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A US Navy ship stands by amid the destruction of port facilities in Hungnam, North Korea, on December 24, 1950. (Photo: US Navy) By Jon Letman | May 16, 2016 Originally published on Truthout.org With the American public’s limited attention span for international affairs tied up by fears of ISIS (also known as Daesh), intractable wars in the Middle East and unease about Putin’s Russia, Obama’s much-touted Asia-Pacific pivot frequently gets third or fourth billing on the foreign policy marquee. The “pivot” (also called the “Indo-Asia-Pacific Rebalance”) is centered on exerting a greater US economic, diplomatic and military influence in the world’s most populous and economically vibrant region. But on the Korean peninsula, even as the United States bolsters its military posture with more troops, training and weapons, US politicians and the public view the standoff with North Korea without fully knowing or considering important historical realities and potential opportunities. First, a few facts. North Korea has been threatened with nuclear weapons at least eight times by six US presidents, including President Obama. Economically, Northeast Asia is critical to the US economy. China, Japan and South Korea are among the United States’ top seven largest trading partners, with whom the US is trying to turn trade imbalances in its favor. A hallmark of President Obama’s foreign trade efforts in Asia has been the much-disputed free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In a speech about the Asia-Pacific pivot in 2015, US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter described the TPP’s passage as being “as important as another aircraft carrier.” Whether intentional or not, Carter’s comparison highlights the overlap between trade and militarism in the rebalance to Asia. The US has roughly 28,500 troops in South Korea today, with 54,000 more in Okinawa and Japan. With its ally, South Korea (otherwise known as the Republic of Korea or ROK), the US military operates on the premise that it must be “ready to fight tonight.” And while the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Donald Trump, argues South Korea and Japan must “pay their fair share” for the US to keep its soldiers in their countries, The Associated Press recently reported that the four-star Army general overseeing US forces in South Korea said it is cheaper to operate from South Korea than from the United States, because Korea pays half the annual bill ($808 million) and is funding over 90 percent of a new $10.8 billion US base. It should be noted that independent of what the US spends on its large military presence in South Korea, in 2015, South Korea was ranked the world’s 10th largest military spender (Japan was eighth). Currently, under a military agreement with the United States, South Korean forces would fall under the command of the US in the event of a war, but a new operational plan to change that is now being considered. According to a 2015 US Department of Defense report, North Korea (otherwise known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or DPRK) has an estimated 950,000 troops. The Guardian’s North Korea Datablog published a summary of Korean military figures here. North Korea Threatens a “Sea of Fire” Given North Korea’s recent history of nuclear tests, rocket launches and threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire and reduce the US to ashes, it is often dismissed as irrationally hostile, but scholars and foreign policy experts specializing in the region say the country needs to be examined in historical context and with a greater appreciation of how North Korea came into existence. North Korea was founded on the core tenet of juche (self-reliance) three years after US colonels hastily divided Korea along the 38th parallel following the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and North Koreans suffered extraordinary death and destruction from US carpet bombings during the Korean War (1950-53). By one estimate, Pyongyang was reduced from 500,000 to 50,000 in one year of the Korean War with up to 90 percent (or more) of Pyongyang destroyed by US bombs. “For South Korea, the US is a security blanket that helps to buffer them against [North Korean] threats.” Although an armistice brought fighting on the Korean peninsula to a halt, a peace treaty was never signed and North Korea and South Korea remain technically in a state of war. In the subsequent six decades, North Korea has been threatened with nuclear weapons at least eight times by six US presidents, including President Obama, according to Joseph Gerson, director of the Peace and Economic Security Program with the American Friends Service Committee. And despite a thaw in 2000, when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met face to face with Kim Jong-il, relations between the US and North Korea nose dived under President George W. Bush, who branded North Korea as part of an “axis of evil” and called North Korea’s leader a tyrant and a “pygmy.” In 2006 North Korea detonated its first nuclear explosion and became the world’s eighth declared nuclear state, a milestone North Korea’s foreign ministry attributed to “US nuclear threat, sanctions and pressure.” Today, North Korea is believed to have six to eight nuclear weapons (compared with the United States’ more than 7,200). Korea analysts say that under Obama’s policy of “strategic patience,” US-North Korean relations are near historic lows. In January 2016, the North conducted a fourth nuclear test (claiming it was a hydrogen bomb), followed by a rocket launchand more fiery threats. Additional UN Security Council sanctions have been imposed but their effectiveness is in question and there’s talk of a fifth nuclear test being imminent. Meanwhile the US and South Korea regularly practice for war with the North, carrying out large-scale military exercises that include amphibious landings, surgical hits and “decapitation training” to remove Kim Jong-un and other senior leaders. This spring’s war games, reportedly the largest ever, were accompanied by North Korean provocations with each side using the other to justify its own saber rattling. Gerson and other analysts call the joint exercises harmful and say they should be scaled back or halted to de-escalate tensions. The only way out of this chicken-and-egg cycle of threat-counter threat, Gerson says, is with “disciplined, difficult, patient diplomacy,” something he charges the Obama administration has refused to do. Continued US Involvement in South Korea Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said South Korea does have a growing military capability but added, “South Korea is well aware of the risks and consequences of rivalry and transition in Northeast Asia because they’ve been the biggest victims … as the smaller country that is less powerful than Japan or China.” “For South Korea, the US is a security blanket that helps to buffer them against [North Korean] threats,” Snyder said. But without the US security commitment and absent trust-based relations among neighboring Northeast Asian nations, he finds it hard to imagine security for South Korea. Snydersees the United States’ security relationships with South Korea (and Japan) as a stabilizing force that has prevented the outbreak of hot conflicts but says the overall situation on the Korean peninsula is moving in the wrong direction. “To be honest, I am probably more pessimistic than I have been in a long time,” he said. “There are a lot of problems [that] are part of the reason why the US continues to be involved in the region,” Snyder said. This raises the question: Is long-term US military involvement in Northeast Asia part of the solution or part of the problem? The B-52s In 2013, calling the move a form of “diplomacy,” the US flew nuclear-capable B-2 bombers and B-52s on flyover missions as a message to North Korea. Similar B-52 flyovers followed the North’s latest nuclear test as a show of strength but Snyder says they offer “diminishing utility.” “It might have had some utility the first time but increasingly it just looks like part of the usual drill,” said Snyder, warning that nuclear bomber runs are a type of US propaganda that could backfire if North Korean leadership uses the flyovers to reinforce the internal perception that the country is under siege. “We need to address the situation directly through negotiations that actually have the effect of lowering tensions rather than engaging in propaganda signaling exercises,” Snyder added. “The contest in Asia is not between North Korea and the United States; it’s between China and the United States.” Paul Liem, an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute in California, agrees that US-South Korean war games are counterproductive and breed instability. He says stopping the exercises in exchange for a freeze in North Korea’s nuclear program could pave the way for a peace treaty that would officially end the Korean War, which could in turn eventually lead to normalized relations. Liem is confident Koreans on both sides of the demilitarized zone dividing North and South Korea would support such steps but added, “I don’t think we’ll do it … the contest in Asia is not between North Korea and the United States; it’s between China and the United States. The North Korean tests play very handily into the perceived need for the US to ramp up its military preparedness in the region.” Liem suggests that much of the increased military activity around the Korean peninsula is, in fact, directed at China more than North Korea. The Wrong Questions At the University of Connecticut, Korea and Japan history Prof. Alexis Dudden points out that Korea has been divided as two nations since the dawn of the atomic age. In 2003, during the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq, Dudden says it was absolutely clear to the North Korean leadership that nuclear weapons equal state sovereignty. “South Korea has always been occupied by the US military so it has not developed its own nuclear weapons system, whereas the North Koreans, having come into being in that historical juncture, determined almost right away — especially building on the experience of the firebombing of Pyongyang — the Korean War was always potentially a nuclear war, not simply because of its timing, but there were discussions of using nuclear materials in that war, on the US side at least,” Dudden said. Despite the Asia-Pacific pivot, Dudden says the Obama administration’s policy toward Korea has been “willful and absent at best — entirely outsourced to different think tanks and policy interests” and, in her words, “not consistent at all.” If the US is really interested in helping to bring about “a peaceful and prosperous Northeast Asia,” Dudden said, “we need to ask different questions.” She argues that instead of pursuing a renewed containment theory, creating fearful populations and boosting defense budgets, we should be discussing our common aims such as combating climate change. Talk Before You Run Part of the problem with US-North Korean relations, says Daniel Jasper, Asia advocacy coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee, is a dangerous lack of direct engagement that creates bureaucrats and diplomats who lack the linguistic and cultural experience to interact in a positive, meaningful and direct way. Because diplomats come and go, if they don’t have on-the-ground experience, it’s that much harder to make concrete decisions and anticipate what the other side is thinking, Jasper says. Before engaging in the most complex issues, like a peace treaty and nuclear negotiations, it’s important to lay the groundwork by cooperating in areas of mutual interest like education, agriculture, health and climate change, according to Jasper. Institutional person-to-person exchanges are essential to building capacity and trust. He insists the problem is exacerbated by the characterization of North Koreans as irrational, cartoonish and flat-out “insane.” Jasper sees a failure to recognize that tensions spike just before the war games, and says it’s no coincidence that North Korea chose to detonate a nuclear bomb prior to major US-South Korean military exercises. Dudden agrees that dismissing North Korean leadership as “crazy” is counterproductive and misses the reality that the government is deeply calculating, even if Kim Jong-un has sent very mixed messages about engaging with the United States. Give Peace a Chance If a disastrous Northeast Asian war is to be avoided, it will require engagement and diplomacy. Calls for a peace treaty that would formally end the Korean Warcontinued to come from the North even as it prepared to hold its first Workers’ Party Congress in 36 years. South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported on North Korean state-run media suggesting Kim Jong-un would not be the first to use nuclear weapons unless “[North Korea’s] sovereignty is violated.” The same report indicated the North was willing to mend relations with “hostile” nations. Approaching the twilight of the Obama presidency, many questions remain. Will the next US president work to reestablish a dialogue with North Korea? Will the next administration have the ability and patience to engage in tough, long-term negotiations and the flexibility to address complex, decades-old animosity? In a region clouded with distrust and fear, one thing is clear: Larger war games, more lethal weapons and heightened threats and hostility have proven to be ineffective means to achieve peace and regional stability, which are, after all, what everyone insists they want most. Copyright, Truthout.org. Reprinted with permission. Jon Letman is a freelance journalist on Kauai. He writes about politics, people and the environment in the Asia-Pacific region. Follow him on Twitter: @jonletman. #KoreanWar #Nuclearweapons #Armistice #AsiaPacificpivot #NorthKorea

