Quotes of the Day:
“I read old books because I would rather learn from those who built civilization than those who tore it down.”
- The Wisdom Warrior
"There is no greater impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the ambiguity of words."
- Thomas Reid
“Only a very small number of people are truly evil. But a very large number of people are conformists. To prevent evil on a mass scale it’s more important for us to ward against our own instinct to conform with the crowd than it is to worry about anything else.”
- Claire Lehman, founding editor of Quillette
1. North Korea's Ballistic Missile Test: A 6 Step Strategy to Respond
2. Hypersonic Missile Newly Developed by Academy of Defence Science Test-Fired
3. North Korean hypersonic missile hit target in test firing, says state media
4. U.S. condemns N. Korean missile launch, reaffirms commitment to dialogue
5. North Korea Claims It Successfully Tested A New 'Hypersonic Gliding Warhead'
6. North Korea in 2022: What a Former CIA Expert Thinks Kim Jong-un Will Do Next
7. Moon Jae-In's Quest for a North Korea Legacy: Will He Succeed?
8. Seoul urges N. Korea to respond to calls for dialogue following projectile launch
9. U.S. Senate voices opposition to end-of-war declaration
10. U.S. takes any new capability of N. Korea seriously: State Dept.
11. Lots of Manure Sent to Countryside in DPRK
12. Gov't to launch new team to support vulnerable N. Korean defectors
13. ‘Not a surprise’: US military COVID-19 cases set pandemic record in South Korea
14. [INTERVIEW] US humanitarian worker in Seoul helps rescue N. Koreans from human trafficking
15. Balancing act between China-US not in Korea’s interest: Victor Cha
16. N. Korean man redefected unnoticed although military cameras spotted him 5 times
17. To Reach South Korea, He Risked His Life. To Leave It, He Did It Again.
18. South Korea Has Quietly Taken Sides in the U.S.-China Rivalry
19. Total failure caused by ‘wellbeing security’
1. North Korea's Ballistic Missile Test: A 6 Step Strategy to Respond
My response to the missile launch. Actions Speak Louder Than Words: Kim Jong-un Sends the World His New Year’s Message with a Ballistic Missile.
North Korea's Ballistic Missile Test: A 6 Step Strategy to Respond
North Korea’s New Ballistic Missile Test: How Should the Alliance Respond?
At the end of the Worker’s Party of Korea 4th Plenary Meeting of the party’s 8th Central Committee, the party issued a statement with some 18,400 words, none of which included a reference to the hostile policy of the regime, or the perceived hostile policies of the ROK/U.S. Alliance. The summary of the entire message appears to be a focus on domestic issues of the economy, food shortages, and COVID-19 defense by strengthening the regime’s ideological efforts to control the Korean people in the face of severe hardship. There was a single national security and foreign policy-related sentence in the statement: “The increasingly unstable military environment on the Korean Peninsula and international politics have instigated calls to vigorously push forward with our national defense build-up plans without any delay.”
North Korea’s Missile Test: A Framework for How to Respond
Policymakers should keep in mind that the Kim family regime’s political warfare strategy relies heavily on its blackmail diplomacy – the use of increased tension, threats, and provocations to gain political and economic concessions. Part of an information and influence strategy should be to counter the criticism that a North Korean provocation is a US and South Korean policy failure.
The ROK and U.S. should make sure the press, pundits, and public understand that this is a fundamental part of North Korean strategy and that it conducts provocations for specific objectives. It does not represent a policy failure; it represents a deliberate policy decision by Kim Jong-un to continue to execute his political warfare strategy. The following is a response framework for consideration:
First, do not overreact. But do not succumb to the criticism of those who recommend ending exercises. Always call out Kim Jong-un’s strategy As Sun Tzu would advise- “ …what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy; … next best is to disrupt his alliances.” Make sure the international community, the press, and the public in the ROK and the U.S. and the elite and the Korean people living in the north know what Kim is doing.
Second, never ever back down in the face of North Korean increased tension, threats, and provocations.
Third, coordinate an alliance response. There may be times when a good cop-bad cop approach is appropriate. Try to mitigate the internal domestic political criticisms that will inevitably occur in Seoul and DC. Do not let those criticisms negatively influence policy and actions.
Fourth, exploit weakness in North Korea – create internal pressure on Kim and the regime from his elite and military. Always work to drive a wedge among the party, elite, and military (which is a challenge since they are all intertwined and inextricably linked).
Fifth, demonstrate strength and resolve. Do not be afraid to show military strength. Never misunderstand the north’s propaganda – do not give in to demands to reduce exercises or take other measures based on North Korean demands that would in any way reduce the readiness of the combined military forces. The north does not want an end to the exercises because they are a threat, they want to weaken the alliance and force U.S. troops from the peninsula which will be the logical result if they are unable to effectively train.
Sixth, depending on the nature of the provocation, be prepared to initiate a decisive response using the most appropriate tools, e.g., diplomatic, military, economic, information and influence activities, cyber, etc., or a combination.
There is no silver bullet to the North Korea problem. Therefore, the focus must be on the long-term solution to the security and prosperity challenges on the Korean peninsula. This requires the execution of a superior ROK/U.S. alliance political warfare strategy. It must focus on resolving the Korean question, e.g., “the unnatural division of the peninsula” (per paragraph 60 of the 1953 Armistice Agreement). Solve that question and the nuclear issues and the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity will be ended. The question to ask is not what worked and what did not, but whether the ROK/U.S. alliance actions move the region closer to the acceptable, durable political arrangement that will protect, serve, and advance U.S. and ROK/U.S. alliance interests.
The way ahead is an integrated deterrence strategy as part of the broader strategic competition that is taking place in the region. There is a need for a Korean “Plan B” that rests on the foundation of combined ROK/U.S. defensive capabilities and includes political warfare, aggressive diplomacy, sanctions, cyber operations, and information and influence activities, with a goal of denuclearization to ultimately solve the “Korea question” (e.g., unification) with the understanding that denuclearization of the north will only happen when the Korea question is resolved and there is a United Republic of Korea (UROK).
David Maxwell, a 1945 Contributing Editor, is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel who has spent more than 20 years in Asia and specializes in North Korea and East Asia Security Affairs and irregular, unconventional, and political warfare. He is the editor of Small Wars Journal and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
2. Hypersonic Missile Newly Developed by Academy of Defence Science Test-Fired
The north Korean (Rodong Sinmum) press report on the missile launch. I have not seen any reports from ROK or US military or intelligence officials determine the type of missile that was tested.
Note that it precisely hit its target 700km away north Korea is very accurate with its missiles. It has never missed the East Sea. (note attempt at sarcasm)
Hypersonic Missile Newly Developed by Academy of Defence Science Test-Fired
The Academy of Defence Science of the DPRK test-fired a hypersonic missile on Wednesday.
Leading officials concerned of the Department of the Munitions Industry of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea and the sector of national defence science watched it.
The successive successes in the test launches in the hypersonic missile sector have strategic significance in that they hasten a task for modernizing strategic armed force of the state put forward at the 8th Party Congress and help fulfill the most important core task out of the five top priority tasks for the strategic arms sector in the five-year plan.
The Party Central Committee expressed great satisfaction at the result of the test-firing and extended warm congratulations to the relevant sector of the national defence science research.
In the test launch the academy reconfirmed the flight control and stability of the missile in the active-flight stage and assessed the performance of the new lateral movement technique applied to the detached hypersonic gliding warhead.
Having been detached after its launch, the missile made a 120 km lateral movement in the flight distance of the hypersonic gliding warhead from the initial launch azimuth to the target azimuth and precisely hit a set target 700 km away.
The reliability of fuel ampoule system under the winter weather conditions was also verified.
The test launch clearly demonstrated the control and stability of the hypersonic gliding warhead which combined the multi-stage gliding jump flight and the strong lateral movement.
Rodong Sinmun
3. North Korean hypersonic missile hit target in test firing, says state media
Excerpts:
“My impression is that the North Koreans have identified hypersonic gliders as a potentially useful qualitative means to cope with missile defence,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Photos of the missile used in Wednesday’s test suggest it is a different version from the one tested last year, and was probably first unveiled at a defence exhibition in Pyongyang in October, he added.
“They likely set up at least two separate development programmes,” Panda said. “One of these was the Hwasong-8, which was tested in September. This missile, which shares a few features in common with the Hwasong-8, is another.”
The US state department said the test violated multiple UN security council resolutions and poses a threat to North Korea’s neighbours and the international community.
North Korean hypersonic missile hit target in test firing, says state media
Launch was detected by militaries in the region, and was criticised by South Korea, Japan and the US
North Korea test fired a “hypersonic missile” this week that successfully hit a target, state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday, as the country pursues new military capabilities amid stalled denuclearisation talks.
The launch on Wednesday was the first by North Korea since October and was detected by several militaries in the region, drawing criticism from governments in the United States, South Korea, and Japan.
North Korea first tested a hypersonic missile in September, joining a race headed by major military powers to deploy the advanced weapons system.
Unlike ballistic missiles that fly into outer space before returning on steep trajectories, hypersonic weapons fly towards targets at lower altitudes and can achieve more than five times the speed of sound – or about 6,200 km per hour (3,850 mph).
A U-2S Dragon Lady spy plane of the US Air Force lands at Osan air base in Pyeongtaek, 70 km south of Seoul, South Korea on 5 January after completing a reconnaissance mission following North Korea’s apparent ballistic missile launch toward the East Sea earlier in the day. Photograph: Yonhap/EPA
“The successive successes in the test launches in the hypersonic missile sector have strategic significance in that they hasten a task for modernising strategic armed force of the state,” the KCNA report said.
