Yoon Seok-yeol's "apple" apology and the Chun Doo-hwan dictatorship

Former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol gave a presentation in Busan, October 19, during his presidential primary campaign, in which he expressed approval of the former dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan. He basically said that except for the ROK Army's slaughter of popular resistance to Chun Doo-hwan's coup d'etat, in Kwangju, (May 18, 1980), Chun's martial law regime administered South Korea well. His tactless remark went viral on the internet and social media throughout South Korea and met with widespread disapproval. People's Party leadership called on him to apologize to the many Korean people offended by his thoughtless remarks. Yoon then posted a somewhat lengthy and circuitous apology on social media, which basically said he was sorry for his shortcoming, that he didn't adequately perceive the sensitivity of affected South Koreans, who had suffered at the hands of the Chun Doo-hwan. Yoon asserted he would learn to be a better politician as a result of the learning experience.

(Source- 언론 알아야 바꾼다 10.22-10.23) (Left) Yoon's "Dol" celebration picture; (center) "memorable Indian apple;" (right) Yoon's Jindo dog being offered an apple, Dori like his father likes Indian apples. All comments on the posts had been removed.

However, after Yoon's written apology was posted, 10 hours later at night, a photo attributed to Yoon's instagram address was uploaded, suggesting that Yoon took the matter lightly and was taunting his critics. The picture of Yoon's traditional Dol ( 돌 ) celebration picture at age one, show's him sitting at the ceremonial table of fruit, holding an apple. This was posted on October 20. Sa gwa ( 사과 ) means apology in Korean; it is also a homonym for "apple." The caption under the Dol photo of Yoon as a one year old baby said, that even today Yoon favored apples over other fruit. On October 22, two more photos with a sardonic "sa gwa" theme were uploaded on social media, one of an indoor plant from which an apple hangs by a thread. The caption underneath says "memorable Indian apple." Another picture uploaded shows Yoon's Jindo dog (a Korean dog breed) being offered an apple (apology). The caption underneath said, Dori (Yoon's dog) resembles his father in that he likes (an) Indian apple (apology). Indo sagwa ( 인도사과 ) can also mean, moral or humane apology or guided or obligated apology in this context. One political pundit compared this kind of inappropriate biting sarcasm as characteristic of the "Ilbe" internet hate sites frequented by right wing young males so popular in South Korea now.

Shortly after the pictures were uploaded and went viral on social media, Yoon had a pre-scheduled televised debate, one on one, with a minor PPP candidate, Yoo Seung-min, during the conservative party's primary campaign process. In the debate, Yoo Seung-min questioned Yoon extensively concerning the circumstances surrounding the uploaded pictures of apples in various contexts. At first Yoon appeared to be taken somewhat off guard and responded awkwardly attempting to dissociate himself from the uploaded pictures. Seeing that Yoo wasn't letting go of the subject matter, Yoon came around to admitting the authenticity of the photos attributing them to an unnamed employee in his campaign. He said the pictures were uploaded in an office "near his apartment," and that his wife Kim Gun-hee participated in the process. He admitted that he had approved of the photos being uploaded on his instagram account. Yoon claimed that the intent of the photos being posted is being distorted by critics. Clearly on the defensive, Yoon improvidently chose to double down on the gaffe which had brought on the political demand for his apology and then its apparent sardonic and disrepectful repudiation by uploading the related photos. Yoon insisted, digging himself into a deeper hole, that his original gaffe concerning dictator Chun Doo-hwan's martial law regime was correct, and that Chun ruled South Korea wisely and that this was widely understood, even in Honam, the region where the Kwangju uprising and massacre took place.

In his most recent public statements, Yoon has apparently acknowledged his culpability, admitting posting the photos was his fault. His campaign office floated the idea that Yoon would go to Kwangju next month to apologize formally and make a visit to the memorial site where those killed during the 5.18 uprising against martial law were buried. The schedule for Yoon's visit wouldn't be confirmed until November 5. One observer questioned what difference this would make in Yoon's campaign when the primary would be effectively over November 5 with final selection of the People's Party presidential candidate taking place that day.