By Christine Ahn | May 26, 2016 Originally published by Foreign Policy in Focus One year ago, I led a group of 30 women from 15 countries on a journey across the De-Militarized Zone (DMZ) from North to South Korea. On May 24, International Women’s Day for Peace and Disarmament, we crossed the world’s most militarized border calling for the reunification of Korean families divided by conflict and a peace treaty to end the Korean War. Our delegation included two Nobel Peace Prize laureates, a retired U.S. army colonel, and America’s most revered feminist, Gloria Steinem. Together, we shined a light on the urgent need for a peaceful solution to the Korean conflict that’s separated three generations of families and threatens nuclear war today. While we received support from world leaders such as U.S. President Jimmy Carter and UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, others called us “naïve handmaidens” of the Kim Jong-Un regime and accused us of seeking to advance North Korea’s agenda. As South Korean women plan another peace walk this May along the DMZ’s southern border, detractors now allege that the idea came from the North Korean government. In fact, the idea of the women’s peace walk emerged from a dream I had in 2009 after reading about the flooding of the Imjin River, which killed six South Koreans. To avert a catastrophe in North Korea, Pyongyang lifted the floodgates of the dam, but apparently didn’t communicate with Seoul, as the inter-Korean hotline had been shut down. In 2013, my idea crystallized into action when five New Zealanders rode their motorbikes across the DMZ. If they could do it, international women peacemakers could certainly do it, too. And we could call for an end to the Korean War while we were at it. With a colleague and my young daughter in tow, I traveled to Pyongyang in February 2014 to present my idea to a panel of skeptical North Korean officials. Whether out of shared belief in re-starting a long-stalled peace process or an undisclosed agenda of their own, they signed a memorandum agreeing, tentatively, to a women’s peace march across the DMZ. With assistance from former U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson, the UN Command Military Armistice Commission also agreed to cooperate once South Korea gave the green light, which finally arrived days before we boarded our planes to Beijing en route to North Korea. Over the course of four days, we exchanged ideas with North Korean women leaders and marched with 7,000 North Korean women through the streets of Pyongyang and Kaesong. As with any high-level foreign delegation in the country, our trip was highly planned and coordinated. What wasn’t scripted, however, was a spontaneous interview a North Korean journalist from Rodong Sinmun gave me as we toured Mangyongdae, the birthplace of Kim Il Sung. He wanted my opinion about the North Korean founder, so I gave an honest response referring to my late mother, who was born during the Japanese colonial period. Despite her sixth grade education and the overwhelming anti-North Korean propaganda she grew up with in Seoul, even she knew that Kim Il Sung was regarded as a guerrilla fighter who fought for Korea’s independence from Japanese rule. Unfortunately, the reporter interpreted this too liberally, claiming I had praised the North Korean leader. The South Korean media later parroted this as fact, which is ironic since they view any news from North Korean state media as propaganda intended for their domestic audience. Sadly, the distortion continues. Because the Korean War has never formally ended, a deep ideological divide remains — not just across the DMZ, but also within South Korea, where those working for peace are often painted as North Korean sympathizers. Although Korean, American, and Chinese military leaders agreed over 60 years ago to hammer out a binding peace accord within three months of signing the Armistice Agreement that temporarily halted the Korean War in 1953, somehow when women take to the streets calling for its fulfillment, we’re North Korean lackeys. Women must be at the peacemaking table, not just because we make up half the world’s population, but also because our involvement leads to better outcomes. New research from the Philippines and Colombia, on top of the experience from Liberia and Northern Ireland, shows that when women and men participate equally in the process, prospects for achieving a durable peace agreement are improved. Women’s inclusion in peace building was enshrined into international law with the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2001, which called on “all actors to increase the participation of women and incorporate gender perspectives in all United Nations peace and security efforts.” Yet 15 years later, fewer than 10 percent of women are negotiators, and even fewer at the Korean peace table. Ending the Korean War and finding a meaningful path to reunification won’t be achieved overnight, but a revitalized process towards peaceful reconciliation on the Korean peninsula can begin with a simple step: Women should have a seat at the peacemaking table. Until then, we’ll continue to take our calls for a peaceful resolution to this decades-old conflict to public squares and streets around the world, including the DMZ. Christine Ahn, a cofounder of the Korea Policy Institute, is a Foreign Policy in Focus columnist and was the international coordinator of the 2015 women’s DMZ peace walk. #KimJongUn #DPRK #KoreanWar #peacetreaty #GloriaSteinem #ChristineAhn #Armistice #WomenCrossDMZ

Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, and North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) Bruce Cumings | July 5, 2016 Originally published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists In recent weeks, North Korea has been engaged in a flurry of diplomacy and a flurry of missile tests. What does it all mean, and what is the significance of the timing? And how would such activity likely be dealt with by a President Trump—and how would people on the Korean peninsula react to the idea of his sitting in the Oval Office? No one can predict the future, of course, but we can make some guesses. First, some background. The missile in question is a Musudan intermediate rocket, with a range that theoretically encompasses all of Japan proper, Okinawa, and Guam. The launches failed four times. North Korea has never carried out so many tests of a single missile system so frequently, as noted by 38 North. The unusual haste was attributed to the then-impending 7th Congress of the Korean Worker’s Party, the first such congress since 1980, which was held in early May. Presumably the three tests in April, had they been successful, would have enhanced the prestige of young leader Kim Jong-un. But testing continued after the congress, too, so this may also have been related to high-level exchanges between Pyongyang and Beijing. If this seems odd—Beijing has been urging Pyongyang to stop missile and A-bomb tests—it fits a pattern: The North is going out of its way to test-test-test, trying to force the world to accept it as a nuclear weapons state. As I wrote in these pages in January 2016 (“The North Korea That Can Say No”), China sent two different high-level envoys to Pyongyang, the first in November to urge that the North Koreans not test a long-range rocket (which they proceeded to do anyway), the second in February to head off another atomic bomb test (you guessed it, the visit made no difference). In the current case, newly-appointed Politburo member Ri Su-yong traveled to Beijing late in May, his visit punctuated by the fourth of the recent Musudan tests, and the release of a video of what purported to be a submarined-launched missile. Ri is quite close to Kim Jong-un, having been the ambassador who looked after Kim’s every need when Kim was attending secondary school in Switzerland; later Ri was Foreign Minister. Ri was ostensibly tasked with reporting the results of the recent Party Congress to Beijing, but he also made it clear that North Korea would go on testing bombs and missiles. His reward? A completely unexpected audience with Chinese President Xi Jinping. News reports said their talks were cordial, quoting the Chinese president as saying that China “attached great importance to developing a friendly relationship with North Korea,” and pleading for “calm” in what is sometimes known as “the land of the morning calm”—Korea. No Chinese president has ever before spoken of developing a friendly relationship with the North: It was always rhetoric about a “blood-sealed alliance” or the two countries being “as close as lips to teeth.” President Xi’s statement is an index of just how bad things have gotten between the two presumed allies. Meanwhile, he was silent about denuclearization, in spite of the recent tests and his frequent calls (for example in April) to rid the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons. Why such gifts to Kim Jong-un? Perhaps President Xi is trying out a soft touch, rather than sending hand-picked envoys on fruitless missions to Pyongyang. More likely, Ri’s surprise visit—well, a surprise to the West anyway—was an opening gambit just before the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue between the United States and China, which opened on June 6. For more than a decade, Washington has wanted Beijing to cooperate in reining in North Korea, and China now faces the task of enforcing tough new United Nations sanctions on the North’s banks and foreign economic activities, most of which depend on Chinese financial institutions. By making nice to Kim, the Chinese president can gain leverage in negotiations with the United States, while pointing to his previous track record of denouncing the North’s missile and bomb tests, almost in unison with Washington. By showing Washington that he has other options, and given the deteriorating status of Sino-American relations, Chinese President Xi strengthens his own hand. (As of this writing, the only news out of the annual talks had to do with South China Sea disputes and American demands that China stop dumping steel and other items in the US market.) Both capitals may also be trying to gauge the likely results of the American presidential election (like every other capital in what is unquestionably the weirdest campaign in decades, if not centuries). As an American professor of history with a life-long interest in the Koreas—I first became interested in the region while serving in the Peace Corps in South Korea in the late 1960s, and later wrote three books and participated in a documentary series about the Korean War—I have had many requests from friends and colleagues in Seoul, asking me to explain Donald Trump’s foreign policy platform: Would he really remove US troops from Korea? Does he really want us to have nuclear weapons? I try to explain that it is inherently difficult to know what a loose cannon is doing at any given time, or where an unguided missile might land. But the North Koreans appear to have no problem with Trump, ever since he said he would be willing to talk to Kim Jong-un. Trump doubled down on this policy on June 3, in a speech in Redding, California, saying, “I may not go to North Korea, but I will negotiate with it … They (the critical experts) say, ‘We would never, ever, talk (with the North).’ How foolish they are!” And earlier this year Kim apparently endorsed Trump for the presidency of the United States: “The Supreme Leader closely weighed and measured the talents all of the US candidates and gave them all careful consideration,” says the purported official statement from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). “[He] has named Donald Trump the official candidate of the DPRK.” Some may joke that Kim probably also wants Dennis Rodman for Secretary of State, but it is an index of how isolated the North Koreans are, and what they really want when all is said and done, that they almost instantly welcomed Trump’s idea. American leaders seem to think that it’s a big gift if they deign to talk to enemy heads of state. But diplomacy emerged in history as a way of getting enemies to talk to, rather than fight with, each other. The one US president to talk to Kim Il-sung over his long life was Jimmy Carter—and he brought back a freeze on the North’s plutonium facilities that lasted for eight years, until George W. Bush quite stupidly bulldozed his way through that agreement. What exactly has Washington gotten from its policy of isolating North Korea for 70 years and pretending that it doesn’t exist? Nothing but conflict, pain and suffering. Give North Korea a couple more years, and it will have been around longer than the entire Soviet Union. Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened relations with the Soviet Union in 1933, 16 years after the Bolshevik revolution, and managed to develop a working relationship that allowed Moscow and Washington to be allies against the Nazis and Japan in World War II. If Hillary Clinton becomes president, she will undoubtedly continue the policy of isolation and denuclearization of North Korea. Any number of things would make a Trump presidency interesting, to say the least, but one of them is to see what he would really do in regard to Korea policy. *Bruce Cumings teaches at the University of Chicago as the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift distinguished service professor. He is the author of numerous books on Korea and is on the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. #KimJongUn #KoreanWar #DonaldTrump #missiles #Armistice #NorthKorea

