Tag Archives: South Korea

Peace in Our Time? Only if America is “Agreement Capable”, by Tom Luongo

Posted on March 10, 2018 | Leave a comment

An agreement between the US and North Korea could have long-term consequences far beyond the Far East. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Those who have followed this blog for the past year know that I feel Presidents Trump and Putin are working towards a Middle East Peace Agreement.  Brick by brick, day by day, the foundation for this agreement is being built

Last night’s nigh-historic statement by the South Korean National Security Adviser Chung Eui-yong is another piece of that foundation.  You can read the entire statement here, but I’ll highlight the important part:

“I told President Trump that in our meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is committed to denuclearization. Kim pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further nuclear or missile tests; he understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and the United States must continue.  And he expressed his eagerness to meet President Trump as soon as possible.”

“President Trump appreciated the briefing and said he would meet Kim Jong-un by May to achieve permanent denuclearization.”

This is the breakthrough that everyone was waiting for.  Once Trump gets involved in the negotiations, a deal will be made.  That’s his wheelhouse, making deals.  Everyone walks away a winner in their minds.

We can argue about the effectiveness of Trump’s sanctions until we are blue in the face. But the reality is that 1) Koreans no longer want separation and 2) North Korea is not the economic basket case we are constantly told it is in the media.

I remember meeting with Jim Rogers in 2015 at a conference and the two areas of the world he was most bullish on were Kazakhstan and North Korea.

Because North Korea, under Kim Jong-Un, is moving towards a more open society, not a closed one.  The sincere desire for reunification of the Korean peninsula, if only symbolically through a more open border, is the animating principle here.

And that only happens with a North Korea entering the modern world economy.

To continue reading: Peace in Our Time? Only if America is “Agreement Capable”

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Breakthrough: North Korea Ready To Denuclearize “If Regime Safety Is Guaranteed”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 6, 2018 | 2 comments

If this pans out it would be good news indeed. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Score another diplomatic victory for Trump, whose hard line negotiating tactic appears to have generated a dramatic – and favorable for market – outcome. Moments ago futures spiked, 10Y yields jumped and the USDJPY bounced about 106 on what the FT dubbed a “diplomatic breakthrough” that North and South Korea have agreed to hold direct talks between their leaders with North Korea signalling it is willing to abandon its nuclear program “if regime security can be guaranteed.”

  • NKOREA OPEN TO DENUCLEARIZE IF REGIME SAFETY GUARANTEED: SKOREA

The headlines come from South Korean National Security Office special envoy Chung Eui-yong, who is speaking to reporters in Seoul after returning from Pyongyang. Remember he and another envoy, National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Monday. Chung confirms that North Korea is indeed ready to stop the jawboning and negotiate:

  • Kim Jong Un open to frank talks with U.S. for denuclearization: Chung
  • North Korea to suspend provocations during talks: Chung
  • Promises not to use any weapons against South Korea: Chung

Next step: a summit in April between the two neighbors where details will be ironed out: “North Korea, South Korea agree to hold summit in April”, Chung says. Pyongyang vowed not to test any ballistic missiles or make further provocations during talks, according Chung clarified.

The easing of tensions between the two Koreas and this clearly positive geopolitical development has triggered a broad based risk-on move. Fixed income is selling off sharply here, with Bunds flying. As the spot KRW market is closed, the NDF space is in focus. The 1m NDF has traded from 1076.0 to 1070.8 at time of print. USDJPY is spiking higher at 106.10 at print. This move may have legs especially as early NY begins to come in

The question now is whether this unexpected diplomatic victory for Trump will further empower him to demand similar concessions on the trade side, and launch the “trade wars”, even as the market is now fully convinced that the US president will backtrack.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-06/north-korea-ready-denuclearize-if-regime-safety-assured

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Make Sports, Not War, by Eric Margolis

Posted on February 10, 2018 | 1 comment

Mike Pence reportedly refused to stand when South and North Korean athletes marched jointly into the Olympic Stadium. If that’s true, both Pence and American foreign policy look like spoiled brats, upset because they’re not the center of attention. From Eric Margolis at lewrockwell.com:

Considering that a nuclear conflict over North Korea appeared imminent in recent weeks, the winter Olympics at Pyeongchang, South Korea, is a most welcome distraction – and might even deter a major war on the peninsula.

The highlight of the games was the arrival of Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korea’s ruler, Kim Jong-un. This was the first time a member of North Korea’s ruling Kim dynasty had come to South Korea. Her handshake with South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in was a historic and welcome moment.

So too the planned joint marches by North and South Korean athletes under a new reunification flag.  For all Koreans, this was a deeply emotional and inspiring ceremony.

