As Professor B.R. Myers predicted, the Moon administration is quickly pushing the Kaesong Industrial Park and Mt. Kumgang tours on the Trump administration as some kind of “ethnic exemption” to sanctions:
South Korea will talk to the United States about preparatory work for the future resumption of two key inter-Korean economic projects and about waiving sanctions on North Korea if necessary, Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon said Tuesday. Cho made the remarks a day after he reported to President Moon Jae-in that the government will discuss with the U.S. ways to resume a long-suspended tour program to the North’s Mount Kumgang and reopen an industrial complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong. South Korea is considering these measures as part of efforts to keep the dialogue momentum alive and create better conditions for negotiations after last week’s breakdown of the second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and U.S. President Donald Trump.
North Korea has enacted sanctions on family reunions for decades. These families could be reunited, forever, tomorrow. Their continued separation is North Korea’s conscious choice. https://t.co/YGf2iJtCYr
Cherry blossoms in bloomA brown-eared bulbul is perched on a cherry blossom tree at a school yard in Busan, some 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on March 3, 2019, a sign of spring approaching. (Yonhap)
If North Korea is committed to denuclearization as Kim Jong-un and President Moon Jae-in keep telling us, then why won’t they shutdown their uranium enrichment facility? As I have been saying the Kim regime has no interest in real denuclearization, they want “pretend denuclearization” which is what closing Yongbyon in return for dropping sanctions would be:
The second North Korean nuclear site that U.S. President Donald Trump wanted eliminated were the covert underground highly enriched uranium facilities at Bungang, just a few kilometers away from Yongbyon, according to multiple sources familiar with last week’s summit in Hanoi.
In a post-summit press conference, Trump said the United States knew about “every inch” of North Korea and that at the summit he “brought many, many points up that [he] think[s the North Koreans] were surprised that we knew,” in reference to U.S. demands for denuclearization measures from Pyongyang that went beyond dismantling the nuclear complex at Yongbyon.
Ri Yong-ho, the North’s foreign minister who took part in the closed-door discussions at the summit, also confirmed the Americans had demanded “one more measure” in addition to scrapping the Yongbyon facilities which they could not accept.
Disagreement on demolishing a second plant is believed to have been a crucial sticking point in Hanoi that ultimately resulted in Trump walking out without signing a much anticipated deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last Thursday.
This reeks of “were doing something” when the Moon administration knows as long as China continues to pump out pollution there is really nothing they can do:
Fine dust in Seoul this week.
President Moon Jae-in ordered the government on Tuesday to take extraordinary measures to fight fine dust pollution that has choked the country for days. Moon received an urgent briefing from Environment Minister Cho Myung-rae on particulate matter problems for about 50 minutes, a presidential spokesman said. Moon called for interagency efforts to curb the pollution and reduce damage, including the installation of high-capacity air purifiers in more daycare centers and schools. “The government should respond immediately, rather than clinging to long-term responses, to people’s demand when it explosively increases,” he was quoted as saying by spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.
You can read more at the link, but the measures include having more government meetings to discuss the problem and asking China to please stop polluting. Good luck with that.
I doubt we will ever know, but it would interesting to see how much money is in fact saved with the changes to the joint exercise schedule?:
U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday that he doesn’t want military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea because they are expensive and unhelpful for diplomacy with North Korea. Trump made the remark on Twitter a day after the allies announced an end to two major combined exercises — Key Resolve and Foal Eagle. “The reason I do not want military drills with South Korea is to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the U.S. for which we are not reimbursed,” Trump tweeted. “That was my position long before I became President. Also, reducing tensions with North Korea at this time is a good thing!”
Moon admin plan to dismantle the strongest Mechanized Forces in S.Korea.This particular Force is Korean War Legend which known to demolished 3 N.K divisions during Korean War. Soldiers in this group even salute each other "Strike North!"to boost morale.https://t.co/youmwnafqi
Seoul sky covered with fine dustThis photo, taken from the Namsan Seoul Tower in downtown Seoul on March 3, 2019, shows a man wearing a mask and the Seoul sky covered with fine dust. (Yonhap)
Here is a good reminder to any Korean-Americans that immigrated from South Korea as a young man, check with the Korean consulate to make sure you don’t get detained for draft dodging when re-entering the country:
Tong Yi, known as Don to family and friends, poses in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, before going to a meeting there to discuss his case, Monday, Feb. 11, 2019.
U.S. Army combat veteran Tong Yi flew home on Monday, nearly a month after he was detained in South Korea for allegedly violating strict conscription rules. Yi, a 40-year-old Ohio restaurant owner who also goes by the name Don, traveled to Seoul last month to attend his father’s funeral. But airport authorities prevented him from leaving the country on Feb. 6 because he faced a decades-old accusation of draft dodging. South Korean police detained him for several hours. He was later released from custody but barred from leaving the country until March 2 pending review. Prosecutors later said he was guilty, but they decided not to pursue the case, according to Yi. Yi, who was born in Seoul but emigrated with his family at age 9, said he’s not angry about the experience. “I don’t think anyone meant me harm, and I believe they have these laws in place for a reason,” he told Stars and Stripes in a text message Monday from the gate while waiting for his flight. He said all the officials he met were “sympathetic to my situation and were very professional.”
ROK Drop favorite, Professor B.R. Myers has posted his thoughts about the outcome of the Hanoi summit between President Trump and Kim Jong-un. In the article Myers says President Trump did the right thing walking away from the summit which will probably not win Professor Myers too many fans in academia and the media:
B.R. Myers
Donald Trump did the right thing in Hanoi, in a rare accession of good sense, but only because Kim Jong Un, in an equally rare lapse of it, tried to get too much at once. Conservative South Koreans on Youtube cheered the summit collapse as the end of America’s efforts to appease Pyongyang. They also mocked Moon Jae-in for having announced, on the very next day, that he will continue pushing for what I call the ethnic exemption from sanctions, namely, permission for some degree of inter-Korean economic cooperation.
In fact Moon understands the Americans far better than his opponents do. He knows the softening of our resolve has quite a way to go yet. If talks between Pyongyang and Washington do not resume very soon, we can expect the usual American op-ed writers to back Moon’s call for the ethnic exemption. If Kim is smart he will offer just enough to bring it about, and visit Seoul to help force the Americans’ hand.
You can read more at the link, but Myers believes that the Moon administration will now highly pressure the Trump administration to allow an “ethnic exemption” to sanctions to reopen Kaesong and the Kumgang Resort tours. I don’t see President Trump bending on this unless the North Koreans give something up just as valuable in return.
Myers in the rest of the article also provides a good historical analysis how the Korean left was just as much if not more collaborating with the Imperial Japanese than the Korean right. This is significant because with the failure of the summit, the Moon administration in South Korea will likely further push anti-Japanese sentiment to create a common cause with North Korea.
The Korean left also uses Japanese sentiment to label their domestic political enemies on the right as pro-Japanese collaborators even though historically the left was probably the more significant collaborators.