Protest by Yoosung Union in April, in front of the Daejeon Regional Labor Administration for its failure to properly investigate Yoosung. By Dae-Han Song | July 17, 2016 On May 20th, at Han Gwang Ho’s altar in Seoul City Hall Plaza, I interviewed Kim Seung Suk, a fired union member and 15 year worker at Yoosung, who was standing 24 hour guard. On May 24th, at the occupation in front of Hyundai Group’s Headquarters, I interviewed Hong Jong-in, a fired union member, 12 year worker, and former branch president about the Yoosung worker’s struggle. Hired thugs, union busting consultants, a fake union, bullying by nit-picking, docked pay, lawsuits and fines – Yoosung Enterprise has used it all to smash its branch of the Metal Workers Union. On March 17, after six years of fighting, amidst repression at work and depression at home, union member Han Gwang Ho took his life. Despite the widespread repression and psychological toll on its members, the Yoosung Branch of the Metal Workers Union still stands. It remains the sole union  fighting Hyundai’s union smashing campaign. Han’s death has re-fueled their okeulham (indignation) and jeong (love). Okeulham (ok-eul-ham) is not easily translated into English, perhaps the meaning is lost in the individualism of the English world. At essence, it is the indignation an individual feels at suffering an injustice that is unacknowledged or unaddressed by another individual, a group, or society. It can lead to despair or to struggle. Kim Seung Suk[i] explains how the workplace bullying combined with powerlessness is pushing union members towards suicide: “There are those around me that say Han Gwang Ho was the successful case, ‘how many of us have contemplated and attempted suicide but failed.’” Kim explains how a co-worker found himself on the ledge of his building’s roof unaware of how he got there. “He immediately committed himself to a hospital,” adds Kim. As for Kim, now he leans on drinking more and while “before, I used to drink to laugh and be happy. Now, when I drink I fight with strangers.” Kim Seung Suk in the Seoul City Plaza occupation tent. But okeulham can also fuel revolt. It is how Hong Jong-in[ii], former branch president, explained the 2012 occupation of an overpass in front of the Yoosung factory. Earlier that year, a National Assembly investigation had revealed that Yoosung had hired Changjeong Consulting [a union-busting consultancy] to help smash the union. Okeulham that such damning information would be buried and kept from the public consciousness by the avalanche of the 2012 presidential election led him to occupy a makeshift tent built on the side of the overpass. He remained there unable to stand or walk for 159 days with a noose wrapped around his neck, threatening to jump if anyone attempted to chase him away. He came down when the company promised a negotiated solution. His legs had atrophied to their bones, and he spent the next three months going from his wheelchair and to crutches before walking. The negotiated solution proved a false promise, and so six months later, he was on top of a billboard tower by the Yoosung factory. After 129 days, he incurred a slipped disk preventing him from walking. Once again the promise of a negotiated solution proved false. Hong Jong-in occupying the side of a bridge in a makeshift shelter with a noose around his neck. (Ohmynews.com) Okeulham can keep one going. “We have fought this long. It is too okeul-hada if we give up now. We have to see this fight to the end,” remarks Kim. This indignation is what distinguishes those that continue with the democratic union from those that joined the company one. The company union was formed early in the fight. The fight started on May 18 of 2011 when the union went on strike after the company failed to keep its promise of ending the overnight shift. An investigation would later reveal meetings and an email where Hyundai directed Yoosung, an important subcontractor for its engine parts, to smash the union. That same night, the company shut down the factory. Two months later, after a law allowing multiple unions in a work site went into effect, the company established its own union. The factory was re-opened; the workers were reinstated starting with those who’d switched to the new union. The strategic positions in the production were given to them, allowing production even amidst a strike by the democratic union. “The character of the fight changed. It wasn’t just about workers against management but also about company union workers against the democratic union workers,” explains Hong. I ask what distinguishes those that switched sides and those that didn’t. It is okeulham, but it is also jeong. Jeong is love and affection. “The union members have developed jeong for one another,” explains Hong. With over 300 members (against the 280 or so for the company union), the democratic union still retains a majority of the workers in the factory. The company bullies the democratic union members to switch unions by instigating them into fights recorded by hidden cameras which are then doctored to fine or prosecute. It tallies the times they go on break or to the bathroom and docks those times from their pay. All, while the company union members receive preferential treatment such as overtime. Despite the psychological toll of such harassment, Hong believes his union’s majority is solid. “We look out after each other by supporting and fundraising for each other. We make sure none of us give up.” Addressing international readers, Hong explains: “The Hyundai group is among the top five auto companies in the world. I want to tell people that when they purchase a Hyundai car, they are giving money that is used to destroy unions and to repress workers.” He then wonders about the possibility of people around the world picketing in front of Hyundai dealerships. “Then not just Yoosung, but other unions would face better conditions.” When interviewing struggles, I always finish by asking where hope lies. Kim answers, “If we keep fighting until the end, then we will surely win.” [i] Kim Seung Suk is a 15 year Yoosung worker. He was fired 5 years ago and is currently standing 24 hour guard to prevent Han Gwang Ho’s altar from being dismantled by police. [ii] Hong Jong-in is a 12 year Yoosung worker and the previous Yoosung branch president. He was fired 5 years ago and spent 159 days occupying the side of a bridge and 129 days occupying the top of a billboard tower. Dae-Han Song is chief editor of World Current Report, the Policy and Research Coordinator at the International Strategy Center (iscenter.or.kr), an organization in Korea focused on building bridges between social movements in Korea and those abroad, and a KPI fellow. #DaeHanSong #Hyundai #Labor #SouthKorea

Residents of Seongju, where Thaad is to be deployed, conducting anti-Thaad protests in Seoul (Korea Times) By Bruce Gagnon | July 26, 2016 Originally posted on Organizing Notes Blog Arrived in South Korea – Two Delegation Members Denied Entry It was a time of conflicted feelings last night when Ken Jones (North Carolina) and I made it into South Korea and were met by Will Griffin (San Diego) who had arrived here in May.  Sadly our two Korean-American friends Hyun Lee and Juyeon Rhee were denied entry into South Korea.  They were put on a plane and sent back to the US.  Hyun and Juyeon, both who live in the New York City area, were to be our guides and translators during our three-week trip to Korea.  They help coordinate the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea in the US. VFP members Will Griffin (left) and Ken Jones (right) and I celebrate our successful entry into South Korea late last night We believe the reason they were denied entry into the nation of their birth is because they are very active critics of the South Korean government’s corporate policies that slavishly follow directions from Washington.  In particular they have helped create the organizational effort in the US to have Korean-Americans support progressive people here who have long been organizing to take their country back from the right-wing forces that now control South Korea.  Hyun and Juyeon have also helped launch Zoom Korea, an Independent news blog that provides critical and undistorted news and analysis of the fight for democracy, peace, and reunification on the Korean peninsula.  You can see the blog here. In particular Hyun and Juyeon have been supporting the growing movement in South Korea to oppose the recently announced US plan to deploy the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) ‘missile defense’ (MD) system in the center of the country.  If anyone had any doubt this issue is huge here just take a look at the headline in the Korea Times newspaper that we were handed on our airplane ride last night from Tokyo to Seoul. It is obvious to me that Hyun and Juyeon were not allowed into South Korea because they are in the middle of this fight.  Frankly I was surprised that I got into the country but I suppose I am not nearly as visible to the Korean government as the two Korean-American women are.  They speak the language and have the organizational capability to reach out to millions of Korean-Americans on this THAAD issue. We were met at the airport last night by a South Korean activist who got us on a bus and into the heart of Seoul to our hotel.  The folks here are now working hard to fill the holes that were created when our two guides/translators were blocked entry into the country. Will Griffin (an Afghanistan and Iraq war veteran), Ken Jones (VFP member in Asheville) and I make up this Veterans For Peace delegation that will be touring the country during these coming weeks.  We’ll also go to Jeju Island during this trip to stand with the people of Gangjeong village who remain in opposition to the Navy base that has torn apart their small fishing and farming village. American Navy personnel were recently spotted at the new Navy base in the village and it is just a matter of time before the first US warships enter Gangjeong waters as part of the ‘pivot’ of 60% of US military forces into the region.  Hillary Clinton, during her time as Secretary of State, was the author of the ‘pivot’ strategy which requires more ports of call for warships, more airfields for Pentagon war planes, and more barracks for US troops in places like Hawaii, Guam, Australia, Okinawa, Japan, Philippines, and South Korea. In the Korea Times article shown above Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi renewed Beijing’s strong opposition toward the US setting up the THAAD battery.  He said the US deployment in South Korea, “has undermined the foundations of trust between the two countries.” Just like the US deployments of ‘missile defense’ along the Russian borders, the ever increasingly deployments of MD now encircling China are major provocations by the US against peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific.  During this visit our delegation will be standing with the growing numbers of people in South Korea who oppose these dangerous US policies.  I hope to be able to share their voices with those who read this blog. Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. #KoreaPeace #THAAD #VeteransforPeace

