Tag: South Korea

The nursing act that has caused huge protests in South Korea from the health care community against it, has been vetoed by President Yoon:

A Cabinet meeting led by President Yoon Suk Yeol is held at the presidential office in Seoul on May 16, 2023. (Yonhap)

President Yoon Suk Yeol rejected the opposition-led nursing act Tuesday amid strong protests from doctors and nursing assistants against it, exercising his veto power for the second time since taking office.

The act, which was railroaded by the main opposition Democratic Party last month, is aimed at stipulating the roles and responsibilities of nurses, and improving their working conditions.

“The people’s health cannot be exchanged for anything,” Yoon said during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office, before rejecting the legislation and asking the National Assembly to reconsider it.

Yoon said people’s health comes ahead of anything else, such as politics, foreign policy and economic policy, and can only be properly maintained through cooperation between various groups of medical professionals.

“The nursing act is creating excessive conflict between these related groups, and the move to separate nursing services from medical institutions is causing people to feel anxious about their health,” he said.

Yonhap

Here is why there has been much criticism of the bill:

Doctors and nursing assistants have opposed the bill, arguing the legislation would cause confusion in the medical sector because it could lead to nurses opening their own clinics without doctors’ supervision and that nursing assistants could be discriminated against.

You can read more at the link.

To be fair South Korea is far from the only country with a vulnerability to drone strikes. Militaries around the world are all struggling to develop defenses against this new technology that is being used heavily on the battlefields in Ukraine:

An incursion of South Korean airspace by North Korean drones exposed Seoul’s lack of preparedness in defending against such threats, and it will likely take years for the military to correct its shortcomings, according to a classified U.S. intelligence assessment of the December incident.

The findings, outlined in a leak of U.S. secrets circulated on the Discord messaging platform and obtained by The Washington Post, spotlight the vulnerable state of South Korea’s air defense as its volatile neighbor’s aggressive development of a nuclear arsenal has Seoul and Washington on edge.

South Korea has prioritized its defenses to confront incoming missiles while investing heavily in growing its air and naval forces, but Seoul’s focus has come at the cost of neglecting other air defense needs, experts said — leaving the country vulnerable to a threat responsible for extensive carnage in Ukraine, Syria and elsewhere.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I feel horrible for the rental car employee that discovered this seen:

A photo of the Gyeonggi Gwangju Police Station provided by the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency

Four people have been found dead inside a car in an apparent group suicide in the southern outskirts of Seoul, police said Tuesday.

The four — three men in their 30s and a woman in her 20s — were discovered by a car-rental company employee inside the car parked under an overpass in Gwangju, 32 kilometers south of Seoul, at 5:20 p.m. on Monday.

Inside the car, traces suggesting suicides were found, police said, adding there were no signs of intrusion or foul play. Four wrecked mobile phones presumably belonging to the deceased were also found on the scene.

The car was reportedly leased last Friday but was not returned on time, prompting the employee to track its location.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

As low as Yoon’s approval ratings are at 37%, this is actually up from the 27% he was previously at just a month ago. However, his negative rating is 60% which is driven by economic concerns. The impact of the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. continues to be an issue his critics have been hammering him on since he could not get any concessions from the Biden administration for Korean companies:

President Yoon Suk Yeol’s approval rating stands at 37.5 percent ahead of this week’s first anniversary of his inauguration, a Yonhap News Agency-Yonhap News TV joint survey showed Tuesday.

The survey also showed the ruling People Power Party (PPP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) would win 32 percent and 30 percent of the vote, respectively, if next year’s parliamentary elections were to take place tomorrow.

Seven out of 10 people also said they are worried about South Korea’s security, the survey showed, amid a series of North Korean missile launches, and tensions with Russia over Ukraine and with China over the cross-strait issue.

According to the poll, the positive assessment of Yoon’s performance was 37.5 percent, while the negative assessment came to 60 percent. (……….)

Defense and diplomacy were the factors most cited by respondents in giving positive assessments of Yoon’s performance, followed by science, health care, culture and the economy, the poll showed.

