Quotes of the Day:

"It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditure on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of the social services. There is a tendency to forget that the most important social service that a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free."

-- John Cotesworth Slessor, 1897-1979, British Air Force Marshall 

“Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead." 

- General James Mattis

"Patience strengthens the spirit, sweetens the temper, stifles anger, extinguishes envy, subdues pride, bridles the tongue."

- George Horne

1. The Hard Road Out of North Korea

2. N. Korea operates 414 official markets amid economic challenges: experts

3. Stop siding with North Korea

4. Yoon asks Tesla chief to build 'gigafactory' in South Korea

5. Why Joe Biden Won't Embrace Arms Control with North Korea

6. 'Upped the ante': North Korean ICBM launch prompts fears of escalation

7. Analysis: In male-dominated North Korea, leadership prospects of Kim Jong Un's daughter are uncertain

8. China not putting necessary pressure on N. Korea to stop provocations: NSC coordinator

9. Korea to reduce dependence on China for exports, eyes Middle East, America and EU

10. Japan and South Korea Are Still Haunted by the Past

11. 1905 treaty and historical task

12. Marine Corps commemorates 2 soldiers killed in 2010 N.K. artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island

13. China says it has 'open attitude' to developing cultural exchanges with S. Korea

1. The Hard Road Out of North Korea

An excellent review of an excellent and moving book. When I read Jihyun Park's story it made me sincerely wonder if I could have endured what she has. Despite Special Forces, Ranger, and SERE training and everything I experienced in 30 years in the Army I truly do not know if I could have survived what she and so many others have inside north Korea and in escaping from it. I think this must be why I am so concerned with the Korean people living in the north. Their suffering is unimaginable yet they continue to survive among the worst conditions in the modern era of human history. What is also really inspirational is how she has become a well know and important political leader in the UK. I hope the Korean people in the north can know of her example. Obviously I recommend reading this book. Thanks to Ambassador DeTrani for reviewing it. https://www.thecipherbrief.com/column/book-review/the-hard-road-out-of-north-korea

The Hard Road Out of North Korea

More Book Reviews

NOVEMBER 22ND, 2022 BY THE HARD ROAD OUT | 0 COMMENTS

BOOK REVIEW: The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea

By Jihyun Park / HarperNorth

Reviewed by Cipher Brief Expert Ambassador Joe DeTrani

The Reviewer – Ambassador Joseph DeTrani is former Special Envoy for Six Party Talks with North Korea and the U.S. Representative to the Korea Energy Development Organization (KEDO), as well as former CIA director of East Asia Operations. He also served as the Associate Director of National Intelligence and Mission Manager for North Korea and the Director of the National Counter Proliferation Center.

REVIEW — For those interested in developments on the Korean Peninsula and the human rights situation in North Korea, The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea, is must-read. For others interested in human rights and what it’s like to live in a society like North Korea, it will be thought-provoking, as it was for me. The author tells the powerful and moving story of one woman’s escape from North Korea, as told to a South Korean woman, educated in Europe and the United States, an advocate for peace on the Korean Peninsula and human rights.

This is the story of a young, idealistic girl – Jihyun Park — growing up in North Korea, expertly narrated by She-Lynn Chai. It takes you to Jihyun’s adolescent years growing up in the Ranam district of Chongjin city, in North Hamgyong Province. It talks of her father’s work as a tractor operator; her mother’s lower-class status because of her bad “songbun” social status, due to her grandfather’s defection to the South during the Korean War and the difficulty of living in a society whose hierarchy is determined by social status, while pretending to be a “socialist miracle.”

The book is compelling in its narrative of what it’s like growing up in North Korea. The adulation of Kim Il-sung, the luxury of a bowl of rice on your birthday, the pain of never having enough to eat, being taught to hate, the eyes that monitor your every move, and the pain when thirteen-year-old and older students are sent to the countryside each year for forty days of hard labor, with not enough to eat. 

It’s a story that captures the famine in North Korea – The March of Suffering – in the 1990s, when for ten years, millions of people died, and the corpses were collected and removed daily. And as a teacher, her exposure to the pain and suffering of her family and students during this decade of pain and starvation. Jihyun’s commentary on this and other issues dealing with the lives of ordinary people in North Korea is chilling – and sad.

Jihyun’s escape into China and the exploitation she experienced from the traffickers who were paid to get her into China, and the treatment she received once in China, are stories that I’ll never forget. Jihyun’s determination to survive and care for her only child, despite the horrid treatment she was experiencing while in China, are lessons in courage and perseverance — hoping that things will improve.

But things did not improve. Living in China as a criminal, under very harsh personal circumstances, Jihyun eventually was captured by the Chinese authorities and sent back to North Korea. The narrative explaining these circumstances reads like fiction, but it’s not. It’s what Jihyun and other North Korean women defectors experience routinely.

Returning to a brutal and harsh North Korea motivated Jihyun to escape and return to China, not knowing what awaited her once again.

Eventually, however, Jihyun makes it to Beijing and the kindness of strangers, especially a Korean American minister who introduced her to the United Nations office in Beijing, that protected her and facilitated her move to Manchester, England as a refugee – and her and her family’s warm and thoughtful treatment as residents of the United Kingdom.

This is a book not only about the courage and determination of a Korean woman who escaped a brutal North Korea, but of two Korean women who shared a common heritage and experienced the trauma of separation – a South and North Korea.

The Hard Road Out: One Woman’s Escape from North Korea earns a prestigious four out of four trench coats.

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2.  N. Korea operates 414 official markets amid economic challenges: experts

​We must understand this phenomenon in north Korea. Both how the people are surviving but how the regime has exploited the COVID paradox to crack down on and attempt to control markets and people's livelihood and the Korean people's desire for "free" markets. The regime is threatened by any amount of and any type of freedom among the people.

N. Korea operates 414 official markets amid economic challenges: experts | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · November 23, 2022

SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has more than 400 formal marketplaces across the country with their size gradually having expanded in recent years, experts here said Wednesday.

The number of markets in the reclusive North has increased to 414 this year, up slightly from 411 in 2016, according to analysis by Hong Min, director of the North Korea Research Division at the Korea Institute for National Unification.

The research, conducted using satellite imagery and other data, shows the North has renovated and enlarged 38 of its markets while expanding another 26 at a different location during the same period.

Another expert pointed out North Korean vendors in the marketplace appear to be experiencing economic challenges due to global sanctions and border closure from the coronavirus pandemic.

"The North has shut down its markets in Pyongyang and many other regions after announcing its first COVID-19 outbreak in May this year," Cha Moon-Seok, professor at the National Institute for Unification Education, said in his research.

