Not so scary under Korean skies: the things that happen while the world yells.

as published just now at John Menadue's blog

and republished at Crikey, under the title "South Korea seems to be the only country reacting sensibly to Pyongyang."

DENNIS ARGALL. Not so scary under Korean skies

2 October 2017

Australia has had yet another high level former US defence official breeze in, this time to warn that we might be attacked by the DPRK. Whether there is or is not a concerted plan to all this, the visits of the grave and famous and warnings about improbable threat serve a purpose of keeping us from wandering away from Uncle Sam’s skirt in these strange times. It is useful to step away from speculation and look at some things actually happening, taking the last few days as a slice of life. 

On 1 October the US Secretary of State, visiting Beijing, told journalists “…the United States is in direct contact with North Korea and is looking into whether Kim Jong Un is open to talks.” [Washington Post]

I think it’s a perilous business to tell journalists you may have a fish biting. On the same day a DPRK spokesman “called on the United States…to halt what it claimed to be a hostile policy toward Pyongyang, threatening to turn America into a “sea of flames.” [Yonhap, Seoul]. On 28 September Choe Son-hui, director general of the North American department at the DPRK Foreign Ministry, at talks in Moscow, “stressed that it is necessary for the U.S. to stop its hostile policy toward the DPRK in order to defuse tension and ensure peace and security in the Korean Peninsula and the Northeast Asian region.” [KCNA]

If Secretary of State Tillerson claims he’s winning something in this contest, he won’t.           [I wrote that yesterday before Trump told his Secretary of State via Twitter not to waste his time.]

On 28 September on ROK Armed Forces Day, ROK President Moon awarded a “the highest unit-level award given by the ROK government … to all the Sailors of CNFK [US Combined Naval Forces Korea] for “outstanding contribution to the defense of the Republic of Korea” [Stars and Stripes]. Since the Korean War ROK forces have remained under US control in wartime. In his speech on the same occasion President Moon called again for transfer of ‘OPCON’ from the US to the ROK: “It’s only when we regain wartime operational control of our military that North Korea will fear us more and the South Korean public will trust the military more. The goal of this administration is to accelerate the transfer of wartime operational control,” [Hankyoreh]

Then President Moon and Mrs Moon went to have lunch with ordinary seamen on an ROK naval vessel, the Yonhap photo showing happy laughter.

On 1 October, the ROK monthly trade figures showed a year-on-year increase in exports of 35%. In September “outbound shipments came to US$55.1 billion for the month, up from $40.8 billion tallied a year earlier…Imports also rose 21.7 percent on-year to $41.4 billion.” Petrochemical exports in the wake of hurricane damage to the US oil industry were a significant component.

Another round of discussions on the US ROK Free Trade Agreement will take place in Washington on 4 October.

Also on 1 October the Korea Resources Corporation published an estimate of the value of DPRK mineral resources at approximately USD2.8 trillion, fourteen times those of the ROK. Modest joint ROK-DPRK minerals projects have been suspended for some time. Sanctions exist, prospects remain.

Again on 1 October in response to the decision of the ROK government to extend electrical vehicle subsidies to Tesla cars previously excluded because they take more than ten hours to charge, Tesla announced plans to extend its network of charging stations in South Korea.

Also on the same day, President Moon released a video wishing everyone well for travel home over the Chuseok (Harvest Moon) holiday break… and separately congratulated DPRK figure skaters on their qualification for the Winter Olympics in the ROK next year.

Meanwhile in the wake of the trilateral summit between heads of state of the US, ROK and Japan in New York (at the Korean Lotte hotel, not a Trump hotel), “[t]he Blue House and White House have reportedly shared concerns that “distorted” reports from the Japanese press could “cause fissures” in trilateral coordination.”

This report does not implicate Prime Minister Abe in the shaping of the news items attracting concern, but anxious Prime Minister Abe has been using articulation of tension and criticism of the ROK as well as the DPRK and China (plus a USD18 billion education and aged care package, to be paid for by a GST increase of 2% in 2019) in support of his campaign for re-election on 22 October.

On 27 September, at an event to mark the tenth anniversary, on 4 October, of the meeting in 2007 between then ROK President Roh Moo-hyun and the DPRK President Kim Jong-il, President Moon said: “Many of the matters agreed upon in the Oct. 4 summit statement can be implemented even now. I hope that both North and South Korea will declare that the Oct. 4 summit statement remains valid,” He once again called for the restoration of military talks, humanitarian cooperation and the reunions of the families divided by the Korean War. Restoring military talks was particularly urgent, Moon said, “to relax inter-Korean tensions.” [Hankyoreh]

In his address to the UN General Assembly in New York on 21 September, President Moon quoted former US President Ronald Reagan: “Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.”