Someone keeping track noted 14 major gaffes by Yoon since he announced his candidacy June 29. Among the more memorable ones, were his comments that Fukishima never blew up; that it's okay to work 120 hours a week; and that adulterated goods shouldn't be regulated or poorer people wouldn't have lower price choices in the market place. In another gaffe, Yoon, used a Japanese yakasu term for "turf" or dominion used by thugs extorting business owners to refer to the Honam region as "his." Critics contended Yoon's expression was akin to using the "F" word in a formal setting. Further, critics felt Yoon's use of the gangland expression, reflected on his demonstrated character as "boss," when serving as Prosecutor General, willing to use state power arbitrarily against his rivals and critics. Yoon on another occasion denigrated concerns about pay for manual laborers, saying that manual labor was something from Africa. Yoon also made televized appearances recently over a three day period with the Chinese character for king ( 王 ) marked on the palm of his hand, which raised questions again about his possible shamanistic beliefs, and whether he washes his hands.

One interesting developement in the online investigations and discussions of Yoon's latest public blunders, is that the photo of Yoon's dog being offered an apple, on close examination, reveals that the photo was taken most likely, in the Kobana Kontents office of Yoon's wife. The fixtures and dog's cushion are virtually identical. Also intriguing is that although Yoon publicly had denied direct participation in staging the photo, the reflection in a closeup of the pet's eye show's a man slouching in a sitting position with his legs splayed apart in the rude posture which is virtually a Yoon trademark. It should be noted that sending an apple or a picture of an apple as representation of an apology for some minor slight among friends is a practice now among young South Koreans. That Yoon would acquiesce to such a stupid gimmick with respect to comments he made concerning the mass murders and other criminal acts by Chun Doo-hwan, shows how poor his judgement is and who would really be running the administration, namely, Kim Gun-hee, his wife. Or would it be her Shaman? All this painfully similar in nature to the relationship between Choi Soon-shil and former President Park Geun-hye, both now in prison.

A Korea Gallup poll of 1000 persons over age 18 during period October 19 thru 21 showed the democratic presidential candidate, Lee Jae-myung, leading Yoon Seok-yeol in a hypothetical presidential matchup, 34 to 31 percent. Range of error plus or minus 3.1 percent. So Yoon appears to have lost some support.

Addendum (6.23.2023) OhMyTV had a report on social media codes favored by far right supporters of Yoon. It's hard to know who started this practice, was it Kim Gon-hee? Yoon and his corporate supporters accuse just about anyone who criticizes or opposes their policies of being jongbuk 종북 or baljengies 빨쟁이 (pro North Korea or reds/commies respectively). One of their slogans in a play on words is myeol kong, the shortened social media code represented in pictures by Yoon and one time supporter Na Kyung-won, (since put out to pasture by Yoon),among others, buying Myeolchi 멸치 (anchovy) and Kong 콩 (beans) in videos at the market chain owned by Shinsegae. The supporters appear to be fascists or extreme right. Myeol Kong 멸콩 means exterminate communists. Recognizing such video and verbal cues serves as a kind of cult secret handshake. When chat groups or bulletin boards strike such posts, they are changed to myeol kyun, exterminate the virus. Allegedly, Chung Yong-jin, 정용진 of the Singsegae fortune, is the leader of a group, 정우회 (friends of Chung or 정치 우파 이사회 right wing politics council, just guessing on the play on words). Chung's golf business is patronized by some of the most powerful chaebol in South Korea according to the OhMyTV account. Allegedly, Sinsegae operates vineyards and a winery near the Chun Doo-hwan family vineyard in Napa valley.

