If these POWs do in fact defect to South Korea their families back in North Korea will likely face punishment by being sent to labor camps:
The government said Seoul has not changed its position regarding accepting to the nation, North Korean soldiers held captive by the Ukrainian military in the Russia-Ukraine war should they wish to defect to South Korea.
An official at Seoul’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday that the North Korean captives are considered prisoners of war, regardless of Pyongyang’s acknowledgement of their deployment.
The official added that in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions, they must not be repatriated against their will to their home country, where they could face persecution.
I guess we will see if this trip to Korea by Trump Jr. will lead to any breakthroughs in trade negotiations with the U.S.:
Donald Trump Jr., the eldest son of US President Donald Trump, arrived in Seoul on Tuesday for a meeting with around 20 business leaders from South Korean conglomerates, industry sources said.
The two-day trip by Trump Jr., his first to South Korea since his father’s inauguration in January, comes at the invitation of Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin.
Per sources, Trump Jr. arrived at Gimpo International Airport, western Seoul, in his private jet at around 6:25 p.m. Tuesday. It had been scheduled to touch down at 4:45 p.m. but there had been a slight delay before the departure.
Wearing a black cap and a long-sleeve shirt, Trump Jr. left the airport without speaking to the dozens of waiting South Korean reporters.
South Korean business circles asked Chung to facilitate Trump Jr.’s visit as a way to establish contact with the Trump administration, according to the sources.
The current Seoul Mayor is a "conservative" as are both Vice Mayors. South Korean "conservatives" have long been globalists. Local leftists have traditionally been ethnonationalists, but in recent years I have seen many pushing for more immigration. It is now the elite consensus. https://t.co/DNYDsu5Vli
Reenacted procession of diplomatic mission sent to Japan People dressed in traditional Korean clothes reenact a procession of Joseon Tongsinsa, a diplomatic delegation sent by the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) to Japan, at Gyeonghui Palace in Seoul on April 24, 2025, as part of events to mark the 60th anniversary this year of diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan. The dispatch of the Korean envoys began in 1607 for political reasons to promote peace after a destructive seven-year war between the two sides, but its functions were later transformed into something more cultural. A total of 12 such teams of envoys were dispatched until 1811. (Yonhap)
Not that there was ever any doubt, but Lee Mae-myung is the official Democratic Party candidate now for the Korean Presidential election scheduled for June 3rd:
Former Democratic Party (DP) leader Lee Jae-myung, who has made economic recovery and talks with North Korea his top priority, won the party’s presidential nomination Sunday and solidified his stance as front-runner for the June 3 presidential election.
Lee, a human rights lawyer-turned-politician, won 89.77 percent of all votes cast in the party’s primary, becoming the party’s formal presidential candidate for the second time, after former President Yoon Suk Yeol was removed from office over his failed martial law bid.
This marks the highest figure ever recorded in a presidential primary among DP-affiliated candidates since South Korea achieved its full-fledged democracy in 1987.
That would be pretty impressive if South Korea becomes one of the first countries to secure and trade deal with the Trump administration. With that said what will be interesting is if it stays in effect when a new President takes over Korea:
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described high-level trade talks with South Korea in Washington on Thursday as “very successful,” noting that Seoul came with its “A-game” and anticipating that the allies will discuss “technical terms” as early as next week.
Bessent made the remarks in an interview with CNN, after he and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Jamieson Greer met with Seoul’s Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok and Trade Minister Ahn Duk-geun for their “two-plus-two” trade consultations at the Department of the Treasury.
“We had a very successful bilateral meeting with the Republic of Korea today. We may be moving faster than I thought,” Bessent said, referring to South Korea by its official name.
“We will be talking (about) technical terms as early as next week as we reach that agreement on understanding as soon as next week. So the South Koreans came early. They came with their A game, and we will see if they follow through on that,” he added.
From the U.S. perspective it makes sense to have the flexibility to redeploy troops from Korea to assist with a Taiwan contingency. However, this Op-Ed in the Korea Times is against because of some hypothetical possibility of Japanese troops on Korea soil:
Japan’s recent articulation of a “One Theater” doctrine — encompassing the East China Sea, Taiwan Strait and the Korean Peninsula — marks a troubling shift in strategic thinking that risks destabilizing Northeast Asia. Proposed by Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani and seemingly welcomed by U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, this doctrine is being presented as a pragmatic response to a volatile regional security environment. In reality, it threatens to undermine national sovereignty, disrupt the delicate geopolitical balance of the Indo-Pacific and draw democratic allies into conflicts not of their choosing.
At its core, the “one battlefield” concept posits that regional flashpoints — such as Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula and the East China Sea — are so interconnected that they must be treated as a unified operational theater. While this might serve military planning purposes, it dangerously flattens political nuance in favor of operational efficiency. It treats sovereign nations not as independent actors with unique security needs, but as interchangeable assets within a broader strategic front defined by Japan and, potentially, the United States.
