Tag: South Korea

Interesting article in the Diplomat which discusses what should be the trigger for the ROK to launch a preemptive strike on North Korea’s nuclear program?:

As North Korea continues to develop both nuclear weapons and the missile technology to carry them, pressure on South Korea to take preemptive military action will gradually rise. At some point, North Korea may have so many missiles and warheads that South Korea considers that capability to be an existential threat to its security. This is the greatest long-term risk to security and stability in Korea, arguably more destabilizing than a North Korean collapse. If North Korea does not arrest its nuclear and missile programs at a reasonably small, defensively-minded deterrent, then Southern elites will increasingly see those weapons as threats to Southern survival, not just tools of defense or gangsterish blackmail.  [The Diplomat]

You can read the whole thing at the link, but the author makes an argument that at some point the ROK cannot allow the North Koreans to manufacture a huge stockpile of nuclear arms. Right now they have it is believed 5-10 nukes which is good enough for regime survival purposes, however what happens if they begin developing over 100 nukes?  This would change the military balance of power on the peninsula towards North Korea because the ROK does not have the missile defenses to survive an attack from that many nuclear weapons not to mention the conventional artillery strikes they would launch.

I think the wild card in this is if the Chinese want that many nuclear weapons right on their doorstep or the threat of a war caused by a preemptive strike to stop their nuclear program.

The Philippines would definitely be a much cheaper option than sending kids off to an English speaking country to attend school:

Over the past three years alone, roughly fourteen thousand Koreans have traveled to the Philippines to study the language at private academies for a fraction of the price of classes in many other English-speaking nations.

Kang Tae-won is among a group of 11 students from the city of Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, who are spending their winter vacation at the Widest Asian Learners English School, or WALES, in Baguio, 250-kilometers north of Manila.

On a recent morning, the 17-year old came down from his dorm room into the “English Speaking Zone” where for the rest of the day he practiced conversational English with several Filipino ESL teachers.

Mr. Kang said that after a few weeks of studying here his English has improved. Baguio, he says, “has a good atmosphere for learning English” so that Koreans can get higher test scores.

South Korean families spend billions of dollars a year on private education to prepare their children for standardized tests that are required for entrance into university, study overseas and many white collar jobs. Those include English competency exams like the TOEIC. Some parents believe that total emersion into English speaking countries will give their kids an advantage in taking those tests.

Yoo Moon-young, the owner of the EZ Foreign Language School in Pyeongtaek, brings some of her pupils to Baguio every winter. On average, a high school student’s family pays $5,200 for an all-inclusive, two-month sojourn in a learning environment she describes as “Spartan. Students study, eat and sleep in the school, with supervised excursions out of the academy only on weekends.  [Wall Street Journal-Korea Real Time]

You can read more at the link.

South Korean ambassador shows face to the cameras 3 days after attack http://t.co/k1sfTShXac pic.twitter.com/w7Z8gJ89u3

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) March 8, 2015

You can tell Ambassador Lippert is playing to the crowd while he recovers:

Doctors at Yonsei University Severance Hospital said Sunday that U.S. Ambassador to Korea Mark Lippert is recovering fast and may go home as early as Tuesday afternoon.

“Ambassador Lippert feels overwhelmed by the messages of support for him,” the embassy’s minister-counselor for public affairs, Robert W. Ogburn, said during a press conference. “The ambassador said kimchi is helping him recover.”

Dr. Yoon Do-heum, the head of the hospital, said during a media briefing that the 80 stitches Lippert received for a facial injury would be removed today, and the pain in his left wrist was easing.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link such as Ambassador Lippert saying he is reading the “Two Koreas” by Don Oberdorfer while he is recovering.  This book in my opinion is the best modern Korean history 101 book out there.  With that said I would of thought that Lippert would of read this book before becoming Ambassador?  Either that or is he just playing to the crowd again?

In the continuing series of interviews that the Joong Ang Ilbo is publishing with former ROK Prime Minister, this next article describes how he first met former Korean strongman Park Chung-hee:

Looking back, there was nothing special in my first meeting with Park Chung Hee. But on the cusp of turning 90, when I recall my first encounter with him, it comes back to me vividly.

