By K J NOH | January 25, 2023 | This article is co-published with MR Online Progressive South Korean citizens have been watching with impending dread the deepening threats of political repression since the former prosecutor Yoon Suk Yeol assumed the South Korean presidency. On Wednesday, January 18, the Yoon administration took off its gloves. Early Wednesday morning, the South Korean NIS (National Intelligence Service), the successor to South Korea’s secret police (KCIA), unleashed a frenzy of shock-and-awe raids against peace groups, civil society organizations, and labor unions, including the KCTU (Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), and KCTU-affiliated unions. The KCTU is a one million-plus-strong umbrella organization of trade unions built to create labor solidarity against the neoliberal violence of the State-Chaebol (multi-national corporation) Capitalist formation. A phalanx of police and NIS agents scrummed into KCTU offices in the early morning, and despite entreaties for legal observation and accompaniment, strong-armed their way into the offices in a violent search and seizure while hundreds of police barricaded the entrances downstairs. Union leadership claim that one thousand police were deployed in this 10-hour political strip search of KCTU leadership. Simultaneous raids were also conducted on the KHMWU (Korean Health and Medical Workers’ Union), and the KMWU (Korean Metal Workers’ Union). Union officers, organizers, anti-war activists, were swept up in these raids and private homes were also raided. Stunned union representatives called these actions “unprecedented,” “excessive,” and “a plan to suppress the labor movement.” Raids were also conducted by the NIS against the ”Sewol Ferry peace shelter.” The Sewol Ho was a ferry that capsized on April 16, 2014, drowning 304 passengers, mostly working-class youth on a field trip to the resort island of Jeju. Told to stay on the boat and await a rescue that never came, the compliant youth slowly drowned in their cabins while texting their fear and regrets to their anguished loved ones, who had also been assured that a massive rescue effort was under way. No meaningful rescue attempt was undertaken. It is considered one of the largest civil catastrophes in South Korean history. The ferry, unbeknownst to the passengers, had been transporting 278 tons of iron rebar destined for the construction of a U.S.-handy naval base on the southern tip of Jeju Island, as one element of the aggressive U.S. policy to contain China. The ship was poorly refurbished, overloaded with freight, navigating in inclement weather, and it capsized during a turn. Neoliberal deregulation, suspected urgency to complete the naval base construction, along with an 8-hour period of complete government inaction during the capsizing, resulted in the massive death toll. The peace shelter, with its motto of “we could have saved them all,” was a sanctuary of grieving, remembrance, and comfort for survivors, and place of solidarity for victims of state capitalist violence. That sense of safety and sanctuary was violated by the NIS raid on January 18. A raid was also conducted on the offices of the June 15 Committee, a grassroots civil society seeking to build relations in hopes of reunification between North and South Korea. They had screened a North Korean film three years ago. The ostensible pretext for these raids, as alleged by the government, was that all of these organizations had steered foul of South Korea’s National Security Law (see this accompanying MR Online article) and were suspected of contacts or collaboration with North Korea to undermine the state. These allegations have been firmly denied by targets and challenged by assembly members. It’s more likely that the real reason for this repression is that President Yoon has been facing massive opposition from the Korean people. There have been 23 mass street protests against the Yoon administration, with up to half a million people participating, demanding that that Yoon step down immediately. There have also been mass labor strikes, most recently, a transportation union strike, and countless smaller regional actions. These demands for Yoon’s resignation stem from his viciously oppressive anti-labor and anti-union policies—Yoon ran on a platform of instituting a 120-hour work week—and recently squelched the transportation strike by threatening strikers with imprisonment. Other reasons include his dismissal of colonial era atrocities in order to facilitate South Korea’s coordination with Japanese remilitarization—he is described as a “selling out his country”; his collaboration with the U.S. weaponization of South Korea as a tool to contain China; his oppression of the main opposition DP party, along with suspicions of spousal corruption. The recent Itaewon crowd crush incident—a Sewol Ho redux—characterized by the same apathy and absence of government action for safety and human lives, along with an unending series of cringe-inducing foreign policy gaffes, has only added strength to these convictions. These ongoing street “Candlelight Protests,” along with other civil society and labor actions, echo the name and sentiments of the powerful mass movement that removed the previous conservative president, Park Geun-Hye and her party from power in 2016. As a rebranded continuation of Park’s party, the current administration sees these actions and movements as an existential threat. Facing stiffening headwinds, to preserve his role as a subcontractor to U.S. geopolitics and to maintain neoliberalism in South Korea, Yoon is reaching for the tried-and-trusty cudgel of South Korean dictators and autocrats, its 1948 National Security Law. The modern capitalist state of South Korean was originally created as a U.S. neocolonial bulwark against communism in East Asia. Noting Korea’s overwhelming propensity toward socialist politics—a legacy of its traditional communitarian culture and its anti-colonial struggles—the country was sundered into North and South. The United States and its quislings then unleashed genocidal state violence in the South against workers, peasants, and socialists, smashing every progressive bone in the body politic and indenturing the South as a shattered subaltern to global capital. This process was scarified and sealed by war, and then splinted and dressed in decades of bloody military dictatorship. South Korea’s National Security Legislation was imprinted into its institutions during this violent process, to ensure the continuity of the neocolonial capitalist state and to squelch all challenges to it. The Yoon administration’s actions are a re-expression of its original DNA. As eager understudy and arrant errand boy to U.S. imperialism, President Yoon’s atavistic reversion to the habits of the past military dictatorships are likely to be glossed over in a western media that is eager to carry water for the global project of continued hegemonic U.S. capitalist unipolarity. South Korea’s essential role as the closest and largest military force projection platform against China, its role in a “JAKUS” (a Japan-South Korea-U.S. military alliance) its cooperation with NATO, its stated plans to join a Quad-plus, and its assumption of a submissive position toward U.S. decoupling and economic enclosure against China make it far too valuable to criticize or undermine regardless of its excesses. Within South Korea, criticism or reform of the National Security Law is a third rail that is rarely touched: that itself can be construed as a violation of the NSL. Genuine solidarity is needed more than ever, to criticize and challenge this dangerous, atavistic turn in South Korea as the United States nudges itself and its quislings closer to the precipice of kinetic conflict. At stake is peace in the Pacific, and the future of a better world. K.J. Noh is a scholar and peace activist focused on the geopolitics of the Asian continent. He writes for Counterpunch and Dissident Voice, and reports for local and international media.

By Tim Shorrock | January 17, 2023 | Originally published in The Shorrock Files The Rise of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces is a continuation of Tim Shorrock’s Japan Crosses the Rubicon, published December 23, 2022. To access these and a treasure trove of articles by Shorrock on U.S. empire in Northeast Asia, please support The Shorrock Files as a subscriber on Patreon. Due to its defeat in World War II, Japan's "great imperial army" was dissolved. Immediately after the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, however, General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-chief of the occupation army, ordered the Japanese government to establish a national police reserve force. Here is the story of Japan's Self-Defense Forces and their special relationship to South Korea. From the AMPO Magazine archives, 1979, with an update on how the SDF was funded. Rushing Towards Remilitarization Since the Korean War Last month, as I’ve reported and the mainstream media has studiously avoided, Japan took a giant step towards becoming what the United States considers a “normal nation.” It did this by giving its “Self Defense Forces” the ability to strike enemy bases overseas for the first time since Japan’s surrender in 1945. I described that development on these pages on December 23 in an article entitled “Japan Crosses the Rubicon” that, thanks to Antiwar.com, received a record amount of traffic on my website last week. As I mentioned in that piece, the Kishida government’s “new” policies largely originated in Washington, which has been pushing Japan to become a bona fide military power for over 40 years. It also helped to revive its army during the Korean War by starting the Self Defense Forces, known as the SDF, as a “national police reserve force.” Washington military industrial think tanks such as the RAND Corporation consider the SDF critical to US strategy against China and make great efforts to raise its visibility in Japan. In my next article in this series, I will be tracing the history of the U.S. pressures on Japan to rearm, starting in the 1970s. While I complete my reporting, I want to bring you this article on the origins of Japan’s SDF from a 1979 edition of AMPO Magazine. It was founded during the Vietnam War by radicals seeking to link their antiwar movement with allied movements in the United States and Europe (“Ampo” is short for the US-Japan Security Treaty, the primary target in the 1960s of the Japanese left, as defined in the chant “Ampo hantai!” – Against Ampo! – that was heard during every major demonstration in Japan from 1960 to 1970. I was associated with AMPO in the 1980s and 1990s and helped distribute it for a time as its U.S. representative. The magazine was founded by members of Beheiren (Citizens Federation for the Peace in Vietnam) and published by the Pacific Asia Resource Center (PARC) in Tokyo. It was a constant source of information about Japan’s role in the US empire in Asia and peoples’ movements throughout the region. Fujii Haruo, who wrote this 1979 piece, was one of AMPO’s (and Japan’s) best military analysts (read about his revelations here). His history of the SDF is both penetrating and prescient. Most important for American readers is the link he draws between the creation of the SDF and the Korean War, when Japan began its slow ascent as America’s Cops in the Pacific. Below, I present his main points and a downloadable PDF of the original article. UPDATE: Before getting to Haruo’s piece, it’s important to ask: how was the SDF financed by a Japanese government that, only five years before, had renounced war and watched as the United States dismantled its enormous military and war industry? The answer is, secretly, through a huge, hidden fortune of gold and other treasure seized by the U.S. military from Japan in 1945 and controlled by General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the U.S. Occupation Force. That treasure, eventually worth billions of dollars, was used to influence Japanese domestic politics for decades. It is now known as the “M Fund.” Here’s the story, as told in 2003 by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave in Cold Warriors: America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold, published by Verso: In 1950, when the Korean War started, most U.S. forces in Japan were rushed to Korea, creating a security vacuum. Because the postwar constitution prohibited setting up a new army, the M-Fund secretly provided over $50 million to create what was characterized as a self-defense force. When the occupation ended in 1952 and Washington and Tokyo concluded their joint security treaty, administration of the M-Fund shifted to dual control, staffed by U.S. Embassy CIA personnel and their Japanese counterparts, weighted in favor of the Americans….The M-Fund council interfered vigorously to keep Japan’s government, industry, and society under the tight control of conservatives friendly toward America. I’ll be posting more on the M-Fund, including excerpts from the work of the late, great Chalmers Johnson, later this week. Meanwhile, let’s return to Haruo and the SDF. The rise of Japan’s Self Defense Force and the Korea Factor AMPO, Vol. 3, No. 4, 1979 By Fujii Haruo Japan’s restablished military – the Self Defense Forces – is, like the armed forced maintained by any country, designed to protect the present Japanese ruling system – i.e., monopoly capitalism. Due to its defeat in World War II, Japan’s “great imperial army” was dissolved. Immediately after the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950, however, General Douglas MacArthur, Commander-in-chief of the occupation army, ordered the Japanese government to establish a national police reserve force. An immediate duty to be fulfilled by the police reserve force was to engage in maintenance of public peace in in Japan, since the U.S. troops stationed in Japan for that purpose were dispatched to the Korean peninsula. During the conflict in Korea, Japan served both as a dispatch base for U.S. operations in Korea, and as a supply base. U.S. military headquarters for the Korean war were located in Japan, there were many U.S. bases on Japanese soil, and the families of U.S. soldiers were living here. Not only was it the task of the police reserve force to protect them, it was also expected to eventually develop into a new Japanese army. The Self Defense Forces (SDF) comprised of Ground, Maritime, and Air forces, were created according to the 1954 reorganization of the police reserve force, and were given the additional task of defending the national against foreign attack. In other words, regardless of its name, the SDF actually took on the same functions as the militaries of other countries. The role of the SDF was to combat both domestic and foreign enemies, and to achieve these ends, it was to be mobilized both for external defense and internal