Reality Check in Seoul and Busan

The conservative crooks won by a landslide in Seoul and Pusan. The big media and justice system cartel virtually buried the progressive movement in South Korea this week. They’ve been working on it since the special interests on the right were forced out of the Blue House in 2017 by the candlelight revolution. Politically motivated prosecutors frame and indict political leaders on the left, and the corrupt right wing media companies broadcast the fabricated charges on a non stop basis. Meanwhile the press-prosecution political collusion intentionally ignores or dismisses the long record of corruption in their own leaders, officials, and candidates. So the dumb young male voters in South Korea's two biggest cities fell for it big time.

They were motivated by the economic dislocation and hardship from the pandemic, the real estate speculation bubble that precludes housing away from parents, preventing new household formation, and the general lack of job opportunity in a legacy neo-liberal economy. Ironically the corruption in the real estate market facilitated by government officials predates the Moon administration. The two winning conservative candidates' own records of self dealing in real estate while in office personify the problem. Emblematic of the political corruption, the former conservative prosecutor general Yoon Seok-yeol’s mother in law was on trial during the campaign for another of her numerous business/real estate scams netting her millions. Why are journalists banned from covering her trial? Why is the trial “secret?” Instead, the sycophantic media blathers about Yoon's deceitful commitment to the "people" and "justice" after he visited with a centenarian philosopher to gain wisdom concerning his future political mission in South Korea. Save the veneration, Yoon's political mission is simple, keeping himself and his corrupt wife and mother-in-law out of prison by grasping at the president's office.

The relatively recent military service of most young South Korean men can’t be discounted either. The anti-communist anti- socialist rhetoric is imbued during universal military service. The media and right wing demagogues branded the democratic administration as commies and reds. This explains the big difference between males and females in the younger voting block. Males from 20 to 39 voted overwhelmingly conservative, the same aged women did not. Women are not subject to universal conscription also generating some resentment by younger males. Perhaps when the men get to their forties, they may develop the wisdom of the current middle aged group, or their current women peers. They didn't think voting for a mayor who opposed free school lunch for grammar school kids was likely to help them with their economic or family needs either.

One can understand why "gold spoon" types with medical and law degrees support the most conservative cartel of "deep seated corrupt vested interests." Why people who can’t find housing or a job to support themselves would vote for their tormentors is explained by the fake reality the media create in conjunction with an unchecked and wildly political justice system.

So the democratic reform movement in South Korea which came to power by means of street demonstrations against the neo-authoritarianism returning in South Korea is on life support at this point. A combination of the big lie strategy, political prosecution of leading people on the left, and the political truism that people vote their pocketbooks, took its toll on the democratic movement today.

The fight isn’t over, the democrats still control the National Assembly. The corruption reforms still need to be implemented, the epidemic needs to be defeated, justice needs to be made impartial. The conservative leadership will spar over who becomes the next presidential candidate. Many are too weak, too unpopular for various reasons. Typically a trio emerges near the campaign season’s end splitting the vote in a way that the presidential candidate with the largest plurality will win. So the democratic party is still in it despite universal pronouncements in western media that they are doomed at this point. Even if the democratic reform movement were pushed out of power in March 2022, the coalition of grass roots movements, unions, student activists, public interest groups, etc, that made the candlelight revolution possible will be back in their element, forcing the corrupt establishment to bend to their numbers on the street.

夢

Addendum- 4.8

Hol Seu-hyung on his latest program* brought up the use of pro-feminist signals in the failed Park Young-sun democratic campaign for Mayor of Seoul. This he claims was ill considered as the young male demographic is afflicted by a sense of unfairness in their social, political and economic situation. Hol claims Park's campaign feminist tact was a blunder. He then brought up examples of "favoritism" toward women in hiring practices by government agencies, particular the police and other emergency responders. Candidate Park's appeal to women voters had to made based upon the former mayor of Seoul's indiscrete relationship with his office secretary.

