Tag: South Korea

More bad press for BMW in South Korea:

BMW cars are still bursting into flames in Korea as a huge recall here continues after a spate of vehicle fires over the summer crippled the German automaker.

A BMW X5 30d SUV caught fire on Tuesday evening in Seoul while it was being driven. The 2007 version of the model is powered by diesel and is not included in the recall list. The fire did not cause any injuries.

Just a day earlier, a gasoline-powered 3-Series model that wasn’t included in the latest recall list caught fire in Yongin, Gyeonggi.

The driver pulled over after realizing that the steering wheel was not operating properly. The engine quickly caught fire once the car had stopped, the driver told a local fire station. No injuries were reported.

“We are currently looking into the case to figure out the reason behind the fire,” a spokesperson for BMW Korea said Tuesday.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

This undated file photo shows Army Gen. Park Han-ki, commander of the 2nd Operation Command, whom President Moon Jae-in named to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sept. 17, 2018. (Yonhap)

This looks like more of the same from North Korea where they do things that are easily reversible to get major concessions from the US:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un agreed to halt all military acts that could spark conflict along the border, promising to end confrontational relations and the threat of war on the Korean Peninsula.

The two leaders on Wednesday also reaffirmed their commitment to a nuclear free Korean peninsula with North Korean leader Kim promising to invite foreign experts to verify the dismantling of a long-range missile engine testing site. He also offered to shut down the country’s most important nuclear facility – if the United States offers “corresponding measures” in return.

“The South and North agreed to work toward terminating any chance of war and improving the hostile relationship [between the two militaries] in every corner of the Korean Peninsula beyond the demilitarized zone,” read an agreement signed by Moon and Kim, called the Pyongyang Declaration, after a second round of summit talks in Pyongyang.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but notice there is nothing agreed upon about removing the nuclear material and weapons the North Koreans have already stockpiled.  They are just offering to have international inspectors monitor the disassembling of a missile engine test site and shutting down the Yongbyon nuclear facility.  The missile test site can be reconstructed later and the regime may have enough confidence in their rocket engines to not need the site anymore anyway.  The Yongbyon nuclear facility can be restarted up at a time of the Kim regime’s choosing long after sanctions have been dropped and they received the infusion of cash and aid from the Moon administration.  This is the “pretend denuclearization“.

The timing of this summit shows that Moon and Kim are likely betting that the Trump administration will want a supposed foreign policy victory before the US mid-term elections.  I would not be surprised if they do some kind of spectacle of blowing up a launch pad or some other site to further entice the Trump administration to agree to their “pretend denuclearization” strategy.

If the Moon administration gets its way, this magician will not need to turn North Korean currency into US dollars, it will be brought across the border in large quantities for Kim Jong-un:

South Korean magician Choi Hyun-woo is expected to perform in front of the leaders of the two Koreas, with Cheong Wa-dae announcing on Monday that Choi was in the South’s delegation.

“I am not sure about the specifics (where and when I am going to present my show), as the news came as surprise,” Choi told CBS radio, Tuesday morning just before leaving for Pyongyang.

He said he planned to engage North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in his show.

“I cannot reveal which magic performances I’m going to present at the show, but I’m planning to create scenes that I hope show the ‘miracle of inter-Korean unity,'” he said.

He was not sure whether he would do a similar trick to one performed by a North Korean magician ― turning North Korean currency into a U.S. dollar.  [Korea Times]

The timing of this space launch makes me wonder if the Moon administration is trying to give the Kim regime in North Korea a rationale to protest the sanctions on their own rocket launches:

South Korea plans to conduct the first test flight of its locally developed booster engine at the end of next month, the ICT ministry said Sunday, as part of a long-term effort to produce the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2), a three-stage rocket.

The single-stage rocket, with a 75-ton thrust engine, developed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) is set to be launched between Oct. 25 and Oct. 31 from the Naro Space Center in Goheung, South Jeolla Province, the Ministry of Science and ICT said.

It said the launch date has been set after examining all variables and that related countries and agencies, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization and International Maritime Organization, will be notified in advance

“Barring any unforeseen developments, the launch should take place on the primary date of Oct. 25,” the ministry said.

