Yoon's dose of reality

Don't think much of the Moon Jae-in weak on defense talking point. It's simply not true. The South Korean military budget grew substantially during the Moon administration and new weapon systems were produced including their own domestically produced fighter aircraft. Moon is currently more popular than president Yoon. Confusing diplomacy with weakness is the major fault of those who don't understand Korean politics. Yoon resorted to classic cold war tactics, red baiting the former administration and talking "tough" about other countries in Madrid. This done primarily as a means to avoid his total lack of a competent domestic policy. Foreseeably to all but Yoon and his "advisors," his approval rating went further into the dumpster. Almost two thirds of the South Korean public disapprove of the Yoon administration's performance thus far, setting a South Korean record for a South Korean administration so early in its term. Put another way, South Korean adults who disapprove of Yoon's governance outnumber those who approve roughly two to one. For the first time since the presidential campaign, support for the democratic party has risen above that of the so called Peoples Power Party (PPP).

Rather than getting belligerent as it stupidly did during the South Korean presidential campaign with all its missile testing, North Korea, would do better to do nothing militarily. The North should forget about ICBM tests and nuclear testing and let the Yoon administration self destruct from its own incompetence and authoritarian tendencies which are seen for what they are in South Korea, a diversion from bad governance. No doubt there are desperate circumstances prompting the North to do the wrong thing. Their last warning seemed to be looking for an opening somewhere, somehow, with the US, which won't yield any "daylight" at all.

A few hours after I made observations similar in nature to those above, I learned that the Yoon administration, had just earlier, concerned about the negative public opinion response to their red baiting of the Moon administration, and the attempt to cast former Moon administration officials as jong buk or bal jengies (communist sympathizers) by reexamining two defector incidents that took place during Moon's administration, suddenly announced a "new" policy toward North Korea. This "new" approach, which to the uniformed might look more attractive than Yoon's diplomatic blundering to date, is actually, dressing up the same old conservative ideas, disguised as something that looks like a "Sunshine Policy" or "Spring has come." Chiefly, the new policy is about changing the human rights picture in North Korea, opening up the North to South Korean communications, supporting their economy if the North gets rid of its nuclear resources and weapons, rejoining separated families, cultivating a homogeneous Korean identity, etc. Getting information into North Korea, whether by broadcasting or balloons, is never going to be effective and only serve to provoke North Korea. I won't dismiss humanitarian or environmental overtures. However, any package seeking to "open up" North Korea, or normalize relations, that starts with human rights or free communications is doomed from the outset. At least one well known conservative politician in South Korea knows this. Likewise, getting North Korea to give up nuclear reactors or weapons, up front, is going nowhere. The way one gets change in North Korea is to do business with North Korea first. Save the propaganda for the amateurs like VOA Korea who are just in the business of maintaining hostility and precluding negotiations at all costs.

The observation has been raised that perhaps there are some unspoken regrets (in the Yoon camp) about the scale of the upcoming summer military exercises with the US, and the possibility that they might provoke a nuclear test in North Korea rather than deter one. That in turn creates the crisis of how to respond. What kind of response could be expected from the US already in a confrontation with Russia over the war in Ukraine, with the midterm elections facing the democrats in the US. What would be the impact of such a nuclear test on the South Korean stock market? With the economic situation in South Korea on the rocks, does South Korea really need to escalate security tensions with North Korea? So all of sudden from Yoon and the Unification Minister, we hear proposals that sound like Sunshine policy but definitely aren't.