Obviously the publicaton of this improper office affair was a political operation by the right. To call it sexual harrassment, assault or rape as it was often portrayed in the media was completely unsubstantiated. But the democrats were faced with the public image problem of the former mayor's poor ethical judgement sullying the office of mayor by his improper relationship with his secretary. ( It appears from witness statements, photos, and her own written record that she pursued the Mayor's affection.) The office affair that brought down the former democratic mayor (resulting in his suicide) was in fact the reason for the Seoul by election. Candidate Park Young-sun had to get the women's vote and she did.

Frustrated young males with economic difficulties and a serious housing problem don't like to hear feminist rhetoric and frame it in a package of unfairness to them, an "il be" meme (see note below). Too bad. I'm doubtful other political journalists on the democratic side are going to buy this analysis. The proper critique is as Hol says, we (young males) voted for the 21st National Assembly. We put the democratic supermajority in power. What did you do for us? Answer, nothing. Other generations such as the current middle aged voters stayed loyal to the democratic party despite the distressing lack of social and economic progress since President Moon was elected. This is because the entrenched special interests on the right, in the media, and opponents inside and outside of government, have been following a scorched earth policy to immobilize the current administration. Hol Seu-hyung said it's a mistake to grant the democratic party the indulgence of that excuse. At the same time, even entertaining the notion that affirmative action for women in the employment sector generates an even obliquely warranted resentment by young males, is also a mistake. If this resentment was successfully exploited by the right, then they should be condemned, not candidate Park or her supporters.

Hol's tactless take on this issue with respect to sexual equality in hiring policy and the inappropriate young male response show an unusual insensitivity not characteristic of him. The enthusiatic and uncritical support of his South Korean viewers in the comments to the video was another distressing element of this program. They were probably mostly male. I hope to see another take on this il be element in the election outcome. This parallels the Trump phenomenon and anti-Asian racism in the US.

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Note: Il be ( 일베저장소- 일간베스트 저장소, 약칭 일베 ) is an internet community in South Korea that appears to share the qualities of Trump's "deplorables" on QAnon. One young democratic pundit recommended a counter strategy in the online gaming community of engaging the misguided young people found there who live in an (addictive) internet virtual reality. I think Hol was trying trying to recommend a similar tact, of sincere engagement, but as a 40ish journalist, he goes a little too far, in discussing the misogynist meme having as some foundation in fact. (There are analogous recommendations by progressives in the US not to denigrate the "deplorables" but to engage them and understand their frustrations with government.) These are the people who gave the PPP the landslide earlier this week. According to this view, they didn't vote for the PPP but rather they voted against alleged democratic party hypocrisy and ineffectiveness. The hypocrisy argument is based upon a virtual reality created by the press-prosecution conspiracy against the democratic party and the politicization of the South Korean judicial processes. The ineffectiveness argument is based upon all sectors of the right, media, justice administration, the Korean medical society, the evangelical community, and the paramilitary and former military zealots, conducting obstructive tactics to paralyze government processes and policies. This is clearly the PPP constituency. Notably, O Se-hun appeared with these elements at a large October 3, 2019 demonstration in Seoul, which labeled Moon Jae-in a dictator and communist and called for his impeachment. This is the il be mantra.

돌아와요 부산항에 Come back to Busan Port

1. 꽃피는 동백섬에 봄이 왔건만
Spring came to Camelia Island where flowers bloom but
형제 떠난 부산항에 갈매기만 슬피우네
at Busan port where my brother left, only the gulls sad cry
오륙도 돌아가는 연락선마다
As each ferry goes around Oryuk island
목메어 불러 봐도 대답 없는 내 형제여
I call out until hoarse, but there is no word of my brother,
돌아와요 부산항에 그리운 내 형제여
Return to Busan, my dear missed brother.

2. 가고파 목이 메여 부르던 이 거리는
I want to go, I called until choking, caught
그리워서 헤매이던 긴긴날의 꿈이었지
yearning, wandering in a former dream of a long, long day.
언제나 말없는 저 물결들도
As always, without words, those waves too,
부딪혀 슬퍼하며 가는 길을 막았었지
sadly break blocking the way to go,
돌아왔다 부산항에 그리운 내 형제여
I returned to Busan port, my dear missed brother.