In contrast, the economy was the factor most cited by respondents in giving negative assessments.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Here is what Japanese Prime Minister Kishida has offered President Yoon during their bilateral summit:

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida took steps Sunday to reciprocate President Yoon Suk Yeol’s commitment to improving bilateral ties, as he accepted a South Korean team’s inspection of the planned release of radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant and acknowledged the past pain of Koreans under Japanese colonial rule.

The water release and Japan’s attitude about its 1910-45 colonial occupation were the main points that were closely watched as Yoon and Kishida held their second summit in less than two months to add momentum to the recent warming of bilateral ties.

The thaw began in March after the Yoon administration decided to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor without the involvement of Japanese firms, a decision Kishida lauded as “courageous.”

Kishida returned the goodwill Sunday by announcing he will accept a visit by a team of South Korean experts to inspect the planned release of the contaminated water.

Amid South Korean calls for a sincere apology, he also acknowledged the pain of forced labor victims.

“My heart aches over the fact that many people had an extremely painful and sad experience in harsh conditions at the time,” he said, before adding he was speaking in a personal capacity.

Critics said the remark still falls short of a direct apology.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but they can add this apology to this ever growing list of apologies that the Korean left is still not happy with.

I really think the biggest obstacle to major gains in bilateral relations is going to be how does President Yoon convince Kishida that anything they agree to will actually last after he leaves office? The Japanese have seen so many agreements get reneged on after a new person takes over the Presidency that is why they are probably going to be very cautious before agreeing to any major deals:

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrives at Seoul Air Base, south of Seoul, on May 7, 2023. (Yonhap)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida arrived in South Korea on Sunday for a summit with President Yoon Suk Yeol, marking the full-scale resumption of “shuttle diplomacy” between the two countries’ leaders after 12 years.

Kishida’s visit comes as bilateral relations have warmed significantly following Seoul’s decision in March to compensate Korean victims of Japanese wartime forced labor without contributions from Japanese firms.

Yoon traveled to Tokyo 10 days after the decision was announced and held a summit with Kishida as the first South Korean president to pay a bilateral visit to Japan in 12 years.

Kishida’s two-day visit is also the first bilateral visit by a Japanese leader in 12 years, marking the full-scale resumption of “shuttle diplomacy,” or regular mutual visits, as agreed between Yoon and Kishida during their summit in Tokyo in March.

Upon arrival, the Japanese prime minister headed to Seoul National Cemetery and paid his respects to Korea’s fallen independence fighters and war veterans.

Later in the day, he will hold a summit with Yoon at the presidential office, hold a joint news conference, and then have dinner with Yoon and first lady Kim Keon Hee at the official presidential residence, according to diplomatic sources.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but that was a very symbolic move by Kishida to pay his respects at the National Cemetery.

South Korea over the past two decades has really ramped up the export potential of their defense industry and it is paying off now as the world rearms due to Russian aggression and Chinese expansionism:

The Korean 4.5-generation fighter jet KF-21 makes its first maiden flight in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang, in July 2022. [DEFENSE ACQUISITION PROGRAM ADMINISTRATION]

U.S. allies and security partners worldwide looking to re-stock their arsenals are increasingly turning to Korean defense companies to procure weapons.  
   
Korea signed defense export contracts worth a cumulative $17 billion in 2022, representing a 242 percent increase in a single year and making the country the eighth-largest weapons exporter in the world.  
   
The growth in Korean defense exports, which made up 2.8 percent of a global arms exports market dominated by the United States, Russia, France and China, is all the more remarkable given the late start of the Korean weapons industry compared to the big players. 

Rising Korean defense exports also more broadly signal the country’s growing capacity and will to supply arms to other U.S. allies in the face of rising military threats posed by Russia and China in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region.  
   
Korea’s potential as a source of advanced military hardware at a time when countries are still ramping up defense production became apparent in December 2021, when Australia inked a $730-million contract with Hanwha Defense for 30 K-9 self-propelled artillery howitzers and 15 armored ammunition resupply vehicles, and again in July, when Poland announced that it had signed contracts worth an estimated $14 billion for K-2 battle tanks, K-9 howitzers and FA-50 light attack aircraft from Korea. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.