"There also appears to be resistance from vendors, as the amount of tax for each stall has almost doubled since 2017," he added.

North Korea has both official marketplaces that are authorized by the government and unofficial private markets, known as "jangmadang."

julesyi@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 이원주 · November 23, 2022

3. Stop siding with North Korea

Stop siding with North Korea

The Korea Times · November 23, 2022

China, Russia hit for opposing more sanctions

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has failed to take action against North Korea's recent missile provocations due to opposition from China and Russia. The North has fired 63 ballistic missiles this year alone, including eight intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), all in violation of UNSC resolutions. Despite 10 UNSC sessions convened so far this year to discuss the issue, the U.N. has failed to take punitive measures against Pyongyang, due to vetoes by China and Russia. It could not even issue a statement condemning the North for its provocations.

When North Korea succeeded in its sixth nuclear test and ICBM launch in 2017, the U.N. passed a resolution vowing to take retaliatory steps against the North in case it attempts another ICBM launch. At that time, China and Russia also supported the resolution. Yet, they have been opposing additional sanctions this time, as they did so in May, when they failed to abide by their earlier pledges. China's siding with the North is also regrettable, given that President Yoon Suk-yeol called on Beijing to play a more proactive role in deterring the North's provocations during his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Nov. 15.

China called on the U.S. to take the initiative, show sincerity and put forward realistic proposals to address the "legitimate concerns" of the North. Chinese Ambassador to the U.N. Zhang Jun asked the U.S. to take practical actions in "stopping military exercises and easing sanctions" against the North.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement calling on the North "to immediately desist from taking further provocative actions." North Korea strongly criticized Guterres, billing him as "a puppet" of the United States. "I often take the U.N. secretary-general for a member of the U.S.," North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui said in a statement.

China and Russia seem to back the North in an apparent bid to foment a new Cold War scheme by solidifying ties among them against the alliance of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. China is in confrontation with the U.S. over Taiwan, while Russia is waging a war against Ukraine. Given this, they seem to be letting the North continue its attempts to heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia.

Yet, it remains uncertain whether the situation will evolve as China and Russia expect. They might bear the brunt of North Korea's future provocations. North Korea will likely carry out its seventh nuclear test soon. The Kim Jong-un regime is desperate for his country to obtain the status of a nuclear-armed state. Its further provocations will prompt the U.S. to deploy more strategic military assets on the peninsula and trigger a debate over a possible nuclear armament of South Korea aside from the sharing or redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons. Such responses will escalate tensions with North Korea, China and Russia. Beijing and Moscow should reconsider their policy toward Pyongyang to avoid destabilizing the region further.

The Korea Times · November 23, 2022

4. Yoon asks Tesla chief to build 'gigafactory' in South Korea

Yoon asks Tesla chief to build 'gigafactory' in South Korea

Tesla CEO says Korea among his top investment candidates

By Shin Ji-hye

Published : Nov 23, 2022 - 12:05      Updated : Nov 23, 2022 - 18:00

koreaherald.com · by Shin Ji-hye · November 23, 2022

President Yoon Suk-yeol has asked Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla & SpaceX, to make significant investments in South Korea, including building a production facility for electric vehicles here, during a meeting held via videoconference Wednesday morning, the presidential office said.

Initially, Yoon was scheduled to meet with Musk face-to-face at the B-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. However, the meeting was canceled as Musk was unable to make the trip to Bali. Instead, they decided to meet virtually at 10 a.m. (local time).

Yoon exchanged views with Musk “on global technological innovation” and discussed specific ways to “cooperate in investment in Korea regarding electric vehicle production,” according to a written statement released by the presidential office.

After listening to Tesla's plan to build what it calls a "gigafactory" to produce finished electric vehicles in Asia in the future, Yoon spoke to Musk about Korea's “world-class automotive industry ecosystem and investment conditions” and “asked for an investment in Korea.”

Gigafactory is Tesla's factory to produce electric batteries on a huge scale. There are currently five gigafactories around the world: the US, Germany and China. Tesla is seeking a place to build a new gigafactory in Asia in the first quarter of next year, and Yoon’s request is “a direct demand” for the firm to build in South Korea, according to a presidential official on the condition of anonymity.

In response, Musk said he considers Korea one of the top investment candidates and plans to make a decision by comprehensively reviewing investment conditions such as manpower, technology levels and the production environment of Asian candidates, the statement said.

Musk also expressed his willingness to actively invest in Korea's electric vehicle charging infrastructure, saying Tesla is still using Korea's superior parts in autonomous driving and artificial intelligence-related fields.

The CEO said supply chain cooperation with Korean companies is expected to expand significantly, with parts purchases from Korean companies expected to be more than $10 billion next year. This is almost double that of this year’s $5.7 billion, according to the office. After Musk’s remarks, share prices of some Korean automotive and battery firms shot up.

Daelim University automotive professor Kim Pil-soo said Musk could weigh the pros and cons of building a gigafactory in Korea. While Korea has advanced automotive and battery technologies that would create synergy with the US EV maker, the nation has no essential resources like Indonesia's nickel reserve -- another possible candidate -- and no Tesla factories to use the batteries.

Choi Sang-mok, the senior presidential secretary for economic affairs, said in a press briefing in the afternoon that the government would form a task force team comprising representatives from the Industry Ministry and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency to carry out activities to attract investment by closely cooperating with Tesla.

President Yoon “highly praised” Tesla, which has been the pioneer of the electric vehicle era, and SpaceX, which has launched a recycled orbital-class booster. He praised Musk for his hard work leading the way and said he hopes to continue to innovate successfully.

Alluding to Nuri, the Korean space rocket that launched in June, the president said Korea is striving to strengthen its competitiveness in the space industry by fostering space and aviation startups and promoting the establishment of an aerospace agency.

Yoon also asked for cooperation between SpaceX and Korean companies in the space industry, officials said.

The president vowed for a “reform” in line with global standards if "unreasonable regulations" hinder global high-tech innovation companies from pursuing investment in Korea.

The presidential office said the government would continue its efforts to attract investment from high-tech companies to strengthen national competitiveness.

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)

koreaherald.com · by Shin Ji-hye · November 23, 2022

5. Why Joe Biden Won't Embrace Arms Control with North Korea

And I hope he does not. Support for arms control is support for the success of the regime''s political warfare and blackmail diplomacy strategies.

Why Joe Biden Won't Embrace Arms Control with North Korea

19fortyfive.com · by Harry Kazianis · November 22, 2022

Why Arms Control and North Korea Don’t Mix: Over at Responsible Statecraft, a publication run by the Quincy Institute, I make the case that America’s approach toward North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is utter garbage and needs to end. The time for calling for complete nuclear rollback – or what we call denuclearization – is about fifteen years past its expiration date and the time for some sort of arms control with Pyongyang is here.

