School violence, Politics and Censorship in South Korea

The current authoritarian South Korean administration is part of the trend to suppress dissenting views in so called "democratic countries."



OhMyTV cartoon depicts Justice Minister Han Dong-hun using police and warrants as a club to attack a National Assembly office and MBC broadcasting for daring to disclose "private information about the second banana" (him) from his nomination hearing April 2022. The information release reflected on Han's personal corruption and was in the public interest.

One recent investigative report said that President Yoon intended to form an "immunity review committee" to protect the National Police from legal actions that might be taken against police for any injuries inflicted as a result of the new policy to use active forceful measures to suppress demonstrations that "threaten public order." Critics regard this as a dangerous policy from the "80s." The right to peaceful assembly is guaranteed in the South Korean constitution. This is the current Yoon administration response to an upsurge in political demonstrations and assemblies against the Yoon administration, by numerous civic and religious groups, the political opposition and labor and professional organizations.

Recently, Yoon had dismissed the Chief of the Korean Communications Commission, Han Sang-hyuk ( 한상혁 ) based on a criminal accusations which the former Chairman says are unfounded. Other officials and employees of the commission are being harried by investigating police and prosecutors. The CEO of MBC Park Sung-jae was also charged by prosecutors, and consequently forced out as head of MBC broadcasting. Park asserted the charges against him were fabricated by prosecutors. Park also referred to his continuing positive relationship with unions representing company employees. An MBC reporter subjected to multiple warrants and police investigation alleged that the statements to her by police involved suggested they were acting on behalf of the justice minister.

The principal motivation Park the deposed CEO of MBC mentioned was the current administration's need to control public broadcasting editorial and production content with the campaign season for the next general elections in 2024 in view. He said he exercised no control over news coverage and production as practical matter, being involved in the nuts and bolts financial management of the corporation, those news related functions were relegated to news team managers, and the various broadcast branches and department heads. As a former career reporter, he said he had no interest in promoting particular views or restricting freedom of the press. MBC had offended Yoon shortly after he had met with President Biden when an MBC reporter recorded on video some vulgar phrase Yoon used referring to the US Congress in a conversation with his Foreign Minister Park Jin. That MBC reporter is now subject to investigation by police for allegedly illegally disclosing "private information" about Justice Minister Han Dong-hun, from a legislative committee.

Former KCC Chief Han said that the Yoon administration was likely interested in controlling broadcast content, by controlling his former office at the KCC. This entailed removing the independence of the commission as a body, because it was designed as a deliberative institution, rather than one controlled by the chair of the commission. He distinguished his former position from that of a minister, who exercised greater control over subordinate officials and employees. Han said that public broadcasting organization KBS would probably fall next. It is legally arguable that former Chief Commissioner Han should have only have been removed from office by impeachment, but he was dismissed summarily.

Ironically, the proposed replacement as KCC Chief is Lee Dong-gwan 이동관. Lee Dong-gwan held important PR positions in the presidential office of Lee Myung-bak. He began his career as a reporter at Donga Ilbo. Like other tainted nominations by Yoon, Lee's career was jeopardized when his son was accused by witnesses of bullying and assaults on other students in 2011. The school academy concerned was run by a member of the Hana chaebol family of the Hana Financial Group. The former Hana Academy director/principal was said to be one of the "4 Kings" behind the MB administration at the time. The incidents of repeated bullying, assault, and psychological abuse by Lee's son were covered up because of the embarrassment to the academy and the Lee Myung-bak administration. It's telling that a person involved in a political cover up would be considered as the leader of broadcast and communications regulatatory body. It's not a just a coincidence. Why is the legislative hearing into his appointment at the KCC now being delayed? Because, not too long ago another Yoon political appointee, Chung Sun-shin's nomination foundered, in February this year, when the suppressed case and unjust outcome of his child's bullying at school was revealed.

This is a very sensitive issue in South Korea as exemplified by the very popular contemporary drama The Glory whose plot is centered on the role of class, social status in unjust disposition of execeptionally cruel bullying in a school environment and the longitutinal reach of "revenge" in its aftermath. The Glory's plot is said to based on real events from a bullying scandal in 2006 at a girl's academy.