I began my military career as a commissioned officer assigned to the Army headquarters’ intelligence bureau after I graduated from the military academy in June 1949. I was assigned to a strategy intelligence unit with seven of my fellow graduates. We reported our appointment to Col. Paik Sun-yup, who was director of the intelligence bureau. He said there was one more person we need to report our appointment to in an operations room.

We did as told, reporting for duty to a man dressed in a black suit. The man had a small figure and looked tanned. He smiled shyly as he said in a humble manner, “Hello. I am Park Chung Hee. You don’t need to report for your duties. I am not that important here. Please take a seat.”

I shook hands and sat down. He told me he was stripped of his uniform because he got in trouble, without divulging any details. “I heard you guys graduated at the top of the class from the military academy. Welcome to the unit,” Park said.

Park was working as a civilian officer after his dismissal earlier that year. I had heard his name when I was in the military academy. He was a company commander overseeing military academy cadets. I had also heard that sometime in 1948 he was taken somewhere.

It was only later that I found out that he almost landed on death row for being a member of the outlawed communist Workers Party of South Korea tasked with recruiting party members. A military court spared his life in February 1949 by giving him a suspended jail term. Shortly after his release, he had no choice but to leave the Army.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more about Kim Jong-pil’s interactions with Park Chung-hee at the link such as this nugget that is was famed Korean general Paik Sun-yup that worked to get Park Chun-hee’s death sentenced revoked.

Former Korean Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil has his second tell-all interview published in the Joong Ang Ilbo which discusses the details before the 1961 military coup led by Park Chung-hee:

 

Former President Park Chung Hee, third from left, then-chairman of the Supreme Council for National Reconstruction, made his first official inspection of the main spy agency, the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, which is now called the National Intelligence Service, on Jan. 20, 1962, accompanied by agency chief Kim Jong-pil, far left. Provided by Kim Jong-pil’s secretary’s office

I asked my wife to bring me military uniforms on the night of May 14, 1961. It was a cocky color uniform that I was stripped of three months earlier for demanding the dismissals of military leaders [for corruption and incompetence]. I was forcibly discharged from the military as a result. The next morning, I was about to embark on a journey wearing this uniform – not knowing whether I would make it back home.

I was overwhelmed by a feeling I couldn’t even describe. On a fine spring day, I was determined to put my life on the line to make the revolution successful. I was so filled with a sense of determination that I was ready to sacrifice my life.

I was only 35 and yet my mind bore a maturity from having experienced Japan’s 36-year-colonial rule on the peninsula, a bitter division of the Korean Peninsula and the subsequent 1950-53 Korean War, which I went through as a military official. And yet, I was heavy-hearted because I could lose everything, including my life.

I spent the two previous nights staying awake writing. It was a composition in which I poured my whole life into. It was a declaration of promises by the revolution to the nation.

It was a set of promises declaring the demise of old rules and the establishment of new ones. I kept repeating a saying to myself: “History is not to be read but to be written.”

I was known as a good writer by many at the time. But it took me two days to finish the fateful declaration.

A year earlier, students took to the streets for the April 19 revolution. But that stopped short of fixing the social ills brought in by the ruling Liberty Party under the Syngman Rhee government [Korea’s first elected government]. The Chang Myon administration, which took power following the collapse of the Rhee administration, was utterly incompetent in managing state affairs.

It did not govern the country in a way that would liberate it from chaos and the damages caused by the Korean War. The military, the cornerstone of national security, was ridden with corruption but showed no sign of shame. A wave of student-led protests filled the streets nationwide and the civilian government just stood by.

A sense of chaos and confusion consumed the country. In June 1960, police officers organized a rally against the government. In March of the following year, citizens in Daegu took to the streets carrying torches demanding the repeal of anti-Communist laws. University students organized a rally at Seoul Stadium calling on the authorities to arrange a meeting of students from Seoul and Pyongyang.