정용진 “멸공, 나한테는 현실”…신세계 관련 주가는 ‘급락’ | 뉴스A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQR3zV7ADSs

정용진이 쏘아올린 ‘달파멸콩’…윤석열 이어 나경원도 “멸공” | 뉴스A 라이브
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBrWgUKxRw

The US: Wages of Destruction

Adam Tooze wrote a book The Wages of Destruction: the Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. He outlines a now or never perspective among German industrial leaders who saw a closing window of opportunity to defeat Germany's European rivals to become a continental power like the US. The means to foreclose the possibility of slipping into second rate status as a world power was to be achieved by military conquest. Currently, the Russia-China partnership and the belt and road initiative present the MacKinder nightmare of "barbarian uncivilized peoples" controlling the so called "world island." In the Anglo-American geo-political perspective rooted in 19th and 20th Century notions of racial, ethnic and ideological superiority this cannot happen.

(Source- USNI Oct. 4) US aircraft carriers Vinson and Reagan with HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the Japanese small carrier Ise. Taiwan News reported these ships operating north of Taiwan, October 3 and 4, with 13 other allied warships.
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4306367


The 2016 Rand study on the challenge posed to the US by the growth in Chinese power posits a window of US military superiority ending in 2025.* A few respected US analysts of China's military power consider this discussion dangerously mistaken. The Chinese already have conventional military superiority in their littoral seas and on the mainland. Nevertheless, the Rand discussion represents a similar now or never perspective in the US which is widely accepted: namely, act now, while the US has the advantage. In the first half of the 20th Century, Japan suffered from a similar syndrome as Nazi Germany and miscalculated the outcomes possible in the Pacific War.

*War with China, Thinking Through the Unthinkable, Rand Corporation, Gombert et al, 2016; https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR1100/RR1140/RAND_RR1140.pdf


The right in Japan currently and the US are in a negative feedback loop overestimating how they can make China submit to the US/UK/Japan imperial redefinition of geopolitical reality in Asia. Similar US miscalculations preceded the disastrous Korean and Vietnam wars, in which millions were killed. The ongoing current delusion shared by the prior early 20th Century allies, who carved up Asia and the western Pacific before their falling out during WW II, represents a revival of obsolescent geopolitical views. The US unfortunately appears ideologically and culturally incapable of engaging in any kind of geopolitical ceasefire with China as some critics of US foreign policy have sensibly recommended.

The US will be encouraged to engage in further abandonment of the "three communiques" concerning the one China policy by the UK and Japan. Provocations in this regard will continue with respect to Taiwan. Exaggerated and false claims concerning Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet and the South China Sea repeated in Enlish language media daily are accepted uncritically by insular domestic audiences who literally know nothing about East Asia. Already the anti-Beijing Olympics strategy is being rolled out for propaganda purposes. Anyone who studies the so called human rights campaigns sponsored by the US against various Asian states, knows that they signal the end rather than the beginning of negotiations, because they are an in essence interference in the internal affairs of those states and represent regime change efforts. It goes without saying that no objective analyst could take western claims of genocide in Xinjiang seriously. The domestic racism and xenophobia against China and its nationals in the US has been whipped up to a frenzy for political purposes and now really can't be contained. Anyone proposing diplomatic solutions will be ridiculed, accused of disloyalty or worse as 1950s era McCarthyism reemerges.

Lee Jae-Myung - Maverick Politician?

S Korea’s ruling party nominates maverick politician in race
HYUNG-JIN KIM, Yahoo News
Sun, October 10, 2021, 7:22 AM

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s ruling liberal party on Sunday nominated its candidate for next year’s presidential elections, selecting a maverick politician known for his outspoken views who is currently the race’s front-runner.

Lee Jae-myung’s nomination as the Democratic Party presidential candidate comes despite his rivals’ efforts to depict him as a dangerous populist and link him to a snowballing real estate scandal.