security. In this way, a military was revived in Japan, equipped with both a military function against foreign countries, and one to maintain domestic peace and order by fighting against the enemy within the structure of Japanese monopoly capitalism, i.e., the Japanese people themselves… [By 1979], the national defense budget amounted to 2 trillion, 400 billion yen, the 8th largest in the world. The countries superceding Japan in terms of their military budget [were] the five nuclear-armed ones, together the West German and Saudi Arabia. The total strength of the SDF [was] 240,000 men consisting of 155,000 men in ground forces, 42,000 men in Maritime forces with war vessels totaling 220,000 tons, 44,000 men in the Air force with 750 aircraft. Japan was thbus equipmmed with the strongest, most modern arms in the world in terms of conventional weaponry, and quality-wise [was] the strongest in Asia... Present Focal Point: The Korean Peninsula From 1958 to 1960 the first-phase defense power reinforcement plan was carried out, through which the framework of the SDF as a military was built. With the conclusion in 1960 of the new Japan-U.S. Security Treaty (a military alliance) as a start, the SDF’s external function was defined and strengthened. The focus of its external task was then directed towards the Korean Peninsula. It was in 1963 that the Defense Agency’s Joint Staff Council confidentially conducted what became known as the “Mitsuya Study.” This study was designed to examine measure the SDF and Japanese government were to take, based on the assumption that a second Korean War would break out. The then U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Roswell L. Gilpatric [who served from 1961 to 1964] stated around that time that he would expect Japan “to be equipped with enough monitoring power to protect the area, including a part of the Korean Peninsula, in the future.” The U.S. used Japan during the Korean War as a sortie and supply base. For the U.S. Japan and South Korea were one defense zone, and the U.S. forces stationed in Japan and South Korea were considered as one body. [emphasis mine]. It was under this perception by the U.S. forces that the SDF and South Korean military were developed. In the early 60s, the U.S. began discussing a large-scale cutback in U.S. troop strength in South Korea and adopted a plan which would encourage Japan to take over the responsibility. With the conclusion of a Normalization Treaty between Japan and South Korea in 1965, the political, economic and diplomatic relationship between the two countries was strengthened. [On this development, see my 2019 article in The Nation, “In a Major Shift, South Korea Defies Its Alliance With Japan.”] Strong resistance among the Japanese people agaisnt a direct military tie-up, however, necessitated that the South Korean military and Japan’s SDF continue their cooperations only indirectly, with the U.S. military as mediator. In 1968, however, high military officials of both countries began visiting each other and a system of informaqtion exchange between the two was established. In 1969, a U.S.-Japan joint communique was issues which stated that “the security of South Korea is important for the security of Japan itself,” thus placing upon Japan the expection that it would take over from the U.S. responsibility for South Korea’s defense. Then, between 1970 and 1971, one division of U.S. ground troops was withdrawn from South Korea… [By the 1970s],then U.S. Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated, in appreciation of Japan’s efforts, that “Japan is already playing an indirect role in the defense of South Korea. The defense capacity provide by Japan’s air Defense Forc3 is effective not only for the Japanese mainland but for the defense of South Korea.” Towards U.S.-Japan-South Korean Joint Defense Since the late 1970s the SDF’s attitude toward relations with South Korea became even more clear and positive. At the end of July 1979 the then director-general of the [Japanese] Defense Agency visited South Korea, becoming the first to do so while in active service… Following the July 1979 decision to freeze the withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from South Korea, Japan was further drawn into assisting in South Korea’s defense. This trend continued in 1980, with the appearance of the Chun Doo Hwan regime in South Korea, and the Ronald Reagan administration in the U.S. These reactionary governments [promoted] trilateral military cooperation, including Japan, requiring that Japan go beyhond mere sharing of expenses for U.S. troops, increased imports from the U.S., and extending economic aid to South Korea. Japan is now being drawn into a higher degree of cooperation vis-a-vis South Korea’s defense... [For Japan to become a military power], the Japanese government, the Liberal Democratic Party and financial circles began actively working woward revision of the constitution to incorporate these militaristic changes. From the beginning of the 70, the government and the defense authorities have put much of their energy into forming a “national consensus” on the need to maintain the Self-Defense Forces. Then from 1978 they have tried hard to form a consensus concerning the actual use of the Self-Defense Forces... That process climaxed in 2015, when the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the LDP pushed through a critical vote in the Japanese Diet to lift its 70-year ban on foreign deployments and, as The New York Times reported, give “Japan’s military limited powers to fight in foreign conflicts.” And now, 8 years later, the Biden administration has made the SDF and the “trilateral” U.S.-South Korean-Japanese alliance into the centerpiece of its anti-China Asia strategy. Read Fujii Haruo’s full article in PDF format here. Tim Shorrock, a Korea Policy Institute Associate, is a Washington-based journalist who has been writing about the Korean Peninsula for over 40 years.

By Alice S. Kim | January 15, 2023 | Originally published in Socialist Project On September 24, 2022, more than 30,000 people occupied the main roads of downtown Seoul, South Korea, for the nation’s largest climate justice march. The sheer turnout of people from all walks of life and the participation by a wide range of advocacy groups were a testament to the impact of climate change on every aspect of life: human rights, women’s rights, religion, food insecurity, and labor rights. For many of these advocacy movements in Seoul, recent crises like COVID-19 have brought home the urgent need to address the climate crisis. Opening with a rally in Namdaemun Plaza at 3 p.m., the two-hour march occupied four out of six lanes of Seoul’s main Sejong-daero Boulevard. Standing on moving flatbed trucks, people spoke about the intersectionality of the climate crisis and other issues, including labor insecurity, housing instability, and social discrimination. Ten megaphone-mounted flatbed trucks placed at regular intervals logistically ushered large crowds of protesters – brightly clad youth in headdresses in sunflower or coral reef shapes, families wrapped in “Carbon Neutral” cloak-like banners, Buddhist monks with globe-painted temple lanterns, Catholic nuns wearing “Save the Earth” tunics and holding “Anti-nuclear NOW” placards, regional community groups demanding a stop to coal plants and new airports, and countless union members in matching vests, flying union banners. Game Changer for the Environment The groups of protesters regularly chanted in unison: “lives over profit” and “we can’t live like this anymore!” Drumming, music, and dance filled the streets. During a five-minute “die-in,” protesters fell to the ground, front to rear, like cascading dominoes. The march was the result of three months of planning, promotion, and fundraising by Action for Climate Justice, a coalition of more than 400 civic, regional/community, and trade union movements united under the guiding concept of climate justice. Like previous marches, environmental NGOs played leading roles in the organizing, such as Green Korea United and the Korean Federation for Environmental Movements (KFEM), alongside youth movements. But 2022 also saw a large influx of long-established and new movement groups not exclusive to environmental activism but for whom the climate crisis has become central to their agenda – human rights groups, women’s groups, social movements, political parties, religious networks, food cooperatives, irregular contract workers, and trade union movements. From the Human Rights Movement Sarangbang, combating the violence of political and economic discrimination and exploitation since 1993, to the recent Human Rights Movement Network Baram working to secure the rights and dignity of discriminated groups, such as women, the disabled, LGBTQ communities, immigrants, and irregular contract workers – the COVID-19 pandemic has brought the climate crisis to the fore of their activities. Climate policy has likewise become a pressing issue for the Anti-Poverty Alliance, which emerged during mass layoffs and bankruptcies following the 1997 financial crisis and neoliberalization of the Korean economy. This “IMF era” alliance has grown to include 49 member organizations engaged in various struggles for livelihood, from the fight for a universal basic income to alternatives to substandard housing (including polytunnel villages where people live in greenhouse-like shelters made out of vinyl) and housing instability in the face of Korea’s speculative housing markets and climate change. Religious orders are also a sizable part of the movement now. Building on their legacy of sheltering democracy movement activists in the 1970s and 1980s, Korea’s faith-based groups have been organizing a climate movement that is cross-denominational and transnational such as the pan-Asian Inter-Religious Climate and Ecology Network. Expanding Networks The large outpouring of protesters in September 2022 even surpassed organizers’ expectations. Over the past two years, pandemic restrictions on gatherings and suspension of protest permits in South Korea have brought activism online and into classrooms and have included the unconventional occupation of public spaces. Some of the most visible climate actions in Seoul in 2021 appeared not on the city streets but rather above and underneath them, on large billboards mounted on skyscrapers and LCD screens installed inside subway lines. The yearlong campaign from 2020 to 2021, Climate Citizens 3.5, which was jointly conducted with artists, environmental groups, and researchers, used a chunk of its total budget, the largest allotted by Arts Council Korea, to rent 30 large-scale outdoor electronic billboards, 219 digital screens inside 21 subway stations, and all of the advertising space in 48 subway cars. Spread across the city, the billboards and displays were tailored to convey climate change-focused messages targeted to each location – climate policy changes for the traffic-heavy city center at Gwanghwamun and consumption-related taglines for shopping districts in Myeongdong and Gangnam: “Spend Less, Live More!” Such overlapping and expanding networks in the climate justice coalition attest to the burgeoning consciousness of the climate crisis for a population whose Cold War-divided peninsula placed North Korea and South Korea in the shadow of a nuclear winter long before the threat of exterminism via global warming became an issue. As policy researcher and activist of the Climate Justice Alliance Han Jegak states, “while climate change denial is not a widespread problem in South Korea as it is in other countries, there is still a generalized denial about the urgency to act, the attitude is that we can follow what other countries are doing.” He adds, “people express fear and depression over climate change, but such feelings do not lead to proactive actions. We need to forge alternatives collectively in place of mostly individualized actions like hyper-recycling. The movement needs to harness the anger related to the climate crisis and mobilize that.” One such concrete outcome from the march was the exponential rise in signatories successfully introducing a civil memorandum to stop the opening of new coal plants to the National Assembly floor. For many in the movement, the unprecedented rainstorms and flooding that took the lives of several people including a family in a semi-basement flat in Seoul in August 2022 has inflamed the call to action. For the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), this incident came as a personal loss, as one of the deceased was a union activist. The largest independent democratic trade union association in Korea with 1.1 million members, KCTU formalized its participation in climate action networks when it voted in a special committee on climate justice within its organization in February 2021. Environmental groups have long reached out to KCTU for more active participation in the movement as “public and energy sector unions and irregular contract workers are situated at the forefront of struggles over policy changes as well as facing the brunt of its effects,” as emphasized by KFEM activist and member of the climate coalition Kwon Woohyun. In many ways, the union’s participation in the climate movement was a significant development, explains Kim Seok, KCTU policy director, because “it was a decision to make the climate issue a key component of KCTU policies, including the collective bargaining agreement process, which is the most fundamental activity for unions.” In 2022, KCTU members circulated the most posters and mobilized 5,000 union activists to join the climate march. For a country whose export economy is centered on energy-intensive industries, environmental activism by labor unions faces complicated challenges. KCTU must contend with internal pressure from rank-and-file workers seeking compensation for job losses from the transition to clean energy as well as the broader national context in which the state has relinquished the development of clean energy industries to profit-seeking private sector companies. In the face of these challenges, KCTU’s proactive participation in the Action for Climate Justice coalition and its actions to work jointly with wide-ranging environmental and social movements hold the promise of broadening and solidifying the foundations of the climate movement going forward, while signaling the beginning of a potentially powerful new form of climate activism taking shape in South Korea. Alice S. Kim received her PhD from the Rhetoric Department at UC Berkeley and is a writer, researcher, and translator living in Seoul. Her publications include “The ‘Vietnamese’ Skirt and Other Wartime Myths” in The Vietnam War in the Pacific World (UNC Press, 2022) and “Left Out: People’s Solidarity for Social Progress and the Evolution of Minjung After Authoritarianism,” in South Korean Social Movements (Routledge, 2011).