In Wednesday’s test, the “hypersonic gliding warhead” detached from its rocket booster and manoeuvred 120 km (75 miles) laterally before it “precisely hit” a target 700 km (430 miles) away, KCNA reported. It said the test also confirmed components such as flight control and its ability to operate in the winter.
The missile demonstrated its ability to combine “multi-step glide jump flight and strong lateral manoeuvring,” KCNA said.
More manoeuvrable missiles and warheads are likely to be aimed at being able to overcome missile defences like those wielded by South Korea and the United States, analysts have said.
“My impression is that the North Koreans have identified hypersonic gliders as a potentially useful qualitative means to cope with missile defence,” said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Photos of the missile used in Wednesday’s test suggest it is a different version from the one tested last year, and was probably first unveiled at a defence exhibition in Pyongyang in October, he added.
“They likely set up at least two separate development programmes,” Panda said. “One of these was the Hwasong-8, which was tested in September. This missile, which shares a few features in common with the Hwasong-8, is another.”
The US state department said the test violated multiple UN security council resolutions and poses a threat to North Korea’s neighbours and the international community.
4. U.S. condemns N. Korean missile launch, reaffirms commitment to dialogue
U.S. condemns N. Korean missile launch, reaffirms commitment to dialogue | Yonhap News Agency
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- The United States on Wednesday condemned North Korea's missile launch as a violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and a threat to the international community.
"The United States condemns the DPRK's ballistic missile launch. This launch is in violation of multiple UN Security Council Resolutions and poses a threat to the DPRK's neighbors and the international community," a state department spokesperson told Yonhap News Agency in an email.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
North Korea fired what appeared to be a ballistic missile into the East Sea on Wednesday (Seoul time), according to the U.S. defense department and the South Korean ministry of defense.
U.S. Indo-Pacific Command earlier said the launch did not pose an immediate threat to the U.S. or its allies.
"We are aware of the ballistic missile launch and are consulting closely with our allies and partners," it said in a released statement.
"While we have assessed that this event does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies, the ballistic missile launch highlights the destabilizing impact of the DPRK's illicit weapons program," it added.
The state department spokesperson said the U.S. remains committed to dialogue with the North.
"We remain committed to a diplomatic approach to the DPRK and call on them to engage in dialogue. Our commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea and Japan remains ironclad," the spokesperson said.
Wednesday's missile launch marked the first of its kind by North Korea since October.
Pyongyang has maintained a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear and long-range ballistic missile testing since November 2017.
North Korea, however, has also boycotted denuclearization negotiations since 2019.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
5. North Korea Claims It Successfully Tested A New 'Hypersonic Gliding Warhead'
Please go to the link to view the tweets/commentary/graphics from some people who study missiles.
North Korea Claims It Successfully Tested A New 'Hypersonic Gliding Warhead'
North Korea has posted an image of what it says was a test of a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle that occurred yesterday. North Korea had claimed to have first tested a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle last September, and it showed off what appeared to be the same weapon, dubbed the Hwasong-8, at an elaborate arms expo that took place in Pyongyang last October. This latest test is of another new missile that was displayed at that show for the first time and that North Korean officials say has a different glide vehicle design. All of this underscores that Kim Jong Un's regime appears to be seriously intent on developing a hypersonic weapon capability.
Speculation that the latest North Korean test launch was of a hypersonic weapon system came shortly after news came that it occurred. The location of its origin and target area were similar to those observed in the September test.
North Korea state news furnished the following release along with the image of the launch, it states in part:
In the test launch the academy reconfirmed the flight control and stability of the missile in the active-flight stage and assessed the performance of the new lateral movement technique applied to the detached hypersonic gliding warhead. Having been detached after its launch, the missile made a 120 km lateral movement in the flight distance of the hypersonic gliding warhead from the initial launch azimuth to the target azimuth and precisely hit a set target 700 km away. The reliability of fuel ampoule system under the winter weather conditions was also verified. The test launch clearly demonstrated the control and stability of the hypersonic gliding warhead, which combined the multi-stage gliding jump flight and the strong lateral movement.
North Korea provided a remarkable amount of detail in its statement and in doing so claimed a high degree of mastery over hypersonic boost-glide vehicle technologies. How much of it is true is very much up for debate without having access to classified intelligence collected by South Korea, the U.S., and Japan. Regardless, hypersonic weapons technology is extremely challenging, both from an aerospace design and material science point of view. That being said, while it may seem quite reaching that North Korea could realize a successful hypersonic boost-glide vehicle capability any time soon, it's worth remembering that those that discounted the regime's race to realize an ICBM were proven quite wrong and in relatively short order.
It's also worth noting that the glide vehicle used in the January 5th, 2021 test is significantly different from the one shown in the September 2021 test and later at the arms expo a month later. This one is cone-shaped (conical), while the other was more of a wedge-shaped lifting body design. The latter of the two shapes have been used by China's DF-17 and Russia's Avangard systems. The U.S. Army and Navy, on the other hand, have largely focused on a common conical-shaped vehicle to accelerate the delivery of hypersonic boost-glide vehicle capabilities, with the idea that it would continue to develop more challenging wedge-shaped designs and procure them at a later date.
KCNA
North Korea's Hwasong-8 wedge-shaped hypersonic boost-glide vehicle weapon as seen at the Pyongyang arms expo in October.
There is also a possibility that this conical vehicle is actually just an advanced maneuverable re-entry vehicle, or MaRV, of some kind. MaRVs are typically defined as having a much lower degree of maneuverability than a true hypersonic boost-glide vehicle and as being more locked into a broadly ballistic trajectory. Their motion in the terminal phase of flight is often referred to as a “porpoise” or “skip-glide" trajectory and involves at least one pull-up maneuver, creating one or more downward "steps." These irregular movements can still present challenges for defenders, as well as be used as a way to make course corrections for greater accuracy and potentially extend the range of the warhead. Most importantly in the context of North Korea's description of this test, a MaRV is traveling at hypersonic speeds at the endgame point in its flight.
Beyond the warhead, that this missile is said to be liquid-fueled and has a so-called "ampulized" rocket booster are significant details. Ampulization is a Soviet-era term that refers to liquid fuel rocket motors that are sealed at the factory and are therefore much easier and safer to handle. They can also be kept in a fueled state for protracted periods of time, unlike typical liquid-fueled designs, making it simpler to deploy and fire them relatively quickly, reducing their vulnerability to pre-emptive strikes.
Whatever the true capabilities of this new missile might be, hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, including those with limited range, are ideally suited for North Korea's strategic needs. The hypersonic boost-glide vehicle is immune to any air and missile defenses deployed to the South, or in the entire region, for that matter. As such, they could strike high-value targets with impunity, at least for now. Still, the idea of acquiring this capability is one thing, overcoming the major technological hurdles and paying the large costs needed to do so is another. On the other hand, a MaRV would be more attainable, but less survivable.
Regardless, Pyongyang seems quite serious about developing a hypersonic weapons capability and it is an area that draws less international alarm than continuing to refine its ICBM capabilities via test flights. Time will tell if they can actually achieve it.
Contact the author: Tyler@thedrive.com
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6. North Korea in 2022: What a Former CIA Expert Thinks Kim Jong-un Will Do Next
Thoughtful analysis from Bruce Klingner, as always.
North Korea in 2022: What a Former CIA Expert Thinks Kim Jong-un Will Do Next
North Korea Stays the Course in New Year’s Message: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un closed out both 2021 and a five-day meeting of the Korean Workers Party with a speech that gave little reason to hope for a happier New Year. Contrary to predictions of major policy shifts or responding to South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s desperate quest for an end-of-war declaration, Kim offered no hint of diplomatic outreach or moderating North Korea’s ongoing arms buildup. He focused instead on resolving the country’s economic “great life-and-death struggle.”
North Korea’s economic travails and pandemic concerns make diplomacy unlikely for the foreseeable future. However, the regime could always choose to engage in another major provocation to increase tension on the Korean Peninsula. It has done so repeatedly in the past.
In the first year of each of the three previous U.S. administrations, conducted a nuclear or long-range missile test. The lack of such provocation during the first year of the Biden administration was therefore uncharacteristic. However, North Korea continued short- and medium-ranging missile testing in 2021 and could eventually choose to test the new long-range missile systems it paraded publicly in 2020 and 2021.
Each January, Pyongyang signals its domestic and foreign policy priorities for the forthcoming year. The regime typically discusses foreign policy at length, either harshly criticizing Washington and Seoul or indicating a seeming willingness to negotiate. In January 2018, for example, Kim announced he would send a top-level delegation to the South Korean Winter Olympics and in 2019, he announced a willingness to again meet with President Donald Trump to discuss denuclearization.
The plenum statement’s terse, dismissive reference to “north-south relations and external affairs” was unprecedented and reflects the regime’s continued resistance to dialogue. Recently, North Korea reiterated its demands that the United States must first drop its “hostile policy” before the regime would accede to any meetings.
Kim Jong-un made scant reference to the country’s nuclear and missile forces other than to praise the defense industry for developing “one ultra-modern weapon system after another.” Kim directed pressing ahead with the production of weapons articulated in last year’s Party Congress statement. At that time, North Korea announced plans to develop multiple-warhead ICBMs, hypersonic glide warheads, tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear-powered submarines, military reconnaissance satellites, and long-range submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
Kim’s speech also maintained the regime’s retrenchment against market-oriented reform measures, reasserting the virtues of state control and hewing to socialist economic policies. He called on the industrial and agricultural sectors to augment production, exhorting them to implement socialist principles to “strengthen the unified guidance and control of the state over economic work.” The emphasis remained on maintaining North Korea’s juche policy of self-reliance to remain independent of outside influence.