As I explained in the article:

North Korea’s nuclear program has reached a massive industrial scale, comprised of thousands of scientists, workers, and facilities with a knowledge base and know-how that would be impossible to erase. Meanwhile, various options for arms control and threat reduction have been floated for years, whereby North Korea would get sanctions relief for a level of caps, controls, or limits on its nuclear weapons and missile programs. While it would be politically impossible to admit that the quest for denuclearization is a false one, a long-term road map could be created for a scaled-back DPRK nuclear and missile program in exchange for sanctions relief that would be implemented over a decade.

A first step would be to trade some sort of sanctions rollback — the permitting of textile exports worth hundreds of millions of dollars — for a permanent ban on North Korean missile testing in the medium-to-ICBM range. That would limit Pyongyang’s ability to develop weapons that can hit U.S. bases in Asia and the homeland. If North Korea honored that commitment for 90 days, another small agreement could be reached whereby if the Kim family scrapped its submarine-based nuclear deterrent program, another section of the sanctions regimen could be removed.

The challenge, of course, is politics.

Whoever in Washington makes the courageous decision to dump denuclearization for arms control will be called every appeasement-style name in the book and will be blamed for what amounts to recognizing North Korea as a nuclear weapons state.

While clearly, North Korea is a nuclear-weapons state, the politics of admitting what is true have no upside at all.

There is no way, for example, that the Biden Administration would ever consider trying to lessen the threat posed by North Korea through arms control as they know it would be held against them by hawkish Republicans and Democrats who would object to such a policy change. And no one in DC gives their enemy a clear line of attack unless they are going to get something out of it.

With North Korea in no mood to deal on any issues, collective Washington is quite content to stick its head in the sand on this issue for the foreseeable future. Sadly that means North Korea will keep building more and more nuclear weapons and missiles. I will not be shocked if we wake up one day to reports shortly that North Korea tested an ICBM where it proved its heat-shield technology works, proving its nuclear warheads can survive atomospheric reentry. And, of course, it seems like a nuclear test is coming soon.

One Senior National Security Offical who worked in the Trump Administration told me when he read my article: “The idea of arms control with North Korea is the correct idea as we have no way to compel them to completely give up their nuclear weapons now – that ship has sailed. But how does one not take on political damage by doing it? That is the challenge in all of this, and I see no way in the near term to solve that problem.”

I agree. But, I would say that at some point, this is the only logical course of action, especially if China is going to be America’s top national security challenge in Asia for decades to come. North Korea is small potatoes, comparatively speaking.

Expert Biography: Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and Pacific Forum. Kazianis has also worked as a defense journalist, serving as Editor-In-Chief of the Diplomat and Executive Editor of The National Interest. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree focusing on International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization.

19fortyfive.com · by Harry Kazianis · November 22, 2022

6. 'Upped the ante': North Korean ICBM launch prompts fears of escalation

I know my friend Jenny Town will disagree with me but if "stepping down" is interpreted as "backing down" by Kim Jong Un it will only cause him to keep upping the ante. He only way to de-escalate the situation is to continue to demonstrate to KimJong Un that his strategy is failing. I will invoke CHurchill for the second time today "Never give in..."

'Upped the ante': North Korean ICBM launch prompts fears of escalation - Breaking Defense

"The question is," asks Jenny Town of the Stimson Center, "how to step down from this ledge before an accident escalates into something much more dangerous?"

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · November 22, 2022

North Korea launches what it claims is a new ICBM called the Hwasong 17. (KCNA official North Korean news agency)

SYDNEY — North Korea leader Kim Jong Un continued to thumb his nose at the world over the weekend, using the latest of what appears to be a carefully calibrated series of medium- and long-range missile launches to shape the strategic environment and, perhaps, ready the way for a nuclear weapons test.

Missile launches are a familiar North Korean response to joint US-South Korean military exercises, but this latest series, including the supposed launch of the long-range Hwasong-17 ICBM appears to mark an escalation, according to the Stimson Center’s Jenny Town.

“The North Koreans do usually do some kind of action to protest the exercises, but this year also upped the ante,” she told Breaking Defense. “The question is — how to step down from this ledge before an accident escalates into something much more dangerous?”

The United States, its allies and partners scrambled to condemn the Nov. 18 launch of what the country claimed was a Hwasong-17, an apparently more powerful version of the Hwasong-15. Though the launch made headlines for the Hwasong-17’s purported ability to strike deep into the continental US, experts have said its younger brother, the Hwasong-15 could do the same, even if its range not as great. But then there’s the question of whether the North Koreans actually launched what they said they launched.

“They have different types of ICBMs and they have a history of misdirection,” Ralph Savelsberg, associate professor for missile defense at the Netherlands Defence Academy, told Breaking Defense. “Obviously, something flew on the 18th, with ICBM-like performance, but we don’t know whether the footage they released, showing the new, larger Hwasong-17 and [Kim’s] daughter, was taken on that day. It could have been footage from an earlier, failed, launch.“

Savelsberg said that’s what the north did last spring, the last time North Korea claimed to have successfully tested the Hwasong-17.

“On March 24th they launched a missile on a very similar trajectory as the one reported for the 18th of November. Subsequently they released a video of a Hwasong-17 launch,” Savelsberg said in an email. “However, there are indications that this footage was taken on the 16th of March, when they launched a missile that failed in flight over Pyongyang.” The missile that successfully flew in March, Savelsberg said, may have been the Hwasong-15, which first flew back in 2017.

If the more recent launch was really a Hwasong-17, the Dutch missile expert said it is a little more than twice as heavy as the Hwasong-15 and can carry “roughly twice the same payload over similar distances, so [it can take] about 2,000 kg to just about anywhere in the continental US” — further still if it’s equipped with a lighter payload. That could allow it to reach the US by flying the long way, south, around the world.

“This would be a major worry to the US, because this would circumvent US missile defenses, which are aimed at trajectories over the Northern Pacific,” he said, acknowledging he’d need to do a more detailed analysis on the viability of that option.

‘Brazen Violation’

Regardless of whether the missile is what the North Koreans appeared to show, the launch prompted US Vice President Kamala Harris to call an emergency gathering of allies on Friday at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to condemn the launch. Five nations — Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada and New Zealand — joined the US in condemning the launch.

“This conduct by North Korea most recently is a brazen violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” Harris said in Bangkok. “It destabilizes security in the region, and unnecessarily raises tensions.”

For its part, North Korea said the launch “was conducted under the intolerable condition that the reckless military confrontational moves of the U.S. and other hostile forces persistently driving the military and political situation in the Korean peninsula to the red line have gone beyond the limit and hypocritical and brigandish sophisms have been justified even in the UN arena to brand the right of a sovereign state to self-defence as provocation in every way.”

