Tag: South Korea

South Korea’s new “Living with COVID” strategy is now being fully put to the test as daily cases have reached a record high:

 South Korea’s new coronavirus cases hit an all-time high on Thursday since the start of the pandemic amid eased social distancing rules, putting health authorities on alert over further upticks.

The country reported a record high of 3,292 new daily cases, including 3,272 local infections, raising the total caseload to 406,065, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). 

Thursday’s daily caseload marks the highest since the country reported its first COVID-19 case in January last year and exceeds the previous record of 3,270 reported on Sept. 25.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what is unusual about the spread of the virus in South Korea is that nearby Japan is experiencing near disappearance of the virus with a seven day average of only 163 daily COVID cases as of today despite having a population more than double that of South Korea.

If it was going to take this long to get someone approved to fill South Korea’s ambassador position the Biden administration should have just kept Admiral Harris in place. He is a retired military officer that has served in a bipartisan fashion under Democrat and Republican administrations:

The former U.S. ambassador to South Korea on Wednesday said he was “disappointed” that his position remains unfilled since he stepped down in January.

Speaking at a panel hosted by The Korea Society in New York, Harry Harris, a retired admiral who once led U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and Pacific Fleet, said he received “calls or emails from our friends in Seoul regularly” about the lack of a U.S. ambassador to South Korea.

“We still don’t have an ambassador nominated to replace me yet,” Harris said during the panel discussion that also included retired Army Gen. Robert Abrams, the former commander of U.S. Forces Korea; retired Adm. Scott Swift, the former commander of U.S. Pacific Fleet; and retired Army Gen. Walter Sharp, a former USFK commander.

Harris served as the ambassador from July 2018 to January 2021. President Donald Trump nominated him to fill a 16-month vacancy, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote.

President Joe Biden has not named a new ambassador to South Korea since his inauguration Jan. 20. Christopher Del Corso, a career diplomat and a former U.S. Marine, serves as chargé d’affaires ad interim.

Harris – the first Asian American to achieve four-star rank in the Navy – said he offered to remain as ambassador for six months until his replacement was nominated.

“It’s been over a year since our election,” he told the panel. “I tell my friends this is emblematic of the divided political landscape in America in the 2020s.” Harris described the absence of a nomination as “legislative malpractice” but added that the blame ought not to be directed at the Senate “since the White House hasn’t even nominated someone.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

It seems to me public sector employees should cater their schedules to better serve the public they are there to support and not the other way around:

Controversy is rising over an increasing demand from civil servants across the country to guarantee them a lunch break from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. as offered to other workers. 

They are demanding all services at public offices, including the issuance of official documents, be suspended during the one-hour lunchtime to guarantee their “rights,” but critics say this will cause inconvenience, especially to workers who have to utilize their own lunchtime to visit public offices.

The Korean Government Employees’ Union (KGEU) has recently intensified calls for the guaranteed lunch break to safeguard their health and welfare rights, citing the Labor Standards Act and service regulations for civil servants that stipulate their lunchtime is from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.

The law and regulations, however, also stipulate that heads of local governments can decide to advance or put off the lunchtime by one hour, considering the characteristics of the duties of civil servants. 

Consequently, most civil servants working at public services centers usually rotate their lunchtimes from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., so services at such centers can continue during the “original” lunch hour. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is just another example that a country should not rely on China for key ingredients in their supply chain for critical needs especially something as important as diesel fuel:

 South Korea said Sunday it plans to import urea water solution, a key material used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, from Australia this week in a bid to ease its supply shortage that has caused soaring prices.

The government has decided to mobilize military aircraft to bring 20,000 liters of urea solution from Australia, the finance ministry said after a meeting on security and the economy.

“The country plans to mobilize all available diplomatic channels to import thousands of tonnes of urea within this year not only from Australia but also from other countries, including Vietnam,” the government said.

South Korea has been grappling with a shortage of urea water solution, known as diesel exhaust fluid, in recent weeks, as China tightened exports of fertilizers and related materials, including urea, in October amid a power crisis caused by a coal supply shortage. Coal is the main feedstock for urea.

South Korea heavily relies on China for its supply of urea water solution, as 97.6 percent of its import came from China in the first nine months of this year. In around 2013, local manufacturers of urea shut down business as they lost price competitiveness over foreign rivals, such as China and Russia.