Beset by popular protests, the right-wing administration resorts to outdated, draconian national security laws By K J NOH | January 14, 2023 | Originally published in Asia Times The Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s coordination and co-militarization with Japan in the service of the US efforts to contain China, along with its neoliberal policies and massive labor suppression, and its general incompetence has resulted in fierce opposition by large numbers of South Korean citizens. To date, they have taken to the streets in mass “candlelight” demonstrations 23 times, on occasion approaching a turnout of half a million according to organizers. The protests show no signs of abating. These huge demonstrations have demanded President Yoon’s immediate resignation along with prosecution of his wife for alleged corruption. The demonstrations also express strong opposition to US militarization of the country and military exercises, demand the return of South Korean sovereignty, and charge Yoon with selling out and betraying the nation. The Yoon administration has a 24% approval rating, according to recent figures. To counter this, the Yoon administration has been stifling and shutting down opposition to its policies with allegations that such opposition is derived from pro-Pyongyang sentiment or even alliance with North Korea. It is currently engaged in a massive political witch-hunt of its opponents. It has arrested key top officials of the previous progressive administration, has raided the opposition party headquarters, raided opposition party candidate Lee Jae-myung’s house many times and has just subpoenaed him, acts unprecedented in South Korean constitutional history. It is widely feared that Yoon will try to imprison the former progressive president, Moon Jae-in, possibly for acts of commission or omission in his policy toward North Korea. Even the South Korean military is alarmed: A former four-star general, deputy commander of the ROK/US Combined Forces Command, denounced Yoon’s administration as a “dictatorial regime” that is “suppressing freedom” – a military first. Republic of prosecution President Yoon, a former chief prosecutor sometimes dubbed a “Korean J Edgar Hoover,” promised during his election campaign that he would create a “republic of prosecutors.” Needless to say, the US backed Yoon’s candidacy: He received the blessing and endorsement of top US leaders and the US power establishment. He was commissioned to publish an article – a public confession of the doctrine of the faith – for the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs, where he detailed his hawkish concordance with US policy against China and his desire to be a global “pivot state” – a clear reference to the “pivot to Asia.” The Barack Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” had started the momentum for military encirclement and escalation against China; Obama’s successor Donald Trump escalated this hybrid war into the economic domain, initiating a trade and tech war against China. The current US president, Joe Biden, rebranded the pivot to Asia as the US Indo-Pacific Strategy and Trump’s neo-mercantilist trade war as the IPEF (Indo-Pacific Economic Framework), and has since escalated even further with full spectrum sanctions designed to destroy key Chinese industries. Yoon’s roadmap article for Foreign Affairs was widely welcomed and lauded, celebrated as an early Christmas present in Washington, in effect the fulfillment of Biden’s wish list for its Korean-backed anti-China strategy. After squeaking into office on the tightest of margins in South Korea’s electoral history, President Yoon has been making good on his promises to the US, shaping, sculpting, and subordinating South Korean military, economic, and foreign interests to align with US policy and goals. To backstop what are clearly unpopular, dissent-and-hardship-generating, extreme far-right policies – and in fulfillment of his promise of creating a “republic of prosecutors” – Yoon has appointed prosecutors who were subordinate to him to the majority of top administration positions, and prosecuting his opponents without mercy. Anyone who shows the slightest sign of opposition to his foreign or domestic policy has been put in the crosshairs of his army of prosecutors. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Yoon has sent his prosecutorial clown car barreling straight down on the road mapped out in his FP article, with “values” attached as a hood ornament, and “democracy” attached to the bonnet as road kill. The vehicle deployed has been “rule of law,” in particular, South Korea’s national-security laws. For example, Yoon is claiming that the recent labor strikes organized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU) “were upon orders from North Korea,” a hyperbolic claim completely denied by the organizers. The devil in democracy South Korea’s national-security laws (see here) are a relic of the past red-baiting military dictatorships, and are some of the most draconian in the world. They have been applied to destroy lives and livelihoods, despite their commonsense-and-human rights-contravening extremism and punitiveness. Revised and massaged several times over the years, they are still imprinted with the core genes of their intent: a political version of the Malleus Maleficarum (a medieval guide for witch hunting) to destroy “subversive” thought and movements in the South and to squelch political opposition. Like the Malleus, during South Korea’s military dictatorships, they were broadly written, malleable in interpretation and application, and relied heavily on confession extracted under torture. They are outdated and incompatible with any notion of a modern state, let alone South Korea’s much self-promoted “freedom and democracy” and “respect for individual rights.” For example, under the South Korean National Security Law, for the act of “praising or sympathizing with” North Korea – in the legislation, the North is always referred to as “anti-state group(s)” – South Korean individuals can be imprisoned for up to seven years: Article 7: Praising Or Sympathizing Up to 7 years in prison for those who praise, encourage, disseminate or cooperate with anti-state groups, members or those under their control, being aware that such acts will endanger the national security and the democratic freedom. If investigation of the KCTU labor strikes shows that they were “upon orders from North Korea,” as is claimed by the government, depending on the judicial outcome and the specific crimes they are charged with, the accused could be sentenced to death for “commission of anti-state acts under the influence” of Pyongyang: Article 4: Commission Of Anti-State Acts Members of an anti-State group or those who are under the influence of an anti-State organization who commit an anti-State act shall be punished as follows: Those who commit an act as defined by the Criminal Code articles [92], [97], [99], [250.2], [338] or [340.2] shall be punished as set forth in the Code. Those who commit an act as defined by the Criminal Code article [98] or who access, gather, leak, transmit or compromise a national security secret shall be punished as follows: Death, life or minimum 10 years for violating Criminal Codes [115], [119.1], [147], [148]. [164] or [169]. [177.1] or [180]. [192] or [195]. [207], [208], [210], [250.1], [252], [253], [333] or [337], [339] or [340.1, 2] Death, life or minimum 5 years in prison for destruction of public or government buildings or other structures essential for transportation, communication; abduction or seduction of officials; or theft or removal of ships, airplanes, automobiles, weapons or other materials related to the fore-mentioned functions. Minimum 2 years in prison for promoting or propagating acts defined in [1] or [5] or for creating or spreading false rumors aimed at causing social turmoil. Meeting with North Korean officials, as alleged against the organizers, could result in a 10-year sentence. Article 8: Meeting, Corresponding And Etc. Up to 10 years in prison for those who confer, correspond, or communicate using other means with anti-state groups, members or those under their control, being aware that their acts will endanger the national security and the democratic freedom. If any of the accused are successfully prosecuted, then those in their vicinity could be charged with “failure to inform” – that is, failure to “rat out” their friends, neighbors, colleagues, or even family: Article 10: Failure To Inform Maximum five years in prison or a fine of 2,000,000 won for those who fail to inform the police or security officials of persons who have committed acts defined in [3], [4], [5.1, 3 and 4]. This punishment may be reduced or waved in the case of involving family members. Filmmakers could be charged with “possessing (even temporarily) or disseminating arts” (from North Korea): Punishments as defined in [1], [3], or [4] for those who create, import, duplicate, possess, transport, disseminate, sell, or acquire documents, arts or other publications for the purpose of committing acts as defined in [1], [3], or [4] respectively. Outside of this article, there has been little discernible coverage or outrage in the Western media about these extraordinary developments. By contrast, former president Moon Jae-in’s slightest peccadilloes – for example, the prevention of anti-North propaganda balloon volleys – were the subject of US congressional hearings, allegations of human-rights violations, and charges of creeping dictatorship. This new witch-hunt, a hallucinatory reversion to the 1960s, looks to have been passed over without comment or criticism in the corporate media. The fact that Seoul even holds such national-security laws on the books gives the lie to the oft-repeated claim that South Korea is some sort of model democracy, part of an “alliance of democracies” partnering with “like-minded values” against “authoritarianism,” as the US and Korean Indo-Pacific strategies like to proclaim. K J Noh is a journalist, political analyst, writer, and teacher specializing in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.