Here's a newspaper article on the earlier failed nomination of Chung Sun-shin-

Case of powerful parent shielding child from consequences touches nerve in S. Korea
Posted on : Feb.28,2023
The saga of Chung Sun-sin is an unwelcome reminder to many young Koreans that without powerful connections, many roads in life remain shut to them
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1081618.html



I found the subject matter and content of The Glory quite brutal. It's certainly for adults because of violent content. I couldn't make it all the way through after watching a few episodes. I see there is a season two. It was a success for Netflix and won some South Korean awards. Guess I'm too squeamish in my old age. I posted the trailer, which is fairly well sanitized, but still conveys the sinister ambiance in 2 min.

There is an English translation of the Lee Dong-gwan situation, translated into English in Namu Wiki- it was just updated and is based on the latest reports including independent investigative reports:
https://en.namu.wiki/w/w/이동관%20아들%20학교폭력%20가해%20사건 (The link might not work, I've been having trouble with it.)

Lee Dong-gwan's son's school violence case

[장윤선 단독] 이동관 아들 학폭 왜 묻혔나? 피해자 진술서 내용 단독 공개! (최영일의 시사본부｜장윤선의 주간이슈-장윤선 정치전문기자)｜KBS 230602 방송 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQaafS6_9Kw

There is a peculiar evolving interplay of public relations, crime, corruption, cover up and government going on in the Yoon administration. Yoon's principal MO as the former Prosecutor General and a senior prosecutor before his election was known as press-prosecution collusion. Yoon's "division" of prosecutors and their collaborators in the mainstream conservative South Korean media (representing powerful special interests) would frame political enemies with leaked and false information and protect the privileged by suppressing news stories. That hasn't changed but only gotten worse after Yoon was elected President of South Korea by an extremely slim margin. Yoon's abuse of administration of the justice was also characterized as "revenge politics." Other descriptions of his administration have gone from "the republic of lawyers," soon after he assumed the presidential office, to "the dictatorship of lawyers," to simply that of "dictatorship." The current Minister of Justice and Yoon's right hand man, Han Dong-hun, now continues to choreograph politically motivated criminal investigations and prosecutions in South Korea with mainstream media cooperation. Any significant dissent or political resistance is met with police investigation, a plethora of search warrants, against the victim and his or her family or business associates and hearings for pretrial confinement after indictment. The Korea Communications Commission and MBC were recently targeted. This is ironic as Yoon contended when he was administratively disciplined for prosecutorial misconduct that the Minister of Justice had no authority over the Prosecutor General's office.

Since, becoming president Yoon has without legislative authority secured effective control of the National Police by placing it under the Ministry of Interior and Safety. In this way, Yoon has effectively nullified the major legal reform of the last administration taking investigative power away from prosecutors because it was being systematically abused by Yoon and Han for political purposes. Having corruption tainted public officials appointed to major government positions uses their political vulnerability to insure loyalty to Yoon's far right authoritarian regime. The Ministry of Interior and Public Safety have been seriously compromised by the Itaewon disaster and other botched public safety responses for which they were responsible along with President Yoon. Only local police and emergency officials suffer political consequences. Yoon has moved into the Lee Myung-bak stage of corruption, censorship and authoritarian rule.

매국노 賣國奴 Traitor!

President Yoon portrayed as Lee Won-yong, the infamous traitor of Eulsa, who sold his country out to Japan.

The leaked report alleging an electronic intercept of a conversation inside the South Korean Presidential Office is very damaging to the Yoon Suk-yeol administration. It basically reveals an ability to blackmail the Yoon administration to force the South Korean executive office to do anything the US and Japan want. Yoon is corrupt and very unpopular. He has ruined the administration of justice in South Korea, to enrich and protect family and cronies. He abuses the powers of prosecutors and police to persecute his political opposition, rivals and critics.

He'd better send his warships to go with the US and Japanese navies in the so called tri-lateral alliance against China or else. There are potentially many other recorded conversations of Yoon administration officials, and Yoon family members, and perhaps Yoon himself which, if leaked, would destroy his administration overnight. Think of Yoon's (hatchet man) Justice Minister Han Dong-hun's Iphone which was seized under a warrant and supposedly couldn't be decrypted. There are other recordings like this out there which if allowed in court, would literally bring down the obsequious Yoon and his cadre of prosecutors many of whom now direct major government ministries and departments. The Presidential Office fired the two advisors involved in the conversation who allegedly had reservations about sending artillery shells to Ukraine. This demonstrates the level of control the US (and by extension Japan) are exerting on South Korea. The Ukraine artillery shell shipment issue is really collateral. The point is the US can force Yoon and his top advisors to do anything they want. So his administration's humiliating foreign policy is being compared at home to the "traitors of Eulsa" who submitted to Japanese hegemony in 1905. The Yoon administration and the deputy national security advisor responsible for the March purge of the two former presidential advisors claim the document is a forgery in a futile attempt to defuse the domestic uproar concerning the alleged intercept.