In Korea, a relatively high portion of diesel cars caused a shortage of urea water solution.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Rocket failures during testing is part of perfecting space technology. NASA, SpaceX, etc. have all had rocket failures. I am sure the ROK scientists will learn from this and correct the identified issues with the third stage of the rocket that failed to reach 7.5 km per second which is the orbital velocity needed to put a satellite into orbit:

South Korea failed to put a dummy satellite into orbit with its first homegrown space rocket Thursday, dealing a setback to the country’s decade-long project to join the elite global space club.

The KSLV-II rocket, also known as Nuri, flew to a target altitude of 700 kilometers but failed to place the 1.5-ton dummy satellite into orbit.

“The test-launch of Nuri-ho was completed. I am proud of it,” President Moon Jae-in said in a press briefing at the Naro Space Center in the country’s southern coastal village of Goheung. “Regrettably, we did not perfectly reach the goal, but we made a very creditable achievement in the first launch.” 

The failure underscores the challenges of sending a satellite into orbit, a space launch vehicle technology that South Korea has been seeking to acquire for more than a decade for its space program.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this rocket launch likely means the North Koreans are going to launch something in response in the near term. We saw that they recently launched an SLBM not long after the ROK tested theirs. I would not be surprised if North Korea attempts a space launch in the near term to try and show up the ROK.

There may be a new Prime Minister in Japan, but he has clearly told Korea that he is not budging on historical issues between the two countries:

President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida have reaffirmed that the two nations are far from narrowing the differences in their views on historical issues such as Japan’s wartime forced labor and sex slavery.

The leaders had their first phone call Friday, which was made 11 days after Kishida took office. During the 30-minute call, the two agreed to develop bilateral ties in a future-oriented manner, according to Cheong Wa Dae and Japanese media report.

They also discussed other issues such as concerns over North Korea, denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and COVID-19 response.

Although the two U.S. allies share similar security concerns over North Korea and China, their talks again showed disagreement over lingering colonial and wartime issues, signaling these are likely to remain as obstacles for bilateral relations for a while.

Japan insists that the 1965 treaty normalizing bilateral ties settled all war-related compensation, but President Moon explained during the phone call how the two countries have different legal interpretation over the 1965 treaty, saying the two nations must find solutions through diplomacy. 

Regarding the wartime sex slavery issue, he also called for an urgent solution, saying there are only 13 known survivors still alive.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it is ironic that President Moon is saying there needs to be an urgent solution for the comfort women issue when in fact there was one under former President Park Geun-hye. However, when President Moon entered office he scrapped the deal.

It looks like the Moon administration is thinking the Biden administration is probably at its most amiable time to push this initiative thinking they are desperate for a foreign policy “victory”:

Suh Hoon, director of national security, said Monday that he plans to discuss President Moon Jae-in’s recent proposal to declare an end to the 1950-53 Korean War in the United States this week.    

“The communication channels between the two Koreas are up and working again, it is time to reaffirm where we stand on inter-Korean and North-U.S. relations,” Suh told a group of reporters upon arrival at Reagan airport on Monday.    

“The declaration to end the Korean War will also be discussed [with my counterparts],” he said, adding that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and possible sanctions relief for North Korea may also be included in the conversations.  

The Moon government from its early days has been calling for a formal declaration to end the Korean War, with the call repeated again at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York last month, when Moon gave a speech. The Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas technically still at war.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but I guess we will see if the Biden administration falls for this or not.

A Korean War peace treaty is something that North Korea has long sought as a way to end the presence of US troops in South Korea. If there is peace why is USFK needed?

President Moon has been saying all the right things that USFK will remain after any peace treaty is signed, to include claiming Kim Jong-un understands this as well. However, this is likely just rhetoric to prevent energizing South Korean conservatives against a peace treaty before next Spring’s presidential election.

Remember Moon is a very skilled politician that needs to keep the Korean right at bay and public anxiety down.  If he openly advocated for a USFK withdrawal, that would give the South Korean right an issue to strongly attack him and the ruling party with and cause much public anxiety after decades of security guarantees provided by US forces.  

Expect the Moon administration to continue to push this initiative along with dropping sanctions while North Korea pressures the Biden administration with their weapons provocations. This is all intended to push the Biden administration into a deal the Kim regime wants while Washington can claim a foreign policy victory by ending the provocation cycle.