By Ju-Hyun Park | November 28, 2022 | Originally published in The Real News Network A Flurry Of North Korean Missile Tests Has Captured International Attention. But a longer view of US military threats and diplomatic obstinacy is missing from the picture. An increasingly tense standoff has been simmering on the Korean Peninsula for months, and is now escalating to a potentially “uncontrollable phase,” North Korean officials warn. Since August, the US and South Korea have conducted five major joint military exercises and numerous smaller ones—the most recent of which, Vigilant Storm, just concluded on Nov. 5 and involved over 240 military aircraft in the largest ever aerial drills the countries have conducted together. In the same time frame, North Korea has conducted several rounds of weapons tests involving dozens of ballistic missiles. The largest of these occurred on Nov. 2 in response to the impending Vigilant Storm exercises and reportedly involved 23 missiles, two of which landed off the east coast of South Korea, and one of which landed in waters south of the Northern Limit line, a maritime buffer zone in the Yellow Sea. This is the first time North Korean missiles have landed in waters delineated as South Korean. Other military exchanges have also occurred on a near-daily basis over the past two months. Barrages of US and South Korean missiles have been launched, usually without notice from Western media; hundreds of North Korean artillery rounds have been fired in military demonstrations; and both South and North Korean shows of force have occurred along the Demilitarized Zone and the Northern Limit Line. While similar saber-rattling has certainly occurred in Korea in the past, the frequency and intensity of these military exercises in recent weeks are part of a dangerous game of escalation that has no off-ramp. The US has no diplomatic relations with North Korea, meaning the two states lack an official channel through which they could cooperate to de-escalate the situation. This is particularly worrying as recent military exchanges at the Northern Limit Line threaten to upend the 2018 inter-Korean military agreement, which has, until recently, kept the peace in disputed maritime areas. The Biden administration seems determined to outmuscle North Korea, but the assumption that North Korea can, will, or should be intimidated through military force is as risky as it is outrageous. North Korea is taking unprecedented and bold steps to not only deter, but even to limit US military actions. This is indicative of a new DPRK strategy for dealing with Washington—one that Pyongyang itself has proclaimed and is currently being borne out in the escalating military struggle in Korea. Even if the two sides manage to avoid a clash now, they cannot avoid it forever, unless the US radically changes its approach to Korea. The crisis that has been unfolding since August began with the decision of the US and South Korea to proceed with the Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercises—a massive combined drill conducted throughout South Korea, including sites within just a few miles of the DMZ. Even in the year prior to Ulchi Freedom Shield, however, the situation in Korea had already deteriorated significantly. Weapons tests on the Korean peninsula reached a record high earlier this spring due to an arms race between the two Korean states that began in 2021. Yet from June to August 2022, no major North Korean military activities occurred. Ulchi Freedom Shield broke this pause, and also triggered a crucial shift in North Korean nuclear policy. On Sept. 9, the Supreme People’s Assembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea’s official name) passed a new law codifying the country’s status as a nuclear state. This new legislation includes provisions that (1) prevent North Korea from engaging in negotiations regarding its nuclear program for the foreseeable future, (2) bar the sharing of nuclear technology, and (3) establish the legal conditions under which a preemptive nuclear strike may be authorized. In a speech the following day, President of the State Affairs Committee Kim Jong Un declared, “We have drawn the line of no retreat regarding our nuclear weapons so that there will be no longer any bargaining over them.” This new law marks a significant departure from previous North Korean policy. Despite testing its first nuclear weapons in 2006, North Korea has never had a first-strike nuclear policy. In fact, its government did not even establish legal conditions for the use of nuclear weapons in any situation until 2013. This dimension of the new legislation can be understood as a response to South Korea’s “Kill Chain” doctrine—a military strategy promoted by recently elected far-right President Yoon Seok-Yeol, which enshrines the use of preemptive strikes against North Korea. While most mainstream media outlets have emphasized the preemptive strike provisions of North Korea’s new law, its real significance arguably lies elsewhere. In declaring itself a nuclear state, North Korea is seeking to internationally legitimize its nuclear weapons program as part of its sovereign right to self-defense. The self-imposed ban on sharing nuclear weapons technology with other countries is a step towards demonstrating responsibility for non-proliferation. This, crucially, means North Korea has now closed the door to negotiations with the US about its nuclear programs, marking the end of an era in relations between the two countries. The US’s Failed Strong-Arm Approach To Negotiations For over 30 years, negotiations concerning North Korea’s evolving nuclear programs have helped diffuse escalating tensions with the US on the peninsula. Until now, North Korea has been willing to bargain in exchange for normalization of relations and security guarantees. In 1994, a deal known as the Agreed Framework was reached based on such an arrangement. Pyongyang would dismantle its nuclear reactors in exchange for safer light-water reactors from the US, and the two countries would eventually establish formal diplomatic ties. The Agreed Framework fell apart because the US never provided the promised technology. When Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump met in Hanoi in 2019, a US reporter asked Kim if he would be willing to dismantle North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Kim responded, “If I [wasn’t] willing to do that, I wouldn’t be here right now.” At that point, North Korea was chiefly concerned with lifting comprehensive US sanctions that had placed its economy in a stranglehold. It also needed the cooperation of the US in order to realize the goals of the 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, a jointly agreed and signed North and South Korean roadmap for reconciliation and eventual reunification premised on ending the Korean War, which has never been formally concluded by a peace treaty. Instead of offering any leeway on these matters, Trump’s proposal to Kim in Hanoi stated that the US would offer nothing until North Korea dismantled all of its nuclear weapons, material, and facilities. In response, Kim and the North Korean delegation walked out of the summit. The failure of the US to seriously engage in previous negotiations with North Korea has directly contributed to the latter’s recent policy changes, including formally establishing itself as a nuclear state. As relations with the US deteriorated towards the end of the Trump administration, North Korea’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ri Son Gwon remarked, “In retrospect, all the practices of the present US administration so far are nothing but accumulating its political achievements. Never again will we provide the US chief executive with another package to be used for achievements without receiving any returns.” Washington’s conceit that it can disarm North Korea without a fight—or without making concessions—has brought us to this juncture. However, it’s important to stress that this does not mean a future diplomatic resolution is impossible. Denuclearization may be off the table, but the possibility remains for dialogue on normalization and security, including a negotiated end to the Korean War. That being said, judging by the situation on the ground, a resumption of dialogue shouldn’t be expected any time soon. North Korea’s change in policy has been accompanied by a noticeable shift in the calculus guiding its military decisions. In the past, North Korea was more cautious about testing US resolve. Lately, North Korea has matched the US military’s shows of force, and in the process taken unprecedented steps. With the opportunity for diplomacy significantly reduced, North Korea is pursuing a policy of expanding deterrence against the US. While it is a common practice in Western media to ascribe a kind of ontological irrationality to North Korea, this kind of approach is as foolish as it is racist, because it ultimately only obscures reality. North Korea is sending a clear message to the US that it will no longer accept its freewheeling military behavior. Failing to take heed of these warnings will only push the region, and possibly the entire planet, closer to a catastrophic clash. A New Era Of Deterrence Both Washington and Seoul condemned North Korea’s new law enshrining its nuclear status and warned of an “overwhelming, decisive response” should North Korea conduct another nuclear test. On Sept. 18, The New York Times quoted South Korean President Yoon saying his government and the Biden administration were prepared to deploy “a package of all possible means and methods” to deter North Korea, including recourse to nuclear weapons. On Sept. 23, the US escalated the situation further by deploying the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan to Busan for unannounced joint military exercises with the South Korean navy. This move provoked a flurry of missile tests from North Korea, including an intermediate-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan. On Oct. 7, the Ronald Reagan returned to the East Sea1 for another round of surprise naval drills—this time including military vessels from Korea and Japan. This only exacerbated the situation, prompting even more military activity from the north and corresponding weapons tests from the south. In the second half of October, South Korea conducted its annual Hoguk military exercises with the participation of US troops, practicing an amphibious invasion of North Korea. The massive Vigilant Storm aerial exercises began shortly after the conclusion of the Hoguk exercises on Oct. 28. Like Ulchi Freedom Shield, each of these exercises was preceded by stern warnings from North Korea that were ultimately disregarded by the US and South Korea. Prior to these incidents, North Korea had never before conducted missile tests with a US aircraft carrier present in Korean waters. In the past, similar maneuvers from the US would be principally met with fiery rhetoric; now, North Korea is responding with unprecedented military measures that signal a more aggressive approach to deterrence. Last week’s record barrage of North Korean missile tests drove this point home. A number of these missiles landed in waters off the southern part of the peninsula for the first time, and Pyongyang later clarified that the tests were intended to rehearse strikes against key South Korean and US military targets. These moves are about more than North Korea flexing its muscles—in upping the ante, Pyongyang is raising the risks incurred by Washington and Seoul should they engage in continued provocations. US military leaders and their South Korean counterparts have been careful to appear unfazed, but recently released documents from the Department of Defense offer some insight into how Washington is taking note of North Korea’s increasingly bold displays. The 2022 Missile Defense Review, released at the end of October, identifies North Korea as an “increasing risk to the U.S. homeland and U.S. forces in the theater,” while the complementary Nuclear Posture Review acknowledged North Korean military activity as a “deterrence dilemma” and “a persistent threat and growing danger.” The latter document also included a warning that “any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its Allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime.” As these and other official documents demonstrate, the US nominally views its military activity through the same framework of deterrence as North Korea does, yet there is an unevenness here that must be contended with. For Washington, deterrence means preventing North Korea from threatening the archipelago of overseas US military bases that stretches across East Asia and the Pacific. South Korea is a strategic pillar of this network of overseas bases—US troops have never withdrawn from Korea since the 1953 armistice, and 28,500 soldiers remain stationed there to this day. With an additional 50,000 US troops in Japan, and aerial and naval bases stretching from Guam to Hawai’i, South Korea is the tip of a trans-Pacific spear pointed at the heart of China, now openly identified as the US’s chief rival. In other words, what is at stake for the US is its military hegemony in the region, which it needs to secure preferential “free market” arrangements in Asia. In contrast, North Korea is fighting for its survival against what has been, historically and presently, an existential threat. During the Korean War, the US dropped 635,000 tons of bombs and 32,557 tons of napalm on North Korea. By 1953, out of the 4 to 5 million Koreans who had been killed during the war, over 2 million people were killed in North Korea. After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the shadow of nuclear annihilation loomed large over the hostilities, and remained for decades after—long before North Korea was even close to acquiring nuclear weapons. General MacArthur, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower all threatened to use the atomic bomb with varying degrees of premeditation. From 1958-1991, the US stationed hundreds of nuclear weapons in South Korea, aimed at North Korea as well as China and the USSR. To this day, South Korea remains officially under the US nuclear umbrella, meaning the US will deploy nukes for its defense; North Korea has never had a comparable arrangement with another power. This history rarely figures into US accounts of the conflict in Korea, and it does much to explain North Korean actions. For the past 72 years, North Korea has been dedicated to ensuring the survival of its people. With the door to diplomacy seemingly closed by US intransigence, Pyongyang is now opting to place even more emphasis on its capacity to conventionally deter US aggression. What Now? After the most recent North Korean missile launch on Nov. 9, one State Department official claimed, “We continue to seek serious and sustained dialogue with the DPRK, but the DPRK refuses to engage.” Taken in view of the longer history of US-North Korea relations, this is an incredibly self-serving statement. A closer look at the aforementioned 2022 Nuclear Posture Review recently released by the Department of Defense offers some insight into why US claims to openness have failed to bear fruit: “With respect to reducing or eliminating the threat from North Korea, our goal remains the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” Any mention of a peaceful resolution to the Korean War or normalization of relations with North Korea is notably absent from this position. The problem for the US is not the absence of a just peace, but North Korea’s capacity for deterrence in a situation of unfinished war. With this in mind, North Korea’s unwillingness to engage in negotiations at this time makes sense in the context of its own interests and historical logic. After all, what Biden is offering is ultimately no different than what Trump did: a demand for surrender, rather than a commitment to detente. The current conflict may not boil over into open warfare, but that risk will only increase so long as the status quo in Korea set in 1953 continues to hold. The US has always had the option to de-escalate in Korea, and that possibility remains open today. The catch is that Washington must actually treat negotiations as negotiations, rather than as a shakedown. That will have to entail making concessions that were previously unimaginable: recognition of North Korea’s nuclear status, an end to US sanctions, full normalization of relations, a peace treaty to end the Korean War, and an eventual full military withdrawal from the peninsula. These are the only solutions that accord with the reality of the situation—North Korea has become a nuclear state to protect itself from constant US threats, and until those threats are fully removed they will remain a barrier to transforming the status quo of division and hostility in Korea. These measures might alarm those who still cling to the idea that the US is defending democracy in Korea. If the democratic will of the Korean people is of such concern, it ought to be noted that the policies of current South Korean President Yoon, including his approach to North Korea, are widely unpopular. Thousands of people mobilized in August to protest the resumption of US-South Korean military exercises. Opposition was so extreme that it actually managed to unite South Korea’s rival trade unions; even more surprisingly, those unions stood in solidarity with the North Korean General Federation of Trade Unions. Support for North Korea is still a crime in South Korea, and it cannot be understated what an incredible risk these union leaders took in making a stand for peace. Since August, the movement calling for Yoon’s resignation has only grown, and is now being magnified even more as his administration’s bungled response to the tragic Itaewon disaster, which claimed 158 lives, continues to inflame passions. There is no standard of ethics or democracy by which the US can continue to defend its position vis-a-vis North Korea. The ongoing Korean War is not only a threat to regional security and the lives of millions of people, it is also a deep scar on the psyche of the Korean nation. Countless families were separated by the war, enduring for generations the pain of national division in the most intimate terms possible. The constant threat of renewed war has deeply shaped the politics of both Korean states, and made the peninsula one of the most militarized places on earth for the better part of a century. Previous South Korean governments have demonstrated a willingness to move forward with North Korea, yet the US has stuck to its narrow interests, hiding behind a narrative of “national security” that conveniently belies the historical fact that it was the US that traveled thousands of miles searching for this fight. Until and unless the Biden administration reframes its goals towards removing itself as an obstacle to Korean peace, anything it says about openness to dialogue should be disregarded.

