Perspectives on Northeast Asia

Submitted by soryang on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 10:05am

Han Kang is the 2024 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. She was blacklisted and censored from publication during the Park Geun-hye administration. In South Korea, the award to Han Kang is regarded by some as a rebuke or warning to the Yoon administration for its authoritarianism, and media suppression. Here is different take by K.J. Noh-

Han Kang's Nobel Prize Award

As KJ notes Han Kang's literature reminds all that the Korean War was genocide instigated by the US supported dictator Syngman Rhee, that began in Jeju in April 1948 and continued throughout the Korean conflict.

Why did Moon abandon his vision?

This is a book recommended to me last year by someone here C99. It was excellent!

I've seen approval rates as low as 17 percent in "left" leaning polls but even the Joongang one of the most conservative media giants in South Korea admits Yoon is at an all time low. Mindle News shows an 80 percent disapproval rating, and a 19 percent approval rating for Yoon. Gallup Korea hasn't published a poll results in two weeks, which is regarded with suspicion. It apparently doesn't want to alert the international community to South Korea's political deterioration.

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Submitted by QMS on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 10:27am
QMS's picture

.
thanks, as always, for keeping us abreast of
the geopolitical affairs in N.E. Asia.

Think this applies to other regions of thew world as well.

Without independence from foreign interference,
Korea cannot achieve peace or reunification.

Hope you and yours are recovering from the storms.

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Submitted by soryang on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 10:37am
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@QMS

We're taking a break at my daughter's home from the chaos. We'll go back and try to clean up tomorrow I think.

I tried to post this tweet as well but couldn't get it to load earlier-

Maybe it was the clown image.

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語必忠信 行必正直

Submitted by earthling1 on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 10:43am
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You survived the storms ok.
Thanks for the update on the peninsula. Hopefully reunion is still possible.
Imagine a united Korea in BRIC++.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by soryang on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 12:01pm
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@earthling1

With respect to the Koreas just having normal intra-state commerce, personal and cultural exchanges, without foreign interference would naturally lead to progress in this direction. The current leadership on both sides currently aren't going to allow that. North Korea recently ripped out the road connections that still existed near the DMZ.

We're fine thanks E1. We'll see how the housing situation works out. Posting here helps preserve some sanity in my case. This storm causes me to second guess everything. As long as we're healthy that's what's important.

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Submitted by humphrey on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 12:21pm

US's well thought out plans. /S

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Submitted by humphrey on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 12:24pm

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Submitted by soryang on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 1:52pm
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@humphrey

...for your timely posts on other Asian breaking news. There is always a lot going on.

The KMT friendlier to the mainland? That's ironic isn't it?

I had always wondered about this. I started reading a history of Japan-Taiwan relations and began to understand.

The Japanese always viewed their colony Taiwan as a forward weapon against China during the 20th Century. (The post WWII US view is the same). Korea is also viewed from this perspective. In order to do that you must have collaborators. The Philippines are in the same category. Not too different from the way the CIA tries to use Uyghurs, Tibetans and the people of Hong Kong.

The DPP leadership are now playing again in the historical role of collaborators with Japan and the US. During the 20th Century up to August 1945, Taiwanese as second class citizens of the Japanese Empire served to extend Japanese political, commercial and military power, particularly in East China, South China, Southeast Asia, and the South China Sea. This began well before the US declared war on Japan during WWII. The KMT are aware of this factional trend of Taiwanese willing to serve foreign interests to promote their personal interests before patriotic considerations thereby betraying their cultural identity as Chinese. The KMT relationship with the US was primarily aimed at offsetting Chinese communism, rather than Chinese nationalism.

During the colonial period, Taiwanese serving Japan in China and elsewhere were regarded as traitors by the KMT and mainlanders. First the Japanese used Taiwanese collaborators as intermediaries in the legation zones, and agents to further Japanese commercial interests; the Taiwanese were used as interpreters and agents/spies as they had learned Japanese in colonial schools in Taiwan, and could at least speak one mainland dialect and communicate with written Chinese characters. Later during the open hostilities of WWII/ The Pacific War, they were used for military procurement, business acquisition, labor (often in a management role), soldiers, interpreters, and "comfort women." When working for hire, they weren't paid or treated as well as Japanese, but they were treated better than others like mainlanders, out of area victims like Koreans fulfilling the labor/soldier/prostitute roles or other foreign nationals serving as slave labor of some kind.

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Submitted by humphrey on Tue, 10/15/2024 - 3:47pm

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Submitted by soryang on Wed, 10/16/2024 - 7:19am
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@humphrey

That looks like Choe Son Hui, the foreign minister in the background. Number one and number two women in the North Korean power structure.

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Submitted by soryang on Wed, 10/16/2024 - 9:49am
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@humphrey

North Korea spends third straight day on drone incursion — here’s what it said to the US

Change from psychological warfare to decapitation strike?

In response to the drone incident, North Korea has adopted a fundamentally different approach from its responses to the preceding leaflet launches, and has changed its military posture to one that is ready for an armed conflict. A spokesperson for the North Korean Defense Ministry announced that “eight artillery brigades fully armed at full wartime strength” had been dispatched to regions along the inter-Korean border on Oct. 13 at 8 pm, and that they were “on standby to open fire.”

Drones are some of the most important weapons in 21st-century warfare, as evidenced by their use in the Russia-Ukraine war and Israel’s war in Gaza. Kim Yo-jong referred to the drone incursion as an example of a “world-recognized major military attack means,” exhibiting a response posture markedly different from what we’ve seen so far.

North Korea declared South Korean drones carrying “anti-DPRK political motivation rubbish” infiltrated the airspace above Pyongyang’s Central District on Oct. 3, Oct. 9 and Oct. 10. Experts say that drones flying in the airspace above the district of Pyongyang where the headquarters of the Central Committee of Workers’ Party of Korea is located are effectively a demonstration of the ability to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Since May of this year, there has been a continuous cycle of defector groups in South Korea launching leaflet-carrying balloons and North Korea launching trash-carrying balloons, a form of psychological warfare that has nearly become “normal” these past few months. Yet if South Korea demonstrated the ability to send drones armed not with leaflets but with warheads to the central district of the North Korean capital, that is a clear demonstration of the operational capacity to carry out a decapitation strike on the North Korean leader. This would constitute a perilous escalation.

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