Hushoor's Korea Briefing: 2003-06-17

by Joe Katzman at June 17, 2003 1:50 PM

JUNE 17/03: The Korean Peninsula remains one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. This monthly Regional Briefing will focus on the two Koreas courtesy of Robert Koehler, a Korean-speaking expat who blogs from Kwangju University.

MUST-READS

  • Marquand's "How South Korea's View of the North Flipped" is still worth reading to get an idea of how and why perceptions of North Korea have changed so dramatically in South Korea. See also the debate in CP's comments section.

  • The discussion in the comments section of this post is great, too.Other Topics Today Include: multinational naval interdiction plans, S. Korean views and reactions to the coming shift of U.S. troops away from the border region, Iranian nuclear cooperation, South Korea's non-policy, and N. Korean shennanigans in the Yellow Sea....

  • Op-Ed at The Command Post summing up the current situation in Korea, and fisking NK apologist Selig Harrison's ridiculous NY Times article.

  • The United States, Australia, and Japan are apparently discussing plans to interdict North Korean vessels suspected of carrying illicit goods, such as drugs, counterfeit bills, and most importantly, nuclear materials. Venemous Kate has more here.

  • Japan has already begun to rigorously inspect North Korean ships entering Japanese ports (prompting the North to cancel ferry service to the Japanese port of Niigata). South Korea recently announced its intention to join the US, Japan, and Australia in cracking down on illicit North Korean exports, although the South Korean officials stress that such moves are not related to the North Korean nuclear crisis.

  • Adding a new twist to their logic (if you can call it that), the North Koreans announced that they are seeking a nuclear deterrent so that they can cut back on conventional arms. According to the KCNA: "The DPRK's intention to build up a nuclear deterrent force is not aimed to threaten and blackmail others but reduce conventional weapons under a long-term plan..." IMAO responds: "I would like to remind North Korea that we also have a plan for reducing the size of their military that involves nukes. Next question."

  • A potentially interesting revelation: Iran, a fellow charter member of the Axis of Evil, may be cooperating with North Korea in developing nukes. As noted in the recent Winds of Change.NET Iran briefing, Japan's Sankei Shinbum quotes unidentified Korean sources as saying that Iranian nuclear experts visited North Korea three times between March and May. If that wasn't interesting enough, sources at the South Korean Ministry of Defense told the Korea Times that Iranian cargo planes have been dispatched to the North's Sunan Airport six times since April, up from previous reports of one or two visits a year.

    The source in the Sankei report believes that the Iranians discussed with the North how to handle international inspectors, while according to the Times Iranian cargo planes might have been transporting North Korean missiles to that Middle Eastern nation. If true, this might complicate efforts to block North Korean drug, missile, and nuclear sales. It does, however, suggest that President Bush's much criticized "Axis of Evil" speech might not have been so off the mark.

  • South Korean officials are complaining that they are being left out in the cold over the North Korean nuke issue. Of course, given the Noh Mu-hyeon administration's rather pronounced indecision, this may be understandable.

    During his recent trip to Japan, Blue House spokepeople indicated that "Noh would reject measures other than dialogue in the course of solving the North Korean nuclear issue" (in contradiction to the joint statement he released with President Bush following their May 15 summit), only to retract that statement the next day, claiming that the President was misunderstood because he talks too fast. On June 12, a senior Blue House official ruled out any possibility of the South Korean navy joining the US and Japan in interdicting North Korean shipping. On June 15, during talks with American and Japanese officials in Hawaii, the South agreed to join its two allies in cracking down on illicit North Korean exports. If all this seems confusing, don't feel too bad - very few people here on the ground know what the government's position on anything is, either.

  • The United States Forces Korea (USFK) is looking at a massive restructuring. Most alarming, from the South Korean government's point of view, is the announced plan to pull the 8th Army's 2nd Infantry Division back from its current bases along the DMZ to positions south of Seoul. For 50 years, the 2ID guarded one of the two major invasion routes to Seoul, and provided a valuable (for Seoul) "tripwire" ensuring immediate American involvement in the event of a conflict with the North. Korean politicians have expressed concern about the redeployments; Prime Minister Goh Kun has repeatedly called for the 2ID to stay where it is, and even visited the headquarters of the division in May to make his request to USFK authorities in person.

  • Sgt. Mom of Team Stryker offers her thoughts in "Farewell to Yongsan".

  • While the number of American troops stationed in Korea is expected to decrease, the Department of Defense has announced plans to upgrade USFK capabilities on the peninsula, plans which include the deployment of the Strike Brigade Combat Team. The South Korean Ministry of Defense, for its part, has requested a 28% boost in its defense budget; if approved, ROK defense spending will rise to 3.2% of GNP, up from its current level at 2.7% of GNP.

  • It wouldn't be crab season here in Korea without Northern shenanigans in the Yellow Sea - North Korean fishing vessels spent the end of last month and the beginning of this month repeatedly violating the Northern Limit Line that delineates the territorial waters of the two Koreas. South Korean naval vessels fired warning shots on at least one occasion. Lest you need to be reminded how testy these things can get, a similar situation last year led to a bloody naval clash during the middle of the World Cup that left 4 South Korean sailors and an unknown number of North Korean sailors dead.

  • The Koreas reconnected two railway lines that run through the ironically named DMZ on June 13. Due to the ongoing nuclear crisis, the ceremonies accompanying the relinking were low-key. Also on the "positive" front, Noh Mu-hyeon has indicated his desire to promote continued North-South exchanges despite the crisis - during a Blue House meeting on June 15, the President said "It is better to remind ourselves of the historical and political meaning of the inter-Korean summit talks."

  • I hate to report on things like this, but unfortunately, they do influence events in the region - massive candlelight demonstrations were held throughout South Korea on June 13 to remember the deaths of two middle school girls accidently run over by a USFK armored vehicle (a bridge layer, to be specific) last year. By South Korean standards, the 25,000-30,000 demonstrators who showed up in Seoul were relatively well-behaved, although this may have had something to do with the 10,000 Korean riot police who were deployed around the US Embassy. Protestors called for revisions to the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), as well as the withdrawal of "murderous US troops" and an end to the threat of war on the peninsula.

  • According to the Korea Times, Moon Hee-sang, chief secretary to Roh, said Roh's remark contained his willingness to press ahead with the peace and prosperity policy toward North Korea, and implement the agreements reached during the June 15 summit meeting. On a related note, former President Kim Dae-jung, who won a Nobel Prize for that summit meeting, said during a Sunday television program that Bill Clinton had invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to the United States late in Clinton's term of office. The North Korean leader rejected the offer, according to DJ. The Nobel Prize winner's reputation has been tarnished of late for his administration's role in an illegal $500 million dollar pay-off to North Korea that supposedly paved the way for the June 15, 2000 inter-Korean summit.Gweilo's China Briefing runs tomorrow, and Hushoor's Korea Briefing will return July 13th - or sooner, if the situation becomes even more serious. In the interim, go visit Robert for regular updates from Kwangju, Korea.

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