Lee has vowed to fight economic inequality, introduce a universal basic income and resume reconciliation projects with North Korea.

https://news.yahoo.com/koreas-ruling-party-nominates-maverick-112233870.html

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t post this crappy wall street establishment news source for dummies. However, this particular report shows how the US establishment press twists and distorts the news about other countries, in this case South Korea. The byline under the first photo of Lee Jae-myung says “…Lee Jae-myung, one of the ruling Democratic Party’s contenders for next year’s presidential election, speaks during the final campaign to choose the presidential election." Lee Jae-myung in no longer “one of the ruling democratic party contenders,” he is the nominee of the Democratic Party. That is the news. Putting this past description above the news report, is a psychological tool, to prepare the public for the plan to prevent him from becoming the nominee. In the headline, he is described as a maverick politician. This is nonsense, Lee’s nomination by the democratic party represents the mainstream in modern South Korean democratic politics. He is in the tradition of Kim Dae-jung, No Mu-hyun, and the current democratic president of South Korea, Moon Jae-in.

The fact is that the US loathes President Moon Jae-in. Lee is cut from the same democratic tradition that puts the public interest and South Korean national interest above the so called corrupt special interests that have traditionally ruled Korea through right wing dictators and their authoritarian successors starting with No Tae-oo and ending with Park Geun-hye. The corrupt authoritarians on the right, and the corrupt prosecutors, judges, legislators, and media that have done their bidding for decades are the darlings of US media, the Pentagon and Wall Street. When democracy emerges into the daylight in South Korea, it must be smeared and ridiculed.

Accordingly, Yahoo News, attempts to smear presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung with the labels, populist, appeaser to the communist north, and corrupt government official. The McCarthy style smear is a reference to South Korean initiatives to initiate political, economic, cultural, public health and other humanitarian contacts with North Korea, which serve the cause of stability, security, and public welfare on the peninsula. As usual, the US special interests regard this as a threat to their military empire in Asia. What is worse, the current president, and the democratic candidate for president, aren’t really interested in an anti-China policy, the Quad, or any military moves against China, to be undertaken with the US, Japan, or Taiwan.

As far as Lee Jae-myung being corrupt, Lee Jae-myung’s opposition in South Korea shouldn’t have raised the Hwacheon Daeyu (Daejangdong) real estate project which Lee used as a public private partnership which resulted in tens of millions of dollars being accrued in publicly owned accounts for the benefit of Seongnam City tax payers. As it turns out, by creating a false charge against Lee of financial misfeasance in the project, Lee’s opposition has opened a Pandora’s box which revealed the corruption on the private side of the project with payoffs to family members of several current or former conservative politicians. The accusation also raised the issue of why Yoon Seok-yeol, failed to successfully prosecute the corrupt criminals who stole millions at the time from the Busan Savings Bank. Yoon is the conservative presidential candidate for the People’s Power Party. The people who voted for Lee, who won the nomination without a runoff, because of his large lead over his competition, know how dirty politics of the right are, the corruption of the administration of justice in South Korea as a political tool of the right, and the fact that years of investigation by right wing prosecutors, like candidate Yoon Seok-yeol have failed to result in conviction or provable charge against Lee.

As far as Lee Jae-myung being a populist, and a man of the people, guilty as charged.

夢

One China Policy legal review claims the Allies have title to Taiwan

Currently there are disputes about the "One China" policy and what it means. One, admittedly older, penumbral style legal analysis of the One China policy and what it purportedly means runs through a historical examination of the events leading to the current ambiguity or dissimulation, if you prefer, giving rise to the dispute over what the One China policy means. Frank Chiang's law review article merits review.* Some no doubt will find the legal discussion supportive of their view that the One China policy means something other than one China. In other words those who agree that Taiwan is not in fact Chinese territory may like the article. The opinion expressed here, is that the logic applied in the legal thesis is specious and fanciful, satisfying foreign policy objectives of the US, UK, Japan, and Taiwan separatists.

