When Japanese PM Abe came for dinner, Israeli PM Netanyahu's private chef Segev Moshe put his foot in it with the dessert: chocolates served in a metal shoe, "which is considered highly offensive in Japanese culture." https://t.co/o0aVnOGgewpic.twitter.com/Yx4f6BQp7s
As much as I enjoy Japan (and diving in Guam), a lot of younger sailors don't want to be so far from home for 4 years. Understand it operationally, but I think detailers are going to be telling more they're going vs. seeing requests. https://t.co/Ag7GYWp02W
South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s televised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday was spectacularly effective as pageantry aimed at South Koreans fearful of a U.S. attack on North Korea — and spectacularly empty in terms of meaningful commitment by the North to denuclearization. In fact, everything Kim put on the table was designed to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state and dilute Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions. Many veterans of negotiations with North Korea worry that Kim is now getting ready to play the United States. While the Trump administration’s tough sanctions no doubt had some role in pushing the North toward this summitry, one can also imagine exactly how this was a scenario the North itself sought from the beginning. [Foreign Policy]
Green then goes on to write a satire email from Vice Marshall Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau, Korean People’s Army to Kim Jong-un on their peace strategy. Here is an excerpt from the email:
You will pledge seemingly historic commitments that are all unverifiable and easily reversed, many of which we have deployed successfully in past negotiations. These include your commitment (like your father’s and grandfather’s) to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, your pledge to join the global quest for denuclearization as the other nuclear weapons states have pledged to do under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a promise not to transfer nuclear weapons to third parties, a no-first use pledge, and a promise to halt testing and to shut down our nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (for added drama, you might invite inspectors to the facility).
These commitments all parrot the aspirations of the current members of the nuclear weapons club and will thus confirm our membership in that club as we negotiate arms control with the Americans as a fellow nuclear weapons state. We, of course, made no commitment to cease production and deployment of our deterrent. We can easily reverse all these steps later, at the time of our choosing, yet already many in the imperialist and puppet media are proclaiming these meaningless declarations on your part to be a historic breakthrough.
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but as I have been saying since this whole peace initiative began, the Kim regime was conducting a facade. The North Koreans are very good at executing facades and Kim Jong-un has shown a particularly great talent for it, so much so that he has most in the international media believing every word he is saying.
The short term goal of this facade is to create a perception of progress towards peace and denuclearization on the peninsula to justify South Korea reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park, restarting joint tourism projects, and other inter-Korean cooperation initiatives that will be huge cash cows for the Kim regime. In return the Kim regime will pretend to denuclearize and make other commitments that can easily be reversed at a time of their choosing.
The Kim regime’s long term goal backed by China is to get the United States out of South Korea. That is why there has been such a strategic messaging emphasis on a peace treaty to end the Korean War. If there is a peace treaty South Korean leftists could argue why US forces are still needed in South Korea? The Kim regime’s even longer term goal is to separate the US from Japan as well with their surrogates in the media already pushing ideas of removing the US nuclear umbrella for Japan as part of any denuclearization agreement.
The wild card in all of this is President Donald Trump. South Korea, China, Russia, and most in the international community are willing to pretend denuclearization and a lasting peace is happening. Will the United States? For all we know President Trump could be conducting his own facade. For the US to get international consensus to conduct any strike against North Korea all options will have to be exhausted. Since this supposed peace process has began President Trump has been saying all the right things and being very reasonable even agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-un.
Going into the negotiations President Trump could be very solid about stringent inspections to ensure denuclearization compliance. If the Kim regime does not agree to stringent inspections or agrees and then plays their old tricks against inspectors than President Trump could have his rationale to strike North Korea. Or maybe President Trump is willing to go along with the facade to get a Nobel Peace Prize like his rival Barack Obama did and then let some other future US president deal with the consequences when Pyongyang ultimately reneges on the deal. Time will tell but the next 1-2 years should continue to be interesting times on the peninsula as everyone involved continues to play their role in this great facade.