The extent to which Kim dwelled on improving the agricultural sector indicated an increasingly dire food situation. North Korea had acknowledged a “food crisis” in mid-2021, and the regime’s continuing restrictions against foreign trade, combined with international sanctions and weather calamities, suggests the populace could face famine conditions before the autumn harvest.
The plenum statement declared that emergency COVID epidemic prevention work was also a top priority, along with rural development, and constructing large housing projects to improve living conditions.
Also noteworthy was a lengthy discourse on enhancing ideological purity, particularly in rural areas. The emphasis given to upholding regime ideas and conducting the “struggle against anti-socialist and non-socialist practices” is reminiscent of similar warnings issued after Kim had his uncle Jang Song-taek executed in 2013 for disloyalty.
It is not known if the regime has faced increasing resistance from the populace or perceives greater potential for insurrection. But the plenum statement portends a continued, if not enhanced, effort by Kim to repress foreign information from contaminating his subjects. During his reign, Kim tightened border security, increased detection capabilities against foreign phones and broadcasts, and enacted legislation to make possessing outside information, including South Korean movies, punishable by death.
Past New Year’s Day speeches provided fodder for those claiming that Pyongyang was pursuing economic reforms, implementing a more benign foreign policy, and interested in abandoning its nuclear arsenal. Statements that were less vituperative in comparison with previous speeches were often perceived as messages of an enhanced regime desire for dialogue and improving relations. Some experts employed a Sherlockian dog-that-didn’t-bark logic to detect signals sent by what the regime didn’t say.
This year’s missive allows no such interpretation. While the lack of bombastic threats was welcome, there was little to suggest a willingness to resume dialogue or negotiations. Pyongyang even rejected repeated international offers of food, humanitarian assistance, and pandemic vaccines. The regime fears both the entry of the COVID virus and destabilizing foreign influence.
Pyongyang will maintain its draconian isolation measures despite their impact on the national economy and the well-being of the populace. Kim has been unable to deliver on his 2012 pledge that North Koreans would never have to “tighten their belts again,” nor has he offered new solutions to decades-old problems. Instead, he implores industries to boost production with nothing more than greater revolutionary zeal.
His 10 years in power have resulted in continued economic and food calamities, human rights violations, and political repression. The pervasive security services have maintained control, but the plenum statement may reflect growing challenges to regime stability.
The statement provided no indication that Pyongyang will decrease its military budget or redirect resources from the defense sector toward national economic development. During its isolation, North Korea will continue to develop, augment, and refine its nuclear and missile arsenals.
North Korea remains wedded to its disastrous socialist economic policies, brutal repression methods, increasing military capabilities, and defiance of UN resolutions requiring its denuclearization.
2022 will likely be quiet on the Korean Peninsula for the near term as the regime focuses on getting its economic house in order. But no one can foresee how long the relative calm will remain.
A former CIA deputy division chief for Korea, Bruce Klingner is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center. Klingner’s analysis and writing about North Korea, South Korea, and Japan, as well as related issues, are informed by his 20 years of service at the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Klingner, who joined Heritage in 2007, has testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
7. Moon Jae-In's Quest for a North Korea Legacy: Will He Succeed?
I would urge the political appointees in the Moon administration and both presidential candidates to read this essay. Professor Kelly'sessay provides important information necessary to understand sanctions.
Excerpts:
Moon Jae-in made détente with North Korea the focal point of his presidency, but he either rejected or willfully ignored that sanctions enforcement does not turn on South Korea’s own acceptance of the sanctions. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is not just a Korean issue. Much of the world is frightened by the North’s nuclear weapons. The sanctions UNSCRs were supported unanimously nine times from 2006 to 2017. The UNSC has fifteen members, which means that 135 member-states voted in favor of sanctions and zero against, across a wide variety of states around the world. That is about as close to global consensus as possible in our world of diverse cultures and polities.
Moon may be right that sanctions are not the appropriate path to deal with North Korea, but that does not invalidate them or give South Korea an opt-out. Until he wins over global public opinion to roll them back, South Korea is as bound to enforce them as all other states are. There is no ‘ethnic exemption’ for South Korea as a brother Korean state to the North, and Moon should not have promised a breakthrough he could not deliver.
2021’s scramble for a face-saving ‘end of war declaration’ is recognition, at long last, of this reality. Hopefully, Moon’s successor will read the sanctions resolutions more closely, accept South Korea’s legal obligation, and try to sway global opinion rather than undercut the sanctions regime.
Moon Jae-In's Quest for a North Korea Legacy: Will He Succeed?
2021 in Review: The Search for a Legacy of Détente in Korea – As 2021 fades from view, so too does the possibility of a legacy for the détente efforts of South Korean President Moon Jae-In. Moon sought all year to put together a last-ditch achievement after four years of unsuccessful outreach to North Korea. First, he tried to push the new US president, Joseph Biden, to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, or at least re-open dialogue. Biden demurred. Then Moon spent the year’s final months seeking an ‘end of war declaration’ to the end the ongoing Korean War (although because it is not a treaty, no one knows if this declaration would have been binding or not). Neither panned out and now with a South Korean presidential election in two months, Moon is scrambling to find a legacy to leave behind.
It was not supposed to be this way. Moon came into office promising to revolutionize inter-Korean relations. He was the most dovish, pro-engagement president in South Korean history. He grew to political awareness at a time of deep suspicion of America’s role in South Korea and sympathy for North Korea as an unfairly isolated, brother Korean state. Unlike his hawkish predecessors, Moon sought to reach out to North Korea, to bring it in from the cold, and he was willing to clash, somewhat, with the Americans to do this.
Donald Trump, Moon Jae-In’s Partner in Peace?
For a short time, Moon appeared to have a wingman in former US President Donald Trump. Trump threatened war against North Korea in 2017 over its spiraling nuclear missile program. Briefly, Trump derided Moon an “appeaser.” But Trump’s interest in Korea was always instrumental and thin. He came into office promising to end America’s ‘forever wars,’ and it was never clear if he genuinely wanted to attack North Korea. Trump’s real desire was positive media coverage as a statesman.
Moon and his foreign minister Kang Kyung Wha sensed this and cleverly played to Trumps’ ego, telling him he could win a Nobel Peace Prize if he met with Kim and struck a deal. Fickle Trump did a rapid u-turn. In 2018, he pledged to meet with Kim Jong Un and did so three times through 2019. No US president had ever met a North Korean leader, and no US president had so aggressively solicited a minor, tin-pot dictator like this. Trump then pushed Japanese leader Abe Shinzo to nominate him for a Nobel Prize.
This never materialized of course, and Trump struck no bargain. North Korea offered absurdly balance-negative terms – sanctions relief for the decommissioning of one aging North Korean nuclear reactor – to the US at the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi 2019. Trump, wisely, walked away. North Korea, curiously, missed a huge window of opportunity for a deal: the brief overlap of Moon the dove and Trump the desperate seeker of Nobel glory.
Moon Jae-In’s Undeliverable Promises
Trump’s interest in North Korea rapidly fell away. The North proved as prickly in negotiations as ever, and Trump had neither the interest nor focus to slog through a long process. By 2020, Moon’s détente, premised on the manipulation of Trump’s egotism, had failed. The incoming Biden administration signaled a return to stability and seriousness in US policy toward North Korea. Relief of sanctions on North Korea was re-tied to movement on North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction. This is actually US law, although Trump expressly downplayed it. The president is legally obliged by Congress not to change US support for North Korea sanctions at the United Nations until the North verifiably moves on denuclearization.
And here is where Moon’s effort ground to a halt, both in 2021 and throughout his presidency since 2017. He promised a breakthrough with North Korea without accepting the international constraints on his ability to deliver it. UN sanctions are international law. They flow from nine unanimous UN Security Council Resolutions on the North which dramatically restrict its commerce with the rest of the world. This binds South Korea too, which is a member of the UN. Moon has never admitted that South Korea is bound by the sanctions, and he has repeatedly suggested actions with North Korea, such as re-opening the Kaesong Industrial Zone or rail links to the North, which violate sanctions and are therefore illegal.
Moon Jae-in made détente with North Korea the focal point of his presidency, but he either rejected or willfully ignored that sanctions enforcement does not turn on South Korea’s own acceptance of the sanctions. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is not just a Korean issue. Much of the world is frightened by the North’s nuclear weapons. The sanctions UNSCRs were supported unanimously nine times from 2006 to 2017. The UNSC has fifteen members, which means that 135 member-states voted in favor of sanctions and zero against, across a wide variety of states around the world. That is about as close to global consensus as possible in our world of diverse cultures and polities.
Moon may be right that sanctions are not the appropriate path to deal with North Korea, but that does not invalidate them or give South Korea an opt-out. Until he wins over global public opinion to roll them back, South Korea is as bound to enforce them as all other states are. There is no ‘ethnic exemption’ for South Korea as a brother Korean state to the North, and Moon should not have promised a breakthrough he could not deliver.
2021’s scramble for a face-saving ‘end of war declaration’ is recognition, at long last, of this reality. Hopefully, Moon’s successor will read the sanctions resolutions more closely, accept South Korea’s legal obligation, and try to sway global opinion rather than undercut the sanctions regime.
Dr. Robert E. Kelly (@Robert_E_Kelly; website) is a professor of international relations in the Department of Political Science at Pusan National University. He is a 1945 Contributing Editor as well.
8. Seoul urges N. Korea to respond to calls for dialogue following projectile launch
Seoul urges N. Korea to respond to calls for dialogue following projectile launch | Yonhap News Agency
By Choi Soo-hyang
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's unification ministry on Wednesday urged North Korea to respond to calls for dialogue after the North launched what appears to be a ballistic missile toward the East Sea in its latest show of force.
