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Quotes of the Day:
The response to insurgency after 2001 it's not solely a story of the thinking of Americans, British, French, and Israelis. It is also a story about Iraqis, Afghans, and Syrians shape this thinking from the bottom up. They had no equivalent of Petraeus or McChrystal. Their influence came from an assortment of different actors and thinkers. – Karzai, Sittar, Raziiq, Mazluom, and countless tribal leaders, military officers, and politicians long – sometimes serendipitously. They changed how the Americans and their allies, thought about and executed their strategy. Attention to civilian casualties, large-scale tribal mobilization, and confidence in strategic effectiveness owed more than a little to them. Preferences on tactics, governance reforms, and timeliness yielded to their culture, identity, and politics. Local peoples adjusted the trajectory of Western strategic thought.
- Carter Malkasian.
“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”
- Albert Camus
"I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man - public opinion."
- Clarence Seward Darrow
1. North Korea Is Training Children to Target ‘American Bastards’ With Bombs
2. For North Koreans in China, Seeking Freedom Is More Perilous Than Ever
3. Korean Manufacturers Abandon China
4. S. Korea's ruling party leader set for weeklong visit to U.S.
5. UN Command is still an axis of war deterrence
6. China’s anti-espionage law spooks Korean firms
7. [WHY] Why do Koreans think Japan isn’t sorry?
8. N. Korea slams IAEA for Fukushima water approval
9. Korea to put on 4 drone shows overseas
10. Japan protests over military drills on Dokdo islands
1. North Korea Is Training Children to Target ‘American Bastards’ With Bombs
I am reminded of hearing stories about north Korean math lessons for children. If you have 4 American bastards at gunpoint and you kill 2 American bastards how many American bastards do you have left to kill?
it is going to take one helluva an information effort to undo the indoctrination of the young children probably up through their teenage years.
Excerpts:
“Associating his daughter with weapons launches is a way to make the younger generation feel they need nuclear weapons if they want their country to survive,” said Jean H. Lee, a nonresident fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna.
He has also sought to remind children of the danger posed by the nation that North Korea says is its enemy, penning a letter to North Korea’s youth last December that implored them to hate the “American bastards” who want to “destroy your homes and steal your hopes.”
The push to involve children in the nation’s technological and weapons advances is bigger than a propaganda blitz. This year, kindergartners started learning about computers and robots as part of their curriculum, state media said. In Pyongyang, young people have been ordered to collect metal and other materials that could be used for weapons manufacturing, North Korean defectors say.
North Korea Is Training Children to Target ‘American Bastards’ With Bombs
Kim Jong Un regime promotes science and technology ambitions among country’s children
By Dasl Yoon
Follow
July 8, 2023 10:00 am ET
https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-korea-is-training-children-to-target-american-bastards-with-bombs-54c87a2d
SEOUL—Kim Jong Un is enlisting North Korea’s children in his effort to modernize the nation’s weapons program.
At an event this year marking the anniversary of the founding of North Korea’s largest youth group, children shimmied on stage wearing shiny space suits with “kid rocket” emblazoned on the front. Members of the youth group gave rocket launchers—named “sonyeon,” or boy—as gifts to the country’s military.
The event was just one incident in a campaign by the North Korean dictator to indoctrinate the country’s youth and prepare them to contribute to the country’s weapons technology program. The Kim regime is promoting science, technology and space ambition as North Korea’s new pillars for survival.
A long-running cartoon broadcast on North Korean state television about the adventures of a raccoon, a bear and a cat has been recast as an ultramodern fantasy, with high-speed trains and remote-controlled submarines. At a televised performance last year, an 11-year-old girl belted out a tune describing her ambitions.
“I will open all of science’s secret doors,” she sang. “It is my determination to make my country shine.”
Kim has even tapped one of his own children to help sell the message. The 39-year-old dictator’s daughter, Kim Ju Ae, first appeared in public for the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. It was a rare public appearance for a child of a North Korean leader, but Kim Ju Ae has routinely appeared at her father’s side for public events since then. She has accompanied him for weapons tests, visited the North Korean space agency and met the country’s military scientists.
Kim Jong Un and his daughter Kim Ju Ae, who has appeared at her father’s side for public events. PHOTO: STR/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“Associating his daughter with weapons launches is a way to make the younger generation feel they need nuclear weapons if they want their country to survive,” said Jean H. Lee, a nonresident fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studies at the University of Vienna.
He has also sought to remind children of the danger posed by the nation that North Korea says is its enemy, penning a letter to North Korea’s youth last December that implored them to hate the “American bastards” who want to “destroy your homes and steal your hopes.”
The push to involve children in the nation’s technological and weapons advances is bigger than a propaganda blitz. This year, kindergartners started learning about computers and robots as part of their curriculum, state media said. In Pyongyang, young people have been ordered to collect metal and other materials that could be used for weapons manufacturing, North Korean defectors say.
North Korea has made rapid advancements in its weapons program in recent years, carrying out an unprecedented spree of missile launches. The country now has what many weapons experts consider to be a fully capable arsenal of short-range missiles and has begun testing solid fuel in its ICBMs, allowing them to be potentially deployed faster. The country has unveiled a new underwater drone, sent unmanned aerial vehicles to downtown Seoul and launched its first spy satellite into space.
Still, many of the new technologies remain in the developmental stages and have a mixed record of success, underscoring the need for the next generation to help finish the job. A satellite launch on May 31 failed, drawing a rebuke for the officials in charge last month at a Politburo meeting. On Wednesday, a South Korean and American analysis of the wreckage concluded the satellite wasn’t ready for military use.
Military propaganda is of course not new in North Korea, though Kim Jong Un’s father and grandfather highlighted different aspects of the nation’s armed forces. For decades, North Korea’s leaders showcased its million-man army and conventional weapons.
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North Korea has been putting a host of new weapons on display, including a tactical nuclear warhead, an underwater drone and a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo Composite: Emily Siu
The emphasis on science and technology for the country’s youth is a new phenomenon, said Yee Ji-sun, a researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul.
“Kim is aware that younger North Koreans don’t have the same kind of loyalty to the regime that their parents had, but without that loyalty, he will struggle to justify his military buildup,” Yee said.
A 30-year-old defector who only wanted to be identified by her surname, Park, said she remembers as a child growing up in North Korea that her teachers and parents would say the country had the world’s strongest army. Missiles were always held up as a symbol of national strength. But after Kim Jong Un took power more than a decade ago, she said state TV began showing computers in classrooms, while robotics lessons were taught in school and drones became a common sight at military parades.