*One-China Policy and Taiwan, Y. Frank Chiang (2004)
https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1950&context=ilj

(Source- USNI Oct. 4) US aircraft carriers Vinson and Reagan with HMS Queen Elizabeth, and the Japanese small carrier Ise. Taiwan News reported these ships operating north of Taiwan, October 3 and 4, with 13 other allied warships. .:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4306367


After reading the detailed history, in Chiang's lengthy law review article, it appears that the west engaged in the kind of prevarication and equivocation with China that characterized prior agreements with Cuban and Philippine independence fighters and indigenous American peoples and Hawaiian natives before that. One Asian statesmen not too long ago, referred to a US diplomat as a long haired general on horseback, a sharp characterization of how current US Asian policy does resemble earlier treatment of indigenous Americans in the not too distant past. Present US equivocation (or doubletalk) on the One China policy by the Biden administration, clearly takes the form of 19th Century gunboat diplomacy. The administration attempts to treat China as some third rate power that it can it fool and intimidate, while making transparently false representations that it isn't seeking confrontation.

Japan's war against China began in 1894 in the Sino-Japanese War. It was this Japanese war that resulted in the Treaty of Shimonoseki and Japan's annexation of Taiwan. This US/UK/Japanese/Taiwan legal theory postulates that this treaty conveyed legitimate "title of Taiwan" to Japan. Further, when the KMT occupied Taiwan after Japan's defeat in WW II they did not get "title" to Taiwan but were only authorized by MacArthur to administer Taiwan as the "agent of the Allied Powers." (Not suprisingly the western diplomats, according to the account, deprived the KMT of their own agency with a treaty device). While Japan was divested of its "title" to Taiwan, after its defeat in WW II, title did not then vest in the KMT because the provisions of the Treaty of San Francisco did not give "title" to Taiwan to them. Nor did any subsequent treaty. According to the author, the Allied Powers were the vested successors in interest to the Taiwan "title" and this really hasn't changed since. At one point in this discusion, Chiang admits his view that as a practical matter, "title" to Taiwan, actually rests in the United States. This imperial theory posits that the promises made to China concerning the return of Taiwan to China at Cairo and Potsdam were not implemented because leaders of the US and UK didn't want to give it to them and expressions of the Allies intent at those wartime conferences were allegedly without legal significance or import. Note that no equitable theory is raised. This contrived legal argument is then used to undermine the One China policy statements in the three communiques issued by more recent US presidents. The claim purports to distinguish the "acknowledgement" by the US of the PRC's position on Taiwan, contending that an "acknowledgement" is not an "acceptance of" or "acquiescence to" the PRC position that Taiwan is part of one China.

The attempted repudiation of promises made at Cairo and Potsdam to China, which the US and UK left out of the San Francisco Treaty while upholding nonsense legalisms about Shimonoseki, demonstrate the 19th Century imperial mindset that potentially could result in a major war. Americans in general can't live with indefiniteness. Consequently, the current public sentiment, exploited by the administration and the Pentagon for that matter can simply be expressed as, "US right and China wrong." This western attitude of superiority is historically racially based and ethnocentric in nature. Nevertheless, the days of the great white fleet are long over, Americans just don't realize it yet. The typical American response in support of Taiwan independence now, and rejection of the One China policy is that too much time has passed, that was then, this is now. No one can really make a persuasive adverse possession argument, because the mainland government never gave up its national claim to Taiwan.

Frank Chiang's law review article isn't very persuasive. Not surprisingly, parts of it previously appeared in some Japanese journal. If you follow the logic of the Shimonoseki argument, the Chinese should take Taiwan by force because according to the author of this law review article that's a legitimate way to get "title," by force. Take possession at gunpoint, then force the former political leadership, under duress, to sign a "treaty." In conclusion, the author goes on to talk about the principle of self determination and how the US and others should call for a UN sponsored referendum on independence. Similar shenanigans preceded the US-Vietnam War and the Korean War which were manipulated by the US as exigencies arose. The US divided those countries and laid the groundwork for devastating wars in which millions died. Such a plan would be vetoed by the Security Council today, and wouldn't even pass in the General Assembly.

On the "Changing Nuclear Balance."