The North fired the missile at around 8:10 a.m. from the northern province of Jagang where it claimed to have fired a hypersonic missile in September last year, according to the South Korean military.
The missile launch came hours before President Moon Jae-in attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a railway at an inter-Korean border town of Goseong. Relinking cross-border roads and railways was one of key agreements reached during a 2018 summit between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
"We will keep the situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula under stable control while continuing efforts to ... improve inter-Korean relations to an irrevocable level by resuming dialogue and cooperation," the ministry said in a press statement. "We urge North Korea to sincerely respond to our efforts to make peace and cooperation through dialogue."
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Moon also said the two Koreas should not give up on dialogue to fundamentally overcome concerns stemming from the North's missile launches such as the latest one.
Wednesday's firing came less than a week after North Korea wrapped up a key party meeting during which Pyongyang vowed to continue bolstering its military capabilities with "the international situation getting instable day after day."
The North has remained unresponsive to calls for dialogue after its 2019 Hanoi summit with the United States collapsed without a deal, demanding Washington first retract what it calls "double standards" and "hostile policy" against its regime.
scaaet@yna.co.kr
(END)
9. U.S. Senate voices opposition to end-of-war declaration
Beyond the folly of the end of war declaration the concern here is that his issue appears to be divided along party lines. Korean security issues have long benefited from bipartisan support. While I believe they still do for the most part, this could foreshadow future problems. And with all due respect to my Democrat friends, I fear some American congressmen are being influenced by organizations that do not understand or have naive and uninformed views of the nature, objectives, and strategy of the Kim family regime and who propose unrealistic actions that play into the regime's strategy and will not achieve the desired effects which we all share: security, stability, and peace on the Korean peninsula.
Thursday
January 6, 2022
U.S. Senate voices opposition to end-of-war declaration
U.S. Sen. James Risch speaks during a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations on Dec. 7, 2021. [AFP/YONHAP]
The U.S. Senate is publicly voicing its opposition to Seoul's proposal for a declaration to end the 1950-53 Korean War for the first time.
Sen. James Risch, a Republican of Idaho and a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, told the Voice of America (VOA) Tuesday that he is "concerned" about the Moon Jae-in administration's proposal of an end-of-war declaration.
He said, "It will not make South Korea safer, and is a gift not only to North Korea, but also to China."
The VOA report published Thursday noted that this is the first time that concerns over an end-of-war declaration have been voiced within the U.S. Senate through the most senior Republican of the committee that oversees foreign relations and national security.
Sen. Chris Smith, a Republican of New Jersey and also a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, likewise said he "strongly cautions" against joining the Moon administration's proposed end-of-war declaration, saying it "acquiesces to [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un's demands by effectively delinking human rights improvements and denuclearization."
He said that the United States and South Korea "must demand more accountability from North Korea, not less," reflecting Washington's move to link human rights issues with denuclearization negotiations.
This counters the Moon administration's attempts to separate human rights, an issue Pyongyang has reacted sensitively to, from denuclearization talks which have been at an impasse since 2019.
In terms of Washington's policy direction on Pyongyang, the two senators urged the Joe Biden administration to prioritize joint military drills with Seoul and improving human rights in North Korea.
Risch said that the Biden administration "should ensure regular and consistent exercises with South Korea and Japan to deter North Korea and maintain military readiness."
Smith in turn urged Biden to appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights, a position that remains vacant since January 2017, "to highlight the volatile and worsening human rights situation in the country."
The Biden administration also has yet to appoint a new U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
In early November, a group of 23 U.S. House lawmakers sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden urging him to "prioritize" engagement with North Korea and said that an "official end to the state of war between North Korea, South Korea, and the United States is not a concession to North Korea" but "a vital step towards peace."
It refers to Moon's call for a mutual declaration ending the state of war between the Koreas in the UN General Assembly September last year, noting that a peace treaty was never officially signed.
The letter was led by Democratic Rep. Brad Sherman of California, who introduced a bill in May that calls for diplomatic engagement with North Korea "in pursuit of a binding peace agreement constituting a formal end to the Korean War."
Seoul officials have cited the letter and the "Peace on the Korean Peninsula" bill as indicators of support from the United States for the end-of-war proposal.
However, both the letter and bill call for support of a "peace agreement," rather than a declaration.
The bill refers to the inter-Korean summit in Panmunjom on April 27, 2018, and calls on Congress to actively promote meetings "with a view to replacing the Armistice Agreement with a peace agreement and establishing a permanent and solid peace regime."
Experts differentiate between a symbolic end-of-war declaration, which can be revoked, and a binding peace agreement for a formal end to the war being raised by the United States.
There have been voices of skepticism within U.S. diplomatic circles and Congress on the legal consequences of an end-of-war declaration and questions on what it could mean regarding the stationing of U.S. troops in Korea.
Last December, a group of 33 Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Young Kim of California, sent a letter to the Biden administration opposing an end-of-war declaration, calling on North Korea to first "fulfill potential commitments to full denuclearization, cease illicit activity, and improve its human rights record."
The letter expressed "grave concern" that such a declaration "would seriously undermine and destabilize the security" on the Korean Peninsula.
South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong in turn said in a press conference late December that Seoul and Washington have "effectively reached an agreement on a draft text" on an end-of-war declaration.
However, the U.S. State Department has not separately confirmed the progress of such end-of-war consultations. Seoul's plans have been further complicated amid tense Sino-U.S. relations and a U.S. diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, as China is another key player.
When asked if Washington is resorting back to a strategic patience strategy toward Pyongyang, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press briefing on Dec. 28, "We have made clear through our public messaging, and private messaging as well, that we are ready, willing, and able to engage in this diplomacy," calling for the North to "respond positively to that outreach."
BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]
10. U.S. takes any new capability of N. Korea seriously: State Dept.
U.S. takes any new capability of N. Korea seriously: State Dept. | Yonhap News Agency
By Byun Duk-kun
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (Yonhap) -- The United States takes any new military capability of North Korea seriously, a State Department spokesperson said Wednesday.
The spokesperson also said the country is assessing the specific nature of the latest missile test by North Korea.
"We take any new capability seriously, and as we've said, we condemn the DPRK's continued testing of ballistic missiles, which are destabilizing to the region and to the international community," the department official told Yonhap News Agency when asked if the North's latest missile test warranted additional concern for the U.S. and its allies.
DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
North Korea on Thursday (Seoul time) reported it successfully test fired a newly developed hypersonic missile the previous day.
"We are aware of these reports, and we are assessing the specific nature of the recent launch event," the department spokesperson said.
Wednesday's missile launch marked the North's first missile test since October, and its second test launch of a claimed hypersonic missile since September.
"We are consulting closely with our allies as we assess the recent event and as we determine next steps," the department spokesperson said.
The North has stayed away from denuclearization talks with the U.S. since 2019. It is also ignoring calls for dialogue from the Joe Biden administration, which took office nearly a year earlier.
bdk@yna.co.kr
(END)
11. Lots of Manure Sent to Countryside in DPRK
Yes this is another sarcastic example of the regime being "full of s***." But this really indicates the level of suffering and the level of incompetence of the regime.
This should be the symbol of Juche - the so-called self reliance ideology.
Lots of Manure Sent to Countryside in DPRK
Nationwide support to the agricultural sector gains momentum from the very beginning of the new year in the DPRK.
A large amount of manure was transported to farms on Jan. 4.
Pyongyang City sent more than 20 000 tons of manure to farms and North Phyongan Province tens of thousands of tons of manure to farms.
North Hwanghae and Kangwon provinces have produced much more manure than the last year's and organized intensive transport.
Officials and workers of different units in Ryanggang Province, too, carried lots of compost to the potato fields.
Agricultural workers, inspired by the nationwide support, are all out in making preparations for the immediate farming.
Rodong Sinmun
12. Gov't to launch new team to support vulnerable N. Korean defectors
Too little too late? Closing the barn door after the horses have escaped?
Escapees need to be treated as the valuable assets they are for the future of Korea.
Gov't to launch new team to support vulnerable N. Korean defectors | Yonhap News Agency
By Choi Soo-hyang
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- The South Korean government is preparing to launch a new team to step up support for North Korean defectors suffering from economic and psychological difficulties after resettlement here, officials said Thursday.
The team -- which will comprise of officials from different government agencies, including the unification ministry and the police -- is expected to be set up by next month to provide defectors with tailored support in fields ranging from education and employment to living and psychological counseling.
According to a biannual survey conducted by the unification ministry last year, 1,582 defectors were found to be in need of help in addition to the general welfare package provided to all defectors upon their resettlement here.
Of the total, nearly half of them, or 47 percent, said they had psychological difficulties.
"The types of challenges facing North Korean defectors are diversifying," a ministry official said.
Among some 33,800 North Korean defectors living in South Korea, wage workers were estimated to be earning an average 2.28 million won (US$1,900) a month last year.
The living conditions of North Korean defectors came to the spotlight after a defector who fled the North last year allegedly crossed the heavily-fortified inter-Korean border again last week to return home.
The man, reportedly in his 30s, is known to have suffered economic difficulties while living in the South.
"We will continue efforts to identify difficulties experienced by individual defectors in advance and swiftly provide necessary support to minimize any blind spot in the welfare system," the ministry said in a press release.
scaaet@yna.co.kr
(END)
13. ‘Not a surprise’: US military COVID-19 cases set pandemic record in South Korea
‘Not a surprise’: US military COVID-19 cases set pandemic record in South Korea
Will Henjum, 7, is the first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Humphreys, South Korea, Nov. 17, 2021. (Inkyeong Yun/U.S. Army)
Stars and Stripes is making stories on the coronavirus pandemic available free of charge. See more stories here. Sign up for our daily coronavirus newsletter here. Please support our journalism with a subscription.
CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — U.S. Forces Korea reported 682 new cases of COVID-19 for the week ending Monday, a new peak in the coronavirus pandemic for the command responsible for more than 28,500 U.S. troops.
One individual tested positive after arriving in South Korea, but the remaining 681 cases are community generated, according to a weekly update from USFK on Wednesday night.
USFK reached its previous peak, 467 new coronavirus infections, between Dec. 21 and 27. Of those, 457 were locally generated and 10 were recent arrivals.
The surge of new cases since mid-December at Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. base overseas, is more “than what we’re traditionally used to,” garrison commander Army Col. Seth Graves said in a Facebook video Tuesday before the latest case numbers were released.
“We’re really close to flattening the curve here, so we’re going to need everyone’s help to do that,” he said.
Graves said he implemented “heightened measures” at Humphreys and that most of the newly infected people exhibit mild symptoms or none at all.
Roughly eight miles from Humphreys, Osan Air Base is experiencing “a new wave of COVID,” base commander Col. Joshua Wood of the 51st Fighter Wing said in a Facebook video Wednesday.
“This wave that we’re having is similar in scope to what the United States is currently experiencing right now,” he said. “This is expected and not a surprise to any of our medical experts.”
Most people with COVID-19 at Osan are experiencing mild symptoms and no service members are hospitalized with the disease, Wood said.
South Korea on Wednesday reported 4,126 new COVID-19 cases, an uptick still short of the one-day record of 7,849 on Dec. 15, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
As of Thursday, 86.3% of the country’s 51.8 million people had received the first dose of a vaccine and 83.3% are fully vaccinated, according to the KDCA. Over 19.6 million people in South Korea have received a booster shot, an increase of over 3 million people from the previous week.
Social distancing restrictions remain in place until Jan. 16, including a limit of four people in private gatherings, regardless of vaccination status, and early closures of restaurants, movie theaters and bars.
Despite the surge in cases, USFK has not changed its social distancing restrictions or implemented travel bans on the peninsula. The command instead leaves to individual units the option to impose additional restrictions based on the scope of their duties.
The command’s priority is “the protection of the force” and it maintains “an aggressive approach against COVID-19,” USFK spokesman Army Col. Lee Peters said in an email Thursday to Stars and Stripes.
USFK requires service members, civilian employees and their families to wear face masks at all indoor settings on military bases within districts with 50 or more confirmed COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people over seven days. As of Thursday, those bases include Humphreys, Osan and all U.S. military installations north of Command Post Tango in Seongnam.
On Wednesday, the Defense Department reported 422,450 positive cases from service members, contractors, dependents and civilians since the start of the pandemic.
David Choi
14. [INTERVIEW] US humanitarian worker in Seoul helps rescue N. Koreans from human trafficking
Anyone who follows Korea should read this interview about Tim Peters. He is a great humanitarian and great American. I learn so much from him whenever I get to hear him speak. He and his wife, Sun-mi and their work should inspire us all.
[INTERVIEW] US humanitarian worker in Seoul helps rescue N. Koreans from human trafficking
Tim Peters, founder of Helping Hands Korea, poses in the alleyway near Samgakji Station in Seoul, Jan. 4. The activist belongs to a massive network of activists and missionaries that aims to help North Korean refugees in China escape to freedom. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
Teaming up with operatives in China, Tim Peters has saved over 1,000 North Korean lives
By Park Han-sol
Tucked away in a narrow alleyway near Samgakji Station in Seoul, DL Gallery is a curious storefront.
Upon entering it, visitors are greeted with delicate art pieces adorning the walls, from traditional Korean embroidery to pointillist paintings. In one corner of the room are stacked heaps of plastic bags, each of which is full of vegetable seeds of cabbage, spinach, radish, turnip, pumpkin and carrot.
As they strive to grasp the connection between the art and seeds, visitors turn around, only to face the intricate maps of China and North Korea hung side by side. They wonder what is going on there.
For more than a decade, DL Gallery, with its humble and modest look, has been the unofficial headquarters for Helping Hands Korea (HHK) ― a Christian NGO founded by American humanitarian worker Tim Peters in 1996 to help North Koreans who fled their country for food and freedom. The group helped well over 1,000 North Koreans safely reach third countries after they risked their lives crossing the China-North Korea border.
Peters calls it a "war room" ― a covert, symbolic place where complex strategies are conceived for escapees' rescue operations from the Sino-North Korean border to neighboring Southeast Asian nations.
The American activist is part of a massive network of clandestine operatives ― consisting of missionaries, aid workers, ethnic Korean-Chinese and brokers ― that guide the refugees throughout the treacherous journey to life in another country.
Based in Seoul, he remains behind the scenes during these secret missions. As a remote coordinator, he first shortlists the small number of refugees who will be joining the upcoming rescue operations. Based on their degree of vulnerability, the majority of them are women with children, people with disabilities and those, for the most part, don't have connections or relatives in South Korea.
Once the mission begins and field operatives are on the move, Peters maintains close real-time communications with them to track their progress and provide any urgent logistical and financial support that is needed throughout the journey.
"We're moving and moving, this is like a military operation," Peters recently told The Korea Times at the gallery, in between sips of hot tea.
Peters points to a map of China to explain the general escape routes of HHK's rescue operations at the DL Gallery in Seoul. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
From the Chinese-North Korean border region, the escapees, led by seasoned field operatives, travel clandestinely across mainland China to southern Yunnan province. Then, hours of hiking difficult mountainous terrain to cross the border between China and Laos awaits. It is generally considered safe for the refugees after they manage to cross the Mekong River into Thailand. After getting processed, they can finally be flown to Korea, this time, on its southern side.
While each operation typically takes less than a month to complete, its carefully strategized routes require constant updates and revisions, as unforeseeable situations regarding border security can arise at any time.
When he was younger, the now 71-year-old activist at times went out to the field himself to meet the North Koreans and help them operate safe houses in China. He took part in missions within Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
"But helping them travel, I mean, somebody who looks like I do ― a Westerner, a Caucasian ― is usually not a help," he said. There were some close calls, such as the time he was questioned by the Chinese police, but he managed to avoid detention.
"I'm very fortunate in that way, compared to a lot of my colleagues," he recalled. The less fortunate missionaries and aid workers are sometimes detained and arrested by the police, banned from entry into China, and even allegedly killed by suspected North Korean agents. In the case of Kim Chang-hwan, who was killed by poison in 2011, and Han Choong-ryul, who was found with fatal stab wounds in 2016, both were pastors who assisted defectors in China.
Emphasizing that in most operations, there are "several layers of the onion" between himself and the North Korean escapees, he attributed their successes to the hard work of field agents, who are often risking their lives.
"So much credit goes to the individuals that we work with. I'm really grateful for them, their courage, their bravery and their skill. And some of the tactics involved, it's quite amazing," he said, stopping short of sharing too many details due to the sensitive nature of the work.
He refers to this complex network of passages and safe houses as an East Asian version of the "Underground Railroad" ― clandestine routes established in the United States during the Civil War era, where Black slaves in the South were assisted to safety in the free northern states and Canada.
He sees a fitting comparison between that historical endeavor and HHK's own operation, in terms of the covert systematic organization and spirit in search for human freedom.
Peters, far right, visits a North Korean refugee family hiding in Yanbian Prefecture of Jilin province in late December 2006. Courtesy of Tim PetersTim and Sun-mi Peters, back, meet with children, most of whom lost their North Korean mothers due to forced repatriation from China. In 2012, Helping Hands Korea launched an informal foster home for dozens of such children near the provincial border between Jilin and Liaoning provinces. Courtesy of Tim Peters
New chapter
Peters is a veteran humanitarian worker.
It was 1975 when a young Peters first set foot on South Korean soil. At the age of 25, he had already traveled far outside of his hometown in Michigan to Argentina and Venezuela as a novice evangelical Christian missionary. But little did he know then that a new chapter of his life would begin in Korea.
"There's absolutely no question that my original interest in coming to Korea was related to my faith and wanting to share it," he said.
Although his initial stay in the country lasted only months, it was long enough for him to fall in love with Sun-mi, a devout Christian.
Before long, the newlyweds began dedicating their lives as traveling missionaries. The two lived and volunteered across a few island territories, including American Samoa, where they spent over three years helping Korean tuna fishermen who were seen as intruders by the locals and were the target of harsh treatment and stigma.
They returned to Seoul 13 years later in 1988, then again in 1996. But by then, a drastic transformation had begun to take place in the focus and the modus operandi of the couple's religious mission. They were now bracing themselves to tackle a very different animal from before ― North Korea.
"Much up until this point, my time in Korea was more related to traditional mission work and emphasizing Bible studies and things like that," the activist said. But the news reports that started coming out into the open in the mid-'90s about the North's unprecedented food shortages were what turned his eyes across the border.
Also bitterly referred to as the "Arduous March," the great famine of North Korea was the complex result of the visible decline in agricultural production, economic mismanagement under the new rule of Kim Jong-il and the demise of the regime's patron state, the Soviet Union. From 1994 to 1998, as many as 3 million people are believed to have perished.
Mass starvation would have been "the absolute opposite of the growing prosperity of South Korea," where Peters was based. If he were going to continue his Christian aid work, it was time to turn toward the most vulnerable. "I thought maybe a new door was opening for us."
In 1996, Tim and Sun-mi Peters co-founded HHK to explore the uncharted paths of helping North Koreans in crisis, even if that meant traversing legal gray areas and running the risk of detention or arrest.