Black Pink-Lady Gaga Coup d'etat in South Korea

(Source- 오마이TV youtube, 3.1) [박정호의 핫스팟] "김성한은 김태효의 걸림돌" 김종대 "김태효, MB 때도 그러더니..." Kim Sung-han- Kim Tae-hyo's obstacle (rock on the path). (Left) Jim Jong-tae. (Right) First Deputy National Security Advisor Kim Tae-hyo.

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.

1965 Agreement Behind the Scene

https://youtube.com/shorts/DZIpiDi-WTY?feature=share

Youtube coughed up some great short video with some old JTBC photos from the Korean CIA, circa 1965. I don't know how to share or embed it. This is the link below. Some of the characters in the video are Kim Jong-pil, (of the political troika, the three Kims); Park Jong-kyo, Chief of the Presidential Security Service (for dictator Park Chung-hee); and Kim Hyung-yook, head of the Korean CIA during the Park dictatorship. They are shown partying it up, with Japanese heavies, Kodama Yushio (former Class A war criminal released by the US after WWII with no trial); and Hisayuki Machii, a Korean born Yakuza gang leader in Japan. Kodama, was reported in one historical account I read, responsible for coordinating looting in Japanese occupied territories during WWII on behalf of the Japanese Imperial family. During WWII he was commissioned as a general officer. He also coordinated drug trafficking, smuggling of war materials with Chinese warlords and gangs.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DZIpiDi-WTY

Wikipedia has a this on Hisayuki:

Under the American occupation

Like fellow yakuza powerbroker Yoshio Kodama, Machii had good relations with the US occupation authorities due to his staunch anti-Communist stance: Tosei-kai soldiers were often used as strikebreakers during the occupation years. Machii himself worked with the United States Counter Intelligence Corps.[citation needed] While leaders of the Japanese yakuza were imprisoned or under close scrutiny by the American occupying forces, the Korean yakuza were free to take over the lucrative black markets. But rather than trying to rival the Japanese godfathers, Machii made alliances with them, and throughout his career, he remained close to both Kodama and Taoka.[3]

Machii's vast empire included tourism, entertainment, bars and restaurants, prostitution, and oil importing. He and Kodama made a fortune on real estate investments alone. More importantly, he brokered deals between the Korean government and the yakuza that allowed Japanese criminals to set up rackets in Korea. Thanks to Machii, Korea became the yakuza's home away from home. Befitting his role as fixer between the underworlds of both countries, Machii was allowed to acquire the largest ferry service between Shimonoseki, Japan, and Busan, South Korea—the shortest route between the two countries.[2]

Role in the kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung

...

He was widely believed to have helped the Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnap then-leading Korean opposition leader Kim Dae-jung from a Tokyo hotel (see kidnapping of Kim Dae-jung).[3] Kim was whisked out to sea where he was bound, gagged, blindfolded and fitted with weights so that his body would never surface.

Kim's life was allegedly spared because of the personal intervention of the US Ambassador to Seoul, Philip Habib, who didn't wait for instructions from Washington to find Kim. This led me to an archived NY Times article basically trying to lionize Kim Hyung Wook

Former Chief of Korea's C.I.A. Kim Hyung Wook
June 23, 1977
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/23/archives/former-chief-of-koreas-cia-kim-hyung-wook.html

Surprised youtube put the short video with the KCIA photos in the cue, and surprised the old NY Times article opened for me.

So the bottom line here is that the 1965 Japanese-Republic of Korea Settlement Agreement which purportedly absolved Japan of legal liability for any Korean claims including those for war crimes, specifically massive slave labor and sex slave crimes against humanity, was (Surprise!) negotiated by war criminals and yakuza on behalf of Japan. (Kodama's cellmate in Sugamo prison, Kishi Nobusuke was also involved in the negotiations that led to the 1965 agreement).

There are many legal authorities in Korea,(including the Korean high court) and some in Japan, who say it doesn't bar personal claims for war crimes. The agreement doesn't bar personal claims for injury, it precludes property claims, and subrogation claims. There was an internal Japanese Justice Ministry memo to this effect also. Ignorantly, President Yoon said he wouldn't pursue the "subrogation claims" of any South Korean corporation that volunteers to pay for Japan's war crimes. One commentator noted that that Samsung hadn't come forward with any contribution pledge so far. POSCO did (they received a large share of the economic development funding that Japan provided). I saw another video showing that Lee Jae-yong, the Samsung Group Executive Chairman, was in Beijing for the China Development Forum which was attended by 100 corporate executives from around the world, including Tim Cook from Apple.