A response to Peter Heussey's, September 29. article in The National Interest, "The Nuclear Balance is Changing- and Not for the Better" *

* https://nationalinterest.org/feature/nuclear-balance-changing%E2%80%94and-not-better-194526

The US proclivity to entertain the use of nuclear weapons when its conventional military campaign is in jeopardy in an actual confllct is ignored in the Heussey article. Ostensibly, the US motives are pure, and it is the other who would resort first to nuclear weapons. It was the US that considered the use of nuclear weapons in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. During WW II of course, the US did use nuclear weapons. During the second Iraq War, the US adopted a nuclear strike response doctrine that would apply if it were to suffer unexpected battlefield reversals or if its forces experienced any sort of special weapons attack.

Part of the current problem is the decreasing relative dominance of US forces in the Chinese theater usually characterized as the rise of China. While think tanks readily entertain the vision of US conventional superiority in armed force projection, it is at least, in part, an illusion based on assumptions such as the ability to shut off Chinese lines of communication, choking its industrial infrastructure with naval and air blockades and so forth. This conventional military view, as conceived in the US think tank studies, is convincingly disputed by a few US experts on Chinese military capabilities. The US tends to take a static or very mechanical view, which fails to entertain the disadvantages the US has, such as its distance from the battlespace, numerical force limits, the possibility of even partially effective Chinese blockades of strategic straits to its own near seas, the possibility of successful Chinese interdictions in aerospace and open Pacific waters, and the prospect of potential destruction of US forward bases in Japan and elsewhere. It also rules out Chinese strategic depth, and the eventuality of a long war which will attrite US forces and national resources. While Chinese losses would be great also, if not catastrophic, as the defender of its home territory, their level of commitment would be much higher than that of the US. Far from harming CCP legitimacy and cohesion, a long conflict will enhance the bond of party and people. Many historical studies confirm this phenomenon in major wars where civilian populations are subject to attack by a foreign enemy.

Pursuing the natural US inclination to regain a decisive initiative in war with China, the US leadership will entertain using nuclear weapons to extract themselves from a prolonged conventional conflict from which they otherwise would be unable to withdraw, except at great political cost. It is unlikely that Russia would be a deterrent to US use of nuclear weapons on Chinese targets. In US game theory, the Chinese would presumably back down because of the overwhelming US advantage in nuclear weapon delivery systems. Therefore, unless the current Chinese buildup and improvements in their nuclear weapon delivery capability are stopped in the near future, the US will be faced with the inability to exert nuclear blackmail, and be effectively deterred from initiating tactical nuclear first strikes. Then the US would have to live with a growing inability to successfully end a conventional conflict which, as time goes by, will also become more unfavorable to the forces fighting far from home. It is doubtful that the US will find a technological fix in the form of new weapons systems or countermeasures to resolve this situation, so the diplomatic route of seeking nuclear arms control with China is sought.

What's in it for the Chinese? Nothing, so far. What can the US offer? The last two administrations worked the US into a corner, surrounding the Chinese with the modern version of gunboat imperialism, ostensibly giving the US insurmountable conventional warfare advantages, that it enjoyed in the 19th and 20th centuries. It's another tragic case of US illusions about China leading us on a path to another disastrous war, one on a scale probably not seen since WW II. A much weaker China fought a conventional conflict with a nuclear armed US during the Korean War. If its own territory or armed forces are attacked by the US (and any misguided allies), it will do so again.

In terms of the Peter Huessey article, US determination to maintain a "nuclear firebreak" rings hollow, as it the US that has developed smaller and smaller yield "precision" nuclear weapons. The US has an extensive arsenal of sophisticated "tactical" and arguably first use nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. It is the US that has created a pneumbral zone where the boundary between conventional and nuclear strikes is blurred. Moreover, US reluctance to tolerate substantial losses of high value conventional forces makes it more reliant on the nuclear option. The notion that the US can indefinitely maintain a conventional force advantage against a major power like China in its own backyard is just fundamentally mistaken. At some point US diplomacy is going to have to conform to the strategic reality that China is reaching peer power status, and that proposed military solutions are just futile. The US will only succeed in weakening itself further by its pathologically disproportionate allocation of resources to the business of war which may give rise to a horrible conflict. The goals and attitudes of the gunboat imperialist and the nuclear arms contol advocate are innately contradictory and cannot be "compartmentalized."