This poll shows why the Moon administration feels it can play hardball with the US in regards to increasing the funding for USFK, it is a popular opinion to do so:
In a poll fielded in South Korea in late January by RealMeter, a majority of South Koreans (59%) oppose accommodating US demands on increased burden sharing support (26% are in favor). It is especially notable that there are virtually no significant divides across demographic groups. Pluralities—and majorities in most cases—of all ages, regions, ideological leanings, and party affiliations are in opposition to Seoul giving in to US demands. The lone outlier are supporters of Liberty Party Korea, the main conservative opposition party. Even there, 45 percent support giving in to US demands versus 39 percent who oppose.
You can read more at the link, but even threatening to withdraw US troops does little to impact the numbers. This leads me to believe that Koreans do not believe that President Trump would actually pull out troops.
I would be interested to see what the poll numbers would be if Koreans were asked what is more important, paying more to Kim Jong-un or the US-ROK alliance?
I find it interesting how this ROK government report adds Japan as a country to blame for pollution in South Korea and then does not list how much pollution it is responsible for:
This file photo, taken on Jan. 15, 2019, shows a mountain in Seoul shrouded in a dim haze caused by fine dust. (Yonhap)
External sources accounted for 75 percent of South Korea’s ultrafine dust air pollution in January, a state-run environment agency said Wednesday. South Korea saw a drastic rise in the average level of ultrafine dust particles, those smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, in between Jan. 11 and 15. According to the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER), a think tank under the Ministry of Environment, external sources from China, Mongolia, North Korea and Japan were responsible for 75 percent of ultrafine dust particles in South Korea during that period.
You can read more at the link, but I think the vast majority of Koreans realize the vast majority of pollution is coming from China and there is nothing they can do about it.
Wish him well and doesn't end up, years later, saying strangely inane things like "I've visited North Korea 25 times!" Must realize frequency of #northkorea visits, which #Kimjongun regards "privileged tributary mission," and one's degree of influence are inversely proportional. https://t.co/Wz1H1hGdCP
It looks like the price for North Korea for the Trump-Kim II Summit will be closing their Yongbyon nuclear facility:
The second summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, scheduled for the end of February, is expected to primarily deal with shutting down North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear facility and with corresponding measures by the US as part of fleshing out the joint statement signed by the two leaders in their Singapore summit on June 12, 2018, according to a high-ranking official at South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The question of building a peace regime is also expected to receive considerable attention.
“The US also places considerable significance” on North Korea’s conditional offer to shut down the Yongbyon reactor, a senior official at the Foreign Ministry who is familiar with the North Korea-US negotiations said during a meeting with reporters on Jan. 31. “Since this idea was brought up by North Korea, the discussion will focus on Yongbyon and then move on to other topics.”
During the inter-Korean Pyongyang Joint Statement in Sept. 2018, North Korea expressed its willingness to permanently close the Yongbyon nuclear facility presuming that the US takes corresponding measures, but some have argued that the Yongbyon facility is so old that closing it would have little value.
You can read more at the link, but closing Yongbyon is of more symbolic value for the US because the Kim regime can just reopen it whenever they decide to create another crisis. Even if they completely destroyed and dismantled Yongbyon such a deal does nothing to identify and shutdown any clandestine nuclear sites they may have.
It will be interesting to see what the US gives up in return for closing Yongbyon because the article claims that sanctions especially on the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the Kumgang Tours will remain in place. That means that a peace treaty and/or humanitarian aid will likely be what is offered.
The long speculated on second Trump-Kim summit is set:
U.S. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un will be held in Vietnam Feb. 27-28 with the talks to center on dismantling Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. The date and venue had been shrouded in secrecy as the two countries negotiated the next steps following a vague denuclearization deal reached at their first summit in Singapore in June. “Much work remains to be done, but my relationship with Kim Jong-un is a good one,” Trump said during his State of the Union address.
I wonder what the Chinese government thinks of the summit being in Vietnam considering their past brief military war and current territorial disputes in the South China Sea? This is a growing indication of how much the US-Vietnam relationship continues to positively develop which I would think the Chinese government would not be happy about.
This shouldn’t come as much of as surprise to people who follow North Korea:
North Korea stepped up restrictions on the use of Chinese mobile networks near the border last year in an apparent effort to control the flow of outside information, human rights organization Amnesty International has said. In a recent report on North Korea’s human rights situation, the group said the reclusive regime has strengthened efforts to trace the activities of smuggled mobile phones using Chinese networks and block the signals in the border areas over the past few years. “Individuals interviewed by Amnesty International in 2018 reported that the situation has not improved despite the recent dialogue between officials from the two Koreas,” it said. “Rather, communications through the Chinese mobile network have become even more difficult and risky in 2018.”
You can read more at the link, but as I have always believed the Kim regime is more concerned about subversive information than the threat of US military led regime change.
"The Moon administration…denying the legitimacy of its own nation & bringing down liberal democracy under the cloak of “inter-Korean collaboration” initiated by the unreliable Pyongyang regime." "We should spend money…for the ROK-U.S. alliance rather than for the NK regime" https://t.co/1lZoV6bGsA
Foreigners wearing ‘hanbok’ at old palaceForeign tourists in the traditional Korean attire of “hanbok” visit Gyeongbok Palace in central Seoul on Feb. 3, 2019. (Yonhap)