This ROK Government demonstrates a flexibility and skill in dealing with all sides in the current difficult situation. Many domestic supporters were alarmed by President Moon’s siding with President Trump on issues relating to the DPRK, but had Moon been strident rather than flexible, troubles would abound domestically and perhaps more dramatically in the trade relationship with the US. Nothing would have been gained strategically by antagonism, just as nothing is gained by being joined at the hip with a major power.

Dennis Argall, a former Australian Ambassador to China, has been an observer of North Asian affairs since 1970

Korea: our first need is to step back from mass hysteria.

We need to move beyond a rage against Australian Prime Minister Turnbull’s folly on Korea, calmly assess the provocations by Trump and Kim, respect the rights of south Korea and understand how destructive US global strategies have become.

A number of commentators have characterised DPRK strategy as pursued by acting, out of necessity, “ferocious, weak and crazy”.

In the 1990s they used their nuclear program as an economic bargaining chip. All that changed after 9/11 when G W Bush lumped the DPRK, Iran, Iraq and Libya together as the Axis of Evil.

North Korean leaders watched the fate of others identified in this axis by Bush. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, his regime was destroyed... and in the end Iraq more controlled by Iran than anyone else. In Libya Gadaffi submitted, undid his nuclear program and was still chewed up. Iran has done all asked of it and is now subject again to war threats.

Blind Freddy, or a Blind Kim, can see that the only security for the DPRK must therefore be to hasten to achieve a credible nuclear deterrent. They are at that threshold.

North Korea has never threatened first strike with a nuclear weapon. It has however lived with persistent first strike threat for a long time.

China once supported the notion of unification of Korea but now cannot tolerate the prospect of a US dominated South Korea taking command of the North.

In South Korea since May a reforming president who might make a Whitlam envious has been embarked on domestic reform as well as pursuit of sanity in intra Korean affairs. And has had Trump’s agreement that the ROK is to take the lead and there must be no war. Speaking thus also to Trump for an hour in the past week.

It is appalling that an Australian Prime Minister could so misread the ANZUS Treaty as to claim that we are automatically at war with North Korea if the US is at war. This is not 1939; Turnbull is not Menzies. Are we to think all bankers have such naive understanding of the world? Who advises Turnbull?

In 1965 the Menzies Government had the almost-decency to squeeze from the government in Saigon a request for troops we would send to Vietnam at US request. But in the post modern, why is Turnbull (why are so many) blind to the existence and the entitlements of South Korea to its own self-determination: as a country in the region, member of the G20, GDP same as ours, population double ours. Where do our heads live? Solely in a Murdoch-trumpian media world?

There are annually-scheduled major US-ROK exercises, with history of practising decapitation of the DPRK, planned for next week …when now also the DPRK leader may make a demonstration of nuclear status, firing a nuclear capable rocket or rockets targeted at points just outside the territorial waters of Guam. In the past week nuclear-armed US B1-B bomber have once again cruised over the ROK and very close to North Korean airspace. Who is entitled to demonstrate what?

The ROK is trying to speed up transfer of command over its own troops from the US in wartime, legacy of decades of dictatorship and the unfinished war.

from article at Concept News Central, Philippines

This recent article in a South Korean media outlet shows something of what the ROK president is trying to do in domestic reform. A progressive perspective we cannot imagine in Australia, lifting wages, getting more employees off casual to permanent, challenging commercial conglomerates, focus on human rights including migrants. Etc. Difficult.

Especially difficult with a big essential ally acting so badly and with the example of Venezuela for any challenges to hegemony. We should be alert and sensitive to actualities in a regional country and not acting like the fifth cockatoo on the branch.

The world has been led up a stupid path with fear of North Korea. More credibly the US is bent upon undermining every other nuclear power’s second-strike capability, ending all balance of power. While on the real front, away from unusable nuclear weapons, the US tears up one country after another.

Enough!

what's really happening in South Korea and dealings with the North

I am now placing here something of mine published a couple of weeks ago at John Menadue's blog. Just to keep my record in one place. I had called my piece "Moon over Trump... and over Whitlam,' but John Menadue, perhaps because such a big part of the Whitlam years, gave it a new title... or perhaps I was just being too poetic. But I find this title a bit grating.