Of particular concern is the implication that, under this doctrine, U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) could be redeployed from the Korean Peninsula to support operations in the event of a Taiwan contingency. Such a move would not only risk undermining deterrence on the peninsula — where a fragile armistice holds between South and North Korea — but also compromise South Korea’s core defense posture. The Korean Peninsula is not a backwater theater; it is a primary front involving a nuclear-armed adversary. To subordinate Korean security to cross-strait dynamics is both strategically unsound and politically inflammatory.
Historical memory further complicates this issue. Any framework that implicitly or explicitly involves Japanese military activity on or near the Korean Peninsula is politically incendiary. The legacy of Japan’s 1910-45 colonial occupation of Korea continues to cast a long shadow over bilateral relations. For many South Koreans across the political spectrum, the idea of Japanese boots on or near Korean soil — however hypothetical — remains an emotional and constitutional red line. Even under the banner of collective defense, such a scenario would provoke fierce domestic backlash and could fracture regional unity.
You can read more at the link, but it almost sounds like this author rather have North Korean and Chinese Soldiers on ROK territory instead of Japanese. With that said I cannot think of a scenario where Japanese troops would be needed on Korean soil. Japan’s geography makes it an important location to deploy U.S. aircraft, ships, and supplies from for either a Taiwan or North Korea contingency. They Japanese military will not be needed to deploy troops to Korea.
This author is really using the deployment of Japanese troops to Korea as a red herring to obscure the author’s real concern which is the flexibility of the U.S. to deploy troops from Korea for a Taiwan contingency.
I wonder how long it will be before the Chinese claim the entire Yellow Sea as their territory like they have done with the South China Sea?:
South Korea is considering setting up a necessary facility in the overlapping waters with China in the Yellow Sea as a countermeasure to the latter’s recent installation of a steel structure in the area, Seoul’s oceans minister said Monday.
The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries is discussing the matter with the financial authorities, Oceans Minister Kang Do-hyung said in a press briefing, noting the government first has to decide “what kind of facility is necessary at which level.”
“Regarding the proportional measure, we are taking this matter very seriously from the perspective of protecting our maritime territory,” he said.
In February, the two countries faced a two-hour standoff as Chinese authorities blocked Seoul’s attempt to investigate Beijing’s construction of a steel structure in the Provisional Maritime Zone (PMZ) near Ieo Island, off South Korea’s southwest coast.
The PMZ is an area where the Exclusive Economic Zones of South Korea and China overlap. The two sides can only operate fishing vessels there and jointly manage marine resources, as any activities beyond navigation and fishing are prohibited in the area.
Despite the agreement, China has installed several large steel structures in the zone in recent years, saying they are for aqua farming.
I can understand why the police are getting turned around, this would be like the Washington, DC police showing up at the White House and asking the Secret Service to hand over SIPR phones and computers. It is not going happen without a proper security review to release those materials due to classified information on those machines that have nothing to do with the investigation:
A special police investigation team withdraws from its attempt to raid the presidential office in Seoul’s Yongsan district on April 16, 2025, over allegations that former President Yoon Suk Yeol obstructed the execution of a detention warrant early this year.
Police failed to raid the presidential office Wednesday over allegations surrounding former President Yoon Suk Yeol’s short-lived martial law bid after a 10-hour standoff with presidential security officials.
The police’s special investigation team presented a warrant to search the presidential office’s secure phone server, and the Presidential Security Service (PSS) office and residence, all in the central Seoul district of Yongsan, earlier in the day, according to officials.
But security officials blocked their entry, and the presidential office later submitted a statement of disapproval, prompting investigators to leave the scene.
The police said the PSS had instead agreed to voluntarily provide certain materials, including data from the classified phone server.
Police have repeatedly attempted to seize the server records of a secure phone used by Yoon related to his Dec. 3 martial law imposition but have been largely unsuccessful.
By law, military facilities and other areas that handle confidential information cannot be searched or seized without approval from the responsible authority or office.
I guess we will see next week if the ROK can strike a deal or not with the Trump administration. What will be interesting is if a deal is struck will the likely Lee Jae-myung administration in two months stick to it?:
The United States will engage in trade negotiations with South Korea next week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday, stressing the “first mover advantage,” as countries are striving to strike deals with the U.S. to minimize the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff policy on their economies.
In a Bloomberg interview, Bessent touched on plans for upcoming negotiations with South Korea and Japan. Earlier this month, Trump imposed steep “reciprocal” tariffs on the two allies and dozens of other countries but later placed a 90-day pause on the new tariffs.
“We had Vietnam in last week. We (have) Japanese in on Wednesday. … South Korea next week,” he said. “So it’s going to move fast.”
The secretary underscored there will be a “first mover” advantage as Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba told parliament Monday (Tokyo time) that Japan will not make compromises for the sake of quickly wrapping up tariff talks with the U.S.
“I think there will be advantage to our allies, especially a first mover advantage,” he said. “Usually, the first person who makes a deal gets the best deal.”