Fast-tracked to the House floor last week, HR 1464/S. 416 (“The North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011”), a deeply flawed piece of legislation, passed the House. The goal of its backers is to push it quickly through the Senate before the pre-election session is over. Although framed as humanitarian in purpose, this legislation, modeled on a failed series of North Korean human rights bills that stretch back to 2003, proceeds from an outdated portrait of on-the-ground conditions as well as distorted premises. Empirically speaking, the “North Korean refugee orphan” misrepresents the reality of the children whom the bill purports to help. As a placeholder for children who are, by and large, not North Korean, not refugees, and not orphans, the “North Korean refugee orphan” is a dangerous fiction whose elastic license with the truth imperils the welfare of the children this legislation stands to impact. The bill’s alarmist image of “thousands of North Korean children [who] are threatened with starvation or disease” does not correspond to the reality of the children who—although often poor and sometimes in the care of a grandparent—actually have families, are registered, attend schools, are relatively well-nourished, and are Chinese citizens. Strategically loose on the supply-side details, this bill risks instrumentally construing these children as adoptable when, in fact, they are not. Far from ensuring the best interests of the child, as specified by international protocols, including the Hague Adoption Convention to which the United States is signatory, the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act, if passed, will give legitimacy to practices that shift U.S. adoption policy toward child-laundering or trafficking.[i] Initially introduced as part of the North Korean Freedom Act of 2003, this bill makes recourse to outdated language that describes the children in question as “stateless orphans” who are unregistered and lack access to education. In so doing, it fails to take into consideration the fact that, almost a decade later, circumstances on the ground in northeastern China have shifted. In the first place, the overwhelming majority of children this bill stands to impact have families. The bill further fails to distinguish between the few North Korean children (now adults) who have entered China with their families and the more numerous mixed-ethnic children (now 9-15 years of age) born in China to one Chinese parent, typically the father, and one North Korean parent, typically a North Korean migrant mother. This bill nowhere mentions that the children in question are Chinese citizens. Chinese law specifies that (1) “any person born in China…one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality” and (2) “any person born in China whose parents are stateless or of uncertain nationality and have settled in China shall have Chinese nationality.” In recent years, provincial and local authorities have permitted Chinese fathers to register their mixed-ethnic children without reporting on the status of the children’s mothers. In practical terms, this means that these mixed-ethnic Chinese children, born in China to North Korean mothers and Chinese fathers, are able to attend school and receive social services. Moreover, when surveyed, these children describe themselves—rightly so—as Chinese. The bill violates the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption. According to the Hague Convention, inter-country adoption shall take place only if competent authorities of the State of origin have established that the child is adoptable and have exhausted efforts to place the child within the State of origin. It is the duty of sending and receiving States (China and the U.S., respectively) to ensure that the child in question has been deemed eligible for adoption by the country of his or her birth (China and, to a lesser degree, North Korea). By directing the State Department to find ways to move children from country to country without proper documentation and in circumvention of a sending country’s adoption protocols, this bill promotes rogue adoption operations and risks child-trafficking. Diplomatically volatile and potentially offensive to the sovereignty of China and North Korea, this bill negatively affects our foreign policy on multiple levels within the region. The bill aggravates our foreign relations with North Korea, a country with which the U.S. is still technically at war and does not officially recognize, by regarding it as a foreign sending country. The bill requires our Secretary of State to work with China as a foreign sending country despite China’s steps in recent years to curb foreign adoption. The bill instrumentalizes South Korean nationality laws, which recognize a North Korean defector mother upon her arrival in the south as a South Korean citizen who possesses the right to relinquish her child, while insufficiently accounting for the Chinese nationality of the mixed-ethnic child in question. In effect, instead of “saving” orphans, the North Korean Refugee Adoption Act of 2011 will create “orphans” by legitimizing the movement of children across borders with little to no documentation—in essence, child-trafficking. Should this bill pass, it will contravene international standards for the protection of children’s legal and human rights to their birth families and nationalities. It will signal that for the U.S., the “best interests of the child” is a standard only in name, not in action. *Prepared by KPI Fellows Christine Hong (email: chong@kpolicy.org) and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs (email: jkwondobbs@kpolicy.org). This research was supported by the He-Shan World Fund of the Tides Foundation. [i] Although the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledges that “there is no universal instrument that addresses all trafficking in persons,” UNICEF includes in its definition of child-trafficking “movement that renders the child vulnerable.” See “Preamble to Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.” See also UNICEF, “Note on the Definition of ‘Child Trafficking.'”

By Tim Shorrock | August 29, 2022 | Originally published in Responsible Statecraft In America these days, almost any information about North Korea, be it rumor, fake news, or just plain silly, becomes fodder for the mainstream media. From TMZ to The Guardian, reporters know there is an insatiable appetite for anything that puts Kim and his regime in a bad or crazy light. But when it comes to South Korea, which hosts 28,500 American ground troops and the Pentagon’s largest military base outside of North America, U.S. media coverage is, shall we say, highly selective. That was made resoundingly clear on August 14, when Seoul was the scene for the largest public demonstration in decades against the U.S. military presence in South Korea. Amazingly, not a word about the protest appeared in the U.S. media. That Saturday, thousands of people chanting “this land is not a U.S. war base” demonstrated against Ulchi Freedom Shield, the first large-scale military exercises between U.S. and South Korean forces since 2017. The protests were organized by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCTU), South Korea’s second-largest labor federation. They were joined by a range of progressive allies, including People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), an influential citizen’s group founded in 1994. “At a time when military tensions on the Korean Peninsula are escalating and there is no clue for inter-Korean dialogue, we are concerned that an aggressive large-scale military exercise will exacerbate the situation,” PSPD declared. “We once again urge the US and ROK governments to suspend the ROK-US joint military exercise and make efforts to create conditions for dialogue.” At the demonstration, protesters took direct aim at the heart of U.S. policy in Korea, with signs that read “No war rehearsal, No U.S.” and “No Korea-U.S.-Japan military cooperation.” Outside of the Korean press, the only outlets to cover this massive showing against militarism were Iran’s Press TV and China’s CGTN, which provided extensive video of the mobilization. The single print story on the march appeared in Xinhua, China’s daily wire service. Neither the New York Times or the Washington Post, which often set the pace for U.S. press coverage of Asia, deemed the demonstration newsworthy. Hypocrisy? Yes. As I put it in a sardonic tweet, “Every rumor, fake news, intelligence leak or eyebrow twitch about Kim Jong Un and North Korea gets star treatment in the US media.” Yet, when “thousands of SOUTH KOREANS” march in Seoul against US-ROK war games, “NOT ONE PEEP.” The contrast seemed to hit a nerve: by the weekend, nearly 6,000 Twitter users had “liked” my post and over 2,000 had retweeted it. The contradictions were evident on Twitter itself. As it often does with countries we’re not supposed to like, it slapped a label on one of my posts about the demonstration, urging users to “stay informed” because “this Tweet links to a Iran state-affiliated media website.” With that warning, Twitter was effectively delegitimizing my own coverage of the demonstration. To be fair, political rallies on the left and right are a common occurrence in South Korea; obviously, editors and reporters must make choices about what to cover. But in a country where a majority of its citizens support the presence of U.S. forces and a U.S. general has operational control over their army in times of war, a rally of several thousand citizens openly calling for a U.S. troop withdrawal is certainly newsworthy. At the same time, the drills have been a hot topic for years. In 2018, with much of Washington opposed, they were downgraded to computerized simulations as a way to build trust during the denuclearization talks between President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong Un. Those talks collapsed in 2019, primarily over Trump’s refusal to lift U.S. sanctions in return for a partial shut down of the North’s nuclear infrastructure. This year, with North Korea regularly testing its long-range missiles, the new presidents in Washington and Seoul, Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol, decided to resume the real-life exercises. The air, land, and sea drills, which in the past have mobilized around 50,000 South Korean and 17,500 U.S. soldiers, began on August 22 and wind up on September 1. Sadly, the discrepancies in coverage reflect old patterns going back to the early days of the Cold War. Editorial staffs of major U.S. newspapers and cable news shows (and now, Twitter’s upstart crew) are steeped in Cold War mythologies about the Korean War and largely reflect the viewpoint of Washington’s national security community. Currently, both parties see in the North a determined and dangerous long-term foe, and in the South a reluctant ally torn between loyalty to the United States and its expansive economic ties with China, America’s new nemesis. In this world, there is little room for coverage of South Korean trade unionists, leftists, and progressives who stand against the American consensus. That mindset was recently on display at the Post when it praised South Koreans for electing Yoon, an inexperienced conservative hawk who said during his campaign that he might consider a pre-emptive strike on North Korea “to protect peace” on the peninsula. “South Korea makes a welcome turn toward the U.S. — just when it is really needed,” the headline crowed. The Post editorial also took a nasty swipe at former President Moon Jae-in, parroting right-wing talking points that he had “consciously” played down North Korea’s human rights record and “balked” at adding new batteries to the American THAAD missile deployment that has drawn Beijing’s ire. For America’s papers of record, the failure to cover South Korea’s progressive left also reflects a failure of nerve. The KCTU and People’s Solidarity that organized this month’s antiwar demonstration have deep roots in the democratic movement of the late 1980s, when years of struggle culminated in the massive demonstrations of 1987 that forced the pro-U.S. generals who had ruled the South for 26 years to step aside. During that tumultuous era, both the Times and the Post offered extensive (and often outstanding) coverage of dissidents and government repression. But in recent years, they have been far more interested in covering North Korean defectors and warning the public (repeatedly) about a possible underground nuclear test than exploring the complex internal politics of South Korea. Ironically, these papers are better prepared now to cover Korea than any time in the past 40 years. Since 2020, they have built large bureaus in South Korea and relocated their Asian news hubs from Hong Kong to Seoul, giving them an opportunity for first-class coverage of perhaps the most dynamic country in Asia. “Looking at a five, 10, 20 year horizon, [Seoul] just feels like it’s right in the middle of the action,” Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, the Times’s international president, recently told the Korea Joongang Daily. But in this coverage, the opinions and views of all Koreans need to be heard. That is particularly true when dealing with an issue as critical as the U.S.-Korean alliance, which President Biden has called “a linchpin of peace, stability, and prosperity” but many Koreans now view as a barrier to their country’s future. Tim Shorrock, a Korea Policy Institute Associate, is a Washington-based journalist who has been writing about the Korean Peninsula for over 40 years.

