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Tong Kim

Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times.

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Tong Kim

Romney on North Korea

By Tong Kim Despite U.S. concerns of proliferation and security threats, North Korea is not a critical issue that will affect the outcome of the American presidential election in November. The North is not likely to provoke military trouble serious enough to make a difference during the rest of this presidential election year for either the United States or South Korea. Since Pyongyang’s failed satellite rocket launch in April that effectively cancelled a Feb. 29 agreement with Washington, the North has shown willingness to forego a third nuclear test and to reengage the United States. From its strategic calculation, the new North Korean leadership under Kim Jong-un seems to have decided to avoid further provocations. However, it is also unlikely that there would be a breakthrough to the deadlock in inter-Korean relations or a new development that could help remove distrust and hostility between the United States and the DPRK, which has reached the worst level in the 60-year cycle of confrontation and engagement. The Barack Obama administration knows that there is no s

Jun 24, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Challenges for 2013 and beyond

By Tong Kim In December South Korea will elect a new president who will face legislative constraints and international challenges. Voters elected a new National Assembly in April that is divided somewhat evenly between the conservative Saenuri Party and the two left of center opposition parties, the Democratic United Party (DUP) and the Unified Progressive Party (UPP). A tug of war between the two opposing camps in the legislature has begun over who should take control of the committees of judiciary affairs and broadcast and communications ― the activities of which may influence the December election. The legislature will not open until this issue is settled. The DUP wants to chair these two committees with an apparent strategy to hold investigative hearings on politically sensitive issues, including alleged illegal surveillance of supposedly uncooperative citizens by the Lee Myung-bak administration, bribery cases involving President Lee’s close associates, and the inappropriate influence the Lee government has wielded over broadcasting and other forms of media. The

Jun 10, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Emerging consensus in ROK

By Tong Kim As a new National Assembly is scheduled to open in June, South Koreans are watching how the two major parties ― the Saenuri Party and the Democratic United Party (DUP) ― will choose their presidential candidates for the upcoming December election. The next president will have to be influenced by a consensus among the people. Since the June democratic uprising of 1987, South Korea has achieved full-fledged democracy albeit with some occasional, arguable setbacks. The evolution of South Korean politics has gone through a persistent pattern of ideological confrontation between left and right and a regional divide between east and west. The general elections in April created a balanced distribution of seats between the ruling and opposition parties at the national legislature ― with 151 members for the Saenuri Party, 127 for the DUP, 13 for the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) and 5 for the Advanced Unification Party. Under this kind of power distribution and considering the current conditions of South Korea’s political practices, the new president will be required to

May 27, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Neutral unified Korea

By Tong Kim Recently I attended an interesting conference in Seoul concerning the subject of Korean unification through permanent neutrality sponsored by a research group called the Council for a Unified Neutral Korea headed by Dr. Kang Jong-il. Like many other organizations that study unification issues, this group believes the fundamental source of the North Korean problem is the division of the Korean Peninsula. International neutrality has historically been an attractive concept to Korea in protecting its independence since the closing years of the 19th century. Since the end of World War II, power relationships have drastically changed in the region, but the geopolitical setting of the peninsula remains the same, in which the interests of Korea’s neighboring powers ― China, Russia, Japan and the United States ― intersect. Simply defined, a neutral sovereign state is obliged by international law to be neutral in future wars between belligerents. However, we have seen varying degrees of difference among the declared neutral states in fulfilling their neutrality obligati

May 13, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

N. Korea‘s verbal threats

By Tong Kim South Koreans have long been accustomed to abusive verbal threats from the North, most of which end in provocative rhetoric. They have also wisely avoided some deadly North Korean provocations from escalating into a major war. However, many people are perplexed about the latest verbal threats. The latest ones came in an unusual announcement by the North Korean military supreme command on April 23, specifically targeting President Lee Myung-bak and some media organizations in the South. The North’s military threatened that it would “launch special actions that will reduce the (South Korean) bases of provocation to ashes in three or four minutes.” Across the North, there were a series of angry statements and rallies protesting the South by several state organizations, all in competition to show their loyalty to their new young leader Kim Jong-un. On April 25, marking the 80th anniversary of its founding, the North Korean military renewed its threat “to stage a retaliatory sacred war” against the South Korean president “to cut off the windpipes of and destroy those