Deported Peace Activists J. Rhee and H. Lee at South Korea airport. (credit Min Plus) Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea | July 27, 2016 Originally published in ZoomInKorea Two Korean American peace activists – Juyeon Rhee and Hyun Lee – had planned to be part of a peace tour as representatives of the U.S.-based Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea but were denied entry into South Korea by its government on July 25. The following is a statement released by the Solidarity Committee: On July 26, 2016, the South Korean government blocked the entry of two Korean American peace activists, Juyeon Rhee and Hyun Lee, into South Korea.  The two are representatives of the U.S.-based Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea. They had traveled to South Korea to participate in the annual Jeju Peace March as well as join protests against the recent U.S.-South Korean decision to deploy the controversial Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system in South Korea. After being detained by immigration officers at Incheon International Airport, Rhee and Lee were deported pursuant to Articles 11 and 12 of the Korea Immigration Control Act, which prohibits the entry of foreigners who, among other things, are “deemed likely to commit any act detrimental to national interests of the Republic of Korea or public safety.” Rhee and Lee had traveled to South Korea numerous times in the past and encountered no barrier to entry.  They have never broken any laws in South Korea, much less been deported in the past. The denial of their entry can only be seen as an attempt by the Park Geun-hye administration to block peace activists from internationalizing the growing opposition in South Korea against THAAD deployment.  Since announcing its decision to collaborate with the U.S. military to deploy the missile system in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, the government has waged an aggressive campaign to crack down on all those who oppose the government’s decision.  President Park recently referred to those voicing opposition, many of whom are ordinary Seongju residents, as “subversive forces” and declared, “It’s important to block subversive forces from all affairs, and we must be thorough in weeding them out.” The rushed decision by the South Korean and U.S. governments to deploy the THAAD system in South Korea was undemocratic with no input from South Korean citizens.  Yet the burden of producing and operating the THAAD system will ultimately be borne by U.S. and South Korean taxpayers.  The cost of the system is estimated at $1.3 billion, and the average annual operating and sustainment costs amount to $200 million.  Many fear that long-term exposure to high frequency electromagnetic waves emitted by the THAAD radar and noise caused by its engines will be detrimental to the health of Seongju residents who live near the designated site.  The THAAD system has been deemed by experts to be ineffective in the defense of South Korea.  Its deployment is a provocative move against North Korea, China, and Russia and will redraw Cold War lines as well as escalate tensions in a region already heavily militarized with weapons of mass destruction. The South Korean government’s action of refusing entry to peace activists shows the degree to which it has devolved into a police state under the Park Geun-hye administration and deems international solidarity to be a threat to its policy of military confrontation and escalation.  Indeed, only the strength of international solidarity between citizens of the United States and South Korea can stop the two governments’ provocative action towards increased militarization.  The Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea is resolved to redouble its efforts of solidarity with the people of South Korea fighting for democracy and peace and call on all those who stand on the side of justice to join the opposition against the dangerous U.S. move to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea. The Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea is a U.S. based group of progressive individuals who support efforts for democracy and peace in Korea.  The Committee publishes a blog, ZoominKorea. #KoreaPeace #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #THAAD #Armistice #HyunLee

Korea Policy Institute | July 27, 2016 July 27th marks the 63rd anniversary of the United States’ temporary armistice with North Korea.  In 1953, the armistice halted the combat, but was meant to be a temporary measure until a peace treaty was negotiated. That has yet to happen   The Korean War continues. During the three year Korean War,  four million died – 3 million Korean civilians, a million Chinese volunteers and 37,000 U.S. troops, and the peninsula was devastated.  Almost 97% of the northern portion was destroyed. Ten million families remain separated by the division of the two Koreas, including many in the United States.  Billions have been spent as North and South Korea maintain huge military forces, and build weapon systems, including nuclear ones. The U.S. still maintains some 28,000 troops on bases throughout South Korea, while carrying out massive “war games” aimed at the North, and now is deploying the controversial THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in Seongju, South Korea. During his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to sit down and talk with Kim Jong Il.  Instead, during his presidency, tensions have continued, and militarization increases. As the U.S. embarks on its presidential elections, the new president has the responsibility and should take the initiative to reduce rather than increase the military tensions on the peninsula.  Six decades is already too long to wait for peace. As James Laney, the former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea has said: “One of the things that have bedeviled all talks until now is the unresolved status of the Korean War. A peace treaty would provide a baseline for relationships, eliminating the question of the other’s legitimacy and its right to exist. Absent such a peace treaty, every dispute presents afresh the question of the other side’s legitimacy.” #Armistice #KoreanWar #peacetreaty

Rally against THAAD in Seoul, South Korea on July 13, 2016. (Photo: Xinhua/Wang Jiahui/CRI News) Korea Policy Institute with Zoom in Korea | August 7, 2016 The United States and South Korea announced an agreement in July to deploy the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) in Korea, framing it as a response to threats posed by North Korea.  In fact, defense experts note that THAAD would be ineffective against missiles launched from the north, but conceivably useful (though not fully tested) against China, Russia, and potential North Korean actions against U.S. bases in the Pacific region, including the U.S. mainland. Its X-band radar component might be useful to U.S. monitoring capabilities throughout the region.  What remains certain is that its threatened deployment has contributed to increased military tensions in the Asia-Pacific region.  North Korea, China, and Russia have strongly objected to the deployment of THAAD on the Korean peninsula, but the strongest objections have come from South Koreans—especially the residents of Seongju County, where the missile defense system is scheduled to be deployed.  Without any consultation or notice, this farming community with a population of 45,000 people, situated southeast of Seoul, has been suddenly confronted with the prospect of a huge military installation, the loss of property, and the potential environmental and health impacts from the radiation emitted by THAAD’s powerful radar technology.  Seongju residents accordingly formed the Anti-THAAD Struggle Committee to mobilize against the deployment, and international solidarity groups have begun to mobilize as well.  Two groups, the U.S.-based Veterans for Peace and the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, recently sent a peace delegation to Korea in solidarity.  Two of the delegates were blocked from entering South Korea and a transcription of their web interview with Zoom in Korea upon their deportation follows. On July 26, 2016, two Korean American Peace activists, Juyeon Rhee and Hyun Lee, who had planned to be part of a peace tour as representatives of the U.S. based Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, were denied entry into South Korea by its government. After being deported back to the United States, Rhee and Lee spoke with ZoominKorea about their deportation and shared their thoughts on the South Korean government’s attempt to isolate the residents of Seongju, where the THAAD missile defense system is to be deployed, from international solidarity efforts. Q: How did you find out that you would be denied access into South Korea? Rhee: When we arrived, it seemed like they were already on lookout for us, because when I arrived and was talking to the immigration officer, a supervisor came booth to booth, checking and whispering, “Don’t forget to get the Korean American or American Korean who’s passing by, name,” and then they said my name. So my paper was handed to him, and I had to follow him to the investigation room, and then I saw Hyun followed also. So after the routine questioning, they told us that we were blocked entry into Korea. Lee: They told us that a central agency had put a block on our entry. And at some point, the immigration officer brought out two pieces of paper. One for each of us to sign and apparently, this was supposed to explain to us why we were being denied. And all it said was that pursuant to articles 11 and 12 of the South Korean Immigration Control Act—and so we asked, we said “This means nothing to us; we cannot sign this piece of paper because it doesn’t explain why we’re being denied entry.”  So then, that’s when he went and brought out this very, very thick manual with all of the different immigration articles. And they pointed to article 11, which basically said—one of the clauses said—they have the authority to deny entry to people who are likely to act in a way that is detrimental to the national interest and public safety of South Korea. Q: How do you think you ended up on this “list”?  Do you know who put you on this “list”? Lee:  We do know now whose list this is, because later on, we went to the Korean Airlines ticket counter and said, “You know, they want to put us back on the next flight out to Hawai‘i, but we have two colleagues who are coming to South Korea for a peace tour and we want to see them before we are deported out.  So is it possible to extend our stay in the transfer area of the airport so that we can meet with them, and then after that, you can send us out?” Rhee: We asked actually to change the flight [for a] later one. Lee:  What we were told by the Korean Airlines ticket agent is “There is a block on your entry and an order for deportation from the National Intelligence Service and so because of that there is nothing we can do.”  So our speculation for why we were denied entry, I mean, the only thing we can think of, obviously, is because the THAAD deployment issue, the recent decision by the U.S. and South Korean governments to deploy the THAAD missile defense system in Korea, this is a hot-button issue.  The South Korean government continuously sends representatives to Seongju to negotiate with the residents; they keep being turned away by the residents.  The residents, ninety percent of whom had voted for Park Geun-hye [the South Korean president], and are members of the conservative Saenuri Party.  They’re all leaving the party now.  Obviously, China and Russia are so upset by this decision and they’ve made it very clear that this is a very provocative act against them.  So—and our objective—one of the objectives of our trip was to join with the peace movement in Korea [and] meet up with Veterans for Peace members in Korea to show our solidarity from the United States [and to convey] that we too are opposed to this decision, and I think the government sees this maybe as a threat.  …They don’t want to internationalize this struggle about the decision about the THAAD issue.  That is the only reason that we can think of for why we were denied entry. Q: How do you see yourselves moving forward?  Do you have any specific plans for building solidarity with the people resisting in South Korea? Rhee: So I think, you know, we will be continuing and doubling or tripling our efforts to build stronger international solidarity.  