Tag: South Korea

This report makes it sound like the US and the ROK will just wake up one day and decide to launch a preemptive attack against North Korea.  The reality is that this “4D” concept would likely happen in response to a North Korean provocation to where there is clear intent to launch missiles against the ROK and the US:

The new operational concept jointly adopted by South Korea and the United States to destroy North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities is expected to prompt the North to launch fresh provocations, sources said Tuesday.

The allies approved the implementation guidance on the “4D Operational Concept” during the annual Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held in Seoul, Monday, as a means to carry out preemptive strikes against the North’s missile threats, containing nuclear, chemical and biological warheads.

The guidance, which is designed to detect, disrupt, destroy and defend — the 4 “D’s” — has the major implication that the allies have revived the concept of preemptive strikes against the North’s strategic facilities. A ministry official noted on condition of anonymity that “disrupt and destroy” contains the connotation of preemptive strikes.

In an apparent response to the allies’ endorsement of the new operational concept, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Tuesday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un observed a live-fire exercise for anti-aircraft artillery.

Kim was quoted as saying by the KCNA: “We should actively push for the development of a variety of advanced anti-aircraft guns that meet the requirements of modern warfare.”

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, told reporters, “The report came right after South Korea and the U.S. approved the 4D Operational Concept. It seems the North had the intention to respond to the allies’ cooperation.”

Officials said Seoul and Washington have prepared the guidance since 2013 while having experienced various provocations from Pyongyang including a third nuclear test in February that year and the test-firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile in May this year.

The preparation comes at a time when the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing the North remain stalled since late 2008, due to the insistence by the North that it should join the talks with the status of a nuclear power and without any conditions attached.

The guidance will reportedly be reflected in a new joint wartime operational plan between the allies, dubbed Operation Plan (OPLAN) 5015, focused on preemptive strikes on strategic sites in the North. The allies signed OPLAN 5015 in June to replace the existing OPLAN 5027, which was more about how to defend the South. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

I am just trying to understand why the Canadians would have this program in the first place where they give free schooling to the kids of foreign students?:

A crammer in Seoul’s affluent Gangnam area that specializes in preparing students for schools overseas recently held a well-attended seminar devoted to Canadian universities. But the smartly dressed audience had not come to find out how their kids can gain admission but how to apply themselves.

The draw is Canada’s study permit program, which guarantees free schooling for the children of foreign students at public universities.

Word first spread among Gangnam’s ambitious mothers three or four years ago, and now the weakening Canadian dollar has made the program even more attractive.

Mothers are rediscovering their thirst for knowledge because college tuition there is cheaper than the cost of their kids to school overseas. They can save W10-20 million (US$1=W1,133) a year per child.

According to Canadian government figures, a foreign university student spends on average 22,753 Canadian dollars a year.

One woman with three children explained the math. “If I sent the kids to a Canadian public school it would cost me W13-17 million per child, so I save anywhere between W20 million and W30 million if I enroll in a public university myself.”
[Chosun Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link, but the Canadian government is now trying to take measures to crackdown on abuse of this program.

I have to agree that even though the Park-Abe summit did not lead to any breakthroughs, just the fact they met was significant considering all the bickering the past few years.  Hopefully this will lead to better future cooperation as long as Prime Minister Abe can keep his political team in check in regards to making controversial comments that inflame tensions with Seoul:

Experts on South Korea-Japan ties welcomed the results of Monday’s summit between President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, saying the meeting paved the way for better bilateral relations even without producing concrete outcomes.

Park and Abe held their first bilateral talks in Seoul on the sidelines of a trilateral summit with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang. The format was intended to keep the first South Korea-Japan summit in three and a half years as low-key and practical as possible amid disputes over shared history.

A major stumbling block in the two countries’ relations has been the issue of Korean women who were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese troops during World War II. South Korea demands Japan offer a sincere apology and compensation to the victims before they all die, while Tokyo insists all issues related to its 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula were settled under the normalization treaty of 1965. [Yonhap]

You can read the rest at the link.