This is the 1980 version performed by Jo Yong-Pil. Lyrics and melody credited to (황선우) Hwang Seon-roo. There is an earlier version of the song performed and recorded in 1969 by Kim Hae-il, called ( 돌아와요 충무항에 ) Come back to Choong-mu port that was essentially a very similar song and melody. Hwang Seon-roo had collaborated with Kim Hae-il in producing the original song and melody. This was the basis for the later plagarism suit after Jo Yong-pil made "Come back to Busan Port" a hit. Kim Hae-il had died an early tragic accidental death in a hotel fire during leave from military service in 1971. When Jo Yong-pil's version of the song became famous, Kim's family filed a plagiarism suit. Kim's version of the song had not been commercially successful. Kim's military service and early death resulted in the song languishing until Jo Yong-pil and Hwang seon-roo adapted and successfully revived it, apparently about 1976. The suit was subject to a settlement with Kim's family. In addition to some other details "my dear" is changed to "my brother" in the lyrics and obviously Choong-mu port near Tangyang where Kim Hae-il was born (about 2 hours west of Busan on the South Sea) was changed (back) to Busan port in the title and lyrics. Allegedly, Come back to Busan Port was the original title of a version written by Hwang before Kim Hae-il adapted it in their 1969 collaboration. In 1972 Hwang tried to produce it with Jo Yong-pil when he was working with the Kim Trio in 1972. The Jo Yong-pil effort finally succeeded in 1976.

These lyrics bring to mind the colonial period when Koreans may have traveled to or been transported to Japan for labor or military service. Also during periods of domestic hardship and repression after the Japanese defeat in WWII and the Korean War where such distress may have prompted such travels back and forth by Koreans.

Reference: 돌아와요 부산항에 https://namu.wiki/w/%EB%8F%8C%EC%95%84%EC%99%80%EC%9A%94%20%EB%B6%80%EC%82%B0%ED%95%AD%EC%97%90

This song is an exemplar of similar favorite songs like 눈물 젖은 두만강 Tumen River of Tears and 목포의 눈물 Mokpo's Tears.

Will the US get more sanctions against North Korea from the UN?

The US is contemplating additional UN action against North Korea for recent short range missile launches. From an AP News report today:

The Biden administration said Monday it's looking at “additional actions” that the United Nations might take to respond to North Korea’s recent missile tests. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield wasn’t specific about what those actions might entail, but noted that the UN Security Council had met last week and renewed the mandate of experts who monitor sanctions against the North. The council is also expected to hold closed-door discussions on North Korea on Tuesday.*

*U.S. eyes additional UN action on N. Korea after missile tests, by Matthew Lee, Associated Press, March 29, 2021, 2:18 p.m; https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/mar/29/us-eyes-additional-un-action-on-n-korea-after-miss/


It's unlikely the US will get a binding UN resolution to go beyond UN res 2397 which authorized sanctions for long range ballistic missiles and nuclear tests by North Korea. The general proscription against North Korean ballistic missile launches in UN resolution 2397, was not entirely supported by an enforcement mechanism. In other words, there is wiggle room over shorter ranged missiles for North Korea. Evidently the Security Council compromised on the resolution's language in 2017. So a new resolution would be required. They probably won't get it from the Security Council because both Russia and China disagree with the US approach to the negotiating process. Resolution 2397 in paragraph 26 refers to the Joint Statement of Sep 9, 2005, in the fourth round of the Six Party Talks, which reads:

5) The six parties agreed to take coordinated steps to implement the aforementioned consensus in a phased manner in line with the principle of "commitment for commitment, action for action."

Since Singapore the US abandoned this "phased" approach emphasizing reciprocity and adopted the so called "one bundle" approach, aka "the Libyan Approach," and "the all or nothing approach." Only Japan of the six parties agrees with this US approach.

(Picture source Channel A Top Ten News 5.7.2019) North Korea tactical guided missile left. South Korean Hyunmoo tactical guided missile right. Both solid fueled.