“It felt unfamiliar, but I thought we were becoming a very technologically advanced country under Kim Jong Un,” said Park, who escaped to South Korea in 2018.
Kim’s push on technology also likely has an ulterior motive. Indoctrinating children to believe rockets will protect them is a way to shift curiosities away from verboten concepts such as freedom or capitalism, said Nam Bada, director of People for Successful Corean Reunification, a group that helps North Korean defectors adapt in South Korea.
“Kim Jong Un’s top priority is controlling information,” Nam said.
It hasn’t always been easy for North Korea to compete for the attention of its youth, with limited entertainment options. Before the Kim Jong Un era, most of North Korea had access to the single Korean Central Television channel. Now, three extra offerings have been added for residents living outside Pyongyang, in a bid to make state media more attractive in the face of competition from illicit foreign content, according to 38 North, a website dedicated to North Korean issues.
Some of the country’s staples have gotten a makeover, such as the animated series for children about a raccoon, bear and cat. The show, titled “Clever Raccoon Dog,” used to focus on lessons that the animated friends learned playing a baseball game or running a marathon. In a recent episode, the three animated friends use a controller to send a crab-shaped submarine robot under the sea.
“The robot the raccoon made is the best!” the bear exclaims.
An image from ‘Clever Raccoon Dog,’ a long-running North Korean children’s program. PHOTO: CLEVER RACCOON DOG / YOUTUBE
Another driver for the adulation surrounding North Korea’s science and technology sectors is prestige, said Jang, a North Korean defector, who only wanted to be identified by his surname. He used to work at the country’s State Academy of Sciences, the country’s main institution for scientific and technological advances.
North Korean researchers and scientists often make less than merchants in the underground marketplaces and feel underappreciated by the regime, he said.
“To a certain extent, the propaganda is aimed at brainwashing people in the IT sector to think they are worthy because they are serving the country,” Jang said.
Write to Dasl Yoon at [email protected]
2. For North Koreans in China, Seeking Freedom Is More Perilous Than Ever
Another sad and depressing story about Koreans in the north trying to escape and what too often happens to them in China. China is complicit in north Korean human rights abuses.
For North Koreans in China, Seeking Freedom Is More Perilous Than Ever
The New York Times · by Choe Sang-Hun · July 9, 2023
In January, a North Korean software engineer trapped in China messaged with a South Korean pastor about an escape plan.
Male North Korean defector
I just unplugged the surveillance camera cord. Is the taxi still waiting outside?
Mr. Chun, South Korean humanitarian worker
A blue taxi will be waiting for you with its lights on and engine running. You will change taxis twice before switching to another car for the destination.
Male defector
OK. I will put my clothes on at 3:30 a.m.
Act calm. God will be with you.
Male defector
I feel strange but this is not fear.
By
Choe Sang-Hun was given exclusive access to text messages, audio files, bank records, videos and other material for his reporting.
July 9, 2023, 3:00 a.m. ET
The North Korean software engineer was desperate.
He had been sent to northeastern China in 2019 to earn money for the North Korean regime. After working long hours under the constant watch of his minders, he found an email address on a website and sent a harrowing message in 2021: “I am writing at the risk of losing my life,” pleaded the engineer.
A young woman who had been smuggled by human traffickers from North Korea into China in 2018 contacted the owner of the same website early this year. She had planned to defect to South Korea, but instead was being held captive in a Chinese border town and forced to make money through cybersex. “Please help us escape this house,” she wrote.
The website belonged to the Rev. Chun Ki-won, a Christian pastor in Seoul who is widely known for aiding North Korean refugees fleeing through China, the route almost all defectors take. He has often been condemned by Pyongyang and was once imprisoned in China for helping hundreds of North Koreans reach South Korea or the United States.
But now, the job of aiding North Korean defectors in China has become “all but impossible,” Mr. Chun said.
China imposed strict limits on border crossings and even internal travel during the pandemic. When those restrictions began to ease in recent months, Mr. Chun and other aid workers received a surge of appeals from the thousands of North Koreans stranded in the country.
Yet the price of hiring a human trafficker has skyrocketed because of the increased risk of being caught by the Chinese police. Beijing’s ever-expanding surveillance state has made avoiding the authorities more challenging. The number of North Koreans who reached South Korea in 2019 was 1,047. Last year, that number plummeted to 63.
The Rev. Chun Ki-won, who aids North Koreans seeking to make their way to the South, in his office in Seoul in May.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
“The decline in defections does not stem from a diminished desire among North Koreans to escape their oppressive regime,” Hanna Song, a human rights worker who monitors refugees, said last month during a congressional hearing in Washington. “Rather, it reflects the mounting difficulties imposed by China’s pervasive surveillance measures.”
Mr. Chun shared hundreds of text messages, audio files, bank records and other documents with The New York Times to help reconstruct his effort to assist the software engineer and the cybersex worker, Ms. Lee. He asked The Times to withhold the engineer’s name, and the given name of the woman, as well as other details, to protect their identities.
Stuck in China
Ms. Lee and the software engineer did not know each other, but they both found their way to Mr. Chun for the same reason: to get out of China without being sent back to Kim Jong-un’s repressive regime.
“They are watching everything I do,” the software engineer said in his first email to Mr. Chun in 2021.
He arrived in China with thousands of young North Korean computer specialists who, before the coronavirus pandemic, were regularly sent abroad to make money for Mr. Kim’s government, either through I.T. work or cybercrime.
North Korea keeps itself cut off from the internet and sends these highly trained specialists to do work in China, Southeast Asia and elsewhere to avoid international sanctions imposed on the country for its nuclear weapons program. The specialists usually live together in dormitory apartments, where they are instructed to spy on each other. Their North Korean minders look for signs of disloyalty — like watching K-dramas.
Talking to Mr. Chun through the messaging app Telegram, the software engineer compared his life to “a bird in a cage.” From morning until night, he roamed online platforms like Upwork looking for coding work to make money for the Pyongyang regime.
Video footage he sent to Mr. Chun showed him and his North Korean peers working under a surveillance camera on the wall and a slogan that read: “Let’s show our loyalty to Respected Leader Kim Jong-un with high business results!”
But the workers struggled to meet monthly earning quotas — $4,000 to $5,000 — set by their manager. They often had to buy false identities because international businesses are banned from hiring North Koreans under the sanctions.
When he first arrived in China, the software engineer had no plan to flee to South Korea. But last year, he sent Mr. Chun video footage of his bruised face and said he was beaten for disobedience. “I want to live a free man, even for a single day, even if I die trying,” he wrote.