This shows how powerful international solidarity can be actually to the administration itself—that creating voices, making connections to country to country, and knowing that there is a peace movement in U.S. and in Korea [and] connecting and really build[ing is threatening to the Park Geun-hye government]. Lee: I think it’s important for us to remember that even though the fight against THAAD is happening in South Korea, this is ultimately a U.S. decision.  This is part of a U.S. drive to encircle Russia and China with an entire network of missile defense systems.  This is part of the Obama administration’s so-called “pivot to Asia” and ultimately, THAAD deployment is in the interests not of the South Korean people, but it’s for U.S. military interests.  They’ve already said, even the U.S. Congressional Research Service said [that] THAAD is ineffective in the defense of South Korean people.  THAAD is really about U.S. interests in containing China, its military capability.  It’s about protecting U.S. bases in Guam and Okinawa against the North Korean missile threat.  THAAD is not at all about the defense of South Korea.  It’s about U.S. military interests. So our task then, now that we are back in the U.S., is to make sure that the broader peace movement and the broader public in the United States knows about this decision [and] what is THAAD.  Most people don’t even know really what is the purpose of missile defense.  I think there needs to be a lot of political education and we are going to really redouble our efforts to build solidarity.  Our demand is for the U.S. and South Korean governments to reverse this decision.  And you know ultimately, the THAAD system is not in the interests of the U.S. public either.  I mean it’s our tax dollars that is going to pay for this very, very expensive, $1.3 billion weapon system that you know ultimately the people of South Korea don’t want and that we could be doing a lot of better things with. Rhee: As repression against us gets stronger,…we have to think of it as proof that what we are doing is actually making an impact.  A lot of people sent us encouragement and we are really grateful for that.  You know that you are actually doing something [and] that they are recognizing that we are making an impact and dent in their propaganda.  So I hope our case will not discourage anyone who is doing this work and traveling back and forth with U.S. and South Korea and, you know, not to fear but boldly to go only forward. Editor’s Note: Residents of Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, where the THAAD battery is to be stationed, are fighting to oppose THAAD deployment and are demanding that the U.S. and South Korean governments rescind their decision.  U.S. solidarity organizations are calling on Americans to sign the “We the People” petition by August 14 of this year in support of the Seongju residents.   The petition has a 100,000 signature requirement by August 14, 2016 for the U.S. administration to respond.  To sign, please go to https://petitions.whitehouse.gov//petition/rescind-decision-deploy-thaad-antimissile-system-south-korea. Juyeon Rhee and Hyun Lee are members of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea.  Rhee is a KPI board member and Lee is a KPI fellow.  Zoom in Korea is a progressive blog on Korea issues. #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #THAAD #parkgeunhye #AsiaPacificpivot #HyunLee

JJ Suh  | August 11, 2016 Originally published in Asia-Pacific Journal Is the glass half full or half empty? Although this question is held up by pop-psychologists as a test of whether one is optimistic or pessimistic, it may be taken as making an epistemological point: one cannot tell the direction of a change by looking at the current state. A change can be fully appreciated only when it is seen over a longer period and in a larger context. Was the 7th Congress of the Korean Workers’ Party half full or half empty? The fact that the ruling party of North Korea held its congress for the first time since 1986 is well known. It is also well known that the party reasserted the country’s status as a nuclear-weapons state and its willingness to remain so and that Kim Jong Un was reconfirmed as the leader of the party and ruler of the country. Those outside who were looking for signs of change in the North’s nuclear posture or leadership have thus dismissed the congress as little more than the continuation of the status quo. While it is true that the congress confirmed these two important continuities, however, they belie important changes made there. The congress signaled a step back from the brink in terms of its nuclear posture as well as its relationship with the South and the United States. Only when its decisions are set against the country’s recent past can the breadth and significance of these changes be appreciated. That the changes were confirmed by the following Supreme People’s Assembly and subsequent policy announcements not only adds to their significance but underlines their potential to chart where Pyongyang is headed, although that course will also be affected by the responses of outsiders, particularly Washington, Beijing and Seoul. Although Kim Jong Un’s title changed from First Vice Chairman to Chairman at the party congress, this was a change in title only. Since he rose, or was raised, to the top position after his father’s death in December 2011, he has tightly held to it and has taken steps to consolidate it. He has busied himself connecting with various sectors of the society, from anti-Japanese guerilla “patriots” to youth and children, from generals to foot soldiers, from party elites to grassroots cell “enthusiasts” (aka activists), and from local managers to workers and farmers.(1) He has increased the number of young men’s military enlistments, at least partly in response to repeated U.S.-ROK military exercises that Pyongyang holds up as a menace, while unsparingly awarding honorary medals, pins and flags to countless individuals and organizations, just as Kim Jong Il did to shore up public support. He had consolidated his power, unchallengeable by anyone in the near future, perhaps by the time – certainly after – purging Jang Song Taek, his uncle, erstwhile patron, and potential rival, in December 2013. The congress, seen from the perspective of Kim Jong Un’s power, was an anticlimactic nonevent, a coronation ceremony that made official his consolidation of power that had already been apparent. Pak Pong Ju’s promotion to the top echelon indicates a similarly important change. He was promoted to not only the Politburo Presidium but also the Central Military Committee. Pak, serving his second term as Premier, is an economic technocrat who had previously managed a food factory and a chemical factory and once directed light industry as a whole. The election to the CMC of the like of him is both rather unusual and noteworthy because it was accompanied by a rising wave of economic and foreign policy bureaucrats who were promoted to more powerful positions at the congress. When seen together with other changes, Pak’s rise seems to be part of a larger shift in the personnel make-up that privileged the party over the military as well as economic and foreign policy bureaucrats over military generals. Another important change concerns the number of participants at the 7th Congress. The meeting was attended by 3,467 “representatives with voting rights” and 200 “representatives with speaking rights.” This was more than 10% increase from the respective numbers at the 6th congress. If they were selected according to the same ratio to party members as 36 years ago, these numbers would indicate about a 10% increase in the number of party members to the total of approximately 3.5 million out of the population of 25 million.(3) The KWP has always prided itself on being a “mass-based party,” and its membership has likely grown in recent years. Lee Jongseok, a leading North Korea specialist in South Korea, suggested that the congress signified that the party had normalized its overall functions and restored “the system before Kim Jong Il” in which the KWP led the state, society and the military.(4) Not only did Kim Jong Un organize a series of party meetings from the Representatives Conference and Party Enthusiasts Conference before the congress, but he took steps to replenish the party personnel, restore the party structure, and reclaim its central place in the country. The new system is clearly distinguishable from the previous one that Kim Jong Il constructed in which the military played a central role in overcoming the nation’s crisis. The father’s songun “military first” policy is in retreat, and his ad hoc style and reliance on the military has been replaced with a return to party leadership. The 7th Congress thus signals at least the will, or possibly a process in motion, to transform what Wada Haruki characterized as the “yuugekitai kokukai [guerilla state]” or “seikigun kokukai [Regular Military State]” to the party-led state, the halcyon normalcy of communist parties.(5) The process culminated in the Supreme People’s Assembly meeting in June that replaced the National Defense Commission with the State Affairs Commission (SAC) and the supreme leading organization of the state. Changes in Byungjin Policy to Simultaneously Develop Economy and Nuclear Force Because the 7th Congress repeated the byungjin policy that Kim Jong Un had announced in March 2013 stating that he would simultaneously pursue economic development and nuclear defense, its nuclear policy was greeted with near unanimous dismissal within South Korea. President Park Geun-hye characterized the policy as “a far-fetched assertion” that was unrealistic. Kim Gap-Sik, researcher at the South Korean government’s Institute for National Unification, added that it was unrealistic because it pursued “nuclear first, economy second” and the two were incompatible.(6) Even liberal or progressive commentators shared the view that the party congress made few new decisions. Jang Yong-Seok, a researcher at Seoul National University’s Institute of Unification and Peace, commented that “all have been said before,” and Chung Chang-Hyon, Director of Institute of Korean Modern History, indicated “there was no change from the previous position.”(7) Contrary to the near unanimous interpretation, however, the congress made an important and surprising change in its nuclear posture even if the change was belied by a continuity of the “byungjin policy.” Kim Jong Un took a step back from the brink of the first strike doctrine by announcing that “we will not use nuclear weapons first unless aggressive hostile forces violate our independence with nuclear weapons.” Not only did his announcement add an authoritative interpretation of the North’s domestic law on nuclear forces but, more significantly, reversed the nuclear first strike posture maintained until the congress. The Supreme People’s Assembly had in 2013 passed a law on the “status of the defensive nuclear-weapons state” which stipulated that “its nuclear force might be used only with the Korean People’s Army Supreme Commander’s final order to repulse and retaliate against a hostile nuclear-weapons state if it invades or attacks the republic,” leaving open the possibility of nuclear first strike. Jeong Uksik and others indeed interpreted the clause as a first strike doctrine that allowed the North’s military to retaliate against a conventional invasion or attack with a nuclear strike.(8) But Kim Jong Un proved them wrong at the congress by clearly establishing the no first use doctrine. The announcement was not only unexpected but also surprising in light of the fact that the Obama administration maintained the option of a nuclear first strike against the North and that the US-ROK Combined Forces Command adopted OpPlan 5029 that the North regarded as a first strike plan. Also the party congress’s unilateral decision to step back from the first strike was unusual in that it deviated from the principle of reciprocity – “words for words, action for action” as in a Six Party Talks agreement – that Pyongyang had long steadfastly maintained. While it is too early to know why the congress made the reversal, I suggest that Pyongyang’s de-escalation might be an opening move to start a new round of negotiation with Washington.