Opinion - The Korea Times

China's unhelping hands

By Donald Kirk The spectacle of mass migrations is a permanent phenomenon of our times. Images of refugees risking lives to escape oppressive regimes, starvation, war and mayhem are embedded in our subconscious. Think of the thousands who escaped from Vietnam after the defeat of the American-backed Saigon regime, fleeing across dangerous seas, many of them drowning, falling into the clutches of pirates, washing up on lonely shores.For years now we've seen the same suffering inflicted on refugees from Northern Africa and the Middle East as war and revolution sweep a region dominated by dictators and terrorists. Lately we've watched, vicariously, television images of refugees pounding at the gateways to European countries, traversing unwelcoming lands in search of homes where they might survive without having to move again. Similarly, migrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries place their lives in jeopardy as they cross the southern borders of the United States, looking for often menial jobs in a society that's hostile toward them.In these troubled times in which mill

Sep 17, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Unlikely 'strategic partners'

By Donald Kirk Here's a twist on the shifting course of the recent military history of the region. The Philippines and Vietnam are about to become “strategic partners” in common cause against, yes, the Chinese.For those who may have forgotten, the U.S., having ruled the Philippines for nearly half a century, fought a prolonged war against the Vietnamese forces that finally defeated the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese more than 40 years ago.  For prosecution of the war, the Americans counted on enormous naval and air resources in the Philippines. Might Clark Air Base at Angeles City, north of Manila, and Subic Bay, across the mountains northwest, someday become bases for latter-day Vietnamese forces fighting the Chinese?If that rhetorical question seems far-fetched, there is no doubt the Philippines and Vietnamese might need one another if they are to stave off the Chinese claim to the entire South China Sea. It's inconceivable that the Philippines and Vietnam would fight together to drive the Chinese from the Paracel Islands, which were all Vietnamese before the Ch

Sep 10, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Middle Kingdom's glorious day

By Donald Kirk China's big show in Beijing is over, but its impact may not be as deep and far-reaching as forecast and hoped for. The soldiers have pranced around Tiananmen Square, the planes have swept overhead and President Xi Jinping has basked in glory 70 years after the defeat of Japanese forces that marauded the Chinese mainland for decades.Yes, President Park Geun-hye chatted with President Xi about North Korea, but it's unlikely they've resolved any underlying problems. China remains North Korea's only ally, its benefactor and protector. The Chinese, the source of all North Korea's oil, may refuse to give the North enough to fuel a war, but they will keep the North on life-support while Kim Jong-un asserts his power with rhetorical flourishes that no one takes too seriously.Yes, having pressured North Korea to come to face-saving terms with the South in prolonged negotiations at Panmunjom after Kim had declared a “semi-state of war," China may go on pressuring for six-party talks, suspended nearly seven years ago, on the North's nuclear program. They won't get anyw

Sep 3, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

China's sway over North Korea

By Donald KirkConflict with South Korea is a gambit that North Korea cannot afford. Much as leader Kim Jong-un may have yearned to humiliate the South by ordering gunfire against the mega-loudspeakers broadcasting music, news and invidious commentary into the North from below the Demilitarized Zone, he does not have the resources, food, fuel and ammunition to risk a second Korean War.That's because the North's lone “ally," China, had to have said “no." The Chinese, providing North Korea with 90 percent of its minimal fuel requirements, plus more than half its food, has ultimate sway and say over Kim Jong-un's outrageous fantasies. No, the Chinese can't get him to knock off his nuclear and missile programs, but we may be sure they have discouraged him from a fourth underground nuclear test and may have told him that missile tests are a waste of much needed resources as well.It was in that spirit that Chinese forces, in the midst of the latest “crisis" between the two Koreas, staged a show of force in Yanji, the city near the Tumen River border with North Korea. The s

Aug 27, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Korea vs. Japan

By Donald KirkMaybe Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, should have kept his mouth shut. No matter what he might have said on the 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender, he would be the target of intensive criticism. The fact is the Japanese are done with apologizing for World War II. They have said all they are going to say about it, and nobody accepts their apologies anyway.What has to be accepted about Japan's oft-repeated expressions of "remorse" is that is as much as we are likely to hear from the Japanese on this topic. Ditto the list of complaints that we keep asking about. No, the Japanese are not seriously going to rewrite their textbooks to make themselves out to be monstrous, cruel imperialists. No, the Japanese are not going to accept full responsibility, much less offer more compensation, for the terrible mistreatment of about 200,000 young women, the majority of them Korean, forced to work in "comfort stations" as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers. And no, the Japanese are not going to relinquish their claim to those two rocky islets known as Dokdo to the