DENNIS ARGALL. Ignore Trump’s tweets about North Korea ; the diplomacy is being handled by adults

Posted on 6 July 2017 by John Menadue

Since his election in May South Korea’s President Mon Jae-in has developed a productive relationship with US President Trump, particularly on the difficult issue of both countries’ dealings with North Korea. Regrettably Australian and other mainstream media is reporting Trump’s rants, intended for his domestic support base, rather than the positive outcomes from those summit meetings.

While someone from Lowy gravely (and absurdly) suggested on the ABC News on 4 July that the DPRK (North Korea) now had an ICBM that could be launched at Darwin, around the same time, the South Korean newsagency Yonhap reported that South Korean President Moon Jae-in had told David Cameron in Seoul that he hoped North Korea would not go past a ‘point of no return’ and Yonhap further reported;

“The policy to seek the resumption of dialogue while maintaining maximum pressure remains unchanged,” a Cheong Wa Dae [the president’s office] official told reporters, while asking not to be identified.

Regrettably Australian and other mainstream media is still doing what Trump wants, reporting Trump rants, intended for his domestic support base, rather than what is agreed out of summit meetings.

South Korean officials, media and business leaders who had been in Washington with Moon on 29-30 June were apprehensive about delay in release of the agreed joint statement. They knew that Trump White House staff deliberately delayed release of such statements (for days in the case of Saudi Arabia) and they did not want the outcome of the visit to be as  ranted by Trump at a joint press conference.

After seven hours, the joint statement emerged — intact and it is important to read carefully.

Down in the middle of the statement is this critical paragraph:

President Trump supported the ROK’s leading role in fostering an environment for peaceful unification of the Korean Peninsula.

and

President Trump expressed support for President Moon’s aspiration to restart inter-Korean dialogue on issues, including humanitarian affairs.

This too shows strength in the ROK’s getting back sovereignty and command of issues on the peninsula:

The two leaders decided to continue the Alliance’s work to expeditiously enable the conditions-based transfer of wartime operational control [OPCON] of ROK forces.

“Continue” covers the to and fro on this transfer issues, postponed by the previous administration. The statement is a recognition of ROK sovereignty.

There is also a large amount of conventional expression of support for the alliance. Conventional except in that there were apprehensions Moon might be a radical and Trump might be a bit… Trump. All of the statements out of Washington indicate good rapport between the two and real trust of Moon by Trump. Trump accepted an invitation to visit Seoul this year.

Moon’s comment to Cameron on 4 July needs to be seen in that context: he does not want to be trampled, to lose what he has gained, by trampling of elephants before and behind. Also, in my view, the DPRK’s missile launch is part of a hurried approach to ‘negotiation from strength’. But who will assess it rationally?

Moon’s visit to Washington was preceded by a carefully-orchestrated academic and media conference at which some forward looking views on inter-Korean relations were presented by one of his advisors, who could then say “oh, I’m just an academic”. Moon took with him to Washington a great contingent of business leaders, to whom – people who would have never wanted Moon elected – he said in Washington that he was sorry that this was their first meeting since he took office, but hey, we’re here together now. He announced Korean investments in the US and other warming goodies. The Joint Statement does not say, though Trump said, that the Free Trade Agreement would be re-negotiated.

The presidential election results were declared on 9 May just before 9am. Moon Jae-in was inaugurated at 4pm. On 10 May he abolished the ‘official’ history texts his predecessor had demanded for schools, and he reversed the ban on commemoration of the Gwangju Massacre in May 1980 and the ban on singing the march of that uprising. On 18 May he want to Gwangju for the anniversary, taking with him heads of political parties, to hold hands, weep and sing (all but one of them sang). In the ROK current history this compares with Tiananmen. The ROK has turned a corner, China has not.

Instead of meeting with business leaders he went to see workers at the international airport on 11 May and said he wanted to see the 10,000 of them who were casual employees made permanent during his term of office. The airport corporation promptly said this would happen before the end of 2017.

Instead of meeting promptly with business leaders Moon began an assembly of office holders to take on the chaebols, the handful of conglomerates (Hyundai, Samsung, etc) that dominate the Korean economy. Instead of falling in with habits, he appointed a woman as foreign minister, who had not been through the foreign ministry system but had a history in charge of human rights at the UN and as head of the transition team of the new UN Secretary General. He gave charge of veterans affairs to a woman, the first female South Korean helicopter pilot, and gave the job ministerial status.

Instead of meeting with business leaders he visited classrooms and talked with children. At the end of a month he shocked the nation where no one takes a day off from work, declaring he would take a public service day off … and went with his wife to their house in the country for a day.

