Tag: South Korea

It looks like Korea may see a surge in Chinese tourists:

A temporary visa waiver program for Chinese group tourists who visit Korea will begin later this month, officials said Sunday, as part of efforts to boost the nation’s tourism market.

Under the visa-free program, a group of Chinese tourists with more than three people can travel to Korea without visas for as many as 15 days from Sept. 29 to June next year, according to a joint statement by justice, culture and other ministries.

Korea Times

You can read at the link.

It looks like Korea’s “Bali-Bali” culture led to the Hyundai and LG workers not wanting to wait and go through the H1B visa process:

Many of those reportedly entered the US using B1 visas — issued for business purposes, such as attending meetings or signing contracts — or through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa waiver program for short-term stays. US immigration officials said that was the central issue in the raid.

Foreign nationals must acquire an appropriate visa such as the H-1B, L1 or E2 to legally obtain employment at workplaces located in the US. But as those visas can take months to obtain and their numbers are capped, they are often deemed impractical for companies that need to dispatch workers frequently or on short notice. Industry officials also complain that wait times for all types of visas have lengthened since the start of the Trump administration.

According to Korean media reports, the US allocates annual H-1B visa quotas to certain countries with which it has free trade agreements, including Canada, Mexico, Singapore, Chile and Australia. Despite having a free trade agreement with the US, South Korea does not receive a quota.

In response to the concern, an official from Seoul’s Foreign Ministry, who requested anonymity, noted that H-1B visas are distributed through a lottery. The official said that the ministry has repeatedly urged the US government and Congress since 2012 to create a separate visa quota for Korean professionals, such as via the proposed Partner With Korea Act.

Korea Herald

You can read more at the link, but I wonder how many of the jobs the detained Joreans were doing could have been done by Americans?

It will be interesting to see if the personnel deported will be allowed back into the country again in the future with a proper work visa. With that said I am sure every Korean business is reviewing visa status of their workers now:

The Korean government said Sunday that talks with U.S. authorities to release more than 300 Korean workers detained in Georgia were finished, and that only administrative steps remained before a chartered plane would be dispatched to bring them home.

Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik announced the development at a high-level policy meeting in Seoul, saying the release as imminent thanks to swift cooperation among government ministries, business groups and companies.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

I don’t doubt any of this is true and does anyone think the left isn’t doing the same thing with the KCTU and the organizations that support them?:

Former first lady Kim Keon Hee asked for the Unification Church’s cooperation in backing a specific candidate in the People Power Party’s (PPP) leadership election in March 2023, an indictment written by special counsel Min Joong-ki’s team showed Monday.

The team suspects that the Unification Church sought to request various policy favors from the administration of former President Yoon Suk Yeol in exchange for its political support.

According to the indictment for a former Unification Church official surnamed Yun, obtained by Yonhap News Agency, church leader Han Hak-ja emphasized the ideology of unity between church and state in around October 2019 and has since pushed for various projects and events related to Africa, Cambodia, a Demilitarized Zone peace park and hosting a U.N. secretariat in South Korea.

Under the instruction of Han, Yun selected Yoon as a presidential hopeful, who can not only accommodate the Unification Church’s policy proposals but also establish friendly relations with the church, ahead of the 2022 presidential election, according to the indictment.

Yun is accused of offering Rep. Kweon Seong-dong of the PPP 100 million won (US$72,000) in January 2022 while promising the church’s extensive support for Yoon in the presidential election in exchange for the government’s support for the church’s projects and events in the future.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

I have always supported radio broadcasts as a low cost way to penetrate North Korea’s information blockade of its people and the Lee administration has given it up for nothing in return:

South Korea has halted the broadcast of a propaganda radio program into North Korea, the defense ministry said Monday, as the South seeks to mend frayed ties with the North.

The move is the latest in Seoul’s reconciliatory gestures, with President Lee Jae Myung vowing to restore inter-Korean ties and resume dialogue with Pyongyang.

“The defense ministry has halted the ‘Voice of Freedom’ broadcast as part of efforts to ease inter-Korean military tensions,” the ministry said in a notice to reporters.

South Korea had aired K-pop and news into North Korea through the halted radio program. Last year, it broadcast news on North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine.

The ministry reportedly halted the broadcast starting earlier in the day, marking the first suspension of the radio program in 15 years. South Korea resumed the radio program in May 2010, following North Korea’s deadly attack on the South Korean naval corvette Cheonan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

It is interesting that President Trump actually noticed all the people from the prior South Korean government getting prosecuted. I wonder if he realizes this is largely what the Korean left does when they get in power, they prosecute prior conservative administrations for things real and imagined:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday there seems to be something like a “purge or revolution” in South Korea, and that the United States cannot have such a thing and “do business there,” as he is set to have a summit with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on the day.

Trump made the remarks in a social media post, as former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol has been detained over his botched martial law bid in December.

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“We can’t have that and do business there. I am seeing the new President today at the White House,” he added.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

There is a reason the police generally look at relatives first during a murder investigation because the statistics show a reletative is the likely culprit:

Nearly half of murders committed in Korea last year targeted family members such as parents, spouses and children, data showed Sunday.

According to the National Police Agency’s 2024 crime statistics, 131 of the 276 people apprehended for murder last year, or 47.5 percent, had killed a spouse, parent, child or other relative.

The share hovered around 30 percent between 2020 and 2022, but in 2023, it surged to 55.1 percent, or 160 out of 290 murder suspects. The apparent sharp rise was partly due to a change in methodology that year, when cases involving former spouses or common-law partners began to be counted. The proportion has since remained close to half.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link. What I find interesting about this stat is that in all of Korea last year there was 276 murders. For comparison in 2023 in Washington, DC there was 273 murders. Yet the Democrats and the media want people believe there is not a crime problem in Washington DC when that one city has nearly the same total number of murders as an entire major country.