#Breaking Chinese Premier #LiKeqiang meets with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe in Seoul at the request of Japan. pic.twitter.com/Gjc6uYul5O

— CGTN (@CGTNOfficial) November 1, 2015

Navy coordinated with Japan SDF, Korean Navy as Russian planes approached USS Ronald Reagan https://t.co/GQMHhza58p

— Erik Slavin (@eslavin_stripes) October 30, 2015

That is what the below article in the Daily Beast is speculating on.  I have said this for a long time that if the Kim regime was to collapse the South Koreans are going to have immediately move to secure North Korea before the Chinese do.  It should also be done without US troops.  US troops moving north just legitimizes Chinese intervention into North Korea.  Once the Chinese are in the ROK government may never get them out:

At the beginning of last week, Seoul launched a new round of China diplomacy to encourage Beijing to play a “constructive role” in denuclearizing North Korea. Optimally this marks a new era of cooperation between Seoul and Beijing, but it could also be part of a process leading to China’s colonization of the North.

The move follows President Park Geun-hye’s controversial trip to the Chinese capital in early September to participate in the military parade marking the 70thanniversary of the end of World War II. Washington, worried that South Korea was making itself a Chinese satellite, had tried to discourage her from attending the event.

Short of extraordinary measures, there is little the U.S. can do about Park’s increasingly visible tilt to China. Her mission is to seek the peaceful reunification of the two Koreas—her so-called Dresden Initiative announced in March of last year—and she has moved to enlist the Chinese by charming them into cooperation, seeking to engage them at every opportunity.

Park’s efforts to woo China look like they are paying off. Seoul, not Pyongyang, is Beijing’s friend these days on the Korean Peninsula. It is telling that Xi Jinping traveled to Seoul in July 2014, the first time a leader of the People’s Republic visited the South before going to the North. And in fact, he has yet to visit Pyongyang, the capital of his country’s only formal military ally, in his position as China’s president.

Despite all the smiles, the fear in Seoul is that China will frustrate Park’s vision of a unified Korean nation by sending its army south and either leaving behind a puppet regime or even colonizing North Korea.  [The Daily Beast]

You can read the rest at the link.

Why has South Korea started classes for kids about the 'comfort women’? The minister in charge explains. https://t.co/0Zta6zXG8f

— Alastair Gale (@AlastairGale) October 29, 2015

A united group of villagers scuffles with police in front of the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex, a U.S. military firing range, in Pocheon, north of Seoul, on Oct. 28, 2015, as they attempt to storm the range in protest of stray bullets from the range. The range, about 24 kilometers south of the tensely guarded Demilitarized Zone, has been a source of grievances for the residents of neighboring towns following a series of ricochets that have come out of the firing range and landed in residential areas. (Yonhap)

For anyone that was wondering, it is illegal to burn a South Korean flag and can get you sentenced up to 5 years in jail:

Prosecutors said Thursday they have indicted a South Korean man on charges of burning the national flag during a rally commemorating the first anniversary of the deadly ferry disaster.

The 23-year-old, only identified by his surname Kim, is accused of burning the flag during the April 18 rally in downtown Seoul and damaging a police vehicle, the Seoul Central Prosecutors’ Office said.

“I was in a rage after witnessing the government authorities illegally taking the bereaved families to police stations instead of focusing on the investigation into the cause of the accident,” he told the prosecutors.

In South Korea, flag burning is an offense that is punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to 7 million won (US$6,100).

Kim is also accused of causing 6.9 million won (US$6,000) in damage to a police vehicle along with other protesters and obstructing traffic in central Seoul.

Thousands of demonstrators staged rallies at Seoul Plaza in front of Seoul City Hall in April and May to mark the anniversary of the sinking of the Sewol ferry that claimed 304 lives.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Unless they ban job interviews this bill probably will not have the desired effect:

An opposition legislator has proposed a bill to eliminate discrimination during the recruitment process of companies based on appearance.

Rep. Han Jeoung-ae of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) proposed on Wednesday a revised bill aimed at prohibiting companies from asking job applicants to specify information unrelated to their capabilities and skills in their resumes.

The proposed bill stipulates that requiring information such as a job applicant’s photo, properties owned or parents’ profession will result in a fine of up to five million won, or roughly 44-hundred U.S. dollars.  [KBS World Radio]