All of this was happening less than 10 years after the Korean War, which left the country in total ruins. I was getting more and more anxious every day. A majority of the public felt the same way and hoped for decisive change. Painful memories of the war had faded into oblivion, putting national security at grave risk. But I was not one of those who forgot the pains of the war. I lost half of my fellow 1,300 military academy schoolmates during the war. I was growing firmer in my belief that I could not let incompetent and corrupt politicians govern the country anymore – that I must bring an end to this.

Before moving into action, I concentrated all of my strength to the tip of a pen. I was reminded of a maxim by Victorian Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who said, “Life is too short to be little,” which impressed me deeply in my late teens.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but it is incredible how much history Kim Jong-pil was part of dating all the way back to the Japanese colonization of Korea to where the country is today.

Knife attack: US, South Korea scrambling to limit repercussions http://t.co/SVeQbWWqQ9

— Nikkei Asian Review (@NAR) March 5, 2015

Here is what the attacker of US ambassador Mark Lippert is saying after being interrogated by police:

A 55-year-old South Korean activist was taken into custody Friday on charges of attempting to murder the top U.S. diplomat in Seoul.

Kim Ki-jong also faces charges of violence against a foreign envoy and business obstruction in the shocking attack on U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert the previous day.

Wielding a 25-centimeter fruit knife, Kim slashed the ambassador five times at a performance hall in downtown Seoul where the envoy was to give a speech. The wounds weren’t life-threatening, but the attack left a deep gash extending from the envoy’s right chin to cheek, requiring more than 80 stitches.

The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Kim, saying “The reason and the necessity of his arrest were fully explained.”

Before entering the court for a hearing to review the legality of his arrest, Kim said he had no ties to North Korea.

“That’s nonsense,” he told reporters when asked about the police investigation into the possibility.

He denied being sympathetic to Pyongyang and having ever been to the country despite police announcements earlier to the contrary.

He also shook his head when asked if he had an intent to kill and said there was no one else involved.

Kim had previously told police officers that he plotted the attack to stop the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises that kicked off earlier this week.

The exercises are part of Seoul and Washington’s efforts to better deter threats from North Korea. Kim said he thought the drills hampered efforts to re-unify the two Koreas as they remain technically at war since the Korean War in the 1950s ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.

Hwang Sang-hyeon, Kim’s attorney, also said the attack was not premeditated.

In mid-February, Kim received a letter of invitation from the organizer, and it was then he decided to confront the ambassador about the joint military drills, according to Hwang.

“He hadn’t planned on bringing the knife until (Thursday) morning,” Hwang told reporters as he took from a break from police interrogation late Thursday. “He was trying to alarm the U.S. but had nothing personal against the ambassador.” [Yonhap]

Who is their right mind would invite someone like Kim Ki-jong to an event like this with the US ambassador.  This was asking for trouble. It makes me wonder if the event organizer intentionally invited Kim just to cause an incident or it was just total incompetence?

Not that Greenpeace has much creditability, but they are primarily blaming South Korea for air pollution over the peninsula instead of China:

Greenpeace challenged a common perception among Koreans that most air pollution comes from China, Wednesday, claiming that Korea is responsible for more than half of its particle-laden smog.

“Despite what is widely reported through the Korean media, from 50 to 70 percent of particle-laden smog, which is also known as PM2.5, is generated within the country,” the environmental group said at a press conference in Seoul.

“Yet the Korean government irresponsibly passes the blame on to China without having any strategies to tackle the problem itself.”

Greenpeace claim that the government has little understanding of PM2.5, which results in policies that will continue to increase pollution.

Greenpeace said that among all sources of air pollution, the nation’s 53 coal power plants should be identified for action

“But the government plans to build 13 more coal plants by 2021, while 11 are under construction,” Greenpeace said. “We wonder why the government remains passive in developing renewable energy sources.”