Resolutions by the General Assembly are generally not binding. The US could try to get a General Assembly resolution, and then implement some sort of escalatory move unilaterally or in conjunction with it's closest allies. The AP News report cited above recites the boilerplate US language emphasizing how unified Japan and South Korea are with the US view of the North Korean situation, However, it isn't true that the current South Korean administration agrees with the US negotiating approach. They only agree with the goal, "denuclearization of the Korean peninsula." At the same time, we have the continuing development of the South Korean Hyunmoo ballistic missile, which is ostensibly a short range tactical missile. Read the Ankit Panda report referenced below on South Korean missile development below to see the difficulties of adopting a new approach to North Korean short range missile testing.

The Hyunmoo-4 is an 800-kilometer-range system that entered testing for the first time earlier in 2020. Moon applauded it recently for exhibiting “close to the world’s heaviest warhead weight,” making full use of the 2017 update to the missile guidelines. While this missile is thought to feature a 2,000-kilogram payload, if it were to be launched with a payload half that weight, the Hyunmoo-4 would perform as a medium-range missile (using the U.S. government definition of missiles with ranges between 1,000 and 3,000 kilometers).*

*Solid Ambitions: The US South Korea Missile Guidelines and Space Launchers, Ankit Panda, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Aug 25, 2020; https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/08/25/solid-ambitions-u.s.-south-korea-missile-guidelines-and-space-launchers-pub-82557

Here's an account of an official North Korean reaction by Military Commission Vice Chairman, Ri Pyong-chol, to President Biden's statement regarding the recent North Korean short range missile tests from Hankyoreh in South Korea:

Ri's statement functioned as a rebuttal to Biden's statement in his press conference on Thursday that North Korea's launch of ballistic missiles was a violation of a UN Security Council resolution and his warning that "if they choose to escalate, we will respond accordingly."

Ri said that Biden had attacked "the regular [test launch and] exercise of our state's right to self-defence as the violation of UN' resolutions,'" describing this as an "an undisguised encroachment on our state's right to self-defence and [a] provocation to it."*

* N. Korea, US dialogue won't resume anytime soon, Hankyoreh, Mar. 29, 2021; By Gil Yun-hyung; http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_northkorea/988668.html

Is the Biden administration taking a more constricted view of these North Korean short range missile tests than the Trump administration? The prior president who regarded them as "no big deal," was actually expressing a view consistent with the actual intent of the UN resolution 2397. In light of South Korean missile developments is it possible to take a more stringent position? The US, itself, has expressed plans to deploy offensive missiles systems in East Asia now that it is no longer constrained by the INF Treaty with Russia.

Under the current circumstances of worsening US relations with China and Russia, it is quite unrealistic for the Biden administration to expect Chinese or Russian assistance to bring North Korea to the table while the US "takes a hostile approach." This approach can be described as the same hardline approach the former US administration had taken at the Hanoi summit and thereafter, insisting on an ever increasing list of demands on North Korea with no evidence of a phased reciprocal exchange of commitments as part of a trust building process. Why would the Chinese reward the US posture? When the US team of Blinken and Austin were in South Korea recently, the Defense Secretary complained that the conditions at the US Seongju THAAD installation were inadequate and unacceptable to US forces. This appears to be an expression of US intent to make the THAAD base a permanent installation in South Korea, something to which the Chinese had previously protested to South Korea as a matter of Chinese national security. Perhaps the South Koreans could be forgiven for wishing it was a temporary facility.

US Approach to China Inept and Dangerous

One should be wary of the word "partnership" as used on both sides of the US-China rift. The reality is that this expression is a substitute for the word alliance. The US has to say the Quad is a partnership, especially when it is trying to disguise or at least dilute the anti-China objectives it wishes to achieve through the Quad. This is part of a bait and switch strategy when the Quad is pitched prospectively to other so called "partners." Once you sign up, then you are moved to act by the US as if you are in the anti-China alliance.

By the same token, the "partnership" between Russia and China which may be more significant, complementary, and meaningful from a geo-strategic standpoint than the Quad, could also potentially be subject to fissures. But the US seems incapable of creating those fissures. One doesn't need to be an international relations expert to observe that the relatively recent US alienation of Russia and China simultaneously is an extraordinary strategic blunder. The former US president, with a marked anti-China policy bias, tried to take a different approach toward Russia but was essentially unable to do so.