What they called the "Ton-a-Month Club" was the very start of its operation. They organized regular fundraisers to purchase dire necessities, such as flour and corn for the famine victims, and set up their own delivery system to insert aid directly into North Korea.
Over the years, HHK explored new iterations of the food aid project by widening the range of items delivered to include medicine, multivitamins, makeshift "nurungji" (scorched rice) that can easily be turned into rice porridge when boiled with minimum heating, and most recently, hundreds of repackaged bags of vegetable seeds as one can see in DL Gallery today.
Bags of Korean cabbage seeds are repackaged and stored in one corner of the Seoul gallery. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chulIn fact, every Tuesday evening, the gallery turns into a meeting place of volunteers from all walks of life who gather to package seeds for their discreet transport into the North for the malnourished.
But regardless of the types of items, the goal was to bypass North Korean authorities and deliver the seeds directly to the North's most impoverished. "I knew that food distribution in North Korea would be along the lines of loyalty" to the state, Peters said, referring to the "songbun" caste system, according to which North Korea's society is structured.
Among the three main classifications, the "hostile class" that received the least amount of state support tended to reside in the northern outskirts: North Hamgyong, Ryanggang and Jagang provinces.
"North Hamgyong, for example, is called the 'Siberia of North Korea,' not only because it's so bitterly cold, but because, like the former Soviet Union, that's where political miscreants, people who voice their criticism of the government and Christians would be banished."
The uneven food distribution meant that Peters had to search actively for "unofficial, alternative" delivery routes to smuggle goods in. He and Sun-mi had to travel to the Sino-North Korean border region.
During their trips to Yanbian prefecture in Jilin and Liaoning province, they began to forge partnerships with members of the ethnic Korean-Chinese community, many of whom have relatives in North Korea and subsequently would be able to establish contacts with them, to serve as smugglers across the porous border.
But as their trips continued, it soon became evident that smuggling food alone wasn't enough to fully address the needs of the famine victims.
A map of North Korea at the gallery indicates some of the key locations for HHK, including general delivery destinations of necessities for North Korean residents. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
North Koreans typically cross the narrow Tumen River to escape from their home country. Seen is an image of the river taken near the bridge between the Chinese town of Tumen and the North Korean town of Namyang.?Courtesy of Tim Peters"In the process of finding new and innovative ways to send the food in, we began to realize there's a whole other layer to this ― and that's people coming out," he said. The late 1990s was when the aid workers and missionaries began witnessing more and more people crossing the Tumen and Yalu rivers along the border out of desperation.
One group was "kkotjebi," or vagrant street children, often orphans. The nickname, which translates to "flower swallows," was given to these stunted children who would go from garbage can to garbage can to scavenge for food behind restaurants, the way swallows travel between flowers.
Another tragic case involved women, the majority of whom fell victim to human or sex trafficking. As undocumented foreigners without recourse, they were unable to report their situations to the police. This made them an easy target for traffickers to sell off as prostitutes or mail-order brides to older Chinese (or ethnic Korean-Chinese) peasants, typically in the border regions that suffer from severe gender imbalance and inequality.
Their lives were often far from being happily-ever-after tales. Cases of physical abuse were frequent. Their husbands can "just be completely unreliable or a gambler, that's a common thing," he said. "Some would have maybe promised that they would give the woman money to send back to her family, but then often, that wouldn't happen."
Against this backdrop of the destruction of family units and human rights violations, HHK's participation in "Underground Railroad" operations began to take shape.
Through these missions, the NGO continues to help hundreds of refugees journey to freedom to this day.
Pandemic-led discovery in NGO's operations
With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic hitting the two-year mark, HHK has certainly been no exception in terms of the need to adapt its operations to the new reality ― perhaps even more so than other human rights agencies, as its underground network of safe houses and agents naturally hinges on even the slightest changes in border security in North Korea and China.
Smuggling vegetable seeds into the North is one project that has been inevitably hit hard by the spread of the virus. The reclusive regime was one of the first countries to seal its borders at the start of the pandemic, and it remains on high alert over the recent wave of the Omicron variant.
"We are getting some through when we can, but because North Korea has kept its border closed for virtually two years, it's been a real challenge," he said.
Seen is a portrait of one North Korean child with disabilities, who was able to escape China with his mother through the help of HHK. Peters called the painting, made by his colleague Sean Kang, co-founder of North Korea Human Rights Watch, "Free at last!" Courtesy of Sean Kang and Tim PetersBut at the same time, much to Peters' surprise, the pandemic was precisely what brought certain key discoveries to light which the organization had not come across before.
One was the rising number of people with disabilities who previously managed to escape their home country on their own ― where medical and social protection mechanisms are still lacking and strong stigma remains in place, according to Catalina Devandas Aguilar, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities ― and amidst the COVID-19 crisis, were now crying out for help in China's border region.
When Chinese public health officials began to randomly check restaurants, factories and farms nationwide, the activist stated, they began to expose the illegal status of these disabled North Koreans who had gone into hiding in such places to survive.
Even if the officials were making visits to simply check their temperatures, refugees, many of whose Chinese language proficiency is limited, "were dreading any questions... terrified that they would be reported and detained."
In addition to these random governmental field inspections, North Korean escapees were further left vulnerable as a number of aid workers and humanitarian organizations in the region providing protection or resources began to withdraw en masse for safety reasons.
"That meant that distress calls started coming faster, at least to us," Peters said. "It was really desperate. And so long as our partners in China were willing to keep going, we decided to respond to this accelerated number of calls."
As a result, HHK became aware of a series of previously undetected profiles of North Korean escapees in the border regions: polio victims, people who became physically disabled after industrial or mining accidents, children with autism or Down's syndrome and grandparents accompanied by their young grandchildren.
The case of grandmother Lee, whose full name cannot be disclosed, and her grandson, was one of them.
Following her daughter-in-law's death in 2014 and her son's subsequent disappearance after his defection to China, the task of raising the young boy suddenly fell on Lee's shoulders ― a financial burden that inevitably proved to be too much for an impoverished senior citizen in North Korea like her. The two decided to cross the border to China in 2019, and Lee soon found a job at a charcoal factory.
However, when the pandemic struck China, the factory management required all employees to bring proof of a negative test result.
"I couldn't get the test as a North Korean defector for the simple reason that I have no official identification papers and I would be revealed as an illegal foreigner," she wrote in her plea for help, which reached the hands of the operatives through the help of a Korean missionary there. "My grandson and I are hiding. I want to take my grandson to Korea."
Fortunately, just weeks after their call for help, the two became one of the latest escapees whom Peters' organization was able to safely assist out of China.
"I'll say that what happened [in 2020] was nothing short of miraculous. We had more evacuations of refugees [that] year than any other single year," Peters said.
Posts describing the reality of the stateless, orphaned children whose North Koreans mothers have been forcibly repatriated from China are hung at the gallery next to the traditional embroidery gifted by one North Korean refugee who escaped to safety through the help of HHK. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chulBut of course, this recent upsurge in the number of particularly vulnerable individuals who would rather undertake the perilous journey to freedom than to eke out a living in their home country is also a stark indicator of how serious things are getting in the apparently already-starving nation.
"It's surprising to see that even people in their 60s and sometimes 70s have felt such desperation that they figured that they're going to take the risk to go to China," the activist stated. It could be a sign of yet another simmering socioeconomic shift in North Korean society that is beginning to materialize in the country's long-neglected northeastern provinces.
Against this backdrop, in Peters' eyes, there still remains so much to be done ― both a statement and a plea he has made time and time again.
"I've found plenty to keep me busy for 25 years. This is something that more people need to be doing," he said.
"One function I'm playing just as a small NGO is that I'm bringing the escapees here and putting them on the doorsteps of the local church or local civil society… so that they can see, here's a flesh-and-blood individual and oh my gosh, look at what they've been through."
15. Balancing act between China-US not in Korea’s interest: Victor Cha
Blunt statement from Dr. Cha.
[Herald Interview] Balancing act between China-US not in Korea’s interest: Victor Cha
‘S. Korea can join democracy coalitions or deal with China on its own’
Published : Jan 5, 2022 - 14:20 Updated : Jan 6, 2022 - 00:18
Victor Cha, a senior vice president at Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
South Korea should join the democratic coalitions designed to keep China in check, instead of hedging between the US and China, which could result in Seoul having to deal with Beijing alone, says Victor Cha, a former top adviser on North Korea in the George W. Bush administration.
“Hedging is not a long-term strategy for South Korea between the US and China. It does not help relations with either party and growing US-China competition will make it harder to hedge,” Cha said, when asked how sustainable South Korea’s diplomatic stance of strategic ambiguity is between the US and China, in an email interview with The Korea Herald. He is a senior vice president at Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“The US is building coalitions with like-minded democracies not to contain China but to prevent Chinese over-assertiveness as we have seen in the case of THAAD,” he said, referring to the US missile defense system deployed here. “South Korea can join these coalitions, or it can deal with China on its own. The latter is not in Korea’s strategic interests.”
Korea, in a broader sense, has been walking a tightrope between the two countries with the view of security with the US and economy with China. There are concerns that the burden on the Korean government may increase as the economy and security are increasingly difficult to separate.
Cha believes the South should make more efforts to restore the strained relationship with Japan to deal with challenges posed by China and North Korea.
“The most urgent issue (facing South Korea diplomatically) is North Korea’s growing nuclear threats. The most difficult longer-term strategic problem is the relationship with China. The most unnecessary problem has been the spiraling downward of relations with Japan,” he said. “Given the threats from China and North Korea, the relationship with Japan is important to improve.”
The relationship between Korea and Japan has been rocky for many years due to various issues, including Seoul’s demand for an apology for wartime sex slavery and forced labor issues and Japan’s push to release radioactive water into the ocean.