Wendy Sherman, US Deputy Sec. of State- "Why can't they just get over it?"

(edited 3.29.23 for typos)

Anti-China, pro-Japanese media bias

Aljazeera unwitting anti-China bias? Or do they know when they're doing it?

South Korean opposition leader indicted for alleged corruption
Leader of left-leaning Democratic Party faces charges including bribery, breach of duty and conflict of interest.
22 Mar 2023

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/3/22/south-korean-opposition-leader-indicted-for-alleged-bribery

Aljazeera simply regurgitates the story they get from the South Korean MSM, which, whether they know it or not, is motivated by US and pro-Japanese anti-China interests.

South Korea's Yoon administration is blatantly corrupt, rather than the democratic party opposition leader Lee Jae-myung. The fact is that Yoon Seok-yeol as a prosecutor covered up the Busan Savings Bank scandal which in turn led to the Daejangdong real estate scandal. Yoon's family even received almost 1.5 million dollars in an alleged home purchase from one of the principals in the scandal, Kim Man-be. Yoon's former boss and mentor was involved in covering up the Daejangdong scandal along with about a half dozen other senior prosecutors. Yoon's boss in the special investigation office, is now in jail. He was one of the former prosecutors who belonged to the 5 billion won club, an expression describing the group taking bribes from Kim Man-be's Hwacheon Daeyoo investment company. President Yoon's administration, known as "the dictatorship of lawyers," is following an Orwellian tact of blaming the opposition democratic party leader for the scandal and protecting its own. Anyone familiar with the story, knows how Yoon's "division" of prosecutors operate to line their pockets and frame cases against their political enemies. A superficial regurgitation of headlines based upon the implausible indictment against Lee Jae-myung, unsupported by credible evidence, is exactly what favors the empire's interests. No deeper examination required. The strategy is known as geomeon uchak 검언유착 (prosecution-press collusion). The US and Japan require a corrupt undemocratic South Korea to push their anti China coalition based on "shared values."

Issuing the indictment yesterday was entirely political timing. The domestic political and civil scene in South Korea is in an uproar over Yoon's humiliating and disastrous performance capitulating to Japanese demands at the summit a few days ago. This is the big distraction to divert public attention to the unpopularity of the so called "trilateral alliance," against China, touted by the US. Don't look over there (at Tokyo; at Yoon's corruption and incompetence) look over here!


My favorite characterization of Yoon's behavior in Japan at the summit, described it like this: Yoon performed dogeja 도게자, in return for a rice omlette dish (omurice 오므라이스 ). According to the South Korean Hankyreh editorial:

Yoon government's 'forced labor problem unilateral' was Korea's 'Dogeja' to Japan. In samurai culture, Togeza is the etiquette of kneeling down and bowing head down to ask for forgiveness. Dogeja means giving the other person complete control to the point of even offering his own head.

(bold- I edited the AI translation).
오므라이스 한 그릇과 바꾼 윤석열의 ‘도게자’
https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/opinion/column/1084736.html?_fr=mt2

During the formal meeting at the summit, the South Korean team requested that recording devices be removed from the room. Apparently, Yoon didn't want the home audience to hear what he said there. That's okay, they got it the gist of it from the Japanese news media coverage. But this gives the South Korean foreign minister and others the space to say "that topic wasn't raised in the agenda" and "I don't remember that."

(Source 열린공감TV 3.21.22 다시 주목받는 3년 전 천공의 용산시대 예언! 윤석열 멘토로서 그의 영향력은 어디까지? ) Teacher Cheon Gong says he isn't Yoon Seok-yeol's mentor but has been "coaching" him according to his conscience. The Yongsan era begins! How far does the mentor's influence extend?