Aug 20, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

'Liberation' and division of Korea

By Donald KirkThe looming 70th anniversary of the Japanese surrender and Korea's ``liberation" reminds us of the dangers of new wars in a region where peace may be a fleeting phenomenon. North Korea, writhing under the humiliation of the failure of "Great Leader" Kim Il-sung's invasion of the South five years after the Japanese defeat,  still dreams of reuniting the Korean Peninsula as a dictatorship beholden to no one.A hailstorm of North Korean rhetoric against Japan as the anniversary approaches is filled not only with hatred but also lies. No, Kim Il-sung did not win the war against the Japanese or anyone else. After his guerrilla revolt against Japanese outposts had more or less failed, he became an officer in the Soviet army and spent most of the war in and around Khabarovsk without coming close to combat.Following the division of the Korean Peninsula between the Soviet-occupied North and the American-occupied South, Kim Il-sung arrived in the North Korean port of Wonsan aboard a Russian boat from Vladivostok and boarded a train to Pyongyang. I've been to Wonsan and seen t

Aug 13, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Budgeting US defense costs

By Donald KirkThe temptation to slash defense spending is overwhelming. Why worry about huge standing forces overseas when they're not deployed much except on military exercises and war games that are repetitious and boring?Easy to say, but the U.S. had only 500 advisers in South Korea when the North invaded 65 years ago, nearly overrunning the South before the Americans, South Koreans  and forces from a dozen other countries pushed them back. Still, the war went on another two years at the cost of as many as four million lives, the majority of them civilians, before settling into an uneasy peace broken by periodic incidents and threats of much worse.All of which is by way of wondering if the determination of the U.S., Congress to slash the size of the U.S. armed forces is really a good idea. The U.S., criticized for having sent troops to Iraq and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, withdrew them as President Obama had promised. The payoff for that strategy was the loss of hard-won territory and the rise of a far worse enemy, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.If the U.S. cuts its arm

Aug 6, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Stormy weather in South China Sea

By Donald Kirk MANILA ― War clouds hang over the South China Sea. The question is whether they'll burst into a storm or simply cast a menacing shadow and eventually blow away. The outlook for clear weather does not appear bright while the Philippines works on reopening Subic Bay for defense against China's claim to most of the South China Sea.It will be a long time before Subic returns to its glory days as the largest U.S. naval base on foreign soil, but gradual escalation seems altogether likely. The Philippines has signaled its desire to build up something more than a ragtag, corruption-ridden military force by ordering a dozen T50 trainers from Korea Aerospace Industries. They're called “light attack fighters," meaning they're no match for serious fighter planes, but they'll still be able to go on patrol and perhaps support Philippine forces on the Spratly Islands, which are mostly taken over by the Chinese for air and naval facilities. Right now, the Philippines has no fighter jets at all.Those T50s will be flying out of the old Cubi Point Naval Air Station, built by U

Jul 30, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Spyware for mass consumption

By Donald KirkCyber espionage is the cutting edge of modern warfare. Think of all the great stuff intelligence agents learn from monitoring the conversations of just about everyone.  The only problem is how to separate the meaningless, which means almost everything, from the inside clues that really count.With that goal in mind, isn’t it great that the National Intelligence Service has bought a wonderfully high-tech remote control system from an Italian company for the specific purpose of spying on North Korea. Yes, yes, we know, lots of people think the NIS wanted the system just to spy on political foes of the government, but that’s so boring to most of us who don’t follow the ups and downs, ins and outs of South Korean politics.What’s fascinating is what they might have learned about North Korea. Is it possible that this Italian system can tune into conversations that Kim Jong-un might be having with his aides and sidekicks, also with his wife and girlfriends? We’ve got to believe the reason the NIS wanted the Italian program was the Italians had

Jul 23, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Iran and North Korea

By Donald KirkThe Greeks made a deal to reform their free-spending ways and stay in the European Union, while the Iranians agreed to restrain their nuclear ambitions and crawl out from under onerous sanctions. Can anyone imagine two such crucial agreements in the space of two days?After all those happy handshakes, you have to wonder what Kim Jong-un is thinking about it all from his palatial enclave in Pyongyang? Might he feel a little left out, ignored, lonely and isolated ― or is he breathing defiance, vowing, “They'll never push me into a corner”? Whatever he thinks, it's a cinch he's been reading the fine text of the Iranian nuclear deal.“What's in it for me,” he's got to be asking. “Will Iran, free of sanctions, have more money and freedom to import my missiles? And will my Iranian friends still want to cooperate on my program for exploding nuclear devices with highly enriched uranium? What about all those centrifuges for enriching my uranium? Will Iran be sending a lot more of them?”The implications of the Iran deal for North Korea are distur

Jul 16, 2015By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Read more

China's unhelping hands

Unlikely 'strategic partners'

Middle Kingdom's glorious day

China's sway over North Korea

Korea vs. Japan

'Liberation' and division of Korea

Budgeting US defense costs

Stormy weather in South China Sea

Spyware for mass consumption

Iran and North Korea

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