Opinion - The Korea Times

Just another Korea-US summit

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― The flurry of rhetoric from Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington bears out one of the great verities of the perpetual North-South Korean confrontation: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or, more simply, same-old, same-old.Actually, that's not so depressing or negative as it might seem. At least, we are anesthetized into assuming that the diplomats and the bureaucrats, after all the nasty messages from Pyongyang, will cool it for a while or sit down for another few rounds of useless “negotiations” with the North Koreans.This latest exchange is looking that way. The Americans, President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, have all said denuclearization is the goal. The North Koreans have issued dire warnings of the sort we've been hearing for decades.Nobody expects denuclearization. Kim Jong-un will not say, fine, I'm giving up my nukes in the interests of peace and goodwill. On the other hand, even if he orders more missile tests, maybe the North's seventh nuclear test, nobody ex

May 6, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Afghanistan and South Korea

By Donald KirkWASHINGTON ― The impending withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan carries significant implications for Korea. No one surrounding President Joe Biden is talking about pulling America's 28,500 troops from South Korea, or even cutting the numbers down somewhat, but you have to wonder if that thought is on their minds.The reasoning is simple. Donald Trump during his presidency said he was ordering home the remaining American troops from Afghanistan. The Pentagon stood fast, saying they couldn't do it right away, but Biden is fulfilling Trump's demand. And, remember, it was Trump who often questioned the need for keeping any U.S. troops in South Korea. So how can we be sure Biden won't come around to the same line of reasoning?No, Biden's not going to fall for this notion right away. The U.S., thank goodness, has come to terms with South Korea on how much Seoul should contribute to keeping U.S. forces on U.S. bases in the South. The Americans and Koreans finally agreed South Korea would contribute somewhat more than $1 billion this year, way down from Trump's absurd dema

Apr 22, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

First Suga, then Moon

By Donald Kirk WASHINGTON ― U.S. policymakers are doing a delicate dance with their counterparts in Tokyo and Seoul. On April 16, Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will call on President Joe Biden at the White House, and South Korean President Moon Jae-in should be next in line. For the Americans, the challenge is to persuade them to bury their differences for the sake of trilateral cooperation against China and North Korea.That's asking a lot, and it's not likely to go much beyond formal statements crafted in advance. Japan isn't giving way on such familiar issues as Korea's grip on Dokdo (the rocky islets that the Japanese call Takeshima), compensation to the Comfort Women, distorted textbook histories or disputes on trade. The Americans would dearly love for the Japanese and Koreans to join in military exercises, or at least to share intelligence, but these two U.S. allies are not on the same wavelength.President Moon, when he calls on Biden, will go on about the depths of the U.S.-Korean relationship, but they'll be talking past each other. Moon prays that Kim Jong-un wi

Apr 8, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Mass killings, big and small

By Donald KirkStop the horror. Those are the first words that come to mind when we think of the latest two mass shootings in the U.S. in recent days and then North Korea's first missile tests of the Biden presidency.It's hard to know which is worse, a crazed young evangelical kid massacring eight people, including four Korean massage workers, in metropolitan Atlanta, a guy gunning down 10 more in Boulder, Colorado ― or North Korea's renewed threat to kill millions with nuclear warheads.For sure, for immediacy, the twin massacres grabbed the headlines, inspiring far more controversy and commentaries than North Korea challenging President Joe Biden with the first missile tests of the year. For me, the primary issue was not the anti-Asian motivation for the Atlanta killings or whatever led to the Boulder killings, but how in hell do these guys manage to buy assault weapons with such impunity?You would have to have lived in the U.S. for most of your life, to have heard all the arguments for and against gun control, to grasp how totally stupid, and otherwise demented are the claims that a

Mar 25, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Playing games with war games

By Donald KirkSouth Korea is putting out one of the crazier pleas in the history of warfare. They're saying to the North Koreans, in effect, please don't mind if we play war games with your enemy the Americans, no hard feelings, doesn't mean a thing, they're making us do it.That's the inference of the plea from the unification ministry calling on the North Koreans to be “wise and flexible” in their response to what the ministry is careful to call the “scaled-back” nature of the ongoing games. Just because the commands of the two historic allies, the U.S. and South Korea, are talking to one another on computers, the South wants the North to know, doesn't mean we hate you. Sure, they may be marshalling forces, staging strikes, invading your territory on computer screens, but it's only a game, all in fun, don't take it personally. Whether the North takes offense or shrugs off this annual ritual of joint war games, there's no doubt the U.S. and South Korea are compromising themselves by limiting the exercises to command functions. You don't have to be a military e

Mar 11, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Historic scoop, March 1, 1919

