Korea Thread: Liberal Moon Jae In Elected

[Monoriu]

On the left is the South Korean Constitutional Court's Chief Justice as she announced Park's verdict. 

On the right is her as she left the car and approached the court building. 

[CountDeMoney]

 

[Razgovory]

 

[jimmy olsen]

Not sure how much to take seriously anything this administration says, but if so nice knowing you guys. I work 200 meters from the Sejong Government Complex so if this goes down on a weekday my goose is probably cooked.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39297031

Tillerson: Military action against North Korea 'an option'

44 minutes ago
From the section Asia


The US has said its policy of "strategic patience" with North Korea is over, and suggested it may decide to take pre-emptive military action.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the option was "on the table" if the threat from the North's weapons programme reached a level requiring it.

During a visit to South Korea, he also said the US was exploring a range of new diplomatic and economic measures.
He also defended the deployment of a US missile system in South Korea.

The move has angered China, but South Korea and the US say the system is needed to defend against North Korea.

Mr Tillerson spoke shortly after visiting the demilitarised zone which divides the two Koreas.
He arrived in South Korea from Japan, where he said that 20 years of efforts aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions had failed.

Mr Tillerson spoke shortly after visiting the demilitarised zone which divides the two Koreas.

He arrived in South Korea from Japan, where he said that 20 years of efforts aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions had failed.

Asked if the possibility for military action existed, he said: "Certainly we do not want to, for things to get to military conflict."

But he said: "If they elevate the threat of their weapons programme to a level that we believe requires action, then that option's on the table."

North Korea has conducted nuclear and missile tests in recent years, and says it is close to testing long-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads and reaching the US.

Big shift? Analysis by Stephen Evans, BBC News, Seoul

Mr Tillerson was blunt: the previous policy had ended. Despite that assertion, though, the difference between the Obama strategy and the Trump one isn't obvious. Mr Obama had not ruled out military force and Mr Tillerson thinks sanctions might yet work.

Both administrations ruled out negotiation - though Mr Tillerson said they would be "premature" at the moment, prompting the thought that there might come a time when they were the right thing to do.

At the end of it, the situation remains the same: North Korea shows no hint of being willing to renounce nuclear weapons, whatever economic blows it receives and whatever China might think.

Mr Tillerson heads for Beijing next, hoping China will help - but in the past Mr Trump has called China an "enemy".
China's role

The US has accused China, North Korea's main ally, of not doing enough to rein it in. But Beijing remains wary of any action that could destabilise the North Korean regime and potentially create chaos on its border.
During his address in Seoul, Mr Tillerson called on China to fully implement sanctions imposed by the UN in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"I don't believe we have ever fully achieved the maximum level of action that can be taken under the UN Security Council resolution with full participation of all countries," he said.

China is also strongly opposed to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) system in South Korea. The US says the system is aimed at North Korea, but China says it will allow the US to spy on its territory.

In recent days there have been multiple reports of apparent economic retaliation aimed at South Korea by Beijing. Mr Tillerson called these actions "unnecessary and troubling".

"We also believe it is not the way for a regional power to help resolve what is a serious threat for everyone," he said.

[Ed Anger]

Flash fried Timmay

[Razgovory]

Aren't you out of artillery range?

[CountDeMoney]

Fuck no, his ass was paced off years ago.  SSM, artillery, and a battalion of suicide Norkommandos.

Think of it this way, Timmay:  it'll happen so fast, you won't have time to misspell "flash of bright light" 

[Ed Anger]

He neglected the upkeep of his emergency rickshaw. The driver starved in the shed. 

[CountDeMoney]

MAH TRIAD

[jimmy olsen]

Aren't you out of artillery range?

90 minutes south of seoul, however I imagine they have missile batteries aimed at it.