(9) The opening move was indeed followed by a more concrete proposal for a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula on July 6th(10). A government spokesperson made five demands in a statement that looked like its initial position in a negotiation: make public U.S. nukes in South Korea, abolish nuclear weapons and bases in the South, guarantee that the U.S. will not bring in nukes to the South, promise not to use or threaten to use nukes against the North, and declare the withdrawal of the U.S. forces that held authority over the use of nukes in the South. He indicated that if these demands were met, Pyongyang would reciprocate. While he did not detail what the reciprocation might entail, he alluded to the denuclearization, making his demands look like a proposal for negotiation. It is noteworthy that the statement was issued by “a spokesperson for the DPRK government,” a level higher than a more typical spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, and that it invoked, for the first time since June 2013, “the will left by Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il” to denuclearize the peninsula. It is remarkable that although Pyongyang thus maximized the authority of the proposal, its demands were a recycling of previous ones or elements that had been included in previous agreements in one form or another. On the issue of U.S. troops in South Korea, it even retreated from its previous demand for their withdrawal: it asked merely for a declaration of their withdrawal. Consistent with its step back from nuclear brinkmanship, another important change was made at the 7th Congress although it too was little recognized, much less appreciated. Reversing the confrontational stance toward the Park Geun-hye government, Kim Jong Un proclaimed dialogue and negotiations as the “fundamental method/principle [基本方道]” of the inter-Korean relationship. It is notable that he did not regard dialogue as a temporary tool but something more enduring and fundamental, suggesting the possibility that Pyongyang could reorient its stance away from confrontation and conflict and toward dialogue and exchange. At the Congress, Kim indeed fleshed out the principle by explicitly suggesting that the current tense situation could be overcome with dialogue and negotiation, and that a North-South military meeting was needed to defuse the current tension. The reorientation announced at the congress was subsequently followed by concrete proposals. The Military Affairs Commission and then the Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces proposed to their counterparts in the South to hold a working level contact in order to arrange a military meeting. Also at a joint conference of DPRK government, political parties and social organizations on June 9th, the participants called for a joint meeting with their counterparts in the South, expressing their “willingness to meet with anyone regardless of political views, religion, or opinions so long as it helps improve the North-South relationship and solve the unification problem,” a call that was followed by an invitation sent out on the 27th. Conclusion The 7th Congress of the Korean Workers’ Party is likely to be noted by future historians more for the changes it made than the continuities, even if the former are currently being eclipsed by the latter in public discourse. These changes were further institutionalized by the 4th session of the 13th Supreme People’s Assembly, and expressed in the two new initiatives subsequently taken by Pyongyang: a joint meeting of the governments, political parties and social organizations of the North and the South; and a five-point proposal for a denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The congress was a turning point for Pyongyang’s policy orientation toward dialogue with Washington and Seoul. It is of course impossible to tell why the congress made such a shift. The changes may be a sign that the ruling party is caving in to the pressure of the sanctions highlighted by the Obama and the Park Geun-hye governments although it will not publicly acknowledge this. Also it is possible that it has finally dawned on Kim Jong Un that he must revive the country’s economy and, in order to do so, he needs dialogue and cooperation with the world. It should not be dismissed that the latest peace offensive may be a disguise for a disingenuous ploy to undermine the sanctions regime, drive a wedge between Washington and Seoul, or buy time to build more nuclear weapons. Nor should the imperative to develop the economy be under-appreciated. Kim Jong Un had from the beginning of his rule in 2011 highlighted the imperative to improve the people’s material livelihood, and formalized his priority in the form of byungjin policy in what Frank called “a Solomonic decision” to upgrade the economic priority without explicitly downgrading his father’s emphasis on the military.(11) Set against Kim Jong Il’s songun, the “Military First” policy, the son’s simultaneous development line signaled a major reorientation away from the military toward the economy. The fact that the party congress was held under his rule served to confirm the byungjin policy’s “correctness” while it institutionalized the policy further by adopting the Five Year Strategy of State Economic Development and elevating Pak Pong Ju and other bureaucrats to positions of higher authority. As if to demonstrate the new orientation to domestic as well as international audience, Kim Jong Un has within about 40 days since the congress made 14 “on the spot guidance” visits, all except one at economy related “spots,” from soap and salt to kimchi and cookie factories. The one exception was a visit to the National Defense University, and even there Kim emphasized the need for “new and useful knowledge” and called on education workers to be pragmatic, synthetic, modern, and information-centric in their approach. Noting a growing emphasis on the economy, some even argue that the true meaning of the byongjin is that the military is expected to take a second seat or play a supportive role for the economy. Kim Ji Young of North Korea supported Chongryon’s Chosunshinbo to argue, after the launch of the Hwasung-10 Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Guam, that the purpose of strengthening nuclear capability lies in “further accelerating economic construction while solidifying the nation’s defense.”(12) Michael Madden took a step further and interpreted the Supreme People’s Assembly’s June decision to create the State Affairs Commission as a signal that “resources and attention can shift to (or at least share co-billing with) domestic economic development.”(13) Suffice it to say that while we do not know Pyongyang’s true intentions, its reorientation created another opening for diplomacy. The timing of the sanctions against Kim Jong Un was particularly unfortunate, for Pyongyang announced its 5-point proposal for denuclearization on the same day. The two governments had apparently moved according to their respective internal clocks without consulting, much less negotiating with, the other. Taken aback by the Obama administration’s hard-line measures, Pyongyang seems to be re-readjusting its policy orientation at the moment. Its foreign ministry spokesperson characterized the sanctions against Kim as “a declaration of war” and severed the only communications channel open with Washington. Only time will tell whether this marks the beginning of the end of the short-lived reorientation toward dialogue or Pyongyang could somehow find the momentum to sustain its reorientation. Related article Rüdiger Frank, The 7th Party Congress in North Korea: An Analysis of Kim Jong Un’s Report Notes 1 See here. 2 Ilpyong J. Kim, “Kim Jong Il’s Military-First Politics,” in Young Whan Kihl and Hong Nack Kim, eds. North Korea: The Politics of Regime Survival (New York: Routledge, 2006), 64-65. 3 At the 6th Congress, a representative with voting rights was elected per 1,000 members and a representative with speaking rights per 1,000 candidate members. The population estimate is from CIA’s World Factbook. 4 Lee Jongseok, “[chonglon] joseonnodongdang je7cha daehoeui uimiwa teugjing [[Overview] The Meanings and Characteristics of The Korean Workers’ Party 7th Congress],” Jeongchaek beuriping, Sejong Institute, May 17, 2016. 5 Wada Haruki argues that the North Korean state can be characterized as “yuugekitai kokukai [guerilla state]” under Kim Il Sung and “seikigun kokukai [Regular Military State]” under Kim Jong Il. Wada Haruki, Bukjoseon: yugyeokdaegukgaeseo jeonggyugungukgaro [North Korea: from Guerilla State to Regular Military State], translated by Seo Dongman and Nam Gijeong, (Seoul: Dolbegae, 2002). 6 Kim Gapsik, “Joseonnodongdang je7cha daehoe bunseog (1): chongpyeong [An Analysis of the Korean Workers’ Party 7th Congress (1): An Overview],” Online Series, CO 16-12, Korea Institute for National Unification, May 11, 2016. It is worth noting that even if Pyongyang placed economy before nuclear force in all its pronouncements, he reversed the order of the two without explanation. 7 See here. 8 Jeong Uksik, “Pukhaneui haek dokteurin, dareun naradeulgwk bikyohaeboni… [North Korea’s Nuclear Doctrine, in Comparison with Other Countries’], Peuresian, May 27, 2013. 9 Seo Jaejeong, “Nodongdang 7cha daehoe ihuui bukan [North Korea after the 7th Congress of Korean Workers Party],” Changbijugannonpyeong, June 8, 2016. 10 Robert Carlin, “North Korea Said it is Willing to Talk about Denuclearization…But No One Noticed,” 38 North, July 12, 2016. 11 Ruediger Frank, “Can North Korea Prioritize Nukes and the Economy at the Same Time?” Global Asia, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2014, p. 39. 12 Kim Ji Young, “migugui yogyeogmang ttulhgo nalaoleun [Hwasong-10 Flew Through the U.S. Anti-missile Network,” Chosunshinbo, June 23, 2016. 13 Michael Madden, “The Fourth Session of the 13th SPA: Tweaks at the Top,” 38 North, Junly 6, 2016.    . Jae-Jung Suh is Professor of Politics and International Affairs at International Christian University and an expert on the international relations of the Korean Peninsula. He is the author of Power, Interest and Identity in Military Alliances. #KoreaPeace #NorthKorea #Nuclearweapons

Gregory Elich | August 20, 2016 Previously published in Counterpunch. The recent announcement that South Korea had agreed to deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on its territory marks an important advance in the Obama Administration’s militarized Asia pivot. The THAAD battery threatens to destabilize the military balance of power and draw South Korea into an anti-China alliance with the United States and Japan. The decision came as the culmination of a long and determined campaign by U.S. political and military leaders to pressure the Park Geun-hye government into sacrificing its national interests and antagonize China, in order to serve U.S. geopolitical goals. The plan to install a THAAD battery met with strong Chinese and Russian criticism and active resistance by Korean progressive forces and residents of Seongju, where THAAD is to be stationed. U.S. officials claim their intent is purely defensive in nature, to shield South Korea from North Korean ballistic missiles, but there is ample cause for skepticism. The missiles in a THAAD battery are designed to counter incoming ballistic missiles at an altitude ranging from 40 to 150 kilometers. Given North Korea’s proximity, few, if any, missiles fired by the North would attain such a height, given that the point of a high altitude ballistic missile is to maximize distance. Even so, were the North to fire a high altitude ballistic missile from its farthest point, aimed at the concentration of U.S. forces in Pyeongtaek, it would require nearly three and a half minutes for THAAD to detect and counter-launch. In that period, the incoming missile would have already fallen below an altitude of 40 kilometers, rendering THAAD useless. [i] In a conflict with the South, though, North Korea would rely on its long-range artillery, cruise missiles, and short-range ballistic missiles, flying at an altitude well below THAAD’s range. The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2014 Assessment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System reports that while all simple non-separating target missiles were successfully intercepted during testing, THAAD had yet to be tested against “more complex” short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles requiring the use of advanced radar algorithms. Furthermore, the test phase found deficiencies in all categories of natural environment testing aside from the wind factor. Nor was testing performed against targets launching electronic countermeasures. [ii] In short, although billed as a success, the reality is that the tests failed to replicate real-world scenarios, so claims made about THAAD’s effectiveness are unproven. So why deploy a THAAD battery in South Korea when it serves no discernible defensive purpose? From the standpoint of U.S. officials, while the missiles are operationally irrelevant, they serve an important practical role in overcoming resistance and persuading a large segment of the Korean population that the battery is necessary for defense. What truly matters in the THAAD battery destined for Korea is not its weapons, but its AN/TPY-2 X-band radar. Until recently, U.S. officials obfuscated the fact that the radar has two modes of operation: a terminal mode, designed to detect an incoming missile as it approaches its target and trigger the launch of a counter-missile; and a forward-based mode, which can track a missile in its boost phase and pass data back to the U.S.