Apr 29, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Third nuclear test

By Tong Kim Early Friday morning on April 13, North Korea carried out its announced rocket launch in defiance of repeated warnings from the international community, while South Koreans were still studying the outcome of the National Assembly elections ― which handed a surprising majority of 152 seats to the Saenuri Party and an unexpected defeat with 127 seats to the Democratic United Party, The rocket was fired at 7:39 a.m. from North Korea’s new launch pad at Tongchangri, and it flew for only one to two minutes after liftoff for about 150 kilometers before it exploded into pieces that fell into the international waters of the West Sea. Although the North claimed the rocket was carrying a scientific observation satellite, it was regarded by Seoul and Washington as a long-range missile test. Within an hour following liftoff, authorities of South Korea, Japan and the United States, which had been closely tracing the rocket’s flight, started reporting that the launch had failed. Surprisingly, the North Korean central television soon admitted the rocket’s failure, announcing,

Apr 15, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Elections, summit and rocket

By Tong Kim Amid international concerns of the announced North Korean rocket launch in mid-April, South Koreans are more focused on their parliamentary elections set for April 11, a prelude to the presidential poll in December that will definitely transform South Korea’s policy on the North. Most assessments of the race between the ruling Saenuri Party and the opposition Democratic United Party (DUP) predict that neither party will seize a majority in the next legislature. The DUP have produced unified candidates with the United Progressive Party (UPP), resulting in some inept selections. The Saenuri Party refurbished its image by choosing many fresh candidates, but not without some backfires, and by departing from policy of the unpopular incumbent administration. Unlike the two previous general elections, which handed majority status to the governing party of Roh Moo-hyun in 2004 and then to Lee Myung-bak in 2008, this year’s elections are being closely contested nationwide between the two major parties, with many districts too close to call. Depending on which of the two

Apr 1, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

NK‘s rocket launch

By Tong Kim It seems harder to figure out what North Korea is up to now under Kim Jong-un’s leadership. Only 16 days after North Korea agreed with the United States on Feb. 29 to impose a moratorium on long-range missile tests and to suspend uranium enrichment and other nuclear activities, the North announced a plan to launch another satellite rocket. The announcement came while Washington was fine-tuning the details on its provision of nutritional assistance to the North, and one week after Pyongyang’s Vice Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told an American audience in New York that his country would honor its commitment under the Feb. 29 agreement. Many believed that the North would not launch a missile test thanks to the positive outcome of recent U.S.-DPRK talks. If North Korea launches a new long-range rocket, as it said it would between April 12 and 16 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s birthday, it will be a third such attempt _ with its two previous failed attempts to put a satellite in an orbit in 1998 and 2009. As in 2009, the North Koreans would claim

Mar 18, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

New hope for denuclearization

By Tong Kim The Feb. 29 announcements by Washington and Pyongyang that North Korea pledged to a moratorium on uranium enrichment activities at Yongbyon, long-range missile launches, and nuclear tests mark the first significant step forward for President Barak Obama’s administration in more than three years. The North also accepted the return of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors to verify the moratorium on uranium enrichment activities and to confirm the 2008 disablement of the plutonium facilities. This development might have been labeled as a U.S.-DPRK agreement in terms of its pragmatic impact on the long saga of denuclearization. Washington may have turned down a North Korean suggestion to call it a “bilateral agreement” in consideration of the other participants of the six-party talks and in the belief that the denuclearization of North Korean is a multilateral issue. Pyongyang still insists its nuclear program is a bilateral issue with Washington. The freeze on the uranium enrichment program and the return of IAEA inspectors were the two “pre-s

Mar 4, 2012By Tong Kim
Tong Kim

Campaigning over FTA

By Tong Kim There were some concerns that the South Korean opposition parties’ recent letter to the American president regarding the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) might harm the traditional ties between the two countries. The letter signed by the leaders and 96 national lawmakers of the two main opposition parties advised President Obama that they would terminate the KORUS FTA ``when we gain power in December, if the two governments fail to renegotiate” and address their concerns, including the investor state dispute settlement mechanism (ISD). Perhaps, overconfidently or imprudently, the opposition conveyed its objection to the agreement to Washington under an early presumption that it would win the presidency for 2013. The letter delivered to the U.S. Embassy was cordial but its message was like a bluff that must have received the attention of the addressees that included the speaker of the House. President Lee denounced it as ``serious damage to the national prestige as we are not in the past era of dictatorship,” when opposition leaders would appeal

Feb 19, 2012By Tong Kim
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