And so it has gone. He has a popularity rating over 80%.

In May at the request of a Korean political science journal I wrote a paper in part drawing comparatively on the history of the Whitlam Government and problems it faced as a reform government. Moon has in two months shown the world, with smiles, how to reform, make friends and secure control of difficult issues. But who is watching? All eyes are on the shrieking roller-coaster. 

Copy of my paper if you write here.  

(These are good sources: Yonhap News Agency and the more radical Hankyoreh.)

The chaotic state of play here and abroad, with minor decent exceptions.

As submitted to John Menadue's blog yesterday (image added here):

Both domestic and international affairs are in a state of nastiness and chaos. Ironically Trump’s presence is creating a new love-in between the alliance chiefs in the US and Australia and popular support for them. All in the face of the disaster that is US policy in many places.

With tiny candles of hope on hills: at the UN with the nuclear weapons ban treaty and in South Korea, where people who really understand threat are defiantly being decent.

Two very recent issues here in Australia:

·      The assorted musings on whether WA Greens candidate Mr Steele-John will take up the seat in the Senate vacated by Scott Ludlam, with Michelle Grattan, sympathetic to his personal dilemma as a young person with disabilities,  noting Katharine Murphy’s essay observation that “the environment parliamentarians work in is a pressure cooker, the tone of national affairs is reflexively hostile, trolling and takedowns set the tone of the day, and protagonists are being rewarded for their efficiency at treachery rather than the substance of their contributions”. Which seems an adequate description also of the seething state of folly in international relations;

·      The arrival of Australia as not before, as a frequent news item in Washington for example just now as Julie Bishop comes to the fore, seen as an icon of decency among women in response to the trumpian slur delivered to the Macrons and in her commitment to the US alliance in troubled times… a burgeoning, fear-manipulated cling-to for Australian minds. Who would have imagined that trumpery would strengthen the alliance. We have been infested of course, by the stay-the-course heavies of the US establishment led by VP Pence, Senator McCain, intelligence chief Jim Clapper and the neo-kissingerist pawn-playing real-world-avoidant Jake Sullivan who might have held the keys of too many things under Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile in the US, former presidents George W Bush and W Clinton at one event and Vice President Pence at another event have spoken of the importance of humility in leadership.

How cute. There is nothing such, no humility, never has been, in US world leadership, not now, not with them in office. US leadership is, of course, not working, though as the saying might go ‘you can tell that to Julie Bishop’, the Pencian grey nemesis of the Australian right.

A thoughtful piece inthe New York Times has set out in detail how the US intervention has given Iraq as a gift to Iran, with Iran now consolidating its road to the Mediterranean via Syria. How good or bad that may be for the wider world is another matter, the point first is that intervention in Iraq, at one time the single greatest error of strategic judgment in Australia’s history, shuffles forward to assume the same status for the US, putting Vietnam in the shade, the latter now a problem that has kinda solved itself in a way the Middle East can’t.

Perhaps the most poisonous news of the week is of the UAE’s role in hacking government web sites in Qatar, broadcasting lies and precipitating the current divide among Gulf emirates … and between the President and Secretary of State of the US. A matter brought on by Trump’s folie de grandeur in Saudi Arabia, now made the more sickening by his boasting to a Christian conference in the US that he’d made very clear to them he wasn’t going to Saudi, betcha bottom brain cell, unless they wrote the cheque, bought the weapons package. Can none of these people see beyond their own mirrors?

There is scant evidence of either humility or vision in international affairs. There has been a majorescalation in the civilian body count in US operations in the Middle East sinceTrump (and Mattis) took over.

From a story in The Atlantic in praise of Moon Jae-in

But far away, beneath the vision of the Big Strategists, the new Moon Jae-in administration in South Korea, with its weird sense of decent purpose in a crazy world, has proposed military talks at Panmunjom to discuss with the North “stopping all hostile activities that raise military tension.” This doubtless will get wider public attention when the DPRK issues a likely initial raspberry.

The necessary steps for the Korean question are akin to what is needed as regards the new UN treaty banning nuclear weapons. Someone commented on that treaty at the New York Times today:

“Unrealistic. Unenforceable. Unproductive.
“If they wanted to create a new norm against using or threatening to use nuclear weapons, they would have needed buy-in by the major powers.”

To which I responded:

“Silence does not lead to new norms. Submission and silence in the face of bullying does not stop bullies. Alliance of opponents to bullying is the only way to start. Bullies are not prompt to join such alliances. But such alliances are a beginning. And important.”