Male defector
I am sorry but please understand why I don’t think I can hold out. I wish I could leave this place right now.
Mr. Chun
We need to find the safest, not the fastest way.
Male defector
I am sorry to say this, but I need the fastest way, please.
I will try, of course, but let’s pray that we will not move ahead of God’s schedule.
Male defector
I want to live a free man, even for a single day, even if I die trying.
I understand your situation. Just hang on a bit more and we will put our plan into action.
Human rights groups have criticized China for the slavery-like conditions of many North Koreans in the country, but their calls for a crackdown have largely gone unheeded. When Beijing catches North Koreans trying to flee to the South, it often treats them as illegal migrants, not refugees, and sends them back to the North to face punishment.
China uses its surveillance technology to catch people on the run or foreigners staying in the country without authorization.
Ms. Lee arrived in China five years ago, and her plan all along was to defect to South Korea.
She said the broker who smuggled her out of North Korea and into China told her that if she worked for a boss for three months, she would be sent to the South. Instead, the broker sold her to a North Korean woman who was married to a Chinese police officer in Baishan, a city near the border.
Women like Ms. Lee are often sold to men in rural China who are unable to find wives, or to pimps and human traffickers who force them to work in illegal cybersex rings. The woman in Baishan held Ms. Lee in an apartment and forced her to perform sex acts before a webcam for male clients.
In January, Ms. Lee reached out to Mr. Chun, saying that she and two other North Korean women were about to be sold to another human trafficker and needed urgent help.
Ms. Lee
The boss wants to sell us to Chinese men who need wives.
Against your will?
Ms. Lee
Yes. We said we don’t want to be married to Chinese men and wanted to continue to work here. But she said she can’t send us to South Korea because all routes are blocked. She has lied to us too long and it is time to get rid of us.
She just made us put on our best clothes today and took pictures of us so that she could sell us.
Please rescue us from this place.
You must act naturally so that your boss won’t get suspicious. You are in Baishan and it’s not easy to get out of there because of police checkpoints.
Getting to the Safe House
Aiding North Korean refugees requires hiring human traffickers, or “brokers,” who can be trusted, said Lee Hark-joon, a filmmaker who has directed two documentaries on North Korean refugees.
But “the broker’s priority is often money, not the refugee,” he said, citing cases where brokers abandoned North Korean refugees after collecting their fees or held them hostage in order to extort more cash in exchange for not alerting the authorities.
The problem has become only more rampant since the pandemic. The cost of moving a North Korean defector through China rose to tens of thousands of dollars from thousands of dollars before the pandemic, according to rights activists.
In January, Mr. Chun managed to pull resources together to finance the operation for the software engineer and Ms. Lee and her two roommates. He hired a broker in Thailand who teamed up with brokers in China. The plan was to transport the North Koreans to a safe house in Qingdao, a port city on China’s east coast.
Once they all met at the safe house, the next step was for everyone to be smuggled across China to Laos and then onto Thailand, where North Koreans can apply for asylum in South Korea, a common route for many refugees. They would travel through China by car, as ID checks, which became more ubiquitous during the pandemic, made public transportation unworkable.
Mr. Chun divided the route to Qingdao into several stages for both the software engineer and the three women. At each stage, the brokers would change cars to thwart any attempt to trace them using facial recognition or other surveillance technology.
Mr. Chun
You can bring your cell phones with you. You don’t want to leave them for your boss. But don’t tell the brokers about the valuables you are carrying. You never know; they may get greedy, especially about the notebook computers and cell phones.
Ms. Lee
We will send you photos of us dressed the way we will be when we flee. Should we show our faces as well in the photos?
What worries us the most is that the boss's husband is a Chinese police officer and that he may be connected to other officers and brokers.
Mr. Chun asked the software engineer and Ms. Lee to send headshots and descriptions of the clothes they would wear when they slipped out of the apartments in which they were being held captive.
He asked the brokers to send photographs and license plate numbers of the cars they would use to pick up the North Koreans. He exchanged the details with everyone and set the plan in motion.
“It’s all clear. I am leaving now. I am putting on my clothes now,” the software engineer texted Mr. Chun, shortly before he fled.
Tracked and Captured
Mr. Chun’s operation started to unravel when the traffickers did not take the software engineer directly to Qingdao, but to a house in the city of Jilin in northeast China, making another unscheduled stop on the way.
Broker
He just got in the car. We will put him on the phone with you after changing cars twice.
Mr. Chun
Just talked with him briefly. I will talk to him after a morning church service. Thank you. Let's be careful until we get him to Southeast Asia.
After leading the software engineer into the house, the brokers contacted Mr. Chun to ask for additional money to buy him food, new clothes and shoes.
The next morning, the brokers were leaving the house to pick up the three women in Baishan when they were stopped by the police in Jilin. The police arrested the software engineer, too.
The software engineer had been reported missing by his North Korean minder, and the car the brokers used to pick him up had been identified on a surveillance camera during the unscheduled stop, according to what Mr. Chun was told by relatives of the brokers, who are now in jail, he said.
Mr. Chun hurried to find different brokers to retrieve the three women before it was too late.
“The brokers will be waiting for you at midnight at the designated place. It’s a purple car,” he texted Ms. Lee. He told her to hold an umbrella in her right hand so the brokers could identify her.
In early February, the new brokers took the three North Korean women to the Qingdao safe house. But a few days after arriving, her captor’s husband, the Chinese police officer in Baishan, broke down the door and stormed into the house with thugs, Mr. Chun said, saying that the women called him amid the mayhem.
One of the brokers must have cut a deal with the husband to trade the three women for a cash reward, Mr. Chun said. “There is no other explanation,” he said.
The software engineer is now in a Chinese jail waiting to be repatriated to North Korea, Mr. Chun said. In the North, those who have tried to flee to the South face prison camps or worse.
The whereabouts of Ms. Lee remain unknown.
“I have been aiding North Koreans for 23 years,” Mr. Chun said. “I have never felt this sad and helpless.”
Choe Sang-Hun is the Seoul bureau chief for The Times, focusing on news in North and South Korea. More about Choe Sang-Hun
A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: For North Koreans in China, Path to Freedom Is More Perilous Yet
The New York Times · by Choe Sang-Hun · July 9, 2023
3. Korean Manufacturers Abandon China
Korean Manufacturers Abandon China
english.chosun.com
July 07, 2023 13:16
Major Korean companies have closed down 46 factories in China since 2016, when China started boycotting Korean businesses over the stationing of a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery from the U.S. here.