-based anti-missile system. It takes only eight hours to switch the AN/TPY-2 from one mode to the other, [iii] and in forward-mode a radar at Seongju would be capable of covering much of eastern China, as well as missiles fired from further afield as they fly within its detection range. [iv] Defense Industry Daily reports that the AN/TPY-2 radar “is always deployed with THAAD, but it can also be used independently as part of any ABM (anti-ballistic missile) infrastructure,” and that flexibility is “carving out an expanding role…that reaches beyond THAAD.” [v] The wider the range of radar coverage, the more precise the information that is passed to anti-missile batteries stationed in the United States. A THAAD battery is already situated in Guam, and two stand-alone AN/TPY-2 radars are positioned in Japan, where they are integrated into the U.S. missile defense system. [vi] No pretense of defense was deemed necessary to win the right-leaning Japanese government’s agreement to allow its territory to be used. THAAD represents a more indirect approach that was needed to win Korean approval. U.S. military planners could not ignore Korea’s strategic location, and it was inevitable that sooner or later the Park Geun-hye government would succumb to relentless U.S. pressure. Many Koreans are not so keen to see their nation drawn into an anti-China alliance, particularly at a time when the U.S. seems bent on provocative measures, such as deliberately sailing warships in Chinese territorial waters. Furthermore, many citizens of Seongju are deeply concerned about the health risks of living adjacent to the AN/TPY-2 radar. There may be a basis for Seongju residents’ worries. Radars transmit pulses of high-frequency electromagnetic fields, and the AN/TPY-2 radar generates radio frequencies in the range of 8.55 to 10 GHz. [vii] According to the World Health Organization, radio frequency waves below 10 GHz “penetrate exposed tissues and produce heating due to energy absorption,” and an absorption rate of at least four watts per kilogram “is needed to produce known adverse health effects.” [viii] A counterbalancing factor is that human exposure is sharply reduced outside of the direct path of the primary beam, so where the radar is aimed matters. The key question for those living in Seongju is the threshold level they will be exposed to. In order to allay concerns, U.S. and South Korean military officials arranged for Korean reporters to visit Guam, which hosts a THAAD battery. There, electromagnetic waves were measured at a distance of 1.6 kilometers from the AN/TPY-2 radar. The population of Seongju is said to live a similar distance from the proposed site of the THAAD battery. Reassuringly, it was reported that the highest measurement taken during the Guam demonstration was 0.0007 watts per square meter, far below any conceivable level of risk. [ix] Since electromagnetic waves become weaker with distance, as confirmed by the low reading, the matter of health hazard would seem to have been put to rest. Or was it? All the Korean reporters were given were readings. Nothing was said about the factors that went into the test. Without that information, the result is meaningless. Was the measurement taken in the line of the main beam, or outside it, where the radiation level would have dropped off dramatically? What was the power setting of the radar during the test? Radars can operate at a variety of power levels. At what angle was the radar? Varying these factors would produce entirely different results, and it is not impossible to imagine that measures were intentionally taken to ensure the lowest possible reading. The U.S. Army’s field manual for AN/TPY-2 forward-based mode radar operations defines three search plans for the radar while in forward mode. The “standard operations mode,” called Autonomous Search Plans, provides the broadest range and quantity of search sectors. This is the search plan the radar typically uses in forward-based mode, and can be expected to cross a wider area of the immediate vicinity, exposing a broader segment of the population. [x] The manual cautions that assigned personnel must be vacated from a “keep-out zone” of 100 meters while the radar is operating. A wider range of 3.6 kilometers is defined as a keep-out zone for “uncontrolled personnel,” meaning any unprotected persons. Some Korean commentators have wondered at the apparent discrepancy between the low radiation reading at 1.6 kilometers on Guam and the field manual’s more distant limit for uncontrolled personnel. There is no contradiction, given that the radar in Guam would have been operating in terminal mode during the test, while the Army manual relates to forward-mode. Since forward-mode is intended for detecting launches at long-distance, it would require considerably more power and generate more electromagnetic radiation. It is possible that long-term exposure to electromagnetic radiation may pose a risk even when the level is low enough to be considered safe. In a paper published in Experimental Oncology, four scientists called for a “re-elaboration of the current safety levels,” based on their studies. The authors conclude, “The carcinogenic effect of MW [microwave radiation] is typically manifested after long-term (up to 10 years and more) exposure.” [xi] It is also possible that there is little or no cause for concern. Whether or not the citizens of Seongju would be exposed to sufficient levels of electromagnetic radiation to induce harmful effects remains an unanswered question. What is certain is that there is no disinterested party with access to the radar and its data to make that determination. The word of U.S. and South Korean officials cannot be trusted, as their focus is on the THAAD’s military utility, to the exclusion of any other concerns. The welfare of the people in Seongju means nothing from that perspective. Plans call for the radar accompanying the THAAD battery to be initially set to terminal mode. How long and often it remains in that mode is another matter. South Korean Defense Minister Han Min-koo recently reassured the Korean population by asserting, “The government remains committed to not joining the MD [missile defense] shield.” [xii] This was the same man, however, who only last year said there was no plan to deploy THAAD on Korean territory, so his credibility is suspect. [xiii] Not that it matters. The THAAD battery will be operated by U.S. personnel, and South Korea will have no say – or even notification – in how the radar functions. The price of a THAAD battery amounts to a staggering $1.3 billion, and annual sustainment costs are $22 million. [xiv] At some point, it is probable that the United States will attempt to offload annual costs onto the Korean people. As important as health concerns are for those dwelling in Seongju, larger questions face the nation. Should South Korea damage relations with neighboring China, its major trading partner? Do the South Korean people want to see their nation join the U.S. anti-China alliance? Certainly, U. S. officials think it should. Not long after the THAAD announcement, U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Mark Lippert crowed, “We are transforming our alliance. Our two countries are building a new paradigm of cooperation.” [xv] And so they are – to Korea’s detriment. The next Korean presidential election is scheduled for December, 2017. THAAD deployment is slated for earlier in the year, so as to preclude the risk of a new president cancelling the agreement. If opposition by the Korean progressive community and Seongju citizens is determined enough, it could potentially delay deployment past the election and open a space for reversal of this rash decision. Gregory Elich is on the Board of Directors of the Jasenovac Research Institute and the Advisory Board of the Korea Policy Institute. He a member of the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, a columnist for Voice of the People, and one of the co-authors of Killing Democracy: CIA and Pentagon Operations in the Post-Soviet Period, published in the Russian language.  His website is https://gregoryelich.org NOTES [i] Yoon Min-sik, “THAAD, Capacity and Limitations,” Korea Herald, July 21, 2016 [ii] “Until the MDA implements redesigns, the system could experience excessive faults and repairs in inclement weather… The MDA subjected THAAD to natural environments testing, which included temperature extremes, temperature shock, humidity, rain, ice, snow, sand, dust, and wind, and found deficiencies in all areas except wind.” J. Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, “2014 Assessment of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS),” U.S. Department of Defense, March 2015. [iii] “Update on TPY-2 X-Band Radars,” Mostly Missile Defense, March 24, 2013. “Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Budget Estimates: Procurement, Defense-Wide (section BMDS AN/TPY-2 Radars),” Missile Defense Agency, February 2011. [iv] “In ‘forward-based’ or volume search mode, the TPY-2’s high power output and beam/waveform agility lets it perform air surveillance to very high altitudes at ranges of up to 1,000 km (600 miles).” “AN/TPY-2: America’s Portable Missile Defense Radar,” Defense Industry Daily, September 14, 2014. [v] Ibid. [vi] Zach Berger, “Army/Navy Transportable Radar Surveillance (AN/TPY-2),” Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, February 2016. “The Sun Never Sets on AN/TPY-2,” Raytheon, September 8, 2014. [vii] “AN/TPY-2 Transportable Radar Surveillance Forward Based X-Band Transportable [FBX-T],” GlobalSecurity.org. [viii] “Electromagnetic Fields and Public Health: Radars and Human Health,” Fact Sheet N 226, World Health Organization. [ix] Choi Kyong-ae and Defense Ministry Joint Press Corps, “U.S. Reveals Guam THAAD Battery to Calm Radar-Linked Health Woes,” Yonhap, July 18, 2016. Park Byong-su, “Amid Controversial Deployment, US Shows S. Korean Reporters a THAAD Battery on Guam,” Hankyoreh, July 19, 2016. [x] ATP 3-27.5: “AN/TYP-2 Forward Based Mode (FBM) Radar Operations,” U.S. Army, April 16, 2012. [xi] I. Yakymenko, E. Sidorik, S. Kyrylenko, V. Chekhun, “Long-Tern Exposure to Microwave Radiation Provokes Cancer Growth: Evidence from Radars and Mobile Communication Systems,” Experimental Oncology, June 2011. [xii] “Local THAAD Will Not Be Incorporated into Wider U.S.-Led MD System: Defense Chief,” Yonhap, July 21, 2016. [xiii] Ser Myo-ja, “China’s defense chief raises Thaad,” JoongAng Ilbo, February 5, 2015. [xiv] Kang Seung-woo, “Seongju Picked as Site for THAAD Battery,” Korea Times, July 12, 2016. $200 million annual operation and support cost ( O & S) for nine batteries. The per battery cost, therefore, is estimated at $22 million. National Research Council of the National Academies, “Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives,” The National Academies Press, 2012. [xv] “U.S., S. Korea Building New Paradigm of Cooperation: Lippert,” Yonhap, July 21,2016. #GregoryElich #KoreanWar #SouthKorea #THAAD #AsiaPacificpivot