North Korea, apparently trying a new propaganda approach, offered photos of Kim Jong Il attending the launch with his daughter. His wife also, state media said, attended the launch.

This is pretty typical language from North Korean and seems to lend weight to analysts who say the reclusive nation is performing the barrage of launches to shape the strategic environment so it can claim it’s been provoked into reacting.

“These recent activities fit into a longstanding pattern of provocative military demonstrations and weapons tests using South Korean and US activities as a pretext and justification,” longtime US national intelligence officer for North Korea Markus Garlauskas said in an email. Garlauskas was speaking about the huge surge of missile shots over the last month and the deployment of 180 military aircraft in one day by the north.

That was supposedly a response to the US and South Korea having resumed regular and extensive military exercises to the largest level since 2018, he notes.

The larger question, according to the Stimson Center’s Town in Washington, is what comes next, and how the opposing countries manage their responses.

“Instead of small salvos of short range ballistic missiles launches — which was their typical response in the past — they have now started to conduct their own live fire drills, focused on operational training,” she said in an email. “In a sense, mirroring the kind of activities the US-ROK have been engaged in. Fierce rhetorical responses to each other have only worked to up the ante, as US-ROK exercises are added and North Korea continues to engage in their own drills and missile testing.”

Town also said North Korea’s rhetoric about its nuclear program has changed. “In the past, it was always posed as conditional to the US hostile policy, leaving room for changes if the conditions were to evolve in a more positive direction. But recent statements have dropped that conditionality, simply stating that it’s no longer willing to negotiate about its nuclear program. My sense is that the photos of Kim showing his daughter this successful launch helps emphasize that notion — that this is part of the next generation’s legacy as well.”

Garlauskas, now a fellow with the Atlantic Council, has long held that North Korea would not relinquish nuclear weapons for any reason and he says they may well be using this surge of tests to prepare to move to the next level of escalation.

“This is also potentially stage-setting for escalation to new levels of weapons testing. If we proceed from the premise that North Korea is indeed preparing for a seventh nuclear test, for example, as has been widely reported in the media, then these sorts of activities allow Kim to probe and shape the narrative in advance,” he writes. “As I’ve noted before in my analysis, what Kim is looking for is to provoke a response that he can claim shows ‘US hostile policy’ to give a pretext for further escalation, while avoiding anything that would lead to a reaction that actually threatens his regime… particularly actions that would cause Beijing to really turn the screws on him.”

breakingdefense.com · by Colin Clark · November 22, 2022

7. Analysis: In male-dominated North Korea, leadership prospects of Kim Jong Un's daughter are uncertain

Very premature speculation continues. These discussions help to legitimize the regime and its dynastic succession.

Analysis: In male-dominated North Korea, leadership prospects of Kim Jong Un's daughter are uncertain

Reuters · by Josh Smith

SEOUL, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Although the unexpected appearance of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s daughter raised speculation that she could be a successor in the making, analysts say it would be an unprecedented uphill struggle in the male-dominated dynasty.

Each change at the top in North Korea has raised the prospect of a leadership vacuum or collapse of the Kim dynasty, which has ruled the country since its founding in 1948.

Kim Jong Un's daughter - who was not named in state media - appeared in coverage of a ballistic missile launch on Saturday, watching the firing and holding her father's hand as he examined the missile. This provided the first official confirmation that Kim has children, and underscored a message that the family is here to stay, analysts said.

They cautioned that it is far too early to tell whether she is a successor or simply a symbol used to assure citizens that nuclear weapons would protect children and be "monuments to be passed down to our descendants for generations," as state media reported.

Chun Su-jin, the South Korean author of a book on North Korean women leaders, said the chance of North Korean elites welcoming Kim's daughter as ruler is close to zero.

"It is not ready to welcome a leader of the other gender," she said. "(Kim) is just staging a show that he is a loving father, not just a brutal dictator who shoots missiles."

Others argue that despite North Korea’s deeply patriarchal society, gender may not disqualify a daughter or other woman from taking the reins.

Barring a sudden health problem that leads to his incapacitation or death, there is a fair amount of time before Kim, believed to be nearly 40, needs to consider a successor, said Michael Madden, director of North Korea Leadership Watch.

“That gives ample time for North Korea's political culture to change and create the conditions for a female successor,” Madden said.

WOMEN LEADERS

Kim has elevated several powerful women around him, including his sister, Yo Jong, and Choe Son Hui, the country’s first woman foreign minister.

"Kim Jong Un belongs to a different generation than his grandfather and his father, and in some ways, he appears more receptive to change than his forefathers," said Rachel Minyoung Lee of the 38 North research organisation.

[1/4] North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with his wife Ri Sol Ju and their daughter, speaks on the day of the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in this undated photo released on November 19, 2022 by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS

According to Yonhap news agency, South Korean intelligence officials believe the girl seen on Friday is a daughter identified as Ju Ae by former American basketball player Dennis Rodman, who spent time with Kim's family in 2013. She would be about 12-13 years old, and is one of an estimated three children of Kim Jong Un, Madden said.

If Kim has any sons, they could still have an advantage to continue the male-centric “Mt. Paektu bloodline,” Lee said, referring to a volcano on the Chinese border that plays a central role in the ruling party's mythology.

Women have held senior roles in North Korea over the years, but Kim Jong Il passed over several older daughters and sons to anoint Kim Jong Un, despite speculation at the time that his second daughter could be his successor, Madden noted.

The increased participation of North Korean women in elite politics does not necessarily indicate change to the broader social or political systems, 38 North said in a 2020 report.

North Korea is deeply isolated from world geopolitics and is under UN sanctions for its weapons programmes, which include nuclear bombs.

According to human rights activists, sexual and gender-based violence remains “endemic”, and COVID-19 border lockdowns and restrictions on previously growing market economies have been particularly hard on the women, who made up much of that workforce.

"In North Korea, gender is still important to be a leader," said Hyun In-ae, a North Korean defector who now works at the Ewha Institute of Unification Studies in Seoul.

PATH TO LEADERSHIP

When rumours and speculation arose in 2020 about Kim Jong Un’s health, his sister was seen a possible placeholder to take over the family dynasty until one of Kim’s children was old enough.

Believed to be in her early 30s, Kim Yo Jong is the leader’s only close relative with a public role in politics, spearheading a new, tougher campaign to put pressure on South Korea and in some cases operating as a "de facto" second in command, according to South Korean intelligence.

Based on previous leaders, any children will need education and on the job experience before they can be considered for supreme leadership, and in about 10 years we can expect her to have begun an official career, Madden said.