But not for US Vice President Mike Pence, who was sent by Trump to give the Olympics the evil eye.  He even refused to stand for the joint marchers in a surly act that spoke volumes about his role.  Whether he meets President Moon or Kim Yo-jong remains to be seen. Even a cup of tea between Pence and Kim could end all the crazy talk about nuclear war. Does anyone in Washington know that North Korea lies between China and Russia?

All this drama is happening as the Trump White House is advocating giving North Korea a `bloody nose.’  Meaning a massive bombing campaign that could very likely include nuclear weapons.  Trump, who received a reported five exemptions from military service because of a little bone spur in his foot, revels in military affairs and thinks a ‘bloody nose’ will warn Kim Jong-un to be good. Trump is planning a big military parade at which he will take the salute.

This writer went through US Army basic and advanced infantry training with a broken bone in my foot, and has no sympathy with the president’s militaristic pretensions.

To continue reading: Make Sports, Not War

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Korea, the Winter Olympics, and the Spirit of Queen Min, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on January 26, 2018 | Leave a comment

North Korea are bound by ties of blood and nationalism. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

Nationalism means peace on the Korean peninsula

We are told by practically everyone that nationalism is an archaic, aggressive, and downright evil sentiment, one that causes wars, racism, bigotry, and probably the common cold as well. And we get this from both the right and the left. Nationalism of any kind, we are told, is a dangerous atavism, a throwback to primitive “tribalism” and an insult to sacred “modernity.” While this nonsensical view is pretty widespread throughout the Western world, it is especially dominant – at least among the political class – here in the United States, where it is routinely alleged that America isn’t a place, it isn’t the American people: America, they solemnly intone, is an Idea. What sort of idea, or, rather, whose idea, seems to be a matter of some dispute: but, in any case, we aren’t really an actual country, according to the wise and wondrous elites who let us know what to think, so much as we’re an abstraction, floating in the ether, like a cloud in the sky imprinted with the image of a giant welcome mat.

Things are quite different on the Korean peninsula.

They called it the Hermit Kingdom before its forcible opening by the Western powers, and for a very good reason: unlike Japan and, later, China, the Koreans stubbornly resisted trade – or, indeed, any sort of contact with the West, which was strictly forbidden. While Western writers routinely attribute this to the supposedly tyrannical rule of Yi Ha-ung, the Regent (1864-97), Koreans then and now revere him as the defender of the nation from European encroachment and domination, which was China’s sad fate.

An American crew in service to a British company made the first serious attempt to “open” Korea: in 1866 the General Sherman tried to sail up the Taedong river to reach Pyongyang, but were ordered back by the Korean authorities. The Westerners ignored this edict and continued on their way, but were soon beached when the river waters ran low. They were then set upon by the Koreans, who rescued the Korean officials who had been taken hostage by the crew and killed everyone on board. An inauspicious beginning to a relationship rife with conflict: today there is a monument on the spot where the General Sherman was burned which informs visitors that the leader of the attackers was the great-grandfather of Kim Il-Sung!

To continue reading: Korea, the Winter Olympics, and the Spirit of Queen Min

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Washington and Allies Go Orwellian on Korea Peace Talks, by Finian Cunningham

Posted on January 21, 2018 | 1 comment

The North and South Koreans are talking to each and many in the Washington establishment think it’s the worst thing that could have happened, certainly much worst than war, even a nuclear war. From Finian Cunningham at strategic-culture.org:

Just as North and South Korea achieve important peaceful exchanges, Washington and its NATO allies appear to be moving with determination to sabotage the initiative for averting war on the East Asian peninsula.

Further, the reckless, gratuitous provocations beg the conclusion that the United States is indeed trying to start a war.

Meanwhile, unprecedented accusations this week by US President Donald Trump that Russia is supporting North Korea to evade United Nations sanctions also point to the danger that any conflict could spiral out of control to engulf world nuclear powers.

Moscow rejected the unsubstantiated claims leveled by Trump, saying that Russia is abiding by UN trade restrictions over North Korea, and that the American president’s allegations were “entirely unfounded”.

Trump’s verbal broadside suggests that Washington is trying to undermine the nascent talks between the two Koreas, talks which Russia and China have both applauded as a long-overdue diplomatic effort to resolve the Korean conflict.

Separately, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov deplored a summit held in Vancouver, Canada, earlier this week in which the US and 19 other nations – most of them NATO members – called for sharper sanctions on North Korea that go beyond the remit of the United Nations. The conference, co-hosted by Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, issued a stridently bellicose statement, calling in effect for North Korea to surrender its nuclear weapons or face US-led military action.

Significantly, and pointedly, China and Russia were not invited to the Canadian summit.

Most of the attending states were part of the original US-led military force which fought against North Korea during the 1950-53 war. A war which killed as many as two million North Koreans.