It is a US policy choice, poorly considered, to ever increase the hostility toward both "peer rivals," which provoked this potentially disastrous international situation in east Asia. The US appears incapable of resisting the interminable and inexhaustible "national security" demands from both the eastern and western halves of the US world wide military empire. Despite the so called "Asian pivot," it cannot establish reasonable priorities in any theater, and must pursue the internal institutional impulses for more military resources on both fronts simultaneously. This is true not only militarily but diplomatically. The frontiers of the various disputes with Russia and China, respectively, are ever expanding. Across a broad range of issues and areas with each great power, the US assumes a consistently hostile approach, ideologically, economicaly, politically, and militarily. The US does not hesitate to interfere in the internal affairs of either state. Nor does it refrain from creating new military threats on their borders. In a sense, there is no strategy, just indiscriminate hostility. The US repertoire consists almost exclusively of accusations, sanctions, threats, recriminations, and military displays.

Only a few critics have observed that Japan's influence on US Asian policy appears to be playing a strong, if not dominant role, in the defective foreign policy formulation by the US in Asia.* For all practical purposes the so called Indo-Pacific policy is formulated primarily by the Indo-Pacific Command, after consultation with their Japanese intermediaries in Asia. Neither the US nor Japan understand how the world has changed nor their current role in it. The traditional western allies, the UK and France, lend token support to the "values based" Indo-Pacific strategy of the US when, in effect, their contributions are marginal. Britain itself recently displayed a hypocritical intent to violate the NPT and an UNCLOS tribunal judgement against it with respect to the Chagos Islands. So much for the democratic allies' "rules based order." The fact is the US is guilty of overreach when it comes to an almost exclusively confrontational approach to China. This sort of approach toward China lacks depth and sophistication, and can hardly be characterized as diplomatic. Japan, England and France, as old imperialist legacy states, support the anti-China approach.

*See the blog's three part South China Sea Dispute series:

Part I: Taiwan's Claim to a South China Sea EEZ, August 11 2020
Part II: Forbes: "Strangle China's Economy," August 24, 2020
Part III: US-Japanese plans to "strangle China, August 30, 2020

What is the end goal, Chinese submission? Hardly likely. The US is no more likely to affect change in Hong Kong, or Xinjiang than it was in Tibet. US expressed concerns for human rights in China are hypocritical, pretextual excuses for interference in Chinese internal affairs. In essence they represent thinly disguised regime change efforts and a "divide and conquer" strategy. The sources on reports on human rights abuses in China are almost invariably linked to sponsors in western alliance governments and defense industries. No one has a more oppressive treatment of minorities than the US. To assume that the US government treats its citizens better than China is a cultural affectation that is used to support the cassus belli. In a phrase, the drift is, "we're better than you." A military solution to the Taiwan problem is non-existent. Confrontation in the South China Sea could end in a war.

Over-commitment of US national resources to the military industrial complex and the national security apparatchiks creates the weakness in the US economy and other soft power indices that leave the US less competitive with China. Further it results in a compulsion to engage in threats, sanctions, and other confrontations to compensate for those very deficiencies. It won't work. It's a vicious cycle that leads to domestic instability, less international US credibility and legitimacy, and greater risk of military conflict.

Finally, it must be emphasized, that the inability to negotiate with China is a product of two deep seated deleterious trends in the US. The first is relentless militarism, arising from the aforementioned constituency of the military industrial state, traditional media, and other civil institutions in its service. The second is a deep seated intolerant ethnocentrism, often characterized as American exceptionalism, but now propagated as American "values," to bolster the public relations' appeal of US policies. The renamed exceptionalism is, in large part, a manifestation of a powerful historical tradition of imperialism, racism, and condescension toward Asian peoples in particular. These historical impulses effectively overwhelm the necessary consideration, restraint, flexibility and tolerance that is required in any foreign policy that is in the long term strategic interests of the US and its allies.

