Tag: South Korea

If this report is true this is an interesting location for a summit considering that Singapore is a friendly US ally.  I would have thought Beijing would have been a better third nation location from the North Korean perspective:

Singapore has emerged as the most likely venue for the planned summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to multiple diplomatic sources, Monday.

The sources said the historic summit will likely take place between June 9 and 15, after Trump attends the G-7 Summit slated for June 8 to 9 in Quebec, Canada.

This suggests the White House is losing interest in the truce village of Panmunjeom, although Trump proposed both the Peace House and Freedom House as possible venues for the summit.  (……)

The sources said the White House is leaning toward Singapore over Panmunjeom for “practical reasons.”

A source pointed out that officials of the U.S. and North Korea have held talks several times in Singapore and it is an excellent neutral location for both sides.

A different source said Singapore has a history of hosting summits for leaders of third countries, including that of Chinese President Xi Jinping and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou in 2015.

Both the U.S. and North Korea have embassies in Singapore, making it easier for their officials to prepare for the summit.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

This photo, taken May 5 2018, shows vehicles stuck in a traffic jam on one side of the Gyeongbu Expressway, which links Seoul with southern areas, as travelers leave the city to celebrate Children’s Day. (Yonhap)

Students of Dongseo University’s nursing college in Busan, southeast of Seoul, take the Nightingale Pledge on May 3, 2018. The students usually take the pledge in their third year at school before they go out into the field for on-site training. (Yonhap)

Here is what a ROK Drop favorite Bruce Klingner had to say about the recent Inter-Korean Summit between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un:

Two Siberian tigers — a 13-year-old female named Hancheong and a seven-year-old male named Uri — stroll in a “tiger forest” in the National Baekdu-daegan Arboretum, located on a mountain range in Bonghwa, a town in South Korea’s southeast province of North Gyeongsang, on May 3, 2018. The Korea Forest Service opened the arboretum, which was established on a 27,600-square-meter site, making it one of the largest of its kind in Asia. The establishment of the tiger forest is part of the country’s efforts to preserve the endangered species in the wild. (Yonhap)

I totally agree with Dr. Lankov that the recent Kim-Moon Inter-Korean Summit was more marketing and hype than actual substance:

It was, frankly, quite striking to see the tidal wave of unwarranted optimism in South Korean media that accompanied the April 27 summit.

To be more precise, this tidal wave began to rise shortly before the summit actually took place, and reached a truly remarkable level after its (modest and predictable) results were announced.

To a very large extent, this optimism has been deliberately manufactured by the South Korean bureaucracy. The Moon administration has spared no expense creating the impression that a historical breakthrough was made at Panmunjom.

These marketing efforts are eagerly supported by left-leaning media outlets, with the Hankyoreh Sinmun and Kyonghyang Sinmun being arguably the most vocal participants in this state-led enthusiasm building campaign.  (…………)

One op-ed author, for example, assured his readers that in the near future, they will be able to take “the unification train” from Busan all the way to Moscow and Paris.

Another contributor shared his dreams about hiking in the North Korean mountains and buying freshly boiled corn from locals and assured readers that now, after this supposed breakthrough, these dreams are certainly about to come true very soon.

It has even been suggested that the architects of this supposed breakthrough should be considered as candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.

These flood of naivety and self-imposed amnesia might sound comical, but there are good reasons why the Moon administration is working so hard to manufacture this optimism and to maintain it at a sufficiently high level.  [NK News]

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration is building this hype like I have previously posted about, to influence President Trump during his upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un.  They need to get Trump on board with the Great Charade of 2018 and get him to also pretend that things are going to be different this time and that the North Koreans really do mean to denuclearize.

Rebuilding Kim’s image with the Inter-Korean Summit was part of this effort.  The upcoming demolition of the nuclear test site will be the next dramatic optic of little substance that will happen before the Kim-Trump summit.  If President Trump sticks to his demands of denuclearization with strict inspections before dropping sanctions than the Great Charade of 2018 will likely implode and Moon will likely blame Trump for its failure instead of the real source of the peninsula’s problems, Kim Jong-un.

Rescue authorities clean up the scene where a bus collided with a passenger vehicle, killing eight and injuring 11, on a road in Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province, on May 1, 2018. (Yonhap)

With all the developments happening on the Korean peninsula the Chinese have decided to show the South Koreans who is still boss in the region:

Seoul called in China’s ambassador on Saturday after a Chinese military plane violated South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ), officials said.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Yoon Soon-gu summoned Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong and called for Beijing to come up with measures to prevent such a violation from happening again, ministry officials said.

Separately, the Defense Ministry said it called in Du Nongyi, military attache of the Chinese embassy in Seoul, and lodged a stern protest against the Chinese military plane’s violation of the KADIZ.

According to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the Chinese aircraft, believed to be a reconnaissance plane, entered the air defense zone in the northwest in the morning and stayed for about four hours.

“At 10:44 a.m., one Chinese military plane entered the KADIZ from northwest of Ieo Island,” the JCS said in a statement, referring to the submerged rock south of Jeju Island.

It then changed direction near the southeastern port city of Pohang toward the eastern island of Ulleung before steering south and exiting the KADIZ on its entry route at 2:33 p.m., the JCS said.  [Korea Times]

For those that don’t know Ieodo continues to be a territorial dispute between South Korea and the Chinese.  The Chinese regularly violates the South Korean ADIZ at key times of their choosing to send a message to South Korea.

Here is yet another example of something that Kim Jong-un is doing to create the perception that he really wants to have peace on the Korean peninsula:

He also agreed to unify the time zones used in South and North Korea, where Seoul is 30 minutes ahead of Pyongyang.

“I feel sad to see that there are two clocks hung on the wall of the Peace House, one for Seoul time and the other for Pyongyang time,” he said. “Since it is us who changed the time standard, we will return to the original one. You can make it public.”  [Yonhap]

Much like with the closing of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, this decision to use the same time zone as South Korea is easily reversible at a time of the Kim regime’s choosing.  They have so far done nothing that is non-reversible and a clear sign of their intent to denuclearize.

Holidaymakers swim at the Caribbean Bay water park in Yongin, some 50 km south of Seoul, on April 29, 2018, amid warm weather. (Yonhap)