Opinion - The Korea Times

Moves on the chessboard

By Donald KirkNow the real games begin; the interplay between North and South Korea and between the U.S. and both Koreas. The players may have shifted some of the pieces around the chessboard during these most political of Winter Olympics, but it’s much too early to know what happens next, much less the final moves.One seemingly substantive change is that the U.S. may be marginally closer to talking without preconditions. The Americans don’t seem to be saying North Korea has to show some willingness to give up its precious missiles and nukes before they’ll sit down at the table. Instead, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has indicated he’s ready to schmooze any time.Would the North Koreans be equally prepared for anything other than occasional meetings between the head of their U.N. mission in New York and Joseph Yun, the U.S. diplomat charged with dealing with them? That’s problematical for two reasons. One, the North Koreans might be reluctant to talk knowing the Americans would insist on raising the nuke issue. Second, North Korea wants to get Sou

Feb 22, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Conflict of interests at NBC

By Donald Kirk The strange case of NBC sports commentator Joshua Cooper Ramo touched the sensitive nerves of millions of Koreans. Thousands responded with indignation, aggrieved feelings, even outrage to his on-air remark at the Winter Olympics to the effect that “every Korean will tell you that Japan as a cultural and technological and economic example has been so important to their own transformation.”The comment was absurd if for no other reason than most definitely “every Korean” is not prepared to give Japan that much if any credit for South Korea’s rise from the depths of poverty after the Korean War to its current standing as the world’s 11th or 12th most powerful economy.  Obviously, the credit goes to Koreans, who on their own have amply shown what they can do after 40 years of Japanese oppression from 1905 when Japan took over Korea after defeating Russia in a war fought for control of the region. Or should we date Japanese rule from 1910 when Korea was annexed as a Japanese colony? Either way, Japan stopped Korean entrepreneur

Feb 18, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Olympic fever, then and now

By Donald KirkMid-winter is not exactly the best time for mass demonstrations in South Korea. Protesters prefer to wait for spring, but the Winter Olympics leave them no choice.Flag-wavers are out there during the coldest ever Olympics, the rightists waving Korean and American flags, leftists and liberals those one-Korea flags, the Korean Peninsula in blue on a white field.The outburst of Korean-style protests evokes memories of the violence that accompanied the 1988 Summer Olympics when students carrying Molotov cocktails poured off the campuses of universities, confronting rows of policemen in full body armor. The demonstrations then were against military rule that protesters believed was still in force even though Korea had undergone a mass upheaval in June 1987 that led to promulgation of a democracy constitution calling for election of a president every five years. I was in Korea then, on a USA Today team that aspired to cover every aspect of the Summer Olympics. One of my jobs was the protests. I remember Molotov cocktails piled up in the student center of Korea University and

Feb 8, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Trump's 'American moment'

By Donald KirkDon’t count on the Winter Olympics as the moment for rapprochement on the Korean peninsula. That message came through loud and clear in President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address. “Our new American moment,” as Trump called this turbulent time in U.S. history, does not mean happy talk and dialogue with America’s enemies.In his speech, Trump saved his denunciation of North Korea for last, the climactic moment in a speech that lasted an hour and 20 minutes. Probably no moment in the speech was more memorable than the image of North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho standing and waving his crutch as Trump hailed him as “an inspiration to us all” for the terrible suffering he endured, loss of limbs, the torture, the death of his father, before he finally made his great escape.The story was a moving one, as was the tribute Trump paid to the memory of Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who was imprisoned in North Korea, then was returned near death to his home in Ohio, only to die several days later. The image o

Feb 1, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Tet and Korea, 50 years later

By Donald KirkVIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia ― How quickly we forget. Memories, dates and events fade away, only to be revived on anniversaries. A lot of historical events are barely recalled.I was in a country named “South” Vietnam 50 years ago when North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces attacked almost every city and town at the opening of Tet, the Lunar New Year. The 50th anniversary of Tet 1968 has to be the topic of colorful reminiscences and guilt-dripping analyses about the American role in foreign wars, but how many remember two other events in the month of January 1968 that stand out in modern Korean history?It was on January 21, 1968, that 31 North Korean commandoes staged their raid on the Blue House in a weird attempt at assassinating Park Chung-hee. They did come close, but in the end the raid was a colossal failure in which almost all of them were killed as were 26 South Koreans and four Americans. Two days later, while the hunt was still on for the Blue House raiders, the North Koreans captured the American spy ship, the Pueblo, a reconverted merchant vessel, off

Jan 25, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Checking those N.Korean dancers