As a result, Korean companies' Chinese sales dropped around 13 percent, but some were affected much more dramatically.
According to corporate tracker CEO Score, analysis of 113 of Korea's top companies showed that their overall sales in China stood at W111.42 trillion last year, down 13.1 percent from 2016 (US$1=W1,301).
Their overall sales plummeted to W105.74 trillion in 2019 but recovered recently due to surging demand for rechargeable batteries. But leaving aside batteries and semiconductors, their sales in China nosedived 37.3 percent from W117.23 trillion in 2016 to W73.45 trillion last year.
The parking lot at Hyundai's plant in Changzhou, China is nearly empty, in this photo taken in May.
Hyundai was the biggest loser with 76 percent. Sales of Hyundai's Chinese subsidiary fell 75.7 percent from W20.13 trillion in 2016 to W4.90 trillion last year.
But battery maker LG Energy Solution's sales in China surged 431.6 percent from W2.42 trillion in 2016 to W12.85 trillion last year, and Samsung SDI's soared 483.5 percent from W929.80 billion to W5.43 trillion over the same period.
"The situation worsened due to the intensifying U.S.-China rivalry and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, prompting many major Korean companies to retreat from China," CEO Score said.
Hyundai Loses Ground to Japanese Rivals in China
Hyundai's China Woes Worsened by Epidemic
Hyundai to Build Future Car R&D Center in Shanghai
Hyundai's Posts Worst-Ever China Sales
- Copyright © Chosunilbo & Chosun.com
english.chosun.com
4. S. Korea's ruling party leader set for weeklong visit to U.S.
S. Korea's ruling party leader set for weeklong visit to U.S. | Yonhap News Agency
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · July 9, 2023
SEOUL, July 9 (Yonhap) -- The leader of South Korea's ruling People Power Party is set to make a weeklong trip to the United States for meetings with U.S. officials and lawmakers, his spokesperson said Sunday.
Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon plans to lead a delegation of party members to visit Washington, New York and Los Angeles from July 10-16, according to PPP spokesperson Kang Min-kuk.
Kim is scheduled to meet National Security Council Coordinator for Indo-Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, Department of State officials and members of Congress to discuss ways to forge closer bilateral ties, Kang said.
He also plans to meet Korean residents and entrepreneurs, as well as U.S. think tank experts on the Korean Peninsula during the trip, he added.
Rep. Kim Gi-hyeon, the leader of the ruling People Power Party, attends a senior party meeting at the National Assembly in Seoul on July 6, 2023. (Yonhap)
[email protected]
(END)
en.yna.co.kr · by Kim Eun-jung · July 9, 2023
5. UN Command is still an axis of war deterrence
An excellent and important OpEd from one of my former Korean bosses at the ROK/US Combined Forces Command. I really enjoyed working for MG Ahn.
This is very necessary to educate the Korean people and to counter the uninformed criticism from some Korean factions.
Excerpts:
South Korea and the U.S. have been preparing for the transfer of the wartime operational control (Opcon) based on their agreement in the 50th Security Consultative Meeting in 2018 to appoint a four-star Korean general as the commander of the ROK-U.S. CFC and a four-star American general as the vice commander of the joint command. Even after the Opcon returns to South Korea, the ROK-U.S. CFC will continue to develop their joint defense posture in a future-oriented way.
If a new ROK-U.S. CFC system led by a four-star Korean general is launched, the UN Command had better optimize its size to efficiently manage the truce system and smoothly provide troops in emergency. If more Korean staff officers are dispatched to the UN Command to strengthen cooperation with the Korean military under the new CFC, it will help reinforce our national security given the stronger need for communication channels between the two allies after the UN Command was relocated to Pyeongtaek from Seoul.
Some progressive groups and North Korea maintain that the UN Command will serve as a supreme command headquarters in times of crisis even after the Opcon is transferred back to South Korea. They claim that the U.S.’s move to augment the UN Command, citing the “power vacuum” from the Opcon transfer, is only aimed to perpetuate its military control of South Korea.
But such claims stem from their misunderstanding of the command system of the ROK-U.S. CFC. The UN Command will continue to deter war in the peninsula and contribute to building peace and leading to reunification of the divided land.
Sunday
July 9, 2023
dictionary + A - A
UN Command is still an axis of war deterrence
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/07/09/opinion/columns/UN-Command-ROKUS-CFC-Pyeongtaek/20230709201735514.html
Ahn Kwang-chan
The author, a former head of national crisis management in the Blue House, is chairman of the Korea-UN Command Friendship Association.
On July 7, 1950, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 84 on the establishment of the United Nations Command. Based on the resolution, the UN Command was founded on July 24 that year. The UN troops played a pivotal role in repelling the North Korean forces and rescuing South Korea from a desperate security crisis. The UN Command also participated in the signing of the Armistice Agreement on July 27, 1953.
In the 1950-53 Korean War, 16 UN members sent their combat troops, six members provided medical assistance, and 53 offered other types of aid. The tragic war took the lives of 150,000 people, including 46,609 soldiers mostly from the U.S. Thanks to the sacrifice of the UN forces, South Korea could develop and prosper like today.
The UN Command had been devoted to defending South Korea since the Korean War, but since the establishment of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC) in 1978, the UN Command transferred its mission of defending South Korea to the ROK-U.S. CFC. Yet the UN Command has been preparing to carry out its role of providing armed forces to South Korea from UN members in times of crisis to help maintain the armistice system. In other words, the function and role of the UN Command continues under the current armistice system. The command’s role of deterring war and keeping peace on the Korean Peninsula will continue for a while.
South Korea and the U.S. have been preparing for the transfer of the wartime operational control (Opcon) based on their agreement in the 50th Security Consultative Meeting in 2018 to appoint a four-star Korean general as the commander of the ROK-U.S. CFC and a four-star American general as the vice commander of the joint command. Even after the Opcon returns to South Korea, the ROK-U.S. CFC will continue to develop their joint defense posture in a future-oriented way.
If a new ROK-U.S. CFC system led by a four-star Korean general is launched, the UN Command had better optimize its size to efficiently manage the truce system and smoothly provide troops in emergency. If more Korean staff officers are dispatched to the UN Command to strengthen cooperation with the Korean military under the new CFC, it will help reinforce our national security given the stronger need for communication channels between the two allies after the UN Command was relocated to Pyeongtaek from Seoul.
Some progressive groups and North Korea maintain that the UN Command will serve as a supreme command headquarters in times of crisis even after the Opcon is transferred back to South Korea. They claim that the U.S.’s move to augment the UN Command, citing the “power vacuum” from the Opcon transfer, is only aimed to perpetuate its military control of South Korea.
