This is all the more reason why all the COVID testing at the airports should be stopped, to prevent testing fraud:
The Korean Embassy in Vietnam has stepped up efforts to prevent a coronavirus testing-related scam, with such fraud cases on the rise targeting Korean tourists in the Southeast Asian country when they return to Korea.
Korea Times
According to the embassy and the Korean foreign ministry, Wednesday, two embassy staffers visited the office of Vietjet Air in Hanoi two days earlier and took issue with the budget airline’s rejection of Korean travelers’ negative COVID-19 test results, which left them exposed to rapid antigen test fraud. Vietjet Air is a Vietnamese low-cost carrier (LCC), based in the capital city of Hanoi. (………)
The embassy’s complaints came as more Korean travelers in Vietnam have fallen victim to the rapid testing scam, sparking an outcry among them and raising the need for the Korean government to step in.
Until Sept. 2, all inbound travelers to Korea had to hand in negative PCR test results conducted within 48 hours or from rapid antigen tests within 24 hours preceding their departure for the country, but this rule has been lifted amid the overall recent downward trend in the number of daily new cases. However, a mandate to take a PCR test within one day after arrival in Korea remains unchanged.
According to the embassy, Vietjet frequently rejected Korean passengers’ negative test results, even if they were valid, and on-site brokers received a premium to give them an emergency last-minute test.
You can read more at the link.
This is the affect that I think the Trump administration’s tariffs on China is trying to cause, the movement of manufacturing out of China. Vietnam could end up being a big winner of this tariff war between the U.S. and China:
Nintendo Co. plans to start making its Switch video game console in Vietnam this year, transferring some of its production from China, a company spokesman said Tuesday.
The official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said the change has been in the works for some time, to reduce risks that come from having production in one nation. He denied it was a direct response to the growing trade friction between the U.S. and China.
He declined to give details on manufacturers or production sites in Vietnam, citing company policy. He said production was set to start this summer but declined to give a date.
Japan’s major business daily Nikkei reported Tuesday that the move was driven by worries that U.S. tariffs on goods produced in China may affect game device sales.
Japan Times
You can read more at the link.
Some old wounds from the ROK military’s involvement in the Vietnam War are being reopened:
On Apr. 22, Nguyen Thị Thanh, 59, a victim of civilian massacres by South Korean troops during the Vietnam War, visited Korea to participate in a “citizens’ peace tribunal” held to uncover the truth about the massacres. The tribunal was organized by MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society and the Korea-Vietnam Peace Foundation.
A plaintiff in the citizens’ tribunal, Nguyen claimed that she’d been shot on the left side of her body by Korean troops near her home in the village of Phong Nhị, Dien Ban District, Quang Nam Province, on Feb. 12, 1968. After the massacre, she received an operation to reconnect her severed intestine and still suffers from the aftereffects of her injury today. Five of her family members were killed in the massacre, and her 14-year-old older brother was grievously injured.The citizens’ tribunal concluded that the Korean troops had committed a massacre and ruled that the South Korean government ought to compensate the plaintiffs according to the conditions of the State Compensation Act and make an official apology to restore their dignity and reputation. That’s what Nguyen wants to hear from the South Korean government, but Seoul has never taken an official stance on this matter. Is there any chance of Nguyen’s wish coming true?
Nguyen submitted a petition signed by 103 victims of civilian massacres to the Blue House on Apr. 4 and is planning to sue the South Korean government for compensation, represented by MINBYUN attorney Lim Jae-seong, within the year. That will be the first time that a victim of the Vietnam War has filed a lawsuit against one of the aggressor states. Nguyen is spending a week in Korea on this trip to prepare the documents that are necessary for the lawsuit.
Hankyoreh
You can read more at the link, but the Minbyun group of lawyers are hard core leftists. In the past they have attacked the USFK base relocation, tried to bring back the US beef issue, and tried to have North Korean defectors forcibly returned to North Korea.
So why would hard core leftists be bringing up this issue now with a left wing government in power? They are likely going to use this issue to attack and blame conservative ROK politicians, since former South Korean strongman Park Chung-hee was in power at the time.
This time the New York Times is piling on President Trump for not reaching a deal with Kim Jong-un during the Vietnam summit:
As President Trump settled into the dining room of a French-colonial hotel in Hanoi on Thursday morning, the conversation with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader with whom he had struck up the oddest of friendships, was already turning tense.