By Donald KirkThe suffering inflicted on Korea by Japan lives on in exhibits in the Seoul Museum of History about the nightmare of Japanese rule.Memories from 1910, when Japan formally took control over Korea as a colony, to 1945, when Japan surrendered after the American atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coalesce on March 1, the date of the founding in 1919 of the independence movement. On that day crowds amassed in Pagoda Park in central Seoul as an activist read a “declaration of independence” influenced by the 14-points set forth by the American president, Woodrow Wilson, for ending World War I in Europe with emphasis on democracy and self-determination.But what about the role of a part-time American journalist and his English wife in alerting the world to the ruthless repression of the movement by Japanese forces? Dedication of a restored mansion named Dilkusha, Persian for “Palace of Heart's Delight,” where the couple had lived in Seoul revived their role in Korean history.Albert Wilder Taylor and his wife, Mary Linley Taylor, “stood in solid

Mar 4, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Games of war and peace

By Donald KirkPYEONGTAEK ― U.S. soldiers pour out of the walk-in gate of Camp Humphreys on a weekend afternoon, strolling by bars and restaurants, tailor shops and souvenir stands, breathing in the atmosphere after constraints are lifted and “the ville,” as GI's have been calling the strip for years, is open again for fun and games.Come evening and lines form outside a place called “Epic” as the manager holds back a crowd boisterously enjoying their first night on the town in months.They're happily waiting their turn to get in when two police cars roll up and five or six cops jump out wondering why so many are forgetting about social distancing even if they're wearing masks and not making trouble. The popular club has to close well before the 10 p.m. curfew, a reminder that COVID-19 is not going away, not yet, and the rules are in force.Life at Camp Humphreys, America's largest overseas base, home to nearly 30,000 soldiers, contractors and their families, is definitely a little confining in the era of the pandemic. GI's may stroll outside the base in off hours

Feb 25, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Protests from right to left

By Donald KirkThe great divide in the U.S. between far right and far left parallels debates around the world between political and ideological extremes, but there's one big difference. The main provocateur of the most violent protest in the U.S. remains at large if still under fire.It's disturbing to think that Donald Trump has such leverage over the Republican Party that most of its members were against finding him guilty in the Senate impeachment trial that acquitted him of inciting the assault on the Capitol building in Washington on Jan. 6, as the Congress was about to certify the 2020 election of Joe Biden as president.Still more disturbing is that Trump may run again for president in 2024. Or, damaged by ongoing charges against him in the courts, he may endorse candidates with like-minded views in congressional elections and in the next presidential election.It's possible, however, to exaggerate on the “insurrection” at the U.S. capitol. The rioters did not fire on the police. By now scores have been jailed, with many awaiting trials and prison terms. Far from

Feb 18, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

Lessons of coup

By Donald Kirk. The renaissance of undisguised military rule in Myanmar should provide inspiration for Donald Trump. The generals who jailed democracy crusader Aung San Suu Kyi and her cohorts are raising the same claims about Myanmar's parliamentary elections in November that Trump has been charging in U.S. elections held around the same time. Having won only 33 of 476 seats for their candidates against 396 for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, they say the voting was rigged, the count was fraudulent and they want to look at the voting rolls.The big difference between Trump and the generals in Myanmar is that they are able to exert their authority without having to worry about a legal system rejecting their ridiculous claims. Nor do they risk impeachment by a legislative body in which their opponents are capable of mustering enough votes to embarrass them severely if not throw out their leader, General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the army and, it seems, the country.The line between dictatorship and democracy is narrow and often violated. Clearly Trump, by ranting a

Feb 4, 2021By Donald Kirk.

Donald Kirk

COVID-19's sad anniversary

By Donald KirkAn important anniversary has slipped by. It was in January 2020, while visiting Hong Kong for a few days, that I started seeing stories about a strange new virus diagnosed in the industrial Chinese city of Wuhan. The first headlines didn't seem like a big deal. Some "experts" were saying the virus had been found in Wuhan and nowhere else.Still, those early reports did kindle memories. No one forgot SARS, the severe acute respiratory syndrome that erupted in China in 2002. That dreaded disease scared people around the world. By the time the last case was diagnosed in 2004, more than 8,000 people had caught it, and 11 percent had died.Then came MERS, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, which broke out in Saudi Arabia in 2012, infecting upwards of 2,500 people, more than 800 of whom died. Remote, confined, this disease was easily forgotten as another obscure acronym. Next: the Ebola virus, limited largely to West African countries. Named after a river in the Congo, Ebola raged for about two years from 2014 to 2016. More than 28,000 people caught the disease, at least hal

Jan 28, 2021By Donald Kirk

Donald Kirk

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Just another Korea-US summit

Afghanistan and South Korea

First Suga, then Moon

Mass killings, big and small

Playing games with war games

Historic scoop, March 1, 1919

Games of war and peace

Protests from right to left

Lessons of coup

COVID-19's sad anniversary

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