Regarding Moon Jae-in’s continued appeal for an end-of-war declaration to the 1950-53 Korean War, Cha understands the importance of convincing North Korea that the US and South Korea have no hostile intentions.
“But the US has provided more declarations of non-aggression, no first nuclear use, no-intention to attack, to North Korea than any other country in history. It’s actually quite extraordinary,” he said. “Adding another one cannot hurt, but I don’t think it will help either.”
Despite Moon’s continued efforts, the relationship of the two Koreas has soured since the no-deal Hanoi summit in 2019 between the US and the North. Agreements struck during the summits have never really come to fruition. North Korea blew up a joint liaison office with the South near the North’s border town of Kaesong. On Wednesday, the North fired a suspected ballistic missile into its eastern waters in violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.
As for Seoul’s recent decision of not following Washington in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, Cha believes it will not negatively affect US-South Korea relations.
“I think Biden will not hold it against South Korea if Seoul does not boycott. It’s a decision that the US felt it needed to make, but others are not mandated to join it.”
The Korean Peninsula expert sees Moon’s most important diplomatic accomplishment as broadening the scope of the US-South Korea alliance to encompass issues like emerging technology, green growth and global health. “This engages new and relevant constituencies in the alliance’s future.”
16. N. Korean man redefected unnoticed although military cameras spotted him 5 times
[Newsmaker] N. Korean man redefected unnoticed although military cameras spotted him 5 times
Published : Jan 5, 2022 - 16:21 Updated : Jan 5, 2022 - 17:30
Jeon Dong-jin, director of operations at the JCS, speaks during a brief held on Wednesday. (Yonhap)
South Korea’s military said Wednesday that it failed to stop a North Korean defector even though he was caught on surveillance cameras five times.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff on Wednesday disclosed the results of its on-site investigation into how the 30-something North Korean man returned to the North Saturday night.
The military currently believes that the defector is the same person who defected to the South in November 2020.
The military first spotted him approaching the border region at 12:51 p.m. The military sent a warning message after spotting him through a surveillance camera near the Civilian Control Line. The military, however, took no further action.
At 6:36 p.m. Saturday, the man crossed the barbed-wire fence into the Demilitarized Zone. An alarm was sounded, and the military dispatched six units to the site to check the fence. The units, however, failed to notice any traces of an attempt to cross the fence.
The military also failed to spot him entering the DMZ, although he was caught on three surveillance cameras at the general outpost five times.
The JCS claimed that the military failed to notice the defector in the first place as the camera footage was blurry, and the place where the man crossed the fence was behind a guard post, which made difficult to spot him.
The JCS also said that the time log of the recordings stored in the server was different from the time the event actually took place. In other words, after the alarm sounded, the military was reviewing the security footage at the wrong time, and thus had missed him.
The military’s operation to capture him finally started around three hours later, at 9:17 p.m., when the military’s thermal observation device detected the man in the DMZ.
The military, however, was mistaken once more for assuming the man was trying to defect to the South. The military initially thought of him as a North Korean seeking to defect to the South, the JCS said.
It was by 10:49 p.m. when the military confirmed that the man was north of the inter-Korean border.
The JCS apologized for its major security failure.
“Our military takes this situation seriously,” said Jeon Dong-jin, director of operations at the JCS. Jeon added that the military will take steps to improve mission capabilities and surveillance systems.
South Korea’s military has faced mounting distrust due to the latest border crossing incident, which came after the military’s recent commitment to prevent a recurrence of security lapses in recent years.
In February last year, a North Korean man swam ashore into the South undeterred. In November 2020, a North Korean civilian, whom the military presumes to be the same person who defected to the North on Saturday, crossed the inter-Korean border undeterred.
17. To Reach South Korea, He Risked His Life. To Leave It, He Did It Again.
There is likely still more to the story.
Excerpts:
Nearly a quarter of North Korean defectors — six times the national average — are receiving government subsidies for basic necessities because they are in the lowest income bracket. Those among them who earn wages make 70 percent of the national average, according to a survey of 407 defectors conducted last year by the Seoul-based Data Center for North Korean Human Rights.
Thirty-five percent of those defectors reported experiencing depression and despair, and 18.5 percent said they had thought of returning to the North, mainly because they missed their families and hometowns, according to the survey.
One reason many unhappy defectors endure life in the South is that they can save money and send it to their families in the North through middlemen in China, who usually charge a 30 percent fee. But temporary jobs like the ones held by many defectors were among the first to be cut by employers as the pandemic raged.
To Reach South Korea, He Risked His Life. To Leave It, He Did It Again.
Officials say a North Korean who crossed the DMZ in 2020 crossed it again to go back. His life in the South seems to have been one of poverty and isolation.
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South Korean soldiers at the Demilitarized Zone, the heavily fortified buffer zone along the border with North Korea. Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press
By
Jan. 6, 2022, 3:18 a.m. ET
SEOUL — In November 2020, a North Korean ex-gymnast climbed undetected over 10-foot barbed-wire fences to get into South Korea. When the South belatedly discovered the breach, it began an extensive manhunt. The man was not found until the next day, half a mile south of the world’s most heavily armed border.
It was one of the South Korean military’s most embarrassing moments in years.
On New Year’s Day, officials say, the man humiliated the military again by making the trip in reverse, climbing the same fences and crossing the Demilitarized Zone to return to the North.
His extraordinary feat not only highlighted South Korean security flaws at the 2.5-mile-wide buffer zone, known as the DMZ, but raised the bewildering question of why someone would risk his life by crossing it twice. The DMZ is lined with barbed-wire fences, minefields and armed sentries. Few North Koreans who defect to the South do so by crossing it directly (most go through China), and it is even rarer for a defector to return that way.
“We are sorry for causing concerns to the people,” Gen. Won In-choul, the chairman of South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, told lawmakers on Wednesday. “We will make every effort so there is no recurrence of similar incidents.”
The chairman of South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Won In-choul, apologized on Wednesday for the security failures that allowed a man to cross the border into North Korea.Credit...Yonhap/EPA, via Shutterstock
At the same hearing, Defense Minister Suh Wook confirmed that South Korea believed the border-crosser was the former gymnast who defected in 2020. The government has not released his name, but other North Korean defectors have identified him as Kim Woo-joo, 29.
They said he had few friends, and his motive for going home was still a mystery on Thursday. Some lawmakers have speculated that he was a spy, but President Moon Jae-in’s government said it had found no evidence of that.
A series of lapses let him slip through the DMZ, said Lt. Gen. Jeon Dong-jin, who led the army’s investigation into the security breach.
He was first picked up by a military security camera about 1 p.m. on Saturday, as he was walking toward an area just south of the DMZ, in the eastern province of Gangwon, that is off-limits to civilians. A warning was broadcast over loudspeakers, but the military took no further action after the man seemed to change course and head for a nearby village.
Six hours later, he was climbing the first tall fence on the southern edge of the DMZ. Three cameras captured the scene, but a soldier on duty, who was monitoring real-time feeds from nine cameras on a single computer screen, missed it. Sensors on the fence triggered an alarm, but a first-response team ruled that nothing was amiss.
Hours later, in the dead of night, the military’s thermal observation devices detected the man deep inside the DMZ, on his way to North Korea.
A soldier locking an entrance to a guard post in Paju, South Korea, near the border. Credit...Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
Still others are thought to have gone back because, after growing up in North Korea’s highly regimented, totalitarian society, they could not adjust to the hypercompetitive life of the South, where defectors are often treated like second-class citizens. What little is known about Mr. Kim’s life in the South suggests that he may fall into that category.
Fellow defectors say that Mr. Kim, like most North Koreans who come to the South, adopted a new name: Kim Woo-jeong. He appears to have had a hard life in both Koreas, according to officials and lawmakers who received briefings from military and intelligence officials.
Like all defectors, Mr. Kim was debriefed by the South Korean government upon arrival. He said he had fled the North to escape an abusive stepfather. At the time, Mr. Kim weighed barely more than 110 pounds; he stood just taller than 4-foot-11.
Crossing the North’s border with China — the usual route for refugees — had become nearly impossible because of the coronavirus pandemic. To keep the virus out, North Korea had greatly tightened its controls at that border, reportedly placing its guards under “shoot to kill” orders. Instead, Mr. Kim crossed the DMZ, where, South Korean officials, said his gymnastic skills helped him climb the tall fences.
In South Korea, his life seems to have been a difficult one.
He made few friends, officials said. He found work at cleaning services whose employees worked mostly at night in empty office buildings. He apparently never socialized with his neighbors. Since Sunday, when reports first emerged of his return to the North, no one in the South has come forward to say that they knew him personally.
Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean who lives in Seoul, said that a defector’s early experiences could be crucial. “It’s important what first jobs they find in the South and how they are treated here,” she said. “That’s where they learn whether their dream is supported by reality.”
Their first friends are usually fellow North Koreans, whom they meet during the government’s 12-week resettlement training program. Before the pandemic, when as many as 3,000 defectors were arriving every year, those classrooms were full. But with the North’s Chinese border locked down, only 229 North Koreans came to the South in 2020, the year Mr. Kim defected.
Lt. Gen. Jeon Dong-jin led the South Korean Army’s investigation into the border crossing. Credit...Ryu Young-Seok/Yonhap, via Associated Press
“He had few classmates and few friends,” said Ahn Chan-il, the leader of a defectors’ group in Seoul. South Korean churches, where many defectors have found communities, have been under restrictions during the pandemic.
Nearly a quarter of North Korean defectors — six times the national average — are receiving government subsidies for basic necessities because they are in the lowest income bracket. Those among them who earn wages make 70 percent of the national average, according to a survey of 407 defectors conducted last year by the Seoul-based Data Center for North Korean Human Rights.