Statue: This One Earth, in the southern portion of the DMZ. (Photo: buck82 / flickr) By Christine Ahn | August 28,2016 Originally published in Foreign Policy In Focus The Olympic games in Rio have ended, and now another set of games have begun: military exercises between the United States and South Korea to prepare for a possible armed conflict with North Korea. The contrast between the two games couldn’t be starker. On the one hand, the world’s most technologically advanced militaries and weapons systems are deployed to practice combat. On the other, despite tremendous nationalist pressure to beat the other, athletes from North Korea and South Korea competed with each other peacefully, even gracefully, in the 2016 Olympic games. Among the most touching moments from Rio was when two gymnasts, Lee Eun-Ju from South Korea and Hong Un-Jong from North, posed for a selfie with Eun-Ju holding up a peace sign. The photograph went viral, particularly in South Korea where the 17-year old Eun-Ju became a celebrity diplomat. Her gesture— to walk over to Hong, a fellow Korean but from a nation considered to be an enemy of her own—captured that Olympic spirit where humans are able to triumph over fear and pain to move the world forward. And it wasn’t just a female thing, either. A few days later, Kim Song-Guk, a North Korean athlete, won bronze at the men’s 50-meter pistol shooting competition. Instead of expressing remorse for coming in behind gold winner Jin Jong Oh from South Korea, Song-Guk reflected, “If the two [Koreas] become one, we could have a bigger medal.” Overnight, South Korean social media went wild over Song-Guk’s heartfelt wishes for Korean reunification. In a few hours, the video had 2.2 million views and 160,000 likes, including comments like, “Even though you got a Bronze medal, your words deserve a gold medal.” “We mingle and say hello with athletes from other countries, so why can’t we do that?” Eun-Ju innocently asked. North and South Korean athletes cannot communicate directly with one another because the two countries are officially still at war. It is illegal under both countries’ national security laws for civilians to interact without government permission. The Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953, ended with a ceasefire, but not a permanent peace accord. Although military leaders from the United States, People’s Republic of China, and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea promised within three months to replace the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty, 63 years later they have yet to deliver. As a result, the Korean people—like these Olympic athletes—have been separated by the world’s most militarized border, unable to see, know, and understand one another for three generations. Not only have relations completely hardened between the two Koreas, the unresolved Korean conflict is driving a new arms race in an already highly militarized region, particularly straining relations between Washington and Beijing. In July, South Korea announced that to protect against the threat of North Korean missiles, it would deploy the U.S.’ Terminal High Altitude Aerial Defense (THAAD) in Seongju, a farming region 180 miles south of Seoul. Angry South Korean citizens protested the announcement by hurling eggs and water bottles at their prime minister and staging massive protests. Equally vocal over their opposition to the U.S. missile defense system is Beijing, which has asked Seoul to “think twice” about this decision and has begun to chill relations between the two countries. In a statement, China’s foreign ministry said the THAAD deployment “doesn’t help achieve the objective of denuclearization in the peninsula, doesn’t benefit maintaining peace and stability in the peninsula. It’s going toward the opposite direction of solving the problem via dialogue and negotiation.” Against this tense backdrop, the U.S-R.O.K. joint military exercises will proceed. The spring war games were the largest ever, involving 315,000 U.S. and South Korean soldiers and nuclear-capable submarines, B-52s, and F-22s. In response to the recent U.S. deployment of B-1 bombers to Guam, North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement via the Korean Central News Agency that this “proves that the U.S. plan for a preemptive nuclear strike at the DPRK has entered a reckless phase of implementation.” Travis Lindsay, researcher of international security at the University of California, San Diego, recently advocated for rethinking the military exercises. “Demobilization and de-escalation isn’t complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, but it’s a necessary step forward that will make denuclearization an attainable goal.” In spite of nationalist media coverage, the Korean athletes in Rio showed the world that seemingly intractable divisions imposed by politicians could be transcended by the simplest and most sincere human interactions. Instead of continuing to engage in saber-rattling actions that only lead to more provocation and dangerous military escalation, American and Korean leaders should shift their policies to reflect the desires of the Korean people for peaceful co-existence. Not only have Olympians shown their ability to conquer the insurmountable through their super human ability, they have inspired all of us by engaging in ordinary human actions. It was only 16 years ago during the 2000 Olympics that Korean athletes walked together during the opening ceremony in Sydney carrying a blue One Korea flag. When asked why, Chang Ung, the North Korean delegate explained, “We are the same blood.” Christine Ahn is the Executive Director of Women Cross DMZ, a global movement of women walking to end the Korean War, reunite families, and ensure women’s leadership in peacebuilding.  She is also on the KPI advisory board. #USSouthKoreawargames #KoreanWar #peacetreaty #Reunification #ChristineAhn

By Paul Liem and Christine Hong |  September 15, 2016 Copublished in Counterpunch. North Korea’s nuclear test of September 9, 2016, the fifth and largest measuring twice the force of previous blasts, prompted a predictable round of condemnations by the United States and its allies along with calls for China to step up its enforcement of sanctions on North Korea.  Yet few “expert” analyses suggest that China will risk destabilizing North Korea or that further United Nations resolutions and international sanctions will succeed in deterring North Korea from pursuing its nuclear weapons and missile programs. The Obama administration’s reliance on China to rein in North Korea is at odds with its efforts to contain China’s influence in Asia, a quixotic goal in itself.  It reflects an unrealistic desire for China to be influential just enough to do the bidding of the United States but not powerful enough to act in its own interests.  North Korea is, after all, China’s strategic ally in the region, and it is in South Korea that the United States plans to deploy THAAD, a defense system with radar capable of tracking incoming missiles from China.  It is simply not in China’s interest to risk losing an ally on its border only to have it replaced by a U.S.-backed state hosting missile-tracking systems and other military forces targeting it.  And China knows it is not the target of North Korea’s nukes.  If the United States cannot punt the problem of North Korea’s nuclear weapons to China it must deal with North Korea directly. Indeed, in response to U.S. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s recent condemnation of China’s “role” and “responsibility” in failing to restrain North Korea’s nuclear pursuits, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement calling on the United States to take a long hard look at its own foreign policy: The cause and crux of the Korean nuclear issue rest with the US rather than China. The core of the issue is the conflict between the DPRK and the US.  It is the US who should reflect upon how the situation has become what it is today, and search for an effective solution.  It is better for the doer to undo what he has done.  The US should shoulder its due responsibilities.[1] In equally unmincing terms, the Global Times, an offshoot of the People’s Daily, charged the United States with “refusing to sign a peace treaty with Pyongyang” in a September 11, 2016 editorial.  Alluding to a long history of U.S. nuclear threats against North Korea, the editorial elaborated: “The Americans have given no consideration to the origin and the evolution of North Korea’s nuclear issue or the negative role Washington has been playing over the years.”  It further clarified: “Without the reckless military threat from the US and South Korea and the US’s brutal overthrow of regimes in some small countries, Pyongyang may not have developed such a firm intent to develop nuclear weapons as now.”[2] Despite President Barack Obama’s efforts over his two terms in office to “pivot” or “rebalance” U.S. foreign policy to Asia and the Pacific and his repeated identification of the United States as a Pacific power, the memory of nuclear ruin in the region is shadowed by the history of the United States as a first-user of atomic weapons against civilian populations in Japan at the close of World War II and as a tester of devastating nuclear technology, including human radiation experiments, in the Marshall Islands during the Cold War.  Moreover, it has not gone unnoticed that President Obama, despite his professed commitment to nuclear de-escalation, has refused to issue an “unequivocal no-first-use pledge.”[3] In Korea, the one place on the planet where nuclear conflagration is most likely to erupt, given the current state of affairs, President Obama can still end the threat of nuclear warfare.  This would require what few in his administration appear to have entertained, namely, the elimination of the demand for North Korea to agree to irreversible denuclearization as a precondition for bilateral talks.  This rigid goal makes it virtually impossible for the United States to respond positively to any overture from North Korea short of a fantastic offer by that country to surrender all its nuclear weapons.  The premise that the denuclearization of North Korea is necessary to ensure peace and stability on the Korean peninsula needs to be shelved, and all possibilities for finding common ground upon which to negotiate the cessation of hostilities on the Korean peninsula should be explored. It should be recalled that possibly no country, including Japan, has greater fear of overbearing Chinese influence than North Korea.  Arguing for the relevance of past U.S. negotiations with North Korea, Stanford scholar Robert Carlin points out that North Korea in 1996 opposed President Clinton’s notion of Four-Party talks involving China because they “went counter to a basic Pyongyang policy goal; that is, to limit Chinese influence by improving U.S.-DPRK relations.”[4]   More recently, former CNN journalist Mike Chinoy, similarly observed: “[North Koreans] hate the idea that the Chinese can come in and tell them what to do.  And the reality is the Chinese can’t.”[5] At this juncture, given the demonstrated failure of President Obama’s “strategic patience” or non-negotiation policy with North Korea, the unthinkable must be seriously considered.  Could an alliance between the United States and North Korea preserve U.S. influence in the region, albeit along avowedly peaceful lines, provide North Korea with a hedge against infringement of its sovereignty by China and eliminate the rationale for deploying THAAD in South Korea, thus alleviating a major sore point between China and the U.S.-South Korea alliance? Let us also recall that North Korea offered to halt testing of its nuclear weapons if the United States agreed to put an end to the annual U.S.-South Korea war games.[6]  Combining live artillery drills and virtual exercises, these war games, as of this year, implemented OPLAN 5015, a new operational war plan that puts into motion a preemptive U.S. nuclear strike against North Korea and the “decapitation” of its leadership.  Unsurprisingly, North Korea considers this updated operational plan to be a rehearsal for Libya-style regime change.  In January of this year, the United States turned down North Korea’s offer before the start of the spring U.S.-South Korea war games, and did so again in April.[7]   The United States has thus twice this year dismissed the prospect of halting North Korea’s advance towards miniaturizing a nuclear bomb and fitting it atop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching the continental United States ostensibly because North Korea refused to entertain U.S. insistence on its complete denuclearization as part of the package. President Obama should prioritize any and all possibilities for achieving a halt to North Korea’s nuclear programs by diplomacy, over the goal of achieving an illusory agreement for complete denuclearization.  As an achievement, halting North Korea’s nuclear advances is far short of the peace treaty needed to bring an end to the Korean War and a lasting peace to Korea.  It is far short of creating international conditions for the Korean people to achieve the peaceful reunification of their country.  And it is a far cry from achieving nuclear disarmament on a global scale.  Yet, as a redirection of U.S. policy towards engagement with North Korea, it would be the greatest achievement in U.S. Korea policy of the last fifteen years, and a concrete step towards achieving denuclearization in the region, and worldwide. [1] “Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on September 12, 2016,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, 12 September 2016, available online at . [4] Robert Carlin, “Negotiating with North Korea: Lessons Learned and Forgotten,” Korea Yearbook: Politics, Economy and Society, eds. Rüdiger Frank et al. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), 241. [5] Qtd. in James Griffiths, “What Can China Do about Nuclear North Korea,” CNN, 7 January 2016, available online at . [7] See “Obama Rejects North Korea’s Offer to Ease Nuclear Tests if U.S. Stops War Exercises with South,” Association Press,24 April 2016, available online at . Paul Liem and Christine Hong serve on the Board of Directors of the Korea Policy Institute. #KoreanWar #peacetreaty #Nuclearweapons #Armistice #AsiaPacificpivot #NorthKorea