But such claims stem from their misunderstanding of the command system of the ROK-U.S. CFC. The UN Command will continue to deter war in the peninsula and contribute to building peace and leading to reunification of the divided land.
In a recent meeting among the representatives of the UN Command Military Armistice Commission, a consensus was built that the misunderstanding of the UN Command should be corrected and the establishment of a civilian group dedicated to friendship promotion during peacetime is needed. As a result, the Korea-UN Command Friendship Association (KUFA) was founded on May 15 from among former generals with experience in working at the UN Command, diplomats, scholars and journalists.
We will promote the function and role of the UN Command in the future — and strengthen friendly activities with the UN Command and those countries that fought in the war or provided medical support, as well as with the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission. Members of the 16 countries who fought for South Korea gathered in Washington DC on July 27, 1953 — the very day when the Armistice was signed — and announced a Washington declaration in which they vowed to participate in a war on the Korean Peninsula if it breaks out again.
Regrettably, the memories of the declaration in Washington are being forgotten after seven decades. As the Cold War is not over yet on the peninsula, however, we must continue to uphold the value of the declaration 7 decades ago. We will do our best to propagate the spirit of the declaration to the rest of the world so that the UN Command can continue to play a key role in ensuring the security of the country.
Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.
6. China’s anti-espionage law spooks Korean firms
Saturday
July 8, 2023
dictionary + A - A
[NEWS IN FOCUS] China’s anti-espionage law spooks Korean firms
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/07/08/business/industry/Korea-China-US/20230708060005457.html
[SHUTTER STOCK]
Korean Inc. is hunkering down in China as the country tightens controls for foreign nationals and organizations through an amended law the Chinese authorities say will combat espionage.
No Korean companies have become the target of the amended anti-espionage law yet, according to multiple government and industry sources contacted by the Korea JoongAng Daily, but it still poses fresh dangers to doing business in the country.
Some companies are encouraging their China-based employees to change their communications channels away from WeChat, a dominant instant messaging service in China, while others are relocating to Korea and other regions.
The revised law broadens the definition of espionage to add all documents, data, materials and articles that concern “national security and interests” to the existing clause of state secrets and intelligence. Given that it barely defines what constitutes espionage, the law could be used as the basis for turning certain business activities into criminal acts.
Korean business and trade associations are stepping up warnings, following the imposition in the beginning of July.
“The definition of documents, data and articles that concern national security and interests remain vague,” said Korea International Trade Association in a report issued to the entities operating in China.
“Therefore, the companies should consider undergoing legal consulting to verify whether their materials come with the risk of violating the law,” it said.
While the revision is widely considered as being aimed at U.S. companies, those headquartered in Korea, an ally of the U.S., are increasingly concerned if the extended control could affect their businesses.
“Korean business people that I know here have stopped using WeChat and adopted other non-Chinese applications to avoid a possible crackdown,” said a source based in Beijing working for a trade-related agency.
Undated video footage run by China's CCTV shows Chinese police conducting law enforcement work during a raid at the Capvision office in Shanghai. [CCTV/AP]
Chinese security forces raided the Chinese offices of U.S. consultancies — Bain, Mintz and Capvision — in May, and state-run broadcasters shot scenes of the investigation.
Ever since the U.S.-China trade row which dates back to 2018, Korean companies’ sales and investment into China have been shrinking.
Samsung Electronics and SK hynix have not made any major investments in China since 2019, with former President Donald Trump signing an executive order barring U.S. companies from using information and communications technology from Huawei that year.
Samsung Electronics runs memory chip production lines in Wuxi, China, but sales from the Chinese units have been on a steep decline, registering 5.6 trillion won ($4.2 billion) in the first quarter, down 46.8 percent compared to the previous year, according to the reports released by the company.
At the same time, sales in the North American region increased by 27.8 percent to reach 29 trillion won.
China’s sales proportion also reduced to 12 percent last year compared to the 16 percent recorded in 2021 and 2020. The contribution from North America rose to 39 percent from 35 percent in 2021 and 33 percent in 2020.
Samsung Electronics' workforce in China has shrunk 49 percent from 34,843 in 2017 to 17,891 as of the end of 2022, according to the company.
Another industry source with knowledge of Korean companies’ operations in China said that there has been a notable increase in fake news about their relations with the Chinese government, a possible orchestration intended to provoke the U.S.
“There have been some groundless reports in China about Korean companies like SK hynix forging a favorable relationship with the Chinese government,” the source said.
“We don’t know exactly where these reports come from and what they are for, but in the growing tension between the U.S. and China, I think they are intended to leverage their link with Korean companies to apparently worry the U.S.,” she said.
BY PARK EUN-JEE [[email protected]]
7. [WHY] Why do Koreans think Japan isn’t sorry?
Graphics at the link.
Saturday
July 8, 2023
dictionary + A - A
[WHY] Why do Koreans think Japan isn’t sorry?
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/07/08/why/Korea-Japan-apology/20230708070006535.html
Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, second from left, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, second from right, lay flowers at the memorial to Korean atomic bombing victims in Hiroshima on May 21. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]
Sixty-three.
That is the number of apology statements offered by Tokyo to Seoul addressing just the issue of “comfort women,” or Korean sex slaves forced to service the Japanese military during the war years, since the two countries signed a 1965 treaty establishing diplomatic relations, according to one scholarly estimate in 2022.
This topic, along with that of Korean forced labor during World War II, are some of the highly emotive issues stemming from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula that plague Korean-Japanese relations to the present.
The most recent apology statement was made by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who said, “Personally, I feel strong pain in my heart when I think of the extreme difficulty and sorrow that many people had to suffer under the severe environment in those days” at a joint press conference with Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol during his visit to Seoul in May this year.
Kishida’s comments came amid a recent bilateral push to overcome a years-long chill in relations over Korean court rulings ordering Japanese companies to compensate Korean forced laborers and Japan’s subsequent decision to block key exports of technology and materials for Korea’s semiconductor industry.
For Korea, this rapprochement entailed establishing a foundation to compensate forced labor victims with funds from Korean companies that benefitted from development aid given by Japan as part of the 1965 treaty, while Japan restored Korea to its “white list” of approved trade partners and agreed Japanese companies could voluntarily provide money to the Korean foundation.
But despite these recent steps and the number of Japanese apologies to Korea over the years, most Koreans do not believe that Japan actually feels sorry for its 35-year rule of the peninsula.
