Tag: Moon Jae-in

Besides the US-ROK joint exercise that the North Koreans are unhappy about, this designation by President Moon might also be why the North Koreans conducted their recent missile test:

The government designated the fourth Friday in March as the Yellow Sea Defense Day to remember those who were killed in waters off the west coast during three battles against North Korea’s provocations in 2002 and 2010.

This year marks the 11th anniversary of two of the three incidents — North Korea’s deadly sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan on March 26, 2010, and the communist nation’s artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, a front-line island in the Yellow Sea, on Nov. 23, 2010.

Moon said that the government has worked hard to possess “overwhelming” military strength to preserve and create peace. 

“Not a single soldier has been injured or killed in the past four years in the Yellow Sea due to armed clashes or military provocations. This is proof that a powerful force creates peace,” he said.

The president also highlighted the government’s plan to deploy a light aircraft carrier by 2033 produced by South Korean technology and deploy a 3,000-ton submarine program, which has been in development since 2018, by 2024.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but I was a bit surprised that the Moon administration actually made this designation considering their default appeasement policy towards North Korea. Plus many in the Korean left still believe that North Korea did not sink the Cheonan.

By the way there has been far more incidents than just the sinking of the Cheonan and the Yeonpyeong Island shelling in the Yellow Sea. The 2002 West Sea Naval Battle was another major deadly clash in these waters:

This seems pretty naive on Moon’s part to the political realities in the U.S. that incoming President Biden is going to follow any policy that Trump advocated for:

South Korea proposed to the incoming Joe Biden administration a reopening of dialogue with North Korea in the spirit of the 2018 Singapore summit, according to a senior official in Seoul on Monday.  
   
The official told the JoongAng Ilbo that Seoul cast outgoing President Donald Trump’s agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at Singapore in June 2018 as a success, and encouraged new talks along similar lines.  
   
It was not revealed to whom in the Biden camp the message was relayed, or how, although the recipients are believed to be diplomatic figures associated with the president-elect. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

More bad news for President Moon:

President Moon Jae-in’s approval rating has tied its all-time low, while public disapproval of his job performance has surged to the highest point so far, a poll showed Monday.

In the four-day Realmeter survey conducted on 2,008 people, aged 18 or older, nationwide till last Thursday, 36.7 percent of respondents supported the president, down 2.8 percentage points from the previous week.

Moon’s rating had fallen to 36.7 percent, the lowest since he took office in May 2017, in the second week of December and bounced back to 39.5 percent the following week in Realmeter’s tracking polls.

The proportion of those who gave a negative assessment of Moon’s presidency rose 2 percentage points to a record high of 59.7 percent.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

President Moon and his Democrat Party keeps dropping in the approval ratings, but the Korean conservatives have yet to offer someone as their counter to him to capitalize on his unpopularity:

President Moon Jae-in’s job approval rating has fallen to a record low of 37.4 percent, a poll showed Thursday, with a rift between the justice minister and the top prosecutor deepening and housing prices in major areas continuing to rise.

Public approval for the ruling Democratic Party (DP) also dropped to 28.9 percent, the lowest since the launch of the Moon administration in May 2017, while that of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) rose to 31.2 percent, according to Realmeter.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Here is the latest world leader to contact Joe Biden after his media declared election win:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his incoming U.S. counterpart, Joe Biden, agreed to work closely together to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, as they had a 14-minute phone conversation Thursday, Cheong Wa Dae said.

Biden described South Korea as a “linchpin” of security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific region, according to Moon’s spokesman Kang Min-seok.

Moon asked Biden to “communicate closely” for the forward-looking development of the Seoul-Washington alliance, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and establishment of lasting peace here.

The president cited the allies’ 70 years of partnership for the protection of such shared values as democracy and human rights, Kang said.

Biden reaffirmed Washington’s firm security commitment to South Korea and said that he would “closely cooperate” for a resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue, he added.

They also agreed to expand cooperation on global challenges, including COVID-19 and climate change, and agreed to meet at an early date after Biden’s inauguration, Kang said.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but really nothing new in this phone call.

I don’t think this is going to get much traction considering the control of most of the media the Moon administration has, but I am sure South Korean conservative politicians are enjoying this payback after what former President Park went through:

In response to the controversy over the reporting time to Moon, Kim Chong-in, interim leader of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP), said the incident is a national disaster due to the Moon administration’s lackluster security awareness.

“The Moon administration’s rosy prospects have led to the loss of a precious life of a South Korean citizen,” he said. 

“President Moon needs to explain what he did for three days from Monday.” 

He added that the government may have wanted to hide something from the public by disclosing the incident three days later.

The current situation leaves Moon in a similar situation to that faced by his predecessor in the wake of the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014. While the ferry carrying more than 300 passengers was sinking, the rescue operations were bungled, causing people to speculate on what then-President Park was doing for the first critical seven hours. Many still question the claims of presidential aides that she was receiving updates at her residence.

Rep. Joo Ho-young, the PPP floor leader, said President Moon should have attended the ministerial meeting on early Wednesday morning considering the severity of the incident.

“It is questionable about President Moon’s follow-up measures. It is not comprehensible whether President Moon was unaware of the incident or he ignored it,” Joo said.

Korea Times via a reader tip

You can read more at the link.