US Anti-Asian Racism Today

(Source- The Coming War on China, John Pilger, youtube)

The rhetoric coming out of the Biden administration's State and Defense Departments isn't much different from that of the former Trump administration's anti-China rhetoric. The Biden administration's drum beat of war talk against China and North Korea continues to generate or reinforce anti-Asian bias. Statements and articles posing as some sort of objective analysis of geopolitical “threats,” or trade issues, say China threatens our so called "rules based order." Media coverage of government statements imply that the US should dominate Asian affairs and make the rules whether inside China or throughout the world. (Where could this possibly go wrong?) In reality main stream media coverage present one sided propaganda in which “the other” is portrayed as a diabolical enemy. The racist bias in the US public reaction is even more evident in comments made in response to these media reports and the recent increasing numbers of hate crimes committed against Asians in the US.

(Source- The Coming War on China, John Pilger, youtube)

The giant Wurlitzer churns out anti-Asian stories 24-7. Allegedly they are about “Chinese aggression abroad, national security threats, stealing our patents, potential spies among Chinese students in the US, unfair practices in Chinese international infrastructure initiatives, etc.” Most of it is complete nonsense. It is generated toward supporting tens of billions of dollars more in unnecessary arms expenditures and expansion of US military operations in Asia and Africa. But the practical byproduct is to promote and aggravate racial bias against Asians in general. One could pretend that the government supported promulgation of anti-China reporting only inadvertently promotes racism against Asians, but that would ignore the role of propaganda in appealing to emotion rather than critical thinking to generate support for a potential military response. It's basically another propaganda war against the "Hun" designed by the US national security sector. It also lends itself toward promotion of neo-merchantilist US trade sanctions policy.

The powerful image by Hubert (Hugh) Van Es shows South Vietnamese boarding a CIA Air America helicopter during the evacuation of Saigon.

One zinger heard recently in a US media commentary was that South Korean "competitors" were unfairly gaining semiconductor business because of US sanctions against Chinese tech companies. While on that subject, the US attitude expressed in defense circles and their think tank proxies toward our South Korean allies, is disdainful and disrespectful, if not racist. Inevitably, mostly white US diplomatic “experts” and general officers know better than the freely elected democratic leaders of South Korea what is good for them. Americans have been digesting an upsurge in this government promoted anti-Asian media content for a few years now. It hasn’t changed with the Biden administration which only nominally expresses sympathy for the victims of anti-Asian hate crimes in the US while “getting ready for war” in Asia. It’s pure hypocrisy.

A New International Security Structure Needed for Korea

An international security structure to replace the outdated cold war/civil war arrangements in Korea is needed. Until that structure is built step by step over time by difficult negotiations among the affected parties, some manifestation of the seventy year old US/UNC commitment that brought the Korean conflict to the stalemate currently in place needs to be maintained. The phrase "you broke it, you bought it" comes to mind.

There is a conceptual model of truth and reconciliation, in the current South Korean approach to North Korea, according to historian Bruce Cummings. Understanding the pathways of the civil war, and consideration of the perspectives of each party relative to the capacity for good or evil of each player in it, could allow a process of reconciliation. The US and Japan seem incapable of this approach, and are unable to depart from their mythology about who did what to whom in Korea or their anti-communist ideological obsession. Without breaking the cold war ideological framework in the US/Japanese/western perspective there will be no resolution. This is especially difficult now with the added nuclear dimension of the North Korean "threat," which is essentially a deterrent to guarantee DPRK survival.

It is not unrealistic to expect, that ultimately both Koreas would be inclined to have a security relationship with the US that permitted them to offset not only Chinese dominance, but that of Japan as well. A balanced US approach, that left commerce and other peaceful pursuits as the priority rather than incessant planning for the next war is desirable.

Instead of moving in this direction, the US moves toward another cold war.

Bruce Cummings, author of The Korean War, A History, is regarded as a "revisionist" by critics. To the contrary, the book portrays the historical currents in their ugly reality, outside the good guy, bad guy myth of the Korean conflict that satisfy US propaganda requirements. The US is overly reliant on wartime economics and the purported international legitimacy to which they are allegedly directed. Cummings points out, especially in the latter chapters, how the Korean Conflict generated the wartime state economy that we in the US, subsequently, were never really able to escape.

