Just when you thought the anti-THAAD silliness in China couldn’t get any stupider along comes this:
A rap group backed by China’s government is warning South Korea in a music video that “you’re going too far” with the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system, as Beijing seeks to bring its state-supported cultural forces to bear in the international dispute.
A member of the group CD REV said government officials worked with them on the video and helped to promote it on foreign websites, many of which are blocked in China by official censors emboldened by the ruling Communist Party’s warnings against foreign “cultural infiltration.”
In the song, group members chant that “about THAAD we say no, no, no,” a reference to the U.S. Army’s missile defense system formally known as Terminal High Altitude Area Defense.
Later in the song, they refer to South Korea, saying, “this time, kid, you’re going too far” and “your big brother’s annoyed,” a nod to China’s view of itself as the pre-eminent political and economic power in northeast Asia. [Stars & Stripes]
A weekly rally is under way in front of the Japanese Embassy, which is being renovated, in downtown Seoul on May 17, 2017, to demand Japan apologize for the sexual slavery of Korean women by the Japanese military during World War II. (Yonhap)
It would be very interesting to see what the Trump administration reaction to any demand by South Korea to remove THAAD would be if the liberal Democratic Party gets its way:
The floor leader of the ruling Democratic Party on Wednesday raised the possibility of sending back a recently installed missile defense system to the United States if there are any procedural problems with its deployment.
Rep. Woo Won-shik also reiterated that the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) battery to South Korea requires parliamentary approval.
“We have to look into issues including the possibility of sending back Thaad, if it has not properly undergone domestic legal procedures,” Woo said during a radio interview, who was elected floor leader on Tuesday.
The liberal party has long called for a suspension of the Thaad installation and stressed the need to secure parliamentary approval, claiming that the former government failed to forge sufficient public consensus over the crucial national defense decision. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
A South Korean importer has been arrested for selling American lobsters under a Canadian label for two and a half years, the South Regional Headquarters of the Korea Coast Guard said Tuesday.
The importer, identified only as 53-year-old Kim, is accused of importing 18 tons of American lobsters worth 2.13 billion won (US$1.9 million) in 321 shipments from September 2014 to March this year and selling them to local restaurants as more expensive Canadian products, the maritime police agency said.
Kim earned about 2.6 billion won from the alleged fraud, as American lobsters are about 20 percent cheaper than their Canadian counterparts in the local market, the agency added.
The agency noted that Kim replaced the origin labels of imported lobsters and fabricated the relevant documents to sell them as Canadian products to local restaurant owners. [Yonhap]
I am sure if the South Koreans pay the North Koreans enough in “aid” someone will pick up the phone:
South Korea urged the North to pick up the phone, saying it’s time for the rivals to reopen communication channels that have been suspended for more than a year amid rising tensions.
The top U.S. commander in the Pacific, meanwhile, warned that North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is “a recipe for disaster,” three days after the communist state test-fired what some said was its most successful missile.
The hotline at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula has been dormant since North Korea severed the channels after Seoul closed a joint industrial complex in the border city of Kaesong.
A unification ministry spokesman in Seoul said Wednesday that the lines haven’t technically been cut, but North Korean officials have not responded to near daily calls from their counterparts in the South. [Stars & Stripes]
Age was the biggest factor in SK's election. As age rises, Moon's support fades; starting w age 50, center-right candidates become majority pic.twitter.com/CWV5mgZZje
The Kim regime has welcomed the new ROK president the way they typically do by conducting a provocation:
North Korea fires a medium-range ballistic missile in February in this file photo. (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (KCNA-Yonhap)
North Korea launched a ballistic missile Sunday morning from a site north of Pyongyang, South Korea’s military said, as President Moon Jae-in immediately convened an emergency meeting of the National Security Council (NSC) to discuss the issue.
“North Korea fired an unidentified missile at around 5:27 a.m. today from an area in the vicinity of Kusong, North Pyongan Province,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement
The projectile flew some 700 kilometers, it said, adding it’s analyzing more details.
The flight distance suggests a success of the missile test, the North’s first military provocation since the inauguration of Moon last week. [Yonhap]
The type of ballistic missile has not been disclosed yet, but PACOM has already said that it was not an ICBM. However, the Japanese are calling this the highest fired missile they have seen yet from North Korea:
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile flew for about 30 minutes, reaching an altitude of more than 2,000 kilometers and was believed to have traveled some 800 kilometers before falling about 400 kilometers outside of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, according to the Japan Times.
Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada was quoted as saying that the launch, which was likely conducted at a steep or “lofted” trajectory, could be of a “new type of ballistic missile.” It hit the highest-ever altitude recorded by Japan’s defense authority for a North Korean missile. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
At least one scientist thinks this is a new type of missile that has been tested:
“I don’t believe the missile test Sunday involved existing models, such Pukguksong-2 or Scud-ER, considering its flight distance was about 700 kilometers,” said Kim Dong-yup, a professor at the Institute for Far East Studies of Kyungnam University. “The test appears to be aimed at developing a new type of missile with an improved performance.”
David Wright, co-director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told the Associated Press that Sunday’s launch may have been of a new mobile, two-stage liquid-fueled missile that North Korea displayed during an April 15 military parade to mark that 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il-sung
Wright estimated that the missile had a range of 4,500 kilometers if it travelled on a standard, instead of lofted, trajectory. [Korea Times]
If the range of this missile is 4,500 kilometers that means it is not designed to strike South Korea or Japan which it already has SCUD and Nodong missiles to hit these two countries with. Instead the only reason to develop a missile with this range would be to strike Guam which would be within its 4,500 kilometer maximum range since it is roughly 3,300 kilometers from North Korea:
This test may be a response to the fact that the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group is supposed to be in the Sea of Japan (East Sea) conducting exercises.
In response to the provocation the Chinese are urging all parties to show the typical “restraint” they always seem to put out after a North Korean provocation. The United States is trying to play the Russians against the North Koreans after this test since the missile landed close to Russia:
Fox News reported that the White House said North Korea has been a “flagrant menace for far too long” and that Trump “cannot imagine that Russia is pleased” with the latest missile test because the missile landed closer to Russia than to Japan. U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster also condemned the launch in a 25-minute phone call with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kwan-jin and agreed to combine forces towards denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
I doubt Putin really cares, and then in South Korea new President Moon Jae-in wants North Korea to change its attitude if it wants negotiations:
During his first NSC meeting at Cheong Wa Dae, President Moon strongly condemned the launch, saying, “It was an apparent violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and also a serious challenge to peace and security on the Korean Peninsula as well as the international community.”
Moon said he found North Korea’s provocation regretful, citing that it came despite his speech to make full-pledged efforts to bring peace to the peninsula during his May 10 inauguration ceremony.
“I’m strongly warning North Korea, and at the same time, I find its reckless provocation deeply regretful.”
The president said he is open to resuming dialogue with North Korea, but added his government would deal sternly with the North’s provocations to ensure that the reclusive state does “not make a misjudgment.”
“We must show the North that dialogue will be possible only when it changes its attitude,” he said. [Korea Times]
Good luck with that since people have been waiting decades for North Korea to change its attitude. As this test proves, a new ROK President promising Sunshine Policy 2.0 is not going to change the nature of the Kim regime.
This photo, released by the (North) Korean Central TV Station on May 10, 2017, is a composite of satellite images which the North claims show a golf course in South Korea’s southeastern county of Seongju where an advanced U.S. missile defense system, dubbed the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, has been deployed. (Yonhap)
If President Moon scraps the comfort women agreement with Japan it will be very interesting to see what the Japanese reaction will be. It seems to me the Japanese government would be furious if it was to happen considering the political capital Shinzo Abe used to get the deal completed:
South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday hinted at possibly scrapping an agreement with Tokyo over Japan’s sexual enslavement of Korean women during World War II, insisting that most South Koreans could not accept the deal reached by the former Seoul government.
“President Moon noted the reality was that most of his people could not accept the agreement over the sexual slavery issue,” Moon’s chief press secretary Yoon Young-chan said of the president’s telephone conversation with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
The conversation came as Abe sought to congratulate the new South Korean leader on his election this week. Moon came into office Wednesday, only one day after winning the presidential by-election caused by the March 10 ouster of his predecessor Park Geun-hye over a massive corruption scandal.
The thorny issue of sexual slavery apparently took center stage of the conversation after the Japanese premier urged the new liberal Seoul government to honor the agreement signed by its conservative predecessor. [Yonhap]