Russia admonished that the conference was “harmful” to current peace talks between North and South Korea. China rebuked the Canadian event as being stuck in “Cold War thinking”.

To continue reading: Washington and Allies Go Orwellian on Korea Peace Talks

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Little Rocket Man Wins the Round, by Patrick J. Buchanan

Posted on January 12, 2018 | Leave a comment

Has the world underestimated Kim Jong un? From Patrick J. Buchanan at buchanan.org:

After a year in which he tested a hydrogen bomb and an ICBM, threatened to destroy the United States, and called President Trump “a dotard,” Kim Jong Un, at the gracious invitation of the president of South Korea, will be sending a skating team to the “Peace Olympics.”

An impressive year for Little Rocket Man.

Thus the most serious nuclear crisis since Nikita Khrushchev put missiles in Cuba appears to have abated. Welcome news, even if the confrontation with Pyongyang has probably only been postponed.

Still, we have been given an opportunity to reassess the 65-year-old Cold War treaty that obligates us to go to war if the North attacks Seoul, and drove us to the brink of war today.

2017 demonstrated that we need a reassessment. For the potential cost of carrying out our commitment is rising exponentially.

Two decades ago, a war on the Korean Peninsula, given the massed Northern artillery on the DMZ, meant thousands of U.S. dead.

Today, with Pyongyang’s growing arsenal of nuclear weapons, American cities could face Hiroshima-sized strikes, if war breaks out.

What vital U.S. interest is there on the Korean Peninsula that justifies accepting in perpetuity such a risk to our homeland?

We are told that Kim’s diplomacy is designed to split South Korea off from the Americans. And this is undeniably true.

For South Korean President Moon Jae-in is first and foremost responsible for his own people, half of whom are in artillery range of the DMZ. In any new Korean war, his country would suffer most.

And while he surely welcomes the U.S. commitment to fight the North on his country’s behalf as an insurance policy, Moon does not want a second Korean war, and he does not want President Trump making the decision as to whether there shall be one.

Understandably so. He is looking out for South Korea first.

To continue reading: Little Rocket Man Wins the Round

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Korea: Peace Breaks Out, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on January 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

The two countries with the most at stake on the Korean Peninsula are talking together. Who knows what might happen! From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s speech did get some coverage here in the US, but mostly the part about how he boasted that he has a “nuclear button” on his desk and that his newly-created nuclear deterrent force is within range of the United States. This provoked the expected expressions of belligerent panic from all the usual suspects, including Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Beverly Hills), who seems to spend most of his time tweeting about how President Trump is about to blow up the world (or else hand it over to Vladimir Putin).

Lieu is convinced – or wants us to think he’s convinced – that Trump is about to attack North Korea, a conflict that would end with millions dead and Korea a smoking ruin. What nearly all accounts of the speech left out was Kim’s amazingly conciliatory proposal to send a delegation to the South during the upcoming Olympics: “We sincerely hope that the South will successfully host the Olympics,” Kim said:

“Above all, we must ease the acute military tensions between the North and the South. The North and the South should no longer do anything that would aggravate the situation, and must exert efforts to ease military tensions and create a peaceful environment.”

Even as Trump and Kim were exchanging escalating insults over the past few months, the lines of communication were opening up between North and South Korea – and reaching Washington. Around mid-December South Korean President Moon Jae-in requested that the regularly scheduled military provocations exercises by joint US-South Korean forces, designed to simulate an invasion of the North, be postponed until after the Olympics: Trump, for all his alleged testosterone-driven aggression (imagine all that “toxic masculinity”!), readily agreed. That led to the Panmunjun “peace village” meeting in the demilitarized zone and the start of talks where the North agreed to send athletes and an entire delegation to the Olympic games and to continue ongoing talks with the South on lessening tensions.

To continue reading: Korea: Peace Breaks Out

 

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North Korea Is Walking Back War – And Pundits Are Strangely Disappointed, by John Feffer

Posted on January 11, 2018 | Leave a comment

A friendship with the US, in which no wedges can be driven, involves doing what the US wants without question or complaint. From John Feffer at antiwar.com:

Pundits seem more concerned about the North driving a “wedge” between the U.S. and the South than about preventing nuclear war

In talks this week at the DMZ, South Korea welcomed the participation of North Korea in the upcoming Winter Olympics. The two countries also discussed restarting reunions of divided families and reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. Earlier, both sides reestablished their hotline.

All of this adult conversation is a welcome change from the war of epithets between the “dotard” president of the United States and the “little rocket man” in Pyongyang.

Strange, then, that a politically diverse set of pundits in the United States has been worried only about how North Korea could use these talks to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States.