Without the expectation of some miraculous breakthrough, it would nevertheless be best if the US would allow South Korea to pursue the initiatives that they feel provide promise for a new future relationship with the North. Instead, what we see from the new administration is reflected on their updated web site yesterday:

Innovation is consistent with a free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific. We will continue to prioritize the role of international law in the maritime domain, particularly as reflected in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and facilitate collaboration, including in maritime security, to meet challenges to the rules-based maritime order in the East and South China Seas. We reaffirm our commitment to the complete denuclearization of North Korea in accordance with United Nations Security Council resolutions, and also confirm the necessity of immediate resolution of the issue of Japanese abductees.*

* Quad Leaders’ Joint Statement: “The Spirit of the Quad," MARCH 12, 2021: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/12/quad-leaders-joint-statement-the-spirit-of-the-quad/

The statement of the "Quad" represents a very one sided adoption of the Pompeo doctrine on China, and the Far East, by the Biden administration. The White House has tried to dress it up as some humanitarian endeavor, to try to make it more palatable to South Korea and others. The statement reflects the US/Japanese interpretation of UNCLOS and UN resolutions and explicitly adopts the Japanese approach to China and North Korea. Naturally, these documents and their application are interpreted differently in the Far East by the other parties.

There are recent quotes elsewhere from Ned Price at the State Department fixated on a "lockstep" approach from allies and that they all get on "the same page."* This in fact, is the formulaic attack on the South Korean view, previously directed by Pompeo. Mr. Price's allusions to the former administration's other expectation of "no daylight" among views of the "allies," means South Korea specifically. The dilemna, is more accurately described as more akin to an "I can't breathe" problem for Korean sovereignty.

* Blinken's trip to Asia will provide 'key ingredient' for U.S. policy toward N. Korea: Price, Yonhap Mar. 13. Byun Duk-kun: https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20210313000400325?input=tw

Yoon Seok-yeol finally resigns

Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-yeol represents the conservative resistance of the old order in South Korea to legal reforms aimed at two goals. The first, elimination of the protection that a corrupt legal system provides to politicians and corporate interests who have committed crimes (deep seated evil of the special interests). Second, elimination of the systemic graft induced by the partisan complicity of prosecutors, judges, and the media, manipulating the legal system against those who seek to reform it.

Yoon still had almost five months left in his official term of office as an appointee. He left the office because of investigations into various scandals involving him, his family, and close allies inside the prosecutors offices. As the ranks of his followers inside the office have been eroded by personnel changes during his almost continuous disputes and controversies with three different Justice Ministers, the office of Prosecutor General no longer affords a sufficient power base for him to keep himself, family members and prosecutor associates from being investigated or indicted. In addition, a new law by the National Assembly requires government lawyers and judges who desire to be candidates for elected office to resign one year before the pertinent election. So despite Yoon's purported resignation on principle, he resigned for personal reasons.

(Source- 알리미 황희두 youtube 3.5) The video's synopsis: Yoon's wife will be subpoenaed surely...Sniping against prosecutors, (conservative) Hong Jun-pyo, "splitting investigatory powers is not against democracy"...Netizens are cool toward Hwang Kyo-ahn comeback. This editorial presentation gives Yoon's retirement statement an "F" grade for duplicity.

Yoon is a leading, if not the leading conservative hopeful for presidential office in April 2022. By moving out of the Prosecutor General's office, he has made a tactical decision, that his political prospects as a presidential candidate will provide a more favorable opportunity to characterize criminal investigations of his corruption as political persecution and evidence that the democratic Moon administration is totalitarian in nature and bent on destroying the constitution.

The corruption imputed to Yoon has been the subject of continuous coverage of independent investigative media on the internet. As he had grown more politically aligned with the conservative political opposition, and more confrontational, his public support has declined. Most progressives welcome his resignation and prefer a conservative candidate with a record tainted with credible allegations of corruption. One has to wonder if he won't be indicted or arrested before the campaign season begins. His public statements about resigning as a matter of principle in defense of the "rule of law," appear to be little more than self serving hypocrisy.