In a poll by Gallup Korea conducted in early March, an overwhelming 85 percent of Korean respondents disagreed with the notion that “Japan repents over its past history,” while two-thirds of Koreans said in another poll that they disagreed with “an indirect apology by Japan” via the mainly Korean-backed fund.
The apparent failure of Japan’s repeated apologies to resonate with Koreans bodes ill for a lasting improvement in their relationship — and perhaps more importantly, raises questions about what has gone wrong, and what can be done better.
When is an apology statement not an apology?
Headlines in Korea after Kishida’s remarks focused mainly on one peculiarity: he admitted no wrongs.
“It would have been better [for Kishida] to say in his apology statement that he was speaking on behalf of the Japanese people and also acknowledge victims, admit wrongdoing and accept responsibility,” said Roman David, a professor of sociology and social policy at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University who specializes in historical justice and has studied the issue at length through survey experiments in Korea and Japan.
In one such study published in 2022 under the title “Apology mismatch: an experimental approach to Japan’s apologies to Korea,” David and fellow Lingnan professor of social psychology Victoria Yeung counted 63 official apology statements by Japan to Korea concerning comfort women and examined the four most frequently occurring components of the statements — “remorse,” “acknowledgment of victims’ suffering,” “acceptance of responsibility” and “admission of wrongdoing.” They then randomly presented the components as hypothetical sample vignettes to 210 Koreans to measure their psychological response and also asked them to rank them in order of importance.
Their findings were stark: while Koreans ranked “admission of wrongdoing” as the most demanded and essential apology component, it was the component that was least present in actual apology statements by Japan, appearing in only 14 out of 63.
“We found that the ‘admission of wrongdoing’ component generated the greatest positive impact [in Korean respondents] across various measures, including justice perception, acceptance of apology, positive impression of the transgressor, as well as a reduction in negative attitude and revenge motivation towards the Japanese,” Yeung said.
Paradoxically, the study’s participants ranked “remorse,” which occurred most frequently in Japanese apology statements — 51 out of 63, and sometimes multiple times within the same statement — to be the least important aspect of apologies, and the two professors found it elicited the smallest improvement in attitudes towards the perceived transgressor.
David said that although apologies can be an “extremely effective method of dealing with the past,” the components of the apology, as well as its messenger and recipients, are important factors to consider.
“For instance, it’s more effective to say ‘we are sorry’ instead of ‘we regret,’ to acknowledge the wrongdoing instead of watering it down, and accept responsibility instead of just saying something ‘is a historical fact.’”
He also noted that the Japanese prime minister “is a more effective agent of apologies than the emperor or the minister of foreign affairs, and it is also more important to name the Korean people as the addressees, rather than people in Asia.”
Yeung, who also examined Kishida’s apology statement, said, “Its particular combination of remorse and acknowledgment of the victims’ suffering may not be deemed as an effective apology by the Korean public, who seem to place greater importance on hearing an explicit admission of wrongdoing.”
Yuji Hosaka, a political science professor at Sejong University who has dedicated his career to studying Korea-Japan relations, similarly noted missing factors in Kishida’s comments to explain why Koreans might see his words as insufficient.
“While some interpreted the prime minister’s remarks as being directed at Korean forced labor victims, he actually never mentioned them at all; the so-called apology was addressed to ‘many people,’ which can just mean all imperial subjects at the time.”
Hosaka also noted the missing “sorry” in Kishida’s remarks.
“The expression he used in Japanese to describe his heartfelt pain gives the appearance he is speaking as an individual, not as a representative of the Japanese state.”
What is behind the word choices in Japanese apologies?
Kishida’s remarks are the latest in a long line of official statements from Tokyo that obfuscate the country’s imperial and colonial history — a past that conservative sentiment within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has governed Japan almost continuously since the end of the 1945-52 Allied occupation, would like to deemphasize.
According to John Nilsson-Wright, a professor of Japanese and Korean politics at Cambridge University, this constituency wants to bolster Japan’s legitimacy as a nation-state and as a global player — while also embracing a more assertive historical revisionism.
“There is an increasingly strong constituency within the LDP after the end of the Cold War that wants to not only resurrect national pride but also challenge the postwar national consensus reflected in the rulings of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, which they see as overly focusing on the Japanese government’s wrongs in the 1930s and 40s and its wartime responsibility,” he said.
Both the conservative faction within the LDP and its views on historical issues constrain Kishida, both politically and practically, in what he can say by way of apology to Koreans.
Shinzo Abe, Japan's longest-serving prime minister from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020
“Past cabinet statements carry the force of official policy that influence what a later prime minister feels at liberty to say,” Hosaka said, noting that “under [late former Prime Minister] Shinzo Abe in April 2021, the Japanese cabinet decided that the expressions ‘comfort women for the Japanese military’ and ‘forceful relocation’ [regarding Korean workers] cannot be used anymore in history textbooks,” which require government approval for use in schools.
Effectively, Abe’s old policies serve to prevent admissions of wrongdoing from featuring in more recent apology statements.
Abe’s stance, according to Nilsson-Wright, represented “his personal mission to correct what he saw as Japan’s masochist reading of history and reaffirm its pride in the past.”
Abe’s maternal grandfather and former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, who was briefly imprisoned as a suspected war criminal during the Allied occupation, was known for his view that the story of Japan being an aggressor in the war was too simplistic and that Japan’s imperialist invasions were not too different from what other powers were doing at the time — a view that is advocated by Nippon Kaigi, an ultraconservative lobby group that counts over 200 LDP lawmakers as members in both houses of the Japanese Diet.
Nilsson-Wright noted that although Kishida personally is considered to be moderate, “he needs to retain broad support across the party, including the late Abe’s faction, if he wants to be re-elected as its president in 2024” — and thus keep his premiership.
How do mutual perceptions affect Japanese offers, and Korean reception, of apologies?
For Koreans, not only does the wording of official Japanese apologies fall short of admitting wrongdoing, but their neighbor’s actions seem to indicate the opposite of remorse.
Sohn Yul, president of the East Asia Institute and a professor of international and Japanese political economy at Yonsei University, summarized the Korean perception of Japanese apologies in two words: “two-faced.”
“Japanese leaders say one thing to appease Korean opinion, but they then say something to assuage their Japanese constituents that contradicts the spirit of their previous comments,” Sohn said, citing the example of Abe, who told a journalist that he had “absolutely no desire” to apologize over the comfort women issue again.
This habit of Japanese leaders was not missed by Yeung and David, who in their study identified at least 32 statements that they believed “seemed to signify various ways of denial, which may have been aimed at the domestic audience in Japan as a part of a political contest between the government and the opposition.”