[jimmy olsen]

http://shanghaiist.com/2017/03/22/south_koreans_like_japan_over_china.php

South Koreans now hate China even more than Japan, new opinion polls says

by Alex Linder in News   on Mar 22, 2017 4:45 pm

The bitter dispute that has developed between Beijing and Seoul over the deployment of the US-backed THAAD missile defense system has caused China to become even more hated in South Korea than Japan, its former colonizer.

According to an opinion poll conducted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, China's approval rating on a 0-10 scale in South Korea has dropped from 4.31 in January to 3.21 in March.

That drops China just behind Japan which had a 3.33 rating in March. Apart from North Korea, Japan has traditionally been rated as South Koreans' least favorite country thanks to the scars left over from its wartime past, including using 200,000 Koreans as "comfort women" -- sexual slaves for Japanese troops.

In comparison, the United States holds a 5.71 rating, while North Korea is down at 2.17. Both these ratings have remained mostly stable over the last year.

China's favorability rating fell the most among South Koreans over 60 years old, dropping from 4.38 in January to 2.72 in March. Meanwhile South Koreans in their twenties were already distrustful of China before the THAAD situation began to escalate further with a 3.84 favorabiilty rating in January dropping to a 3.46 rating in March.

Chinese President Xi Jinping saw his own favorability rating among South Koreans plummet all the way to 3.01 -- but that still puts him ahead of Donald Trump (2.93) and Shinzo Abe (1.56).

On Weibo, Chinese netizens don't seem all that bothered by the survey. "Who the fuck cares," reads one comment with nearly 100,000 likes. "We don't need you to like us. Thanks. We don't like you either," writes another Weibo user. "That's okay. You've always been our least favorite province," commented another.


Facing a nuclear-obsessed neighbor, Seoul sees the US missile defense system as necessary for its survival. At the same time, Beijing views it as a threat to its own national security and has vowed to take appropriate "countermeasures," raising nationalist sentiment against South Korea.

Spurred on by state media editorials, the South Korean Lotte Group has become a primary target for Chinese "patriots" with dancing aunties protesting in front of Lotte supermarkets in China, and primary school kids being indoctrinated against their foodstuffs. This month 80% of Lotte's supermarkets have been forced to shut down in China, resulting in heavy losses for the company.

The dispute has also hit the South Korean tourism industry hard with numerous flights and cruises from mainland China being canceled. In one sensational incident earlier this month 3,400 Chinese tourists refused to set foot on South Korean soil after their cruise ship docked at the popular resort island of Jeju.

[Valmy]

"We don't need you to like us. Thanks. We don't like you either," writes another Weibo user. "That's okay. You've always been our least favorite province," commented another.

Sounds like Chinese Spicey and Chinese Ed respectively.

[CountDeMoney]

At least it's starting to click with those mutts that, holy shit, today's Japan isn't imperial Japan.

China, on the other hand, is still the same China that fucked South Korea in her hot, wet Pusan.

[Jacob]

On that...

A little while ago we had some friends of the family from Chengdu over for dinner. During the after dinner discussion they got into politics, and they touched on the current situation between China and South Korea.

As they understood the situation, when North Korea fired the missiles one of the first things the Korean president did was put a call through to the Chinese. Now, the Chinese official in charge of that is the former ambassador to Japan and apparently a blowhard and a bit of an idiot (maybe a less competent John Bolton with Chinese characteristics) - and apparently the call never made it through to Xi. Weeks later, Xi reached out to the Koreans on an entirely different topic.

The Koreans then concluded "fuck this, we can't rely on the Chinese to help manage North Korea - we better go ahead with the missile shield..." and now the Chinese are pissed. But it's their own fault.

"Incompetence, now made in China" was the view expressed.

I don't know if that lines up with anything you guys have seen reported in Western or Korean media, but I thought it interesting.

[The Minsky Moment]

Jake that story doesn't make a ton of sense.  Xi shouldn't need to be told that SK was spooked over the launch.  I suspect the reality is simpler.  Lil Kim has called China's bluff.  China isn't going to collapse the regime no matter what.  Xi has nothing to say to SK to provide meaningful assurance.