If, over the next decade, Kim's daughter becomes closely associated with economic development and the missile and nuclear weapons programmes, then the North Korean political and military apparatus could position her as the promising next generation of the Paektu line, said Darcie Draudt of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

"Bottom line: the bloodline, and military and economic development bona fides, matter more than gender in the fourth generation of the Kim Dynasty," she said.

Reporting by Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Daewoung Kim. Editing by Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Reuters · by Josh Smith

8. China not putting necessary pressure on N. Korea to stop provocations: NSC coordinator

True, but...

I don't think we can expect China to put pressure on Kim to denuclearize. That said, it is right to call China out for its complicity: diplomatic protection at the UN, sanctions evasion, military support, etc...

(LEAD) China not putting necessary pressure on N. Korea to stop provocations: NSC coordinator | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · November 23, 2022

(ATTN: UPDATES with remarks from a defense department spokesperson in last 3 paras; ADDS photo)

By Byun Duk-kun

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 (Yonhap) -- China is not putting the kind of pressure it can on North Korea to help stop Pyongyang from continuing with its provocative actions, a White House National Security Council (NSC) official said Tuesday.

John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications, made the remark one day after Beijing again blocked an U.S.-led effort to have the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) condemn North Korea's recent missile launches.

China, Kirby said in a virtual press briefing, is still a government that has "not put the kind of pressure we believe they can put on Pyongyang to stop their provocative actions."

North Korea has fired over 60 ballistic missiles this year, including eight intercontinental ballistic missiles, that mark the largest number of ballistic missiles fired in a single year, according to U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

The U.S. on Monday sought to push for a U.N. Security Council statement, condemning North Korea's latest ICBM test firing that took place on Friday, but failed due to opposition from Beijing and Moscow, both veto power-wielding permanent members of the Security Council and close neighbors of the North.

Monday's UNSC meeting marked the 10th of its kind to be held on North Korea this year that ended without any tangible outcome.

A defense department spokesperson said the U.S. will continue to work with China and others to stop North Korea from taking additional provocative actions, adding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had also raised the issue of North Korea in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Gen. Wei Fenghe, in Cambodia on Tuesday (local time).

"We have certainly been very vocal about destabilizing impacts and actions that North Korea continues to take, and we are going to continue to make clear our concerns," Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told a press briefing.

"And we are going to continue to do that not just with China, but with other countries around the world," she added.

bdk@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 변덕근 · November 23, 2022

9. Korea to reduce dependence on China for exports, eyes Middle East, America and EU

Korea to reduce dependence on China for exports, eyes Middle East, America and EU

The Korea Times · November 23, 2022

President Yoon Suk-yeol, center, speaks during a meeting attended by nine government ministries at Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA), in Seoul, Wednesday. Yonhap 

Export strategies to fortify deteriorating trade balance

By Lee Kyung-min

The government will mobilize utmost efforts to fine-tune export strategies, under a broader goal of fortifying Korea's trade balance which is showing signs of a greater-than-expected deficit, according to nine economy-related ministries, Wednesday.

Chief among the objectives is strengthening the overseas expansion of 15 growth-driving local manufacturing industries, including a close and continued follow-up of the 26 memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed between Korea and Saudi Arabia. The Middle Eastern country signed investment deals with Korean businesses amounting to about 40 trillion won ($29 billion), as reaffirmed by the country's prime minister and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during his visit to Korea last week. Infrastructure minister Won Hee-ryong said Monday that trillions of won in joint business projects will be announced before the year's end.

Tailored strategies will bolster the country's exports to key trade partners ― the U.S., China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a political and economic union of 11 member states in Southeast Asia. Combined exports to those regions account for 57 percent of Korea's total outbound shipments.

Countries in the Middle East, Central and South America as well as Europe do not generate as much export income for Korea. However, the regions in need of high-tech and cost-efficient defense, energy and infrastructure building projects are of an even greater strategic importance to Korea, the ministries said.

Korea Customs Service data showed the country's exports in the first 20 days of November stood at $33.1 billion, a 16.7 percent year-on-year decrease, pushing up the year-to-date trade deficit to $39.96 billion as of Nov. 20. The sustained grim developments in the country's trade balance brought on by supply bottlenecks and surging energy prices will end up as a record-high trade deficit of $40 billion this year, the greatest since the trade deficit of $20.6 billion in 1996 shortly before the Asian financial crisis.

Tailored approach

"Korea is best known for its heavy reliance on exports," President Yoon Suk-yeol said during a meeting attended by nine economy-related ministers. "The government will provide all possible assistance to advance the efforts of the country's exporters."

Korea will diversify trade partners in the ASEAN region, away from consumer goods-centered Vietnamese markets to include Indonesia and Thailand.

A greater number of local firms will be able to seek growth opportunities in the U.S., mostly through large-scale green and supply chain projects.

The government will outline policy responses to help local firms better prepare against rapid and unexpected developments in trade conditions, as illustrated by the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and China' export curbs on Korean-made parts and materials for semiconductor manufacturing.

Korea will maintain close communication with Saudi trade and investment authorities to produce tangible results from the recent business forum in Korea.

The success will, the government says, help a far greater number of oil-rich nations move from fossil-fuel economies towards high-tech, sustainable smart nation building.

Free trade agreements will be expanded in Central and South America, pursued under a broader drive of supply chain stabilization with the help of major resource-rich countries including Chile and Brazil.

The government will elevate ongoing nuclear power plant construction projects in Poland to become a stepping stone to the European market by promoting Korea's advanced energy capabilities.

Cooperation efforts will be expanded to include the sectors of defense, weapons manufacturing and procurement as well as aerospace research.

The Korea Times · November 23, 2022

10. Japan and South Korea Are Still Haunted by the Past

​This is the biggest obstacle to a trilateral alliance (ROK-Japan-US).

Excerpts:

What Yoon needs is an approach that is both future oriented and inward looking, one that bridges the ever-widening divide between the two countries’ historical narratives. Both the South Korean and Japanese governments must rein in historical revisionism and more clearly demarcate the boundaries of reasonable disagreement. To that end, they should institute a moratorium on unilateral changes to history textbooks, create exchange programs for legal scholars and historians aimed at clarifying historical ambiguities, and promote efforts by civil society to build a joint mechanism for commemoration.

