be separated from [the denuclearization process],” Suh said during a meeting with reporters in Washington, following his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.    

“Pushing for the end-of-war declaration is not a new issue […] It has always been on the negotiation table, and Korea and the United States cannot have different opinions on it.”   

He noted, however, that the issue was not specifically addressed during his U.S. trip.   

“What is important is whether the end-of-war declaration comes first or after denuclearization,” Suh said. “And how strongly it will be linked to the denuclearization process. It is better not to speculate too much.”   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.