Greenpeace states that Korea relies on coal plants for 39 percent of its energy production and is the fourth biggest coal importer in the world.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but if they are talking every day air pollution then of course South Korea is primarily responsible.  However, if they are trying to infer that the yellow dust is primarily caused by South Korea than that is deceptive.  Most of the health problems from air pollution happen in Korea because of the seasonal yellow dust that indisputably comes from China.

For those who have an interest in South Korea’s modern history, I highly recommend taking the time to read this interview in the Joong Ang Ilbo with former Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.  Just about every event in Korea’s modern history he played a significant role in to include the military coup that brought Park Chung-hee into power and the deal with Japan to normalize relations in return for economic aid:

There was once a time not so long ago when Korean politicians played by rules largely dictated by The Three Kims: Kim Dae-jung, Kim Young-sam and Kim Jong-pil. The Three Kims wielded considerable influence on the Korean political landscape – sometimes as rivals or enemies, sometimes as allies – and two of the Kims went on to become president: Kim Young-sam in 1993 and Kim Dae-jung 1998.

Kim Jong-pil helped each of them clinch those presidential victories.

Though Kim Jong-pil never made it to the Blue House, he was named prime minister twice, by Park Chung Hee in 1971 and Kim Dae-jung in 1998. And few doubt the size of the boots in which he strode the political stage.

Kim retired from active politics a decade ago. At 89, he has offered his view of a tumultuous half century history of Korean politics in a series of interviews with the JoongAng Ilbo.

Beginning last October, the former political titan shared vivid glimpses of events that he either witnessed or made happen himself, many of which changed the flow of Korean history.

Kim was born in 1926 in what is now Buyeo County, South Chungcheong, to a wealthy farmer.

“Because I was born to a rich family, I did not suffer economic hardship when I was young,” Kim recalled. “But after my father’s death, things started getting difficult and I had to change my path.”

Kim dropped out of Seoul National University’s school of education and enrolled in the Korean Military Academy. He graduated a second-lieutenant and worked at the military’s intelligence bureau, where he first met Park Chung Hee.

“Park worked at the intelligence bureau as a government employee after he was discharged from the military,” Kim said. “He had to leave the army after prosecutors sought a death sentence for him on charges of being a socialist in 1949 [when he was 32].” Park was eventually convicted of following leftist ideas and sentenced to life in prison, but his sentence was commuted to a 10-year suspended prison term. Park was discharged shortly after.

Kim recalled it was Park’s meticulousness that appealed to him.

“The most important thing in your life is what kind of people you meet,” he said.

Kim was the architect of the May 16 military coup led by Park. It overthrew a civilian government set up a year earlier after the student-led April 19 Revolution that toppled the government of Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president. Park carried out the coup in the name of bringing an end to its ineffectiveness and corruption and getting rid of Communist elements in a country still reeling from the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim wrote a declaration of promises to the nation after the coup in the name of the new leaders. The first promise he made to the people was to make anti-Communism the state’s No.1 priority.

“It was done to create a new set of rules by discarding old, ineffective rules of the past,” said Kim about the coup, which critics consider a grab for power by ambitious men in uniforms in brazen disregard of the Constitution or any ideals of democratic freedoms.

Supporters of Park Chung Hee, the father of current President Park Geun-hye, say he cut through the rapidly diminishing hopes at the time, changed the way the country was governed, and through intelligence, determination and an iron fist enabled it to grow into an economic powerhouse at a speed no one had foreseen.

When asked about the ongoing debate over how to define the coup on May 16, 1961, Kim brushed the question off as an irrelevance.

“It doesn’t matter at all whether it is defined as a revolution or a coup,” he said. “What’s important is that it brought about profound changes in every sector encompassing politics, economics and the society. And it produced tangible outcomes. And that is the revolution.”  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest of this interesting interview at the link that has other interesting tidbits such as how he tried to stop Park Chung-hee from changing the Constitution to seek a third presidential term, but Park went ahead with the “Yushin Constitution” changes anyway that gave him dictatorial powers.  I wonder how differently Park Chung-hee would have been viewed by history if he would have taken Kim Yong-pil’s advice at the time?