Another interesting aspect to the Japan-South Korea summit aftermath on the South Korean side, comes from a National Assembly committee hearing yesterday attended by South Korea's foreign minister. A democratic party representative showed a video of the cult guru "Dosa" Cheon Gong, who is allegedly a spiritual adviser to Yoon Seok-yeol and his wife Kim Gon-hee, during a session questioning the foreign minister about the miserable performance of the South Korean side. In the video Teacher Cheon Gong alleged that no one in South Korea was hurt by the forced labor issue, and that South Korea should apologize to Japan. (I believe the video was from March 2022.) There were some vociferous objections to the presentation of the video by representatives from Yoon's party. Comparisons were made between Cheon Gong and Choi Soon-shil, former President Park Geun-hye's spiritual advisor who appeared to be controlling the president's itinerary before she was impeached (they were tried together). Who is this cult leader? Who finances him? Why was he in New York when Yoon arrived for his attendance at the UN? Allegedly Cheon Gong never completed grade school.


This is a pretty well thought out analysis of how the Yoon-Kishida summit undermined the legitimacy of the South Korean government. I recommend the editorial:

Why is Seoul playing dumb about Japan’s unlawful colonial rule?
Posted on : Mar.21,2023

All the controversy over the recent proposal by Seoul to provide third-party payments to victims of Japan’s forced labor boils down to the question of the legal legitimacy of Japan’s colonial rule over Korea

If the head of state denies national identity, then he has given up the right to represent the country. Similarly, if a Korean president aims for a future far detached from international peace or peaceful unification, this goes against his constitutional obligations. President Yoon Suk-yeol has denied the identity of the Republic of Korea itself.

On March 6, Minister of Foreign Affairs Park Jin announced the government's plan to provide compensation to the victims of Japan’s colonial-era forced labor through payments made by a third party. Regarding the controversial plan, Yoon called it “a decision to move toward a future-oriented South Korea-Japan relationship.”

The most important problem with this “solution,” however, is that Yoon-helmed South Korea has now erased the illegality of Japanese colonial rule on its own. It has also denied the legitimacy of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea, the legal traditions which form the foundation of South Korea’s current Constitution.

https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1084538.html

The political scientist's analysis supplements other evaluations that impugn Yoon's adoption of so called Japanee "Pan Asian" views to justify conquest of their neighbors territory by force for absorbtion into the Japanese Empire as colonies. Implicit in the 1965 Japanese South Korean "settlement" agreement with pro-Japanese dictator Park Geun-hee, a former officer of Japanese Imperial armed forces, was that Japan hadn't occupied Korea by armed force, which is historical revisionism of the worst kind.

(Source- JTBC News 8.6.2019) Kishi Nobusuke, South Korea- Japan Cooperation Committee President (1963): "No person here thinks of this as a war of invasion." This is the revisionist mythology of Shoin school Meiji imperialists and advocates of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Kishi was Abe's maternal grandfather and a former Class A war criminal released from Sugamo Prison by US occupation authorities without trial to lead post war Japan.


See- Coming to Terms with Japanese Imperialism- Then and Now, August 19, 2019;
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2019/08/coming-to-terms-with-japanese.html

Candlelight Assembly 18 March 2023

(Source- Balgan Agae 빨간아재 youtube 3.18)

(Source- Balgan Agae 빨간아재 youtube 3.18)

(Source- Balgan Agae 빨간아재 youtube 3.18)

(Source- Balgan Agae 빨간아재 youtube 3.18) Yoon is a corrupt authoritarian. He is easily manipulated by the US and Japan because of his politically vulnerability. As far as "values" and "democracy" go, his administration is known as the dictatorship of prosecutors, and his administration politically persecutes his political opposition, officials of the former Moon administration, his critics, and leaders of labor unions and other civic organizations, often using national security laws. How can anyone discuss his policy without mentioning his family corruption and his corruption of the administration of justice in South Korea? Yoon as a Milton Friedman economics advocate has nothing to offer the South Korean people in terms of domestic policy. He represents the legacy pro-Japan 친일파 elites politically. Specifically, those families who became wealthy during the Japanese colonial period, and the dictatorships established under US and Japanese patronage for decades afterward. The last thing the US or Japanese administrations want is a true democracy in South Korea. South Korea is becoming more and more unstable under Yoon''s unpopular policies. Because he has no domestic policy other than oppression of the opposition, he is partial to escalating the national security crisis with North Korea, by responding with larger and larger military exercises with the US including the return of so called US "strategic assets" to the Korean theater. Yoon and the US have literally offered nothing to North Korea since Biden took office. Keep in mind that the US and Japan loathed Moon Jae-in's tangible overtures to North Korea, and preferred the "all or nothing" Libyan approach.