By Christine Hong | July 27, 2022 On March 7, 2022, Hyun-jung Lee, a beloved and deeply respected comrade in the Korea peace movement, a talented acupuncturist, and a cherished daughter, sister, and emo, passed away after a long and courageous battle with breast cancer. Just 51 years old, she was a brilliant beacon of light within a transnational struggle for peace on the Korean peninsula. As Ramsay Liem, curator of the multimedia Korean War exhibit Still Present Pasts, stated, “Each era of the seemingly endless struggle for Korean independence, democracy, and unification has its pillars. Hyun [was] one of ours.” Goal-oriented to the very end, Hyun offered video-recorded parting words in late February to the people alongside whom she had organized over the past three decades. “I don’t know how far I will make it,” she stated while in hospice, “But I feel so confident because we now have an army of people fighting for peace in Korea.” Although ravaged by the cancer that had metastasized to her brain yet refusing pain medication in order to keep her mind as clear as possible, Hyun assumed her well-worn position within the trenches of the anti-imperialist wing of the Korea peace movement. Urging all of us to keep our eyes on the prize of genuine peace, she rallied us “to push together, nobody leading and somebody following—everybody together.” Not one to clamor for the limelight or driven by ego, Hyun was a people’s organizer, unseduced by the capitalist aura around celebrity activists. If she could be described as a leader of any kind, it was from below and to the left. Without fuss, drama, or complaint, Hyun time and again rolled up her sleeves to do whatever work was required, often behind the scenes. Maximally impactful yet unassuming, she was a force to be reckoned with, not only as an astute strategist and a workhorse of an organizer unwavering in her dedication to various interrelated causes but also as a fearless queer woman fighter against racism, sexism, and imperialism whose example inspired generations of activists in the diasporic Korean, pan-Asian, and multiracial organizing spaces in which she moved. Having worked closely with Hyun in multiple overlapping arenas in the 1990s, including Iban/QKNY, a multi-gender queer Korean community group, John Won noted she was “at the heart of so many movements, as many Queer Korean women/femmes have been.” In the broader progressive landscape in New York, Hyun belonged to a formidable cohort of radical Asian women organizers who moved and shook the world with an eye to its transformation. Theirs was and continues to be a feminism grounded in praxis. Albeit a classically trained cellist with an Ivy League education, Hyun embraced the work of urban community organizing. After earning an undergraduate degree in English literature from Columbia University, Hyun in 1994 joined CAAAV, an Asian community organization in New York City where she cut her teeth as a “non-Chinese person training young Chinese immigrants to do street vendor and tenant organizing,” in former executive director Helena Wong’s words. To no small degree, Hyun came of age in a grassroots organization that she would help grow, staying with CAAAV until 2004. Indeed, CAAAV credits her as vital to its three-plus-decade legacy of “remarkable women who built the base, developed leadership of community members, developed strategic campaigns, coordinated direct actions, showed up in solidarity for others, and built the infrastructure of the organization.”[1] Gifted at staging street performances and community art projects, Hyun approached such endeavors as the cultural front of political struggle and a form of popular education. “I think Hyun…secretly wanted to be an artist,” Wong stated. With CAAAV youth, she was “always concocting up ideas. …One summer, they decided to do this exhibit where they would take plywood and trace the bodies of the young people on them, and then cut them out and put stories about gentrification in Chinatown.” In CAAAV, Hyun accrued extensive experience initiating grassroots campaigns—a skill set that would transfer to organizing work she undertook in other arenas. She created the Chinatown Justice Project (formerly Racial Justice Project). She was central to a multiracial coalitional effort to have the policeman who in March 1995 shot 16-year-old Yong Xin Huang in the back of the head indicted for murder. Five years into this campaign, when the system failed to deliver justice, Hyun, in her own recollection, “cried all night in the empty CAAAV office,” resolving never again to harbor “illusions about this system in the United States.” Born out of hard firsthand experience, this clarity would inform the ferocity of her analysis and methodical preparation for long struggle in other organizing arenas. As Wong recalled, by developing political education in CAAAV, Hyun was critical, moreover, to helping members “connect struggles in different parts of the world to our own work in the United States.” Indeed, from the 1990s onward, Hyun kept the militancy of Third World internationalism alive in her solidarity work. From 2001 to 2007, she was a member of Third World Within, a New York City-based, multiracial mobilization whose campaigns and direct actions sought to link “the struggle between those in the Third World and those who subsist in the Third World within the United States” by exposing the structural ties between exploitative racist labor conditions in the United States, on the one hand, and imperial policies and practices, including war violence, on the other.[2] In an era when neoliberal multiculturalism served ideologically to disable an anti-imperialist critique of racism, Hyun’s participation in numerous delegations—to Cuba in 1996, the World Social Forum in India in 2004, the Philippines on three occasions through BAYAN USA from 2005 to 2015, and Palestine in 2012—testified to her unswerving solidarity with the revolutionary struggles of peoples of color around the world against imperialism. In Cuba, the Philippines, and Palestine, all sites shaped by militarized U.S. foreign policy, Hyun further perceived lines of continuity with Korea. She memorably spoke, on her return from Palestine, about the strange familiarity of being among another partitioned people. A commitment to Korea’s reunification intensified over the course of Hyun’s three decades of organizing, including in her insistence on doing Korea solidarity work as part of CAAAV’s Chinatown Justice Project. Over time, her investment in Korea peace work deepened into a priority. Having emigrated in 1981 to the United States from Seoul where she was born on September 20, 1970, Hyun was too young to claim membership in the generation that fought for democracy in South Korea during the era of U.S.-backed military dictatorship. Yet she, too, keenly felt what she described as “the deep scars” of the U.S.-authored division of Korea and the continued harm of U.S. war politics on the peninsula. Within a U.S. context, especially in the post-9/11 era after George W. Bush targeted North Korea, now part of the “axis of evil,” for renewed intervention, Hyun and other diasporic Koreans were vital to materializing past and present U.S. imperial violence in Korea as an urgent organizing focus. Disclosing her family’s tragic Cold War secret, namely, that her paternal great-uncles had been killed for daring to oppose Korea’s partition, Hyun reflected on how the Korean “people’s desire for reunification” began to take deep root in her, becoming her own desire and shaping her organizing. Nodutdol, the New York-based, multigenerational, progressive Korean community organization that most Koreans in the diaspora came to associate Hyun with, served as a stepping stone—in keeping with its name—for her full-blown entry into Korea movement work. From 2006 to 2017, as a strategist behind the organization’s campaigns—those against the neoliberal Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the unilateral expansion of the U.S. basing system to Pyeongtaek, and the U.S. deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system to Seongju, as well as those in support of South Korean labor—Hyun continued developing her capabilities as an international solidarity worker. In Nodutdol, however, she did so specifically as a diasporic Korean, alongside other militantly anti-imperialist diasporic Koreans, with regard to a divided and occupied Korea. As Nodutdol’s campaigns demonstrated, diasporic Koreans were uniquely positioned within a struggle for a genuine people’s democracy in South Korea that was necessarily transnational in scope, given South Korea’s subimperial subordination to the United States. Gonji Lee recalls Hyun as being part of a formidable “squad of Nodutdol eonnis,” women who collectively shaped the organization’s focus and directions in durable ways—and by extension the broader Korean left within the United States. As Minju Bae has remarked, Hyun, through the political foundation she helped to build in Nodutdol, “lives on in the organization.” Even prior to Nodutdol’s formation, Hyun was one of several Korean organizers in New York who, in 1995, collaborated in the development of the Korea Education and Exposure Program (KEEP), a grassroots political educational initiative that would subsequently be incorporated into Nodutdol and emerge as one of its signature programs. Profound in impact, KEEP has enabled successive generations of diasporic Koreans to engage directly with both progressive and left organizations in South Korea and to visit North Korea on peace missions. Hyun herself took part in the program three times. In 1995, she participated in the inaugural trip to South Korea and she returned there in 2005 as part of KEEP’s tenth-anniversary delegation. Fatefully, in terms of her evolving political consciousness, Hyun also traveled as part of the 2011 KEEP (then called “DPRK Education and Exposure Program,” or DEEP) delegation to North Korea. The latter experience, which Julayne Lee, also a delegation member, has described as part of a larger “journey for peace and healing,” transformed Hyun’s relationship to Korea. No longer a space “split in two,” Korea emerged during this revelatory visit as a homeland Hyun felt, in her words, “with my whole heart.” While in North Korea, Hyun, who had been taunted in her youth by white American children who cruelly told her to “Go back to your country,” mused about moving to Pyongyang after reunification. Contemplating the possibility of living together in Pyongyang, Lee recalled, “made reunification seem like more of a possibility.” In retrospect, Hyun’s visit to North Korea coincided with a clarification of her organizing focus, signaling a redirection of her talents. Although always disciplined as a thinker and strategist, she emerged in the last chapter of her life as a powerful “propagandist,” in her blunt self-description, committed to “promoting Korea issues to international audiences, supporting Korean progressive parties, and organizing for the signing of the peace treaty.” In multiple fora—radio broadcasts, mainstream and progressive news outlets, policy journals and academic publications, activist presentations, academic talks, as well as a blog she created—Hyun, through meticulously well-researched analysis, sought to shift received wisdom about and thereby to transform U.S. policy toward Korea. One of her earliest policy pieces, a co-authored analysis of Obama’s “strategic patience” policy toward Korea, was the third most influential article in Foreign Policy in Focus for the 2013 year. As a Korea analyst for the past decade, Hyun also demonstrated herself to be an extraordinarily gifted speaker, offering informed, lucid analysis of complex issues in live-commentary format. From 2010 to 2015, she produced and hosted shows at Asia Pacific Forum, a WBAI radio program. In 2015, along with Juyeon Rhee, she launched the highly influential Zoom in Korea, an English-language blog and news aggregator that she edited until 2019. From 2016 until her passing, she was an associate with the Korea Policy Institute, a U.S.-based public educational and policy organization with roots in the Korean diasporic peace movement. She was especially effective in using these and other platforms to deliver hard-hitting bulletins from the frontlines of struggles in South Korea, illustrating the harm of U.S. foreign policy to audiences for whom such policy’s effects might otherwise have been out of sight and out of mind. Hyun’s writings from the past decade constitute a significant body of research in their own right. With something akin to gusto, she pored over Korean- and English-language sources including U.S. government reports, diplomatic statements, studies produced by South Korean progressive organizations, and North Korean materials. Reflective of her engagement with a range of South Korean progressive party formations—the United Progressive Party, the Minjung Party, and the Progressive Party—Hyun’s writings on Korea issues paired in-depth analysis of political developments in the southern half of the peninsula with a hard-hitting critique of the deleterious impact of U.S. militarism on the Korean people. Contributing to the possibility of a progressive U.S. policy toward Korea, her writings emerged as a go-to resource for U.S.