Yoon must also lay the domestic groundwork for an eventual agreement, ensuring that South Korean citizens won’t reject it as they did previous deals. To that end, he should regularly inform the public of his conciliatory efforts and consult relevant civil society groups, so that any deal with Japan is seen as representing the interests of South Koreans in general and the victims of Japanese colonial crimes in particular. At a minimum, Yoon must avoid blindsiding victim support groups in his dealings with Japan and give them a seat at the negotiating table whenever possible. Instead of conducting talks behind closed doors and announcing a surprise pact, the two countries must adopt a set of procedural steps, including a process for public comment, that seek popular approval for the chosen mechanism for dispute resolution—whether that is international arbitration or bilateral negotiation. Repairing public trust in the rapprochement process will take time, which is why sustained efforts at dialogue will be crucial.

Finally, Yoon can begin to re-narrate the history of colonial memory in South Korea by acknowledging the failures of past conservative rapprochement efforts. Admitting that these initiatives forced reconciliation without forgiveness and robbed the victims of justice might be politically costly for conservatives. But doing so would give Yoon the best chance of upending the entrenched narrative of colonial-authoritarian illegitimacy that has prevented South Korea and Japan from settling their disputes over the past for so long.

​

Japan and South Korea Are Still Haunted by the Past

Confronting a Legacy of Forced—and Failed—Reconciliation

By Eun A Jo

November 23, 2022

Foreign Affairs · by Eun A Jo · November 23, 2022

For the last four years, Japan and South Korea have been locked in bitter a feud. Tensions between the two countries date back more than a hundred years, centering on Japan’s brutal occupation of the Korean Peninsula from 1910 to 1945. During World War II, Japan forced nearly 750,000 Korean men to serve as laborers and 200,000 women to serve as sex slaves; many of these captives died or were maimed as a result. Countless others were killed. In just one day in 1919, the Japanese colonial police executed some 7,500 Korean protesters.

Disputes over apologies and reparations—known in South Korea as “history issues”— have flared time and again between the two U.S.-allied democracies, preventing them from forging a closer relationship. But things took a dramatic turn for the worse in 2018, when South Korea’s top court ordered the Japanese firm Mitsubishi to compensate the Koreans it had conscripted as forced laborers, and South Korea’s progressive president, Moon Jae-in, shut down a foundation that was central to a controversial 2015 deal to compensate the so-called comfort women. Tensions spiraled from there, with Tokyo enacting punitive trade measures against South Korea and Seoul hitting back by threatening to cancel an intelligence-sharing pact.

The prospects for a rapprochement seemed to improve in March 2022, when South Koreans elected the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol as president. Yoon promised a “future-oriented” relationship with Japan that expands cooperation based on shared values. “I will not repeat the mistake of dividing the people into pro-Japan and anti-Japan, and leaving South Korea-Japan relations tied down in the past,” he vowed on the campaign trail.

Since then, renewed North Korean provocations, growing concerns about Chinese assertiveness, and calls from Washington for closer cooperation between Japan and South Korea on regional security issues have reinforced the need for the two powers to mend fences. And now, amid a flurry of bilateral and trilateral high-level meetings, a diplomatic reset might appear within reach: Japan and South Korea could rebuild their trade relationship, deepen military cooperation, and bolster much-needed collaboration on pressing issues, such as emerging technologies, global health, and climate change.

But this is not the first time the stars have aligned and shared challenges seemed capable of outweighing concerns about colonial injustice. Previous conservative South Korean governments have prioritized cooperation with Japan, including through agreements that were supposed to resolve history issues—notably, a 1965 treaty normalizing relations between the two countries and the 2015 comfort women deal. But such efforts lacked democratic legitimacy and sparked public mistrust and even outrage. Ultimately, they failed because they favored immediate dealmaking over a genuine reckoning with the past.

Yoon’s administration will fail, too, unless it finds a new formula for cooperation with Japan, one that is not only future oriented but also inward looking. At a minimum, success will require acknowledging that past attempts at reconciliation were fundamentally undemocratic. A sustainable entente will require building trust with the victims of Japanese colonial crimes and coordinating closely with Tokyo on public messaging. Absent sufficient public consultation in South Korea and a commitment by Japan to avoid nationalist provocations, any attempt to resolve history issues is likely to fall short once again.

Reconciliation Without Forgiveness

The road to reconciliation between Japan and South Korea has been long and full of false starts. Talks over normalization began in 1951 under the conservative Syngman Rhee, South Korea’s first president, at the urging of the United States. Rhee was an ardent nationalist, but his ruling coalition included elites who had collaborated with the Japanese during the occupation. Despite this uncomfortable fact, Rhee frequently stoked anti-Japanese sentiment for his own political gain, causing the negotiations with Tokyo to break down. In exchange for restoring diplomatic ties, Rhee demanded colonial reparations and recognition of South Korean sovereignty over disputed territories—at one point unilaterally extending South Korea’s maritime boundaries far beyond the country’s internationally recognized territorial waters.

It was not until 1965 that the terms of a normalization treaty were finalized under the conservative South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee. Park sought reconciliation with Japan as a bulwark against international communism and as a catalyst for economic modernization, but much of the South Korean public saw his government’s diplomatic efforts as little more than collusion with Japan—and by the same segment of the authoritarian ruling class that had benefited most from collaborating with Japan during the colonial period. An estimated 3.5 million South Koreans demonstrated against the agreement, pouring into the streets and chanting, “Stop the humiliating diplomacy.” On multiple occasions, Park violently quashed anti-Japanese rallies and dismissed calls for colonial justice as untimely and even unpatriotic.

Park’s legacy was further tarnished in 2004, when South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, a progressive, made public confidential documents showing that Park had funneled Japanese compensation for colonial and wartime crimes to nation-building projects instead of to the victims and their families. In so doing, Roh redirected public resentment against Japan to South Korea’s “pro-Japan” conservatives, who were seen as having robbed the victims of Japanese injustice. This bolstered progressives politically, but it also lent a degree of credence to Japan’s rhetorical insistence that it had already paid for its past offenses.

Reconciliation, in this progressive narrative, had been achieved not by forgiveness but by coercion. Even worse, Park and his conservative successors had been bolstered by the very imperial forces from which the South Koreans had hoped to escape, in exchange for renouncing their right to forgive and to hold Japan accountable. It was no surprise, then, that pro-democracy activists such as Im Jongguk came to call for the “eradication of vestiges of Japanese imperialism and the restoration of national righteousness.” Anti-Japanism became an expression of democracy.

Conservative Constraints

This fraught history helps explain why, contrary to popular belief, South Korean conservatives such as Yoon are uniquely constrained when seeking rapprochement with Japan. In 2012, for instance, conservative President Lee Myung-bak tried to negotiate a military intelligence-sharing deal with Japan. But the secrecy surrounding the negotiations was interpreted by many South Koreans as evidence of collusion, and Lee was forced to walk away from the agreement after an outpouring of public rage. He abruptly reversed his policy on Japan, seeking to repair his image with a series of inflammatory actions, including a surprise visit to the disputed territory of Dokdo, a small group of islets in the Sea of Japan referred to by Tokyo as Takeshima.