There is a need for a country to register a protest about stuff like this. I’ve been with Korean diplomats trying to get American school districts to stop calling a body of water the “Sea of Japan.” But at some point you’re just embarrassing yourself. https://t.co/0lk78sYcv6
Here we go with another example of South Korean politicians scoring cheap political points during the upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un at the expense of Japan:
Japan has protested South Korea’s move to put dessert with a decoration featuring Dokdo on the table for the dinner planned for the upcoming historic inter-Korean summit, a local media reported Wednesday.
According to Japan’s broadcaster NHK, Kenji Kanasugi, the Japanese foreign ministry’s director-general of Asian and Oceania affairs, protested the Seoul government’s decision in his meeting with a senior South Korean Embassy official in Tokyo.
He is also reported to have expressed regrets and called on the Seoul government to drop the food from the dinner menu.
On Tuesday, the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae disclosed the details of the menu for the summit dinner that included the dessert capped with an edible map of a unified Korean Peninsula also showing the country’s eastern islets of Dokdo. [Yonhap]
You can read the rest at the link, but notice the South Koreans did not put Ieodo on to the map which they have a territorial dispute with China over.
Also the fact the Japanese government is protesting this is just as juvenile.
South Korea has custom made furniture for Friday’s summit between President Moon Jae-in and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un ― with chairs featuring Dokdo controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
One thing the rival Koreas share is a resentment of Japan, which imposed brutal colonial rule on the peninsula from 1910 to 1945, and the gesture is likely to irritate Tokyo.
Japan and the South are both US allies but their relationship is strained by historical and territorial issues, including Dokdo, islands controlled by Seoul but claimed by Tokyo.
The new walnut chairs to be used by the two leaders’ seven-strong delegations at Friday’s summit at Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) each feature a map of the peninsula.
The tiny islands are clearly marked, pictures released by the Blue House showed Wednesday. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but hatred of Japan is one thing that politicians from both North and South Korea can agree on.
Korean tourism numbers may be up on Guam, but they are not spending nearly as much as Japanese tourists:
Yeon Hee Oh, left, and Hong Kyu Kim, tourists visiting the island from Seoul, Korea, together strike a comical pose for a photo during a stop at Puntan Dos Amantes, or Two Lovers Point, on Saturday, March 31, 2018.
Visitor arrivals from Korea are making up for a decline in arrivals from Japan, but since last summer, Guam Visitors Bureau officials have noted the average Korean tourist spends much less on island than the average Japanese tourist.
Lately, they’ve been spending about one-third of what the average Japanese visitor spends here, according to the tourism agency.
As of January, the average Japanese traveler spent about $578 per day on island, compared to only $187.40 per day for a Korean traveler. The figures are similar for February, according to GVB, although that spending report hasn’t been released.
“We’re seeing a lot more cost-conscious visitors,” Nico Fujikawa, GVB tourism research director, said about visitors from Korea. “They’re looking for a deal. They’re kind of like locals.” [Guam PDN]
The Japanese Foreign Minister is finding out that no one wants to hear that the North Koreans are already misbehaving before a deal has even been reached:
Foreign Minister Taro Kono got a scathing reaction from the international community over his call to not be taken in by North Korea’s latest charm offensive.
Kono insists that North Korea is gearing up for a seventh nuclear test, but his warning has fallen on deaf ears.
“(North Korea) is working hard for its next nuclear test,” Kono asserted in a lecture he gave in Kochi on March 31.
On April 2, 38 North, a website operated by Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that is devoted to analysis about North Korea, posted an article dismissing Kono’s contention based on current activity at the nuclear test site.
“Commercial satellite imagery from March 23 shows quite a different picture: namely, that activity at the Punggye-ri test site has been significantly reduced compared to previous months,” the article says. [Asahi Shimbun]
You can read more at the link, but it seems a nuclear test would be within the Kim regime’s playbook to conduct if a deal to their liking is not reached in upcoming negotiations.