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― Ah, let the games begin! The fun and games, that is, of seeing how the clever North Koreans play the Winter Olympics for all they’re worth.For sure, North Korean strategists are looking for a diplomatic and political triumph regardless of who wins what at PyeongChang and Gangneung. Already, by getting the South to agree on a joint women’s hockey team and on athletes from North and South parading under the one-Korea flag at the opening and closing ceremonies, they’ve put the Americans on the defensive. Who would doubt such gestures should prove a lot more effective than all those threats about turning South Korea into “a sea of fire”?And that’s not all. Everybody, from left to right, should be looking forward to seeing those beautiful “artists” of whom Kim Jong-un is so fond. Ok, they may mouth lyrics in praise of their respected leader, they may cast more than a few aspersions on the Americans, and they may give a general impression that Pyongyang is fun city notwithstanding all those “fake” s

Jan 18, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Second-guessing Korean history

By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― Uh oh. Watch for all the soothsayers putting in their two cents or two won worth on the future of the Korean Peninsula, post-PyeongChang. Beware of the cognoscenti with dire forecasts of capitulation to the evil Northers, with hopeful words of peace at last, with demands for cancellation of U.S.-South Korean military exercises, with pleas for more and bigger war games to show Kim Jong-un he can never “drive a wedge” between those “ironclad” allies, the U.S. and South Korea.Modern Korean history is on a roller-coaster ride whose outcome most of us cannot predict, even though quite a few are doing so. We don’t know how hard Kim, through his surrogate Ri Son-gwon, chief negotiator in Tuesday’s get-together at Panmunjeom, is going to bargain in the run-up to the opening of the Games on Feb. 9. Nor do we know whether the bargaining will go on during the Games, and we certainly don’t know what’s going to happen soon afterward when we’re back to life as usual and U.S. and South Korean forces are warming up for

Jan 11, 2018By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

'Strategic ambiguity' versus 'strategic patience'

By Donald Kirk Here’s another term for President Trump’s North Korea policy. How about “strategic ambiguity” in place of the “strategic patience” of the Obama era? The Trumpsters persist in saying they’ve come up with a new and bolder and better way of putting Kim Jong-un in his place, applying “maximum pressure” to force him to give up his nukes and missiles, but that’s not happening. Sure, Trump might really like the “military option,” maybe a “preemptive strike” on selected targets. Or maybe not. That’s why whatever he thinks or fantasizes is ambiguous, strategically speaking.This term, “strategic ambiguity,” has been around for a while. President Moon Jae-in nearly a year ago defended his acceptance of the deployment of a counter-missile battery for THAAD, Terminal Hugh Altitude Area Defense, saying it was “necessary to maintain strategic ambiguity.” He was roundly criticized for what seemed like a waffling response, but one might justify this policy, strategical

Jan 4, 2018By Donald Kirk

'Strategic ambiguity' versus 'strategic patience'

Donald Kirk

Darkest Hour': a film with a message

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― Historical comparisons can be terribly flawed. Bearing that in mind, I could not help but think of talk about talks with North Korea while watching a new British film, “Darkest Hour,” all about Winston Churchill in the darkest early days of World War II spurning pleas to negotiate with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Italy, Germany’s axis ally, offered to mediate between the two. Time and again, Neville Chamberlain, the prime minister who claimed to have won “peace for our time” after reaching an agreement with Hitler in September 1938, urged Churchill as his successor to make another deal with the Nazi tyrant. Instead Churchill, with “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat,” famously vowed, “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.” It would appear far-fetched to suggest that South Koreans and Americans adopt a similar stance about talks with North Korea, but

Dec 28, 2017By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Why North Korea wages cyberwar

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― Here’s a target the deadliest, most accurate missile isn’t going to touch: the computers in North Korea that are responsible for wreaking havoc around the world.It’s all very well to talk about “the military option” or even a “pre-emptive attack" on a North Korean nuclear and missile site. You can fantasize U.S. war planes, hefty B1 bombers, sleek stealth-like F22s and F35s, maybe a few F18s and F15s in the mix, staging day and night raids wiping out all the North Korean targets deemed capable of sending missiles tipped with nuclear warheads to targets in the U.S.That would be difficult enough since a lot of these targets are hidden in caves and tunnels, but at least they’re there, somewhere, awaiting attack.Think, however, how elusive are the cyberwarriors who’ve been plotting to mess up American banking systems, agency files, individual computers, even Federal Express. Nothing sacred, all targets are valid.Where do you find the guilty parties? How do you prove who did what to whom, what computers were respon

Dec 21, 2017By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Read more

Moves on the chessboard

Conflict of interests at NBC

Olympic fever, then and now

Trump's 'American moment'

Tet and Korea, 50 years later

Checking those N.Korean dancers

Second-guessing Korean history

'Strategic ambiguity' versus 'strategic patience'

Darkest Hour': a film with a message

Why North Korea wages cyberwar

Top 5 stories