Park Geun-hye, Lee’s successor (and the daughter of the former dictator Park Chung-hee), faced a similar predicament. In 2015, she signed the so-called comfort women deal with then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Tokyo agreed to pay one billion yen, roughly $9 million, toward assisting the 46 living victims of sexual slavery in Japan. In a joint declaration, the two leaders pledged to have settled the issue in a “final and irreversible” manner. Yet the Korean Council—a civil society group representing the surviving comfort women and their families—rejected the deal as “diplomatic collusion” and refused the funds, claiming that they were not legal reparations but veiled payoffs to silence the victims. In demonstrations across the country, protesters compared the comfort women deal to the 1965 normalization treaty, which Park’s father had rammed through with a similar lack of public consultation.

Less than two years after its signing, the 2015 agreement unraveled when Park was ousted for corruption. Her successor, Moon, appointed an independent team of investigators to look into the deal, and they found that it had been made without sufficient consultation with the victims. Moon then took steps to dismantle the agreement, calling it “inconclusive”—as opposed to “final and irreversible”—and eventually shuttering the Japanese-funded foundation that was tasked with distributing the funds. Crucially, he blamed the weak “democratic procedural legitimacy” of the deal for its failure to deliver justice.

Toward Rapprochement?

This legacy of forced reconciliation is likely to complicate the current president’s rapprochement agenda. As a conservative, Yoon carries a historical burden that progressives do not, and worsening partisan polarization in South Korea bodes ill for his efforts.

Meanwhile, Japan is not doing anything to help bridge the gap. On the contrary, it has taken a series of untimely and misguided actions that have stoked anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea. In March 2022, Japan revised its history textbooks to claim Dokdo as a Japanese territory and eliminate expressions such as “forced recruitment” and “sexual slavery” from its curriculum on the colonial era. Such revisionism makes it harder for Yoon to persuade the South Korean public of the prudence of rapprochement. It also enhances the potency of a familiar progressive narrative weapon—that of conservative collusion with Japan.

Overcoming these obstacles to reconciliation will require procedural legitimacy. Any effort to craft a deal to resolve history issues once and for all must involve careful consultations with civil society groups such as the Korean Council and with the broader public. So far, Yoon’s administration has made only limited attempts to engage civil society. It has established a joint public-private council on the forced labor issue but has also pressured the courts to prevent the liquidation of Japanese companies’ assets, which victim support groups have labeled an “act of sabotage.” Already, members of the council have floated the idea of having South Korean companies pay off the victims—without Japanese apologies or reparations—in order to break the diplomatic deadlock between the two countries, suggesting that this initiative may resemble previous ones in being oriented more toward Japan than toward the victims.

Japan has taken actions that stoked anti-Japanese sentiment in South Korea.

Rapprochement with Japan would be a tall order for any South Korean president. But it is an especially tall one for a conservative president who faces a dwindling public approval rating and an increasingly nationalist counterpart in Japan. And although there are many reasons to seek reconciliation—from tackling shared demographic and environmental challenges to maintaining regional stability—old patterns of hostility will be difficult to break, especially if efforts to seek common ground generate conspiracy at home rather than compromise abroad.

What Yoon needs is an approach that is both future oriented and inward looking, one that bridges the ever-widening divide between the two countries’ historical narratives. Both the South Korean and Japanese governments must rein in historical revisionism and more clearly demarcate the boundaries of reasonable disagreement. To that end, they should institute a moratorium on unilateral changes to history textbooks, create exchange programs for legal scholars and historians aimed at clarifying historical ambiguities, and promote efforts by civil society to build a joint mechanism for commemoration.

Yoon must also lay the domestic groundwork for an eventual agreement, ensuring that South Korean citizens won’t reject it as they did previous deals. To that end, he should regularly inform the public of his conciliatory efforts and consult relevant civil society groups, so that any deal with Japan is seen as representing the interests of South Koreans in general and the victims of Japanese colonial crimes in particular. At a minimum, Yoon must avoid blindsiding victim support groups in his dealings with Japan and give them a seat at the negotiating table whenever possible. Instead of conducting talks behind closed doors and announcing a surprise pact, the two countries must adopt a set of procedural steps, including a process for public comment, that seek popular approval for the chosen mechanism for dispute resolution—whether that is international arbitration or bilateral negotiation. Repairing public trust in the rapprochement process will take time, which is why sustained efforts at dialogue will be crucial.

Finally, Yoon can begin to re-narrate the history of colonial memory in South Korea by acknowledging the failures of past conservative rapprochement efforts. Admitting that these initiatives forced reconciliation without forgiveness and robbed the victims of justice might be politically costly for conservatives. But doing so would give Yoon the best chance of upending the entrenched narrative of colonial-authoritarian illegitimacy that has prevented South Korea and Japan from settling their disputes over the past for so long.

• EUN A JO is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at Cornell University and Predoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University.

Foreign Affairs · by Eun A Jo · November 23, 2022

11. 1905 treaty and historical task

More history on Korea and Japan. Most of us have no idea of this history or its long term impact.

1905 treaty and historical task

The Korea Times · November 22, 2022

By Doh See-hwan

This year marks the 117th anniversary of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905, the substantial starting point of Japanese colonial rule, which was the essential cause of the historical conflict between Korea and Japan, and the attempted distortion of legalizing Japan's colonial rule under international law at the time.

In 2005, 100 years after the signing of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905, Japan declared "Takeshima Day" through Shimane Prefecture, commemorating the annexation of Korea's easternmost Dokdo islets in 1905.

It was not only an indication that efforts for historical reconciliation between Korea and Japan would drift apart in the future, but ironically, finding the essential causes of the historical conflict between Korea and Japan and looking for ways to overcome it became a historical task and a calling for justice.

Since the end of the 19th century, Japan has been striving to secure international legal grounds as a device to glorify and legalize its imperialist methods of annexation, which are the basis of Japanese colonial rule.

It was embodied in a series of treaties forced by Japan to gain sovereignty over Korea in the process of forced annexation, and it went through five steps: the Korea-Japan Protocol, the First Korea-Japan Agreement, the Second Korea-Japan Agreement (Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905), the Third Korea-Japan Agreement (Japan-Korea Treaty of 1907) and the Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty (Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910).

The reason why we discuss the international legal effect of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 as an important legal issue lies in the Japanese government's denial of its responsibility for its illegal colonial rule on the premise that the 1910 forced Annexation Treaty was legal under international law based on the 1905 treaty.

Therefore, it is essential and important to prove the illegality and invalidity of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 as the starting point for debunking the legitimacy of the forced annexation of Korea as claimed by the Japanese government.