Sohn further said that an apology statement made to appease — and followed by contradictory domestic discourse — “is no apology at all.”
In another example, Hosaka pointed to Abe’s widely criticized suggestion in 2014 that he would seek to revise the 1993 Kono Statement, named after then-Chief Cabinet Secretary Yohei Kono, which acknowledged for the first time the Japanese Imperial Army’s role in recruiting comfort women and establishing military brothels where they were forced to serve soldiers.
For a Japanese leader to hint that a landmark apology should be revised “only feeds into Korean mistrust regarding Japan’s sincerity,” Hosaka observed.
He and Nilsson-Wright both noted Tokyo believes that the 1965 treaty, which it negotiated with an authoritarian Korean government led by then-President Park Chung Hee, not only settled all individual claims to compensation, including then-unknown issues such as the comfort women, but also obliges Korea to stop raising past issues.
But this “strictly legalistic” position, in Nilsson-Wright’s words, risks minimizing Korean questions over the treaty’s legitimacy and fuels Korean anger over issues of history and compensation that they believe were not satisfactorily addressed or settled by the original agreement.
Efforts by Japanese leaders to relegate the country’s colonial past to history are also seen by Koreans as attempts to wash their hands of it entirely.
“Abe said that he wants the problem of Japan’s history settled with his premiership, and that his children and grandchildren should not have to keep apologizing for the war,” noted Sohn, adding that “it sounds like he believes Japan should no longer bear responsibility for what it did to Korea.”
While Japan’s decision to retaliate economically to the Korean Supreme Court’s forced labor compensation rulings against Mitsubishi Heavy and Nippon Steel “amplified Koreans’ perception that Japan is once again acting in a bullying fashion,” it reflected “Japan’s belief in the legal sanctity of the 1965 treaty and a sense of exasperation and irritation that the Korean government does not honor its past agreements by continually demanding that Japan make further amends,” Nilsson-Wright said.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, center, pays homage at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Oct. 17, 2005. [REUTERS/YONHAP]
Hosaka argued that this exasperation was exploited by Abe, “who cast Korea as a country that can’t keep its promises, even though it was Japan that reneged on past pledges, such as establishing a war memorial that doesn’t honor Class A war criminals, unlike Yasukuni Shrine,” where visits by previous Japanese prime ministers, such as Junichiro Koizumi, have periodically enflamed tensions between Seoul and Tokyo.
Mutual frustration is apparent in polls in both countries that show a majority of Koreans do not believe Tokyo has sufficiently repented over its past history and that a majority of Japanese people say it is not necessary to offer additional apologies to Korea.
But surveys indicating Korean “apology mistrust” and Japanese “apology fatigue” form only part of the whole story, according to Nilsson-Wright.
“Korean nationalism itself was shaped by the experience of Japanese colonialism, so while South Koreans are divided over many issues, such as North Korea, China and the country’s own authoritarian past, Japan is one of the few political and historical issues where politicians both left and right have historically seen eye-to-eye,” Nilsson-Wright said.
As for Tokyo’s conservatives who want to downplay culpability over the war, or Japanese liberals who believe that their country’s ledger was wiped clean by the Allied occupation and pacifist postwar constitution, Korean demands for apologies are not only unwelcome reminders of a dark past, but also an issue where leaders who appear too accommodating are vulnerable to domestic criticism.
Sohn cited the example of liberal former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, who was called “foolish” by the conservative Abe for apologizing to Korea in a 2010 speech marking the centennial of Japan’s annexation of the peninsula.
Japanese confidence, grounded in its historical economic success, “is also threatened by three ‘lost decades’ of stagnation and Korea’s rise as a cultural and policy entrepreneur, which makes it less willing to be generous or broadminded when dealing with Korea,” according to Nilsson-Wright.
But Sohn also said it is “unfortunate” that Korean media coverage of Japanese apologies focuses primarily on the shortcomings of Japanese apologies, instead of engaging in a deeper examination of anti-Japanese sentiment in Korea.
“I don’t think the Korean media really asks if we reject their apologies simply because they are flawed, or also because we once lost our country to them,” he noted.
What can Korea and Japan do in the future?
One oft-mentioned model for lasting rapprochement between Korea and Japan is that of the Franco-German partnership after World War II.
“If Japan issued an unequivocal apology, repeated it annually and jointly commemorated the past with Korea, relations between Japan and Korea could be as good as relations between Germany and France,” said David, who noted that “political will” in Paris and Berlin made lasting reconciliation possible.
Hosaka went further, arguing that Koreans could believe that their neighbor is truly sorry if Japan “substantiated its apologies with appropriate measures” akin to those adopted by postwar Germany, such as “educational reforms that ensure Japanese students are taught about Japanese invasions, as well as laws that punish acts that justify or glorify Japan’s past wrongs.”
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and his wife Yuko pay their respects during visit to Seoul National Cemetery on May 7. [REUTERS/YONHAP]
According to Nilsson-Wright, “there are encouraging attempts by Japan to show genuine contrition” in this vein, such as Kishida’s visits in May to Seoul National Cemetery, where Korean independence fighters are buried, and later to the Korean atomic bombing victims’ memorial in Hiroshima during the Group of Seven summit.
But he cautioned that rising “emotional drivers” of domestic politics in both Korea and Japan would likely inhibit political will on both sides for deeper reconciliation or atonement.
“Part of the problem is that Korea and Japan have competing internal narratives over their respective paths to statehood, and we can see partisan and national identity politics in both countries assuming greater importance as their people shift blame for their loss of agency amid social disruption to external threats,” he said, adding that “both Korea and Japan can be easy targets for one another, especially if political parties and people feel they can fulfill emotional needs by delegitimizing each other or the other country.”
Yeung noted the possibility that “those who strongly identify with their Korean national identity may feel stronger for the issue — and more difficult to accept the apologies — than those with a lower level of national identity identification,” but that this theory would require further study.
Polling studies conducted by the East Asia Institute over the past decade also show a widening gap between Koreans on the left and right on how to approach relations with Japan, according to Sohn.
“While liberal Koreans express the belief that relations with Japan can only improve if historical issues are resolved, more and more conservative Koreans believe that security and economic cooperation with Japan should take precedence and that better relations — and a resolution of the history problem — will naturally follow,” he said.
Nilsson-Wright also highlighted “common mounting security challenges in the region, such as China’s increasing assertiveness and North Korea’s advancing missile and nuclear weapons arsenal, which beg the question of whether Koreans can accept that the Japanese government may never offer the degree of contrition they want, but still move forward for the sake of cooperation.”
