Without going into every wrinkle of the plot, suffice it to say, that the March massacre in the Presidential Office's foreign policy/national security staff has roots in the Lee Myung-bak administration. Allegedly, at that time, according to South Korean political analyst Kim Jong-tae, then President Lee, was allowing secret negotiations with North Korea to improve relations. According to this account, Kim Tae-hyo, on the presidential office staff, persuaded MB to break off secret talks with North Korea. Kim Tae-hyo at that time, contended in so many words, North Korea was a "failed state," to which no diplomatic acknowlegement was warranted. Kim Tae-hyo was advisor for international planning on President Lee's staff. After the breach in North South talks, the North carried out the attack on the South Korean naval ship Cheonan, which sank with the terrible loss of 46 sailor lives. Relations with the North naturally continued to deteriorate. Later in 2010, North Korea attacked Yeongpyoeng island with artillery.
Allegedly, it was Jill Biden who proposed the performance of the respective popular music superstars at the US Presidential summit state dinner for President Yoon. This is the cover story which serves as the pretext for the elimination of foreign policy and national security advisors in Yoon Seok-yeol's Presidential Office. Ostensibly, the proposed entertainment for the state dinner was opposed by the diplomatic protocol secretary, Kim Il-beom, the foreign affairs secretary, Lee Moon-yi, and the national security secretary, Kim Sung-han. Naturally, such plans would be within the scope of the protocol secretary's duties. Yet, all were sacked during the month of March, by Yoon. Ostensibly, they offered their resignations. Basically, the notion of such musical entertainment during the planned state dinner for the two presidents, was regarded as singularly inappropriate and the proposals for such were actively opposed by the protocol secretary and ignored by the foreign policy and national security secretaries. The story line is that the staff's failure to notify Yoon of this "important issue" was an affront to the US and required the negligent staff chiefs to be sacked. Another back story is that the dispute arose because the US, the inviting state, was requesting that the guest state, South Korea, pay for the affair, or at least Black Pink's performance. Further, that Black Pink was not available because of touring conflicts.
Acccording to some analysts, the whole story is nonsense. It is much more probable, considering the "vulgar" nature of such an inappropriate performance at a formal state dinner, the most likely source of these requests was artsy, fashionista wanna-be, first lady Kim Gon-hee. When her proposals were ignored by the presdential office staff, she took a hissy fit. In league with Kim Tae-hyo, the incident was developed into a rationale to remove the influential presidential office staffers who resisted the total capitulation to Japan during that state visit as politically unwise, and who posed a threat (stumbling block) to future "Indo-Pacific" and "trilateral alliance" diplomatic meetings still to be played out in Washington and Japan. Kim Jong-tae is likening the current South Korean diplomatic capitulation to the US and Japan as analogous to the capitulation of Chosun ministers to Japan at Eulsa in 1905, which resulted in the forty year loss of Korean sovereignty and incidentally the Dokdo islets which figured in both the Russo-Japanese war and a recent "tri-lateral" naval exercise in the West Sea/Sea of Japan. On the day of the US-Japan-ROK naval exercise, Japan publicly celebrated its territorial claim to Dokdo occupied by South Korea since the 50s. Reportedly, Kishida even raised the Dokdo territorial dispute with Yoon at the recent summit, and Yoon failed to comment on it. Analyst Kim Jong-tae referred to his presentations on the current state of South Korean diplomacy as a "history lesson."* According to Kim, the ominous nature of the diplomatic slide of South Korea into the framework of US-Japanese imperial patterns of the past, is the result of the damaging radical influence of Kim Tae-hyo on South Korea's foreign policy.
*See my post- TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2018
History Journal lesson - Advice to South Korean Leadership?
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2018/11/history-channel-lesson-advice-to-south.html
Naturally, the purge of the diplomatic, foreign policy and national security chief advisors in the Yoon presidential office, so soon before Yoon's US state visits and a key series of subsequent diplomatic events, displays the erratic and incompetent aspects of the current Yoon administration, which render it so remarkly submissive to the old imperial duo of the early 20th Century, Japan and the US. Yoon's humiliating diplomacy is unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of South Korean people. Polling indicates public disapproval ranging from 60 to 70 percent. Demonstrators and more significantly democratic opposition politicians openly refer to Yoon as a traitor and invoke the tradition and legitimacy of the independence movement which they say Yoon has betrayed. Kim Jong-tae also pointed out that the recent firing of Kim Il-beom, who has been associated with Yoon since high school, indicates the overbearing influence of the ignorant and vindictive First Lady, as well as the undue influence of Kim Tae-hyo, the second ranking official in the president's national security office. The latter, undoubtedly committed to pro-Japanese and pro-US policy objectives without any reservations whatever. The purge precipitated by him and the easily manipulated First Lady, are likely to exacerbate the crisis with North Korea to a new more dangerous level, if past performance is any indication.
Meanwhile the US media remain noticeably quiet concerning a diplomatic row ostensibly fomented by "seven requests" from Jill Biden, that went unanswered, and the unprecedented and untimely purge of South Korean presidential office officials that followed.
Cho Tae-yong, Korea’s current ambassador to the US, was appointed to replace Kim Sung-han. So the position of South Korean ambassador to the US, is now vacant.
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