It is worth noting that despite the fact that Ahn Jung-geun, a pioneer who preached peace in East Asia against Japanese militarism and imperialist aggression, pointed out that it was the most serious of the 15 crimes that prompted his 1909 assassination of Ito Hirobumi, the leader of Korea during Japan's colonial rule, that the trial by Japanese imperialists, which sentenced Ahn to death under the Japanese Penal Code in 1910, is based on Article 1 of the 1905 Treaty.

Moreover, in February 1992, the U.N. Human Rights Commission asked about the Japanese government's legal responsibility for forcibly mobilizing women on the Korean Peninsula into sex slavery, as victims of Japanese colonial rule caused by the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905.

And the Japanese Territorial Sovereignty Exhibition Hall, which reopened in 2020, claims that both the annexation of Dokdo in 1905 and Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 are legal under international law.

In other words, the deep-rooted invasion of Japanese colonialism on our sovereignty, human rights, and territory is still ongoing, and the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905 is positioned as the common denominator and as a prerequisite for East Asian peace.

In addition to the deficiency of ratification as a requirement for the international legal establishment of the 1905 treaty and the deficiency of the validity requirements resulting from coercion of the national representative, the Japanese government argues that it was legal under international law at the time of the signing of the Japan-Korea Treaty of 1905.

However, even though it tried to establish international legal requirements in order to conceal the coercion on the national representative, the treaty that did not include the commission of full powers and the ratification of the head of state was invalid under international law at that time.

It is worth noting that the Japanese international law community, which is building the basis for the Japanese government's claim to "legalization of colonial rule," is silent about international legal norms based on "freedom of will of national representative" and "equality of sovereign state." This can be evaluated as nothing more than an illegal basis for the implementation of Japanese legal positivism as extreme nationalism associated with invasive state practice.

Moreover, regarding the representative case of the invalid treaty due to the coercion of the national representative of the draft of the Harvard Law School at the time of the League of Nations in 1935, which was reaffirmed in the process of legalization of the Treaty Law Convention of the United Nations International Law Commission in 1963, it should be noted that it presents three cases: the Treaty of Partition through the Siege of the Polish Parliament by the Russian Army in 1773, the Forced Protectorate Treaty in 1905 and the Protectorate Treaty through the Siege of Haiti by the U.S. Army in 1915.

Nevertheless, the Japanese government's historical distortion frame that puts international law at the fore under the policy stance of "breaking away from the post-war regime" for revising Japan's peace constitution and "historical revisionism" for the distortion of past history, which goes against the establishment of the foundation for a peace community in East Asia.

Thus, the claims made by the Japanese government, such as "the legitimate theory of 1910 colonization," "the completion theory of the 1965 Korea-Japan agreement" and "the incorporation theory of Dokdo of 1905" are nothing but the structured and repeated violence of Japanese colonialism based on the Korea-Japan Treaty of 1905.

Under such a premise, the Joint Statement of 1,139 Korean-Japanese intellectuals who declared the original invalidation of the Korea-Japan Annexation Treaty in 1910 was an East Asian version of the Durban Declaration of 2001, which contained the historical end of colonialism, and it was that we had to seek true historical reconciliation on the basis of correct history.

It is not a matter that is transferred to history unless it is realized by the implementation of international legal justice on the sovereignty, human rights and territory of Korea infringed by Japanese colonialism, but it is a task of the ongoing historical justice and peace community that continues.

Therefore, it should be a starting point for the implementation of positive peace that will realize a true East Asian peace community based on human dignity and oriented toward human co-prosperity starting from 2022, the 117th year of the Korea-Japan Treaty of 1905, in addition to the basic negative peace under international law that presupposes apology and compensation for Japanese colonial rule and war of aggression.

Dr. Doh See-hwan (drdoh@naver.com) is a senior research fellow at the Northeast Asian History Foundation.

The Korea Times · November 22, 2022

12. Marine Corps commemorates 2 soldiers killed in 2010 N.K. artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island

(LEAD) Marine Corps commemorates 2 soldiers killed in 2010 N.K. artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · November 23, 2022

(ATTN: CHANGES photo)

SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's Marine Corps held a ceremony Wednesday to commemorate the sacrifices of two soldiers killed in North Korea's artillery shelling of a northwestern border island a dozen years ago.

The event took place at Daejeon National Cemetery in Daejeon, 140 kilometers south of Seoul, with the attendance of some 200 people, including the families of the deceased soldiers -- S. Sgt. Seo Jeong-u and L. Cpl. Mun Gwang-uk.

The artillery attack on Yeonpyeong Island occurred on Nov. 23, 2010, killing the two soldiers and two civilians.

In a statement read out by a senior defense ministry official, Defense Minister Lee Jong-sup called on troops to inherit the fighting spirit of the two soldiers and maintain a firm readiness posture capable of fighting and winning "anytime."

"Should North Korea undertake a direct provocation, (we) will make an immediate, stern response in light of our right to self-defense," Lee said in the statement.

Calling the victims in the attack "heroes," Marine Corps Commandant Lt. Gen. Kim Tae-sung vowed to remember their sacrifices "for good."

"We will become a loyal Marine Corps that achieves a victory anytime, anywhere under any circumstances," he said.

The Marines Corps has set the five-day period through Friday as a commemorative period in honor of the fallen soldiers.

sshluck@yna.co.kr

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 송상호 · November 23, 2022

13.  China says it has 'open attitude' to developing cultural exchanges with S. Korea

"Open?" Perhaps to China It means to open more Confucius Institutes.

China says it has 'open attitude' to developing cultural exchanges with S. Korea | Yonhap News Agency

en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · November 23, 2022

BEIJING, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- China maintains an open attitude in terms of its people-to-people and cultural exchanges with South Korea, Beijing's foreign ministry said Wednesday, following a recent lifting of a ban placed on Korean cultural content over the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the South.

South Korea's presidential office said Tuesday China has resumed online streaming of a South Korean film after six years, following a purported blanket ban by Beijing on all such content as part of a retaliation campaign following Seoul's 2016 decision to host a U.S. THAAD battery on its soil.

The decision was made on the occasion of President Yoon Suk-yeol's summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Indonesia last week, according to Yoon's office.

Zhao Lijian, spokesperson for Beijing's foreign ministry, said China has an "open attitude toward developing people-to-people and cultural exchanges and cooperation with South Korea," when asked about the streaming resumption.

He, however, denied China enforced the restriction of South Korean cultural contents and wished for an increase in cultural exchanges, and promotion of mutual understanding and friendship between the two countries.

(END)

en.yna.co.kr · by 장동우 · November 23, 2022

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Senior Advisor, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com