The rocket will fly for about 10 minutes, during which the performance of the new engine, control system and other parts will be monitored, the ministry said. It is expected to attain a sub-orbital altitude of over 100 kilometers some 160 seconds after launch and reach its apogee 300 seconds into the flight, before hitting international waters between South Korea’s Jeju Island and Japan’s Okinawa Island.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link, but after this launch the Kim regime can argue that they should be allowed to conduct peaceful space launches just like the ROK.  The Chinese and Russians of course would support them, the Moon administration may even openly support them.  So called peaceful space launches would give the North Koreans a way to get around sanctions to continue to perfect components of their ICBM technology.

Jeju Island has been the epicenter of the refugee issue in South Korea and this weekend protesters faced off against each other in Seoul.  However, judging by the size of the protests few people apparently cared enough about this issue to join the protesters:

Two contrasting rallies, in support of and opposition to the Refugee Act, took place across from each other in Jongno in central Seoul on Sunday. The movements came two days after the Justice Ministry granted one-year humanitarian stay permits to 23 Yemeni asylum seekers.

Under the rain, some 200 rallygoers demanded the government grant greater legal refugee status to more asylum seekers, and called for efforts to reduce discriminations against asylum seekers, in front of Bosingak.

Just across the road, some 300 protesters gathered in front of Jongno Tower to chant for the abolishment of the Refugee Act, and chanted that the government should protect the interests of Koreans.  [Korea Herald]

You can read more at the link.

President Moon’s approval rating is down to 49% and people are more skeptical of his North Korea policies since the first Kim-Moon summit:

“Our people are beginning to learn that North Korea will not easily give up its nukes, something that many experts had already repeatedly predicted,” said Kim Taewoo, former president of the government-funded Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.

Moon may face increasing difficulties if his summit with Kim in Pyongyang fails to make tangible progress on efforts to get North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons program.

Economic woes such as a lackluster job-market growth and soaring real estate prices are compounding Moon’s problems, adding to opposition to his North Korea policy, many experts say.

“If Moon fails to address economic problems, he can’t maintain public contentment with his government only with his North Korea policy,” said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University. “If the economy gets worse, many people will demand that Moon stop looking to North Korea and start resolving our own economic problems.”  [Stars & Stripes]

I expect that President Moon will try and get the Kim regime to do some big spectacle to impress the South Korean domestic audience and President Trump that progress is being made on denuclearization.  Something Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il did was demolish a nuclear cooling tower to impress President Bush back in 2008.  The strategy worked because the Bush administration cut a deal with Kim.

The old cooling tower was easily replaceable and did nothing to stop North Korea’s nuclear program.  Kim the younger could try some kind of similar spectacle as well to make people believe in his “pretend denuclearization” strategy.

Moon says #SouthKorea can trade rice for #NorthKorea's coal, raw material, rare earths. But coal, titanium, iron, gold, nickel, etc are all banned. But he already violated sanctions by importing #NK coal, providing oil to #NK, etc, w no consequences. So he'll press on. https://t.co/dCL5dzgK6x

— Tara O (@DrTaraO) September 12, 2018

Just like President Trump is claimed in Woodward’s book to have been exploring the ordering of a preemptive strike on North Korea, what is the big deal if he was likewise exploring the option of removing dependents from South Korea?

Woodward writes that Trump even proposed sending a tweet declaring that he was ordering all U.S. military dependents out of South Korea, an act that would likely be read in North Korea as a signal that the United States was preparing for war.

The tweet never went out.

On Dec. 3, after another North Korean ICBM test, Sen. Lindsay Graham advocated removing U.S. troops’ families from South Korea in an interview. The book says that, the following day, McMaster was informed that Ri Su-yong, a vice chairman of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party Central Committee and director of the committee’s International Affairs Department, told intermediaries “that the North would take the evacuation of U.S. civilians as a sign of imminent attack.”

Hence, withdrawing the dependents of American troops should be “one of the last cards to play,” and the possible tweets were described by Woodward as having “scared the daylights out of the Pentagon leadership,” Defense Secretary James Mattis and Dunford.

Graham, in a change of heart, was said to have advised Trump in a phone call in January that a decision to withdraw U.S. troops’ families is “hard to go back” on, and that it would “rock the South Korean stock market and the Japanese economy.” When asked by Trump if he should delay such an evacuation, Graham, who has been a hard-liner on the North, was quoted as telling him, “I don’t think you should ever start this process unless you’re ready to go to war.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

If what is discussed in Woodward’s book is true, Trump like many people not familiar with the situation, may have thought removing dependents would be a good idea to make sure a preemptive strike option could be executed if needed.  Clearly his aides and Senator Graham advised him otherwise of the difficulties and ramifications of removing dependents from South Korea and the President decided otherwise.