Scott Snyder, from the Council on Foreign Relations, speculates that Kim Jong Un’s overture is a ploy to trap South Korean President Moon Jae-in “into concessions that might weaken South Korea’s alliance with the United States.” According to Danny Russel, the top Asia policy person in the Obama administration, “This is a classic united we stand, divided we fall situation. It’s always easier to maintain five party solidarity when North Korea is behaving badly.”

And from the American Enterprise Institute on the right, Nicholas Eberstadt warns that “Pyongyang regards South Korea as the weakest link in the gathering global campaign to pressure North Korea to denuclearize” and urges Seoul not to “get played.”

Then there’s the Wilson Center’s Robert Litwak, writing a piece in The New York Times entitled “A United Front Against North Korea.” Here’s the core of his argument:

We should be wary of Mr. Kim’s intentions. His gambit may be a ploy to buy time for the additional testing needed to acquire the capability to strike the continental United States. He may simply be trying to extract economic relief. Or his overture may be purely strategic, an attempt to drive a wedge between South Korea and its superpower patron, the United States.

To continue reading: North Korea Is Walking Back War – And Pundits Are Strangely Disappointed

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Why the Korean ‘Crisis’ Is Completely Phony, by Justin Raimondo

Posted on January 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

The US may not have much of a say in what eventually happens on the Korean Peninsula. From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com:

I’ve been busy these days, and my shoulders hurt from all that digging, so I’m taking a break and I figured, hey, what the heck, why not write a column: because, you see, I’m digging a bomb shelter. Oh yes I am! After all, I’ve heard – on the internet, where else?! – that the Orange-Haired Monster is about to start World War III, and I’m not about to be taken by surprise, no sirree! Of course, the locale and cause of this impending disaster shifts about quite considerably, depending on what’s on CNN’s “Trump-is-a-monster” agenda that day: sometimes it’s Iran, when Iran is in the news. Other times it’s a generic fear, attached to no particular geography: it’s just that the Orange-Haired Monster is a mad monster, and so it could happen at any time, anywhere.

Yikes! Gotta keep digging!

In recent weeks, the focus of the carefully sustained panic has been on the Korean peninsula, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been launching increasingly sophisticated missiles and displaying his crude-but-seemingly-effective nuclear technology in order to show that he won’t be Gaddaffied.

Ah, but now it seems the panic-mongers just might’ve been wrong: despite the fiery rhetoric coming from both Washington and Pyongyang: the theatrics both Kim and Trump are so fond of succeeded in obscuring the objective reality beneath the brouhaha: the fact that neither the North Koreans nor the Americans have any interest in taking the “crisis” to the melting point. That’s why the Demilitarized Zone has stood there every since the armistice, with only a few brave defectors crossing every once in a while. The North Koreans fought us to a standstill, and the conflict has remained frozen to this day – because neither side has any interest in resuming it.

To continue reading: Why the Korean ‘Crisis’ Is Completely Phony

 

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Peace Progress: North Korea Will Send Team To Winter Games As Seoul Prepares To Lift Some Sanctions, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 9, 2018 | Leave a comment

Making yakety-yak is generally better than making war. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

A day after the Wall Street Journal reported that the US officials are debating whether it’d be possible to mount a limited military strike against the North without provoking a nuclear response (maybe but who’d want to risk finding out?), the North said on Tuesday that, following a session of talks with its South Korean neighbors, the isolated country would be sending a delegation of athletes, dignitaries and journalists to the Winter Games in Pyeongchang next month.

While the US has yet to issue a response, such a move will probably infuriate South Korea’s American allies. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have been engaged in an escalating war of words since the former took office a year ago.

According to Reuters, South Korea had unilaterally banned several North Korean officials from entering the country in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests, Seoul said if it needs to take “prior steps” to help the North Koreans visit for the Olympics, it would consider it, together with the United Nations Security Council and other relevant countries, foreign ministry spokesman Roh Kyu-deok said during a press briefing.

North Korea

The agreement comes after North Korea and South Korea last week agreed to reopen a cross-border hotline that had been shuttered for two years.

As the Guardian  pointed out, the agreement represents a cautious diplomatic breakthrough after months of rising tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program.

The five-member North Korean delegation traveled to the border in a motorcade and then walked across the military demarcation line into the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom at around 9.30 am local time, the Guardian reported. The village straddles the demilitarized zone (DMZ), the heavily armed border that has separated the two Koreas for more than six decades.

As the two sides sat down for their first face-to-face talks since December 2015, North Korean media pushed back against Trump’s claim that his tough stance on North Korea had forced it to the negotiating table. The Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the ruling Workers’ party, said Trump’s claim that sanctions and pressure on the regime had brought him “diplomatic success” during his first year in the White House was “ridiculous sophism”.

To continue reading: Peace Progress: North Korea Will Send Team To Winter Games As Seoul Prepares To Lift Some Sanctions

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