Thirty-five percent of those defectors reported experiencing depression and despair, and 18.5 percent said they had thought of returning to the North, mainly because they missed their families and hometowns, according to the survey.
One reason many unhappy defectors endure life in the South is that they can save money and send it to their families in the North through middlemen in China, who usually charge a 30 percent fee. But temporary jobs like the ones held by many defectors were among the first to be cut by employers as the pandemic raged.
Living alone in a tiny, $117-a-month apartment in northern Seoul, Mr. Kim received $418 a month in welfare support from the government. He rarely cooked and skimped on gas, water and electricity, and he had unpaid bills for rent and medical insurance, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap.
“We help the North Korean refugees resettle when they first arrive, but we have been miserly in helping them find jobs and make their life here sustainable,” Park Soo-hyun, Mr. Moon’s senior secretary for public communications, said this week.
For some defectors, the transition to the South is like that experienced by a prisoner, released after many years, who cannot readjust to the outside world, said Lee Min-bok, a longtime North Korean refugee.
A North Korean guard post, in the background, within sight of a South Korean one. Credit...Ahn Young-Joon/Associated Press
“They are strangers to the sudden freedom in the South, finding it more difficult than life in North Korea, which is essentially a prison,” Mr. Lee said. “The ostracism they feel in the South is not much different from the discrimination ex-prisoners suffer on the outside.”
The culture shock is especially hard for the few who cross the DMZ. Many defectors spend years living in China, which is far more open to the world than North Korea is. By the time they come to the South, they have some idea of what to expect.
As of Thursday, North Korea had said nothing about Mr. Kim’s return. It has often used returning defectors for propaganda, releasing videos and articles in which they describe a hellish life in the capitalist South.
Mr. Kim left few traces behind. At the fence where he crossed, investigators found thin footprints and bits of feather, which apparently fell from his winter coat when it was torn by barbed wire. Reporters who went to his home found it empty, with a neatly folded blanket put outside for the garbage collector to pick up.
18. South Korea Has Quietly Taken Sides in the U.S.-China Rivalry
Key point:
There is now a belief among many South Korean policymakers that Seoul should exercise its economic muscle and be less afraid of economic retaliation from China.
South Korea Has Quietly Taken Sides in the U.S.-China Rivalry
South Korea’s era of “strategic ambiguity” when it comes to taking sides in the great power rivalry between its historical ally and its rising neighbor is well and truly over. The Moon Jae-in government has moved away from seeking a middle ground between the U.S. and China. Quietly but surely, Seoul has decided to side with Washington in its competition with Beijing.
Seoul is not yet willing to openly chastise Beijing in the same way that Washington or some of its other allies are doing. And there is no talk in South Korea about decoupling from China. After all, China is South Korea’s largest trading partner, its millennia-old neighbor and an important actor in dealing with North Korea.
But the shift toward quietly pushing back against Beijing alongside the U.S. and other like-minded partners is clear. And it is here to stay regardless of who wins the 2022 presidential election in Seoul.
There are four main reasons behind this shift.
Simply put, South Korea has its own grievances against China. They may not make headlines beyond the Korean Peninsula. But they are a threat that Seoul contends with on a daily basis.
In addition, the coronavirus pandemic served as a wake-up call for Seoul about the threat posed by the Chinese government’s lack of transparency. At the outset of the pandemic, it was Taiwan, and not China, that shared information with South Korea about the coronavirus’ dangers. Moreover, as a result of Beijing’s opacity and pressure, the South Korean government kept the country’s borders open with China until it was too late to stop the spread of the pandemic. China did not reciprocate, closing its borders with South Korea as soon as the pandemic had hit the latter, a move that went down poorly in Seoul.
Similarly to other advanced countries, preexisting negative views of China among South Koreans have become even worse as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. There is a longstanding debate regarding whether the views of the general public influence governments’ foreign policy decisions. At the very least, however, it would be difficult for a government in a democratic country to openly disregard these views. This is the case in South Korea, where the government simply can’t ignore the fact that almost 80 percent of the population has a negative view of China.
There is now a belief among many South Korean policymakers that Seoul should exercise its economic muscle and be less afraid of economic retaliation from China.
Furthermore, the Moon government has welcomed Biden’s approach toward China, particularly compared to that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who Seoul considered to be unnecessarily confrontational. South Korea much prefers Biden’s strategy to build a coalition among like-minded partners to push back against Beijing’s unfair trade practices, military and economic coercion, and human rights abuses. Moreover, the Biden administration’s focus on the procurement and delivery of semiconductors, vaccines and other high-tech products plays to South Korea’s strengths. Seoul also welcomes the message coming out Washington that it does not need its partners to “choose” between the U.S. and China.
Finally, South Korea is becoming more confident. The Moon government is pursuing an autonomous foreign policy, and there is now a belief among many South Korean policymakers that their country should exercise its economic muscle and be less afraid of economic retaliation from China. After all, Seoul is a world leader in semiconductors, electric batteries, 5G and 6G telecommunications infrastructure, and vaccine manufacturing, on which other countries depend for these products. But autonomy does not preclude cooperation with like-minded partners—above all the United States.
In other words, the old adage that South Korea is a “shrimp among whales” is outdated. The U.S. and China, the two whales confronting each other, are not about to crush the shrimp that some think South Korea still is. As then-Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha put it in September 2020, “Korea is certainly in a geopolitical position that looks like we are caught in a crossfire. But I think you can turn that around and say it’s leverage.”
Simply put, few countries see Sino-American competition as a binary choice. And no country has the power to openly confront China the way the U.S. does. South Korea is no exception. It is siding with the Biden administration in most areas, yes. But it is not about to cut all ties with Beijing, which is unrealistic. To its credit, the Biden administration seems to understand this.
The key implications of South Korea’s quiet choice are twofold.
To begin with, Seoul will continue to strengthen its participation in and cooperation with Washington’s initiatives, including the Quad and the proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. At the same time, it will boost security ties with other partners such as Australia, Indonesia, Vietnam and, though without much fanfare, Japan, as well as the EU and NATO. Initiatives that bring benefits to third parties and cooperation with a broad set of partners, without openly targeting Beijing, suit Seoul.
The other implication is that the next South Korean president is very likely to continue to implement the same policy the Moon government has over the past two years, since the factors driving this policy shift are structural. A conservative president may be more vocal in criticizing China and may formally join the Quad if invited. But the thrust of Seoul’s approach to Sino-American competition will not change no matter who is in power. This is welcome news for the Biden administration.
Ultimately, South Korea does not have the United States’ ability to confront Beijing overtly and explicitly. But when it comes to China, Seoul is much closer to Washington’s position than critics may care to acknowledge. And this is not due to pressure from the Biden administration. It is South Korea’s own choice.
Ramon Pacheco Pardo is professor of international relations at King’s College London and the KF-VUB Korea Chair at the Brussels School of Governance. He is the author of “Shrimp to Whale: South Korea from the Forgotten War to K-Pop” (Hurst, 2022).
19. Total failure caused by ‘wellbeing security’
A harsh OpEd front he Donga Ilbo.
Sadly the "success" of the Armistice for the past 67 years has led to complacency among the population. It is not just the policies of the current administration that lead to this idea of "wellbeing security."
Conclusion:
The military and the government will pledge to reprimand people in charge and develop improvement measures, citing a complete overhaul. However, people are bound to shake their heads at repeated failures and post-incident actions. A series of security failures are not unrelated to a lack of national security across South Korean society, which was prompted by a friendly atmosphere between the two Koreas under the current government. As the ‘wellbeing security’ seeps into even the military, discipline is lacking from the leadership to the frontline. The same failures will be repeated unless a sense of security and vigilance are strengthened.
Total failure caused by ‘wellbeing security’
Posted January. 05, 2022 07:59,
Updated January. 05, 2022 07:59
Total failure caused by ‘wellbeing security’. January. 05, 2022 07:59. .
The person who defected to North Korea from South Korea by crossing the fence in the eastern front on New Year’s Day has been identified to have defected to South Korea by crossing the fence of the same unit in late 2019. The same person crippled the military security by defecting back and forth between the South and the North freely. Furthermore, the defector was reported to the National Police Agency twice and under supervision as he showed signs of potential defection back to the North by asking questions about traveling abroad in June last year. It shows there are holes in not only the military security but also the management of North Korean defectors.
The absurd failure of security reveals where the South Korean military is at the moment with a lack of discipline. The unit did not recognize the defector who was caught two to three times by CCTV installed on the fence. An emergency response team was dispatched as a fence surveillance sensor activated an alarm but the team failed to detect clear footprints on the site and reported that there was no issue. The South Korean military that has been priding itself on cutting-edge scientific equipment and impenetrable surveillance was indeed a plaything for the defector.
The military and the government said there are no anti-communist suspicions, such as espionage activities, regarding the defector. However, it cannot be assured as he was taken by three North Korean military members after he crossed the Military Demarcation Line as if they were waiting for him. It is also doubtful whether his whereabouts in South Korea for the past year have been properly captured as the police did not take follow-up measures after detecting the signs of defection.
The military and the government will pledge to reprimand people in charge and develop improvement measures, citing a complete overhaul. However, people are bound to shake their heads at repeated failures and post-incident actions. A series of security failures are not unrelated to a lack of national security across South Korean society, which was prompted by a friendly atmosphere between the two Koreas under the current government. As the ‘wellbeing security’ seeps into even the military, discipline is lacking from the leadership to the frontline. The same failures will be repeated unless a sense of security and vigilance are strengthened.
V/R
David Maxwell
Senior Fellow
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Phone: 202-573-8647
Twitter: @davidmaxwell161
FDD is a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