Growing Tension on Korean Peninsula driven by Yoon's political vulnerability

Defense Secretary Austin's letter to the force addressed an "aggressive China" being a "generational threat," using the now typical Orwellian speak about a so called "rules based order." Meanwhile the US systematically salami slices prior agreements with China (the three communiques) and the Chinese redline over Taiwan. The generational threat image is interesting because it brings to mind not only the WWII phrase "the greatest generation" but also the generation skipping nature of US policy toward China. The US had to turn around its hostile policy to China to help extricate itself from its strategic defeat in Vietnam. Now somehow US elites imagine that something has changed in East Asia, that permits it to conduct itself in a colonial manner again, as it did during the early twentieth century, in concert with Japan and England. I see earlier "gunboat diplomacy" by the US and the same partners as one of the key roots of the Great Pacific War (WWII).

The NY Times had an article on a growing South Korean arms industry thus far not exporting to Ukraine.

They’re Exporting Billions in Arms. Just Not to Ukraine.
As traditional weapons suppliers like the U.S. face wartime production shortages, South Korea has stepped in to fill the gap, while trying not to provoke Moscow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/05/world/asia/ukraine-south-korea-arms.html

What is interesting about NY Times moving its Far East HQ to Seoul is that is has paired up with Joongang Daily, a major conservative South Korean media giant. Lately, multiple South Korean independent investigative media have been reporting on how Joongang, Chosun Ilbo, and Donga Media, the MSM in South Korea, (the mainstay of prior dictatorships) dominate the news cycle in South Korea, with a view toward keeping labor suppressed, social welfare policies checked, and promoting (unpopular) "conservative" pro-Japanese elite perspectives. They cooperate with the legal-judicial officials and corporate elites to repress opposition. The Times had opposed Trump's diplomatic overtures to North Korea after the "fire and fury" crisis. Unfortunately, Trump lost his nerve, backed down from MIC pressure and allowed John Bolton to sabotage the negotiations.

This morning South Korea's state subsidized MBC network ran a seven plus hour long live broadcast feed on youtube covering the escalating military crisis on the Korean peninsula. No commercials all military coverage, with undiplomatic threats exchanged back and forth between North Korea, and South Korea and the US. I think one thing that goes generally unrecognized is that crises of this nature on the Korean peninsula and between mainland China and Taiwan are historically related. It's really hard to predict where a potential war will break out first, across the Taiwan straits or on the Korean Peninsula. Superior US naval power had prevented both fronts from breaking out at the same time during the Korean conflict.

It's ironic that US official denials that the US military strategy in Korea calls for "de-capitation of North Korean command leadership" are repeatedly contradicted in the MBC broadcast which openly refer to the Special Forces operations in South Korea, as taking out North Korea's command headquarters.

(Source- MBC live news, youtube, 3.5) The caption reads... Attack on North Korean command center exercise...unprecedented publication.

The broadcast referred to the various US-ROK joint military exercises to take place this month as "the largest in five years," including "strategic assets" to signal US resolve to respond with nuclear weapons. It also showed South Korean military representatives on board a US SLBN in the US in an unprecedented visit.

All this has been an effort to distract from and compensate for, Yoon's political weaknesses, including his proven lies during his presidential campaign, his quisling status vis a vis Japan, the first lady's family corruption, the pervasive corruption of South Korean MSM, and Yoon's consistent use of judicial administration and prosecutors to persecute political opposition. In fact, it's becoming difficult to distinguish the Yoon administration from prior dictatorships in South Korea.

Kim Yo-jong, dictator Kim Jong-un's sister was quoted as saying that further continuation of provocative US ROK joint military exercises in Korea, will be viewed as a "declaration of war." I guess this is bluster, until Kim Jong-un says it himself. The latest North Korean missile launches were a two shot salvo of 600mm rocket artillery. Interestingly, the graphic MBC used showed how the respective flight tracks of two launches coincidentally showed profiles consistent with attacks on US Air Force bases in South Korea, Kunsan and Cheongju.

(Source- MBC live news, youtube, 3.5)

It's difficult to tell if this is actual video from Friday's combined air exercise over South Korean airspace, with B-1b's, South Korean F-35s and US F-16s or file footage from last year.

(Source- MBC live news, youtube, 3.5)

I scanned videos from a few South Korean independent media sources to try to determine the size of Saturday's Candlelight Movement demonstration in Seoul. I understand the demo included passing by the Japanese embassy. It was difficult to determine the size of the demo, it appeared to be smaller than earlier demonstrations, but it probably was in the tens of thousands. I suspect that threats of national security investigations against organizers has had an impact. I never see any reports of these demonstrations in South Korean or US mainstream media.