Sohn similarly said that an apology “that meets the expectations of most Koreans” might be hard to realize, “especially given the constraints of sovereignty on what we can tell Japan to fix,” and that the best Korea could hope for is that Japan engages in “more vibrant and open discourse” on the subject of its colonial past.
“We may never get the apology we want, but if Japan has vibrant domestic discussions and open civil discourse about its history, is it not better than if they try to whitewash and bury it entirely?”
BY MICHAEL LEE [[email protected]]
8. N. Korea slams IAEA for Fukushima water approval
Of course it would.
N. Korea slams IAEA for Fukushima water approval
The Korea Times · by 2023-07-09 15:07 | Politics · July 9, 2023
The International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi attends a meeting with South Korean lawmakers at National Assembly in Seoul, Sunday, July 9. Yonhap
North Korea on Sunday slammed the United Nations' nuclear watchdog for approving Japan's plan to discharge treated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant.
The International Atomic Energy Agency approved Tokyo's plan to release treated water from the tsunami-hit nuclear plant into the sea over the next few decades.
The plan has raised concerns in neighbouring countries, prompting China to ban some food imports and sparking protests in South Korea.
The release of the treated water will have a "fatal adverse impact on the human lives and security and ecological environment," an official from Pyongyang's environmental protection ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
DPK relays concerns over Fukushima water discharge to IAEA chief
"What matters is the unreasonable behaviour of IAEA actively patronizing and facilitating Japan's projected discharge of nuclear-polluted water, which is unimaginable," the statement added.
Some 1.33 million cubic metres of groundwater, rainwater and water used for cooling have accumulated at the Fukushima nuclear plant, where several reactors went into meltdown after the 2011 tsunami overwhelmed cooling systems.
The plant operator treats the water to remove almost all radioactive elements except tritium, and plans to dilute it before discharging it into the ocean over several decades.
The statement comes as IAEA head Rafael Grossi is wrapping up his three-day visit to Seoul with a meeting with opposition lawmakers, who have criticised the planned release.
On Saturday, Grossi met with South Korean foreign minister Park Jin to brief him on his agency's findings, Seoul's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Park requested "active cooperation from the IAEA for safety verification and public reassurance," it added.
Following that meeting, Grossi said the IAEA will remain at the Fukushima plant to ensure safety "every step of the way", tweeting: "What starts now is even more important than the work done so far ― the continuous monitoring of the plan's implementation." (AFP)
The Korea Times · by 2023-07-09 15:07 | Politics · July 9, 2023
9. Korea to put on 4 drone shows overseas
Just like nuclear technology, South Korean "drone" technology and capabilities are far superior to the north's.
Excerpts:
The ministry will promote drone infrastructure facilities in charge of flight tests, certification, technology development, as well as an expert training and education system, drone registration, flight control systems and safety management systems in Korea.
"An increasing number of countries are showing interest in Korea's drone technologies and drone-mediated urban mobility services," the ministry said. "We will continue efforts to accelerate exports and overseas expansion of strong local players."
Korea to put on 4 drone shows overseas
The Korea Times · July 9, 2023
A drone show takes place near the Han River in Seoul, April 29. Yonhap
By Lee Kyung-min
Korea will host four drone shows overseas this year, to promote the excellent products and services of strong local players, the land ministry said Sunday.
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Korea Institute of Aviation Safety Technology said they will increase this year's overseas drone technology demonstration shows to four, up from one.
Korea will host the shows in Colombia in July, Saudi Arabia in August and the Czech Republic in October. It held its first overseas drone show in Uzbekistan in June.
Participants of this year's overseas shows were selected in a public draw.
The 13 firms are specialized in collecting spatial data, processing spatial information, smart farms, monitoring and reconnaissance, defense, agriculture, construction and measurement, air traffic and safety, drone software and drone soccer.
The ministry said that the June drone show in Uzbekistan drew about $4 million (5 billion won) in buyer consultations.
Included were memorandums of understanding (MOUs) signed between Uzbekistan Deputy Agriculture Minister Anvar Asamov and two local drone firms specializing in spatial information and smart farming.
Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) has established cooperative networking with the Civil Aviation Agency under the Uzbekistan Ministry of Transport.
In August, Saudi Arabia will host a drone show at the invitation of the Naif Arab University for Security Sciences (NAUSS), under the Arab Council of Interior Ministers.
A number of Middle Eastern countries will participate in the event where Korea's drone technologies will be showcased in the fields of defense, security and surveillance, as well as geographic information systems (GIS), a type of computer system that analyzes and displays geographically referenced information.
The ministry will promote drone infrastructure facilities in charge of flight tests, certification, technology development, as well as an expert training and education system, drone registration, flight control systems and safety management systems in Korea.
"An increasing number of countries are showing interest in Korea's drone technologies and drone-mediated urban mobility services," the ministry said. "We will continue efforts to accelerate exports and overseas expansion of strong local players."
The Korea Times · July 9, 2023
10. Japan protests over military drills on Dokdo islands
Japan protests over military drills on Dokdo islands
The Korea Times · July 8, 2023
This Aug. 25, 2019 file photo shows Korea's first Aegis-equipped destroyer, the Sejong the Great, taking part in a defense exercise near Dokdo. Yonhap
Japan has lodged a protest with Korea over military drills by the latter on the Dokdo islands, calling the move "extremely regrettable."
In a statement Friday, Japan's foreign ministry said it summoned a senior diplomat at the Korean embassy in Tokyo, while the Japanese embassy in Seoul also summoned a senior Korean official to make the protest.
"Takeshima is indisputably an inherent territory of Japan, in light of historical facts and based on international law," the ministry said in the statement. "The drills by the Korean military are unacceptable and extremely regrettable."
The two nations have long been at loggerheads over the sovereignty of the group of islets called Takeshima in Japan and Dokdo in Korea, which lie about halfway between the East Asian neighbors in the Sea of Japan, which Korea calls the East Sea.
The Japanese protest comes even as bilateral frictions have eased recently amid shared concerns about China's growing might and U.S. entreaties for its allies to work more closely together. U.S., Japanese and Korean leaders have been expected to hold a trilateral summit in the United States this summer.
Asked about the Japanese protest, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said the question of sovereignty was for Korea and Japan to resolve, but added that "a robust and effective trilateral relationship ... is critical for our shared security and common interests."
A Korean military official said his country had conducted the military drills routinely every year.
"The East Sea territory defense exercise was carried out to conduct our mission to protect our territory, people and property," the official said. (Reuters)
The Korea Times · July 8, 2023
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