In a dinner at the Metropole Hotel the evening before, mere feet from the bomb shelter where guests took cover during the Vietnam War, Mr. Kim had resisted what Mr. Trump presented as a grand bargain: North Korea would trade all its nuclear weapons, material and facilities for an end to the American-led sanctions squeezing its economy.
An American official later described this as “a proposal to go big,” a bet by Mr. Trump that his force of personality, and view of himself as a consummate dealmaker, would succeed where three previous presidents had failed.
But Mr. Trump’s offer was essentially the same deal that the United States has pushed — and the North has rejected — for a quarter century. Intelligence agencies had warned him, publicly, Mr. Kim would not be willing to give up the arsenal completely. North Korea itself had said repeatedly that it would only move gradually.Several of Mr. Trump’s own aides, led by national security adviser John R. Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, thought the chances of a grand bargain for total nuclear disarmament were virtually zero. Some questioned whether the summit meeting should go forward.
New York Times
You can read more at the link, but if President Trump had struck a deal to drop sanctions in return for dismantling Yongbyon these same critics would be saying it was a bad deal for the reasons listed in this article, which it would be. That is why the only option was to get them to agree to give up all their nuclear capabilities in return for dropping sanctions even if as Mr. Bolton believed the odds were close to zero of it happening.
I have not seen anyone in the media yet discuss how President Trump is setting up Kim Jong-un for stronger actions in the future if he restarts a provocation cycle strategy. If the US has a strong reaction to a North Korean provocation, the Trump administration would have a strong case that they have tried all diplomatic measures to include canceling military exercises, not putting out provocative statements, treating Kim Jong-un with respect, and even meeting with him, not once, but twice to hash out a deal. That is why I think the Vietnam summit went forward more than hoping an almost 0% chance of a deal would be struck.
The fact that President Trump kept expectations low before the summit, so readily offered up the grand bargain, and then left quickly afterwards shows this was the strategy going in to the summit. It has now been made very clear to Kim Jong-un what the price for dropping sanctions will be and now the ball is in his court on how he wants to respond.
So far nothing surprising by the President’s comments to Kim Jong-un:
Donald Trump has met Kim Jong-un for the second time at a summit in Vietnam, shaking hands and praising North Korea’s “unlimited” economic potential.
The American and North Korean leaders greeted each other before a backdrop of their countries’ interwoven flags at a luxury hotel in Hanoi, the Vietnam capital.
The pair shook hands for around 10 seconds, with Mr Trump patting Kim on the back before the men shared a laugh as they posed for photographs.
In opening remarks before a one-on-one conversation due to last for 20 minutes, Mr Trump talked up the possibilities for growth and development in North Korea.
“I think that your country has tremendous economic potential, unbelievable, unlimited,” Mr Trump told Kim.
“And I think that you will have a tremendous future with your country, a great leader.”He added: “I look forward to watching it happen and helping it to happen. And we will help it to happen.”
The Telegraph
Asked by a reporter if the pair might formally end the Korean War during their two-day summit, Mr Trump responded: “We’ll see.”
You can read more at the link, but those who closely follow North Korea know that it will never reach its full economic potential if the Kim regime remains in charge. Vietnam style economic development would lead to a challenge of the Cult of Kim. So isolated and highly regime controlled economic projects within North Korea such as the Kaesong Industrial Complex and the East Coast Tourism scheme is the type of economic development North Korea wants.
It also appears that the negotiators were not able to lock in whether a peace treaty would happen during the summit prior to the two leaders meeting. I guess we will see if anything big comes out of this summit over the next 24 hours.
I would not be surprised if he used the Chinese plane again just for safety purposes; a train journey from North Korea to Vietnam just seems too long of a trip to take though it would be a pretty awesome way to see China:
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un flew to Singapore on a rented Air China plane, instead of his aged official jet, last June for his first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. What he will use to travel to Vietnam’s Hanoi for a second meeting with Trump is a point of speculation that will likely remain a mystery until his arrival there.
Yonhap
Many say Kim is likely to fly on the state jet, codenamed “Chammae-1,” this time because the distance of travel, about 2,760 km, is only slightly more than half of the 4,700 km flown last June, and the Soviet-era jet, even if it’s aged, can sufficiently cover the flight.
But others say that Kim could rent a plane from China again if he places priority on safety.
Some even suggest that he could use his special train to travel all the way to the Southeast Asian nation through China for the Feb. 27-28 summit, just as he traveled to the neighboring nation by train last month, noting that Vietnam also has the same rail specifications as North Korea.
You can read more at the link.