-based and international readers, including foreign policy specialists, Asian Americanist and critical Asianist researchers and teachers, community organizers, and antiwar activists. In stark contrast to the alienated prescriptions of American think-tank analysis, her writings were attuned to the lived experiences and concerns of ordinary Korean people. In this way grounded in the movement for peace and distinguished by firsthand knowledge of and alignment with people’s struggles in Korea, her analysis reflected an ethical commitment to collective life possibility. As a driver behind the Solidarity Committee for Democracy and Peace in Korea, which she and others formed at the tail-end of Lee Myung-bak’s 2008-13 presidency, Hyun wielded her pen as a sword in an unflinching battle against the ruthless and corrupt government of Park Geun-hye (2013-17), the daughter of U.S.-backed military dictator Park Chung-hee and a neoconservative ally of Barack Obama. Seeking to alert the U.S. public to the top-down danger to democracy in South Korea—with the Park administration seizing the undemocratic National Security Law to dissolve the Unified Progressive Party (UPP) and to jail National Assembly representative and UPP member Lee Seok-ki—Hyun delivered English-language analysis that, in depth of damning detail and clarity of critique, was unparalleled in the western media sphere. The danger, she made plain, was no less than “a return to the politics of fear that ruled South Korea only a few decades ago when government surveillance and unwarranted arrests of citizens were routine.”[3] By speaking out against the authoritarianism of Park whose subimperial collaboration was key to Obama’s militarized Pacific pivot policy, Hyun faced the consequences. In late July 2016, on the cusp of the millions-strong candlelight demonstrations that eventually led to Park’s ouster, Hyun and Juyeon Rhee, a fellow Nodutdol and Solidarity Committee member, were unceremoniously blocked from entering South Korea. Deported from Incheon Airport, they were unable to join the Veterans for Peace delegation they had organized to protest Obama’s imposition of the THAAD system on the people of Seongju in South Korea. Stopping by Hawai‘i en route to New York, Hyun and Juyeon, while trying their hand at surfing, took part in local political education about Native Hawaiian resistance to settler colonialism and U.S. militarism. On their return, Nodutdol mounted a grassroots social media campaign against South Korea’s and U.S. travel bans, seeking to expose the latter as a coordinated inter-country means of repressing international solidarity. Four years later, in late 2020, Hyun took to Twitter to recognize the role that the transpacific agitation of U.S. and South Korean organizations and individuals had in catalyzing the lifting of Juyeon’s travel ban. Hyun exulted: “She’s now free to return to her homeland.” Ultimately, few people were more impactful than Hyun in fostering international solidarity over the past decade with progressive political struggles in South Korea and furnishing informed and enlightening views on North Korea. As early as 2005, while traveling through East Asia with CAAAV’s Chinatown Justice Project, Hyun used her perfect bilingualism to enable the participation of 1,000 Koreans in a grassroots international effort to halt the World Trade Organization meetings in Hong Kong. As her focus on Korea issues deepened, Hyun emerged as one of a handful of diasporic Koreans—in particular, the 1.5-generation of Koreans who came to the United States in their youth—who played outsized roles in facilitating communication in anti-imperialist organizing spaces, serving as nodes within the transnational Korea peace movement. As Wol-san Liem, international affairs director for the Korean Federation of Public and Social Services and Transportation Workers Union, noted, Hyun facilitated “a deeper perspective on the Korean movement to non-Korean-speaking Korean American activists.” Indeed, Hyun possessed not only flawless command of English and Korean but also a seemingly effortless ability to perform simultaneous interpretation. In 2007, she flew to Omaha, Nebraska, to interpret for Ko Youngdae of Solidarity for Peace and Reunification in Korea (SPARK) who had been invited to speak at a Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space conference. Oh Hyeran, a SPARK member who accompanied Ko, recalls, “Afterwards we heard from so many attendees how beautifully touching his speech was. Such feedback was unusual. We all agreed that it was thanks to Hyun’s translation.” From this point onward, Hyun frequently interpreted for SPARK in consequential settings, including the 2010 and 2015 United Nations Non-Proliferation Treaty Review conferences in New York. Hyun also accompanied scholar Gregory Elich, The Nation journalist Tim Shorrock, and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, Sr., on solidarity tours to South Korea, facilitating their interactions with progressive Korean leaders and organizers. Others who worked alongside Hyun recall how she, on numerous occasions, stepped forward to bridge structurally interrelated yet linguistically siloized worlds, connecting people in common cause. During their North Korea trip, Julayne Lee recalled that “Hyun would often casually step in to interpret for me in a way that was helpful and never overbearing or condescending. For some of the North Koreans, I was the first overseas adopted Korean they had met and it was an emotional interaction for them. Hyun was there to bridge the communication.” Hyun’s pathway to transnational Korea peace organizing organically converged with her pursuit of healing practices grounded in traditional Asian medicine. From 2005 to 2008, after leaving CAAAV, she studied acupuncture at Tri-State College. Her immersion in acupuncture and herbs could be seen as part of a more general pattern of community and labor organizers taking up the healing arts in ways, often unrecognized, that have in turn enabled and fortified movement work. In both arenas, health care and social justice organizing, Hyun sought to foster survival in the face of trauma and pain. Indeed, as she conveyed to her herb clinic partner Joo-hyun Kang, she was propelled to go into acupuncture not just because “it was something that she could…make a living at as an Asian in a racist country” but also because she could help fellow organizers and activists “utilize their own individual body resources toward healing.” Committed to furnishing “accessible and effective acupuncture to people of all class backgrounds,” Hyun elaborated on the website of her practice, Woodside Acupuncture, that “[a]cupuncture, like social justice, is fundamentally based on the belief that people have an innate capacity to heal themselves. The needles simply stimulate the body to remember its way back to its natural state, just as a good organizer inspires people to arrive at their own solutions through struggle.” Recalling Hyun’s support of her family, Nodutdol member Minju Bae described “the comfort you offered when my 할아버지 [harabeogi] got covid at the beginning of the pandemic. It was such a scary time, and my family found so much solace and hope through your herbal medication package and recommendations.” One of her patients, Tiisetso Dladla, described the healing comfort of Hyun’s care: “I came to your practice after months and months of chronic pain. You not only took that pain away but healed me enough to allow me to conceive. …I came to you, and you let me rest.” Having initially been diagnosed with estrogen-positive receptor breast cancer in 2010, Hyun had a mastectomy and her cancer went into remission. By mid-2015, plagued by a worrying chronic cough but unable to get her primary doctor to authorize a scan to ascertain if her cancer had returned, Hyun animated a strategy she had picked up from her days as an urban community organizer: namely, she checked herself into the emergency room to trigger the treatment she knew she needed. This time around, she learned she had advanced inflammatory breast cancer, a rare and exceedingly aggressive form of cancer. Her oncologist at Columbia Hospital advised her to prepare to die. Never one to give up without a fight, Hyun researched cutting-edge treatments and remained buoyant in conversations about her health with friends. Through a combination of allopathic measures and traditional Asian medicine, including ginseng from North Korea, she prolonged her own life far past her oncologist’s predictions. Those around Hyun cheered her on, knowing every extra moment was a victory. Quietly, however, beginning in 2015, she began Buddhist meditative practices, envisioning her own death and the decomposition of her body. Following Hyun’s diagnosis, knowing she seldom traveled for leisure, Juyeon and I organized a road trip to Joshua Tree for early summer of 2016. Wanting to go for mid-day hikes, even though the sun was baking the earth around us, Hyun somehow remained cool as a cucumber, never breaking a sweat. “I could live here in a trailer,” she mused aloud, “This is heaven.” During this trip, the three of us spoke about organizing, shared stories, cobbled meals together, marveled at the stars in the desert sky, and alternately laughed and cried. We also butted heads. No nonsense in all things, Hyun prided herself, much to the admiration and frustration of those around her, on possessing no nunchi, viewing the latter, as she revealed to us, as a socially ingrained, gendered sensibility essential to the reproduction of Korean heteropatriarchy. “Oh my god, that’s your philosophy? That explains so much!” Juyeon exclaimed when Hyun shared her views. Unfussy and modest in her demeanor, Hyun had a penchant for simple pleasures at the same time she voraciously consumed the worst possible TV and had notoriously cheap taste in food. Yul-san Liem, operations director for the Justice Committee in New York and a former Nodutdol member, recalled Hyun’s inexplicable devotion to the show, America’s Next Top Model. Eunhy Kim, a fellow founder of KEEP, also recalled that during dwipuri, “unlike many of us who always sang the same old sappy songs at noraebang, Hyun somehow always knew the upbeat recent Korean songs.” Both surprisingly current in her cultural tastes and oblivious, Hyun once purchased, as Joo-hyun recalled, “a Subaru with Kisuk and didn’t realize it was a lesbo-mobile.” Her ex-girlfriend Kisuk Yom remembered how “she used to eat cheap street food with a special photogenic smile on her happy face.” Nodutdol members recall Hyun’s dismay during the 2013 Los Angeles moim when a bold seagull swooped down, plucking an uneaten veggie burger out of her hands at Venice Beach. It was a story she would retell with palpable pathos. Hyun also insisted on using the entirety of a budget-sized bag of garish henna that she had purchased in Chinatown to dye her hair, despite friends pleading with her to throw the remainder away. In the last few years of her life, Hyun worked with Women Cross DMZ, putting her organizing skills and policy acumen into powerful motion. She launched twelve regional chapters of Korea Peace Now! and advocated inside the Beltway for a peace treaty to end the Korean War. From 2019 to 2020, she labored tirelessly on HR 152, legislation supported by 52 representatives that called for a formal end to the Korean War. In mid-January of this year, speaking over Zoom about the urgent need to end over seven decades of war on the Korean peninsula, Hyun, though visibly and audibly unwell, sought to reassure her audience: “You might notice that I cough a lot tonight. Don’t be alarmed. It’s just a little condition I have. …Hopefully it won’t be too distracting.” Politically active until nearly the very end, Hyun continued doing public education around the unresolved Korean War. As Sally Jones of the New Jersey and New York chapter of Korea Peace Now! recalled of one of Hyun’s final presentations: “Most of the people…had no idea Hyun was ill. Before she began, she told people she might cough a little…but that everything was perfectly okay. …And then she proceeded to give a brilliant presentation and answered every question with such grace, patience, and deep, deep understanding.” Near the end of her life, Hyun’s friends, D. Chou and Mijeonga Chang, lovingly served as her primary caregivers. Hyun is survived by her parents, Jae-on and Young-ja Lee, her sister Tina Lee Hadari, and her beloved nieces Tali and Emma. Before passing, she requested that any commemorative donations be directed to the Tongil Peace Foundation, which she and other Korean diasporic activists created over two years ago with their own money. The purpose of the foundation is to foster Korea peace and reunification work for future generations of organizers. Roughly two months before her passing, Hyun posted a heartfelt online tribute to her comrade Yang Jeong-yong, Secretary General of Korean Americans for the Progressive Party of Korea. Like her, Yang had battled cancer for many years. “Dongji,” she wrote in a luminous message that we might now fittingly direct to her, “thank you for your radiance and humility while here on earth. We who remain have much to do to fulfill your dream of peace, democracy and reunification. Go freely now. Hope you soar as high as you desire and watch over us as we redouble our efforts.” [1] CAAAV, “CAAAV’s 30th Anniversary: The People Build the Place, the People Build the Power,” May 25, 2016, https://www.caaav.org/30th_anniversary/caaav_30th.html. [2] “April 16 Demonstrations Against the IMF and World Bank,” CAAAV Voce, special issue on “Women, Race, and Work” 10:4 (2000):17. [3] Hyun Lee, “Erosion of Democracy in South Korea: The Dissolution of the Unified Progressive Party and the Incarceration of Lee Seok-ki,” The Asia-Pacific Journal 12:52 (2015), https://apjjf.org/2014/12/52/Hyun-Lee/4245.html.

By Ji-Yeon Yuh | July 27, 2022 | Originally published in the Chicago Tribune Few Americans know that the Korean War, often referred to in the United States as the “forgotten war,” never officially ended. Although the United States and North Korea stopped military battles when they signed the armistice on July 27, 1953, they never negotiated a peace agreement to formally end hostilities. Korea remains divided, separated by one of the most militarized borders on earth, with South Korea and the U.S. on one side and North Korea on the other. Because there is no peace agreement, military attacks from either side can resume at any time. For our own future as Americans, we need stable, lasting peace in Korea. The United States can take the lead by negotiating a peace agreement and normalizing relations with North Korea. Once military attacks are no longer a constant threat, America, North Korea and South Korea can focus on the essential business of strengthening ties for mutual nuclear deterrence and economic prosperity. On July 27, the 69th anniversary of the signing of the Korean War armistice, I will be among the hundreds of people traveling to Washington to attend the dedication ceremony of the new Korean War Veterans Memorial Wall of Remembrance. The remembrance wall honors the more than 36,000 Americans and 7,100 supporting Korean soldiers who died during the war. While I salute them, I am also remembering the millions of Korean civilians who survived the war, the estimated 3 million who died during the war, and the hundreds of thousands of separated family members. Memorializing them would go a long way toward helping to heal the wounds of this decades-old conflict that remains unresolved. Recognizing civilian survivors in our midst — people like my parents — would also help everyone move toward the restorative closure necessary for peace to last. My parents emigrated from Korea to Chicago in 1970, and unlike so many of their generation, they talked about the war. I grew up hearing stories about their experiences was part of our daily family life. As an adult, I came to understand that telling me these stories was a form of therapy and a way to preserve family history. When the war broke out, my father hid for days in a hole in the ground by the outhouses, listening to B-52s strafe his beloved hometown and surrounding farmland. He eventually fled the north with his parents, brother and sister. They left behind many family members, including my father’s two brothers and their families, his aunts and uncles, cousins and grandparents. His family was placed in a refugee camp, but he promptly left, seeking work that would help him feed them. He was only 15. He found work in a soldiers’ lounge and survived for weeks eating the sugar that fell off their doughnuts. Doughnuts had to be accounted for, sugar did not. He also scrounged for odd jobs, doing laundry for the soldiers, fetching water and running errands, earning sometimes coins and sometimes food. After a few months, he returned to his family with a huge sack of American packaged goods: Kraft cheese, Vienna sausages, Spam. He is 87 now, a retired Presbyterian minister, and still longing for his hometown, now in North Korea. My mother and her family were among the many Koreans who fled Seoul and headed south for Busan. They walked most of the way. There, she nearly lost her mother, and it was pure luck that they ran into each other on the street. After they returned to Seoul, shrapnel hit my mother’s arm, gouging out a long chunk of flesh. That gouge is still there, the scar white, sunken and puckered. Now 85, she is a retired pediatrician. One of the most tragic consequences of the ongoing Korean War and national division is the separation of families. Like my family, most Korean families have some connection to someone in the northern half of Korea. While North and South Korea have held reunions between separated families, the United States has never participated. The ban on U.S. citizens traveling to North Korea imposed by the State Department in 2017 has obstructed Korean Americans like me and my parents from visiting family members on their own. With normalized relations and peace, Korean Americans can reunite with their long-lost loved ones. In a hopeful sign, there has been increasing recognition of the need to end the Korean War once and for all. H.R.3446, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, calls for formally ending the Korean War and replacing the armistice with a peace agreement and is supported by 42 co-sponsors, including Illinois Reps. Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Jan Schakowsky and Bobby Rush. As we commemorate the sacrifice of soldiers, both U.S. soldiers and the minority of ROK South Korean soldiers who augmented U.S. troops, let us also remember the civilians, those who survived, those who died, and those who still mourn for families left behind. And let us prove that their sacrifice was not in vain by finally bringing an end to America’s longest war, the Korean War. Ji-Yeon Yuh is an associate professor of history at Northwestern University and an executive board member of the Korea Policy Institute.

Korean Americans and Korean Canadians waving unification flags and playing Korean drums at the 2014 FIFA Women’s Under-20 World Cup in Toronto. (Photo: Betsy Yoon) By Hyun Lee and Betsy Yoon | August 22, 2014 On a Tuesday in early August, North Korea’s women’s soccer team defeated Finland 2 to 1 in the opening match of the FIFA Women’s Under-20 World Cup in Toronto. Yes, it was just a soccer game. But for those of us who were there to cheer on the North Korean team, the stakes were profound. International soccer fans routinely express their support by adorning themselves in the national colors and symbols of a single country. In our case, however, we came as the supporters of a peacefully reunified Korea. Ranging in age from 27 to 80, a group of Korean Americans and Korean Canadians converged in Toronto for the game. Armed with flags and wearing t-shirts bearing images of a unified Korea, the group included nearly 50 grandfathers and grandmothers who had come from as far away as Vancouver, Texas, and Kansas. The backside of our t-shirts displayed the text of the 6.15 Joint Declaration, signed in 2000 by the leaders of North and South Korea, declaring their mutual desire for peaceful reunification. Someone unfamiliar with Korea’s history might ask, why would a group of Korean immigrants travel so far to cheer on the North Korean women’s soccer team? Rules of the Game The Unification Flag had been openly displayed at international sporting events as early as 1991, when athletes from North and South Korea for the first time participated on a single team. But even though the 6.15 resolution had been agreed to by both Koreas, a FIFA representative informed us during halftime that because Korea is currently recognized by the United Nations as two separate states, promoting the idea of a single Korea on our t-shirts and flags constituted a political statement, which FIFA prohibits at its events. “I understand. I’ve been to Korea myself,” he said over our protests. “But I warn you, if you don’t take off the shirts and stop waving the flags, I will have to call on guards to escort all of you out of the stadium.” Fan support for Korean teams at international sporting events under the banner of one Korea was not, however, without precedent. In the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup hosted by the United States, Korean American fans unfurled a giant unification flag that covered an entire section of a Philadelphia stadium, with no admonition from FIFA. North and South Korea memorably marched under the Unification Flag in the 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics, the 2006 Winter Olympics, and the 2006 Asian Games. Korean Americans holding small unification flags at the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup. (Photo: Tongkyun Kim) Korean American fans waving the Unification Flag at the 2003 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Philadelphia. (Photo: Tongkyun Kim) Presumably unaware of the use of the flag at past FIFA events, the FIFA official foisted responsibility for the decision onto the ironclad rules of the game, saying that he had no choice but to enforce them. For those of us supporting North Korea under the banner of a unified Korea, the division of Korea was not just political, but deeply personal. Many of the elderly members of our group were survivors of the Korean War who have been separated from family in the North. They have lived with unhealed wounds that stem from the unresolved war and Korea’s enduring division. The Political is Deeply Personal Coming to cheer on the North Korean team and to wave the Unification Flag was one way in which Noh Chunhee sought to redress the painful past. During the war, as her family was preparing to flee from the southern city of Daegu, a relative urged her parents to abandon Ms. Noh and her sister, the youngest of her parents’ many children. In the end, her parents did not leave the city, but this painful memory remains. “My sister was three and I was two, and my mother heard my sister saying something to her pillow, hugging it like a baby,” recounted Ms. Noh. “My mother leaned in to listen. She heard her saying, ‘They’re going to throw us away. They’re going to throw us away.’ Years later, when my older sister hears our mother tell this story, she still cries.” Now 64 years old, Ms. Noh, a New York resident, drove all the way to Toronto to see the match. Cheering on the North Korean team until his voice turned hoarse, Soobok Kim was both haunted and galvanized by his memories of the war. “I was hit here,” he said, pointing to the sole of his foot, “Six years old, hit by a U.S. airstrike. Not only me, two sisters also. And this, even though it looks OK now, I still ache every day when I walk,” added Kim, who is now 70. Our outraged response to FIFA was not simply a matter of asserting our right to free speech. FIFA’s demand was in effect a de-legitimization of the experiences of Koreans who had lived through the devastation of war and the externally imposed division of our homeland. Our desire to cheer on the North Korean team under the banner of a peacefully reunified Korea was not “political” in a divisive or provocative sense, as FIFA implied. To the contrary, our actions were a necessary expression of hope for those of us who continue to believe in a resolution to the ongoing war and division, and the urgency of lasting peace in Korea. Overcoming the Past The scars of the past were not just present in the audience. When the teams from Finland and North Korea emerged onto the field, the significant height disparity was immediately noticeable: The Finnish team was strikingly tall whereas the North Korean team was uniformly short. While this might not seem odd to the casual observer who likely carries a bleak vision of North Korean life, we recognized the height disparity as visible scars of a painful recent past. Born between 1995 and 1997, at the height of North Korea’s economic crisis, the North Korean soccer players were survivors of an especially bleak period marked by widespread food shortage, which North Koreans refer to as the “Arduous March.” With the country’s fuel supply cut off due to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist trading bloc, North Korea’s factory production came to an abrupt halt. Its idle tractors were transformed from tools for developing their country into immovable reminders of their changed reality. A series of floods and droughts devastated the country’s annual harvests, and U.S.-imposed sanctions blocked virtually all sources of income for the cash-strapped country. Among the many deprivations suffered by the North Korean people during this time, undernourished mothers were unable to breastfeed and did not have access to infant formula, so children born during that time possess a searing memory of hunger. It was those children, now grown, who were representing their country on the world stage. If it were a contest based solely on size, the North Koreans would have stood no chance. But when the game opened, they ruled the field. They outran, outfought, and outscored the Finnish opponents who towered over them. In our minds, they became giants, criss-crossing the field with stunning speed and power, gritting their way to pulling off a herculean feat that seemed implausible just moments before. A Step Toward One Korea Outraged by FIFA’s denial of our right to claim our nation as one and exhilarated by the tough determination of the North Korean team, we chanted the name of the last united Korean kingdom: “Joseon! Joseon!” With each goal, our chants became more impassioned and our drumbeats even louder, because what we were rooting for was much more than just a soccer team. It was for an underdog, battered by a long history of war and crippling sanctions, and an object of international scorn that overcame impossible odds to stand up, heads held high, to an immeasurably more privileged opponent. Having been forced to put away our flags, we poured our hearts out as we stomped, clapped, and screamed for the tenacious North Korean women. When the game-ending whistle blew with North Korea as the winner, our group did not simply erupt into triumphant cheers. Someone in the group began singing a well-known reunification song: “Uri-ui sowon-un tong-il…” (“Our dream is for reunification…”). The rest of us spontaneously joined in, as if to reclaim our right to hope for peace and healing. While this opening match is likely to end up being one brief moment in the World Cup record books, for those of us rooting for North Korea, it brought renewed excitement and great hope. FIFA’s ham-fisted demands lent clarity to the tragic fact that much of the world would prefer to keep the human consequences of Korea’s division out of sight and out of mind. Yet as we closed out the opening match with a song that expressed our shared desire to see a unified homeland in our lifetime, we established this day as one step in our long path toward unification. Hyun Lee is a member of the New York City-based Nodutdol for Community Development and the Working Group for Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific, and co-produces Asia Pacific Forum, a weekly radio show on the culture and politics of Asia and the Asian diaspora. Betsy Yoon is a member of Nodutdol for Korean Community Development and is part of the Korea Education and Exposure Planning Team, which organizes annual trips to both Koreas. She has a degree in international relations and lives in Queens. A joint publication of Korea Policy Institute and Foreign Policy in Focus #NorthKorea #Reunification #soccer #Worldcup

A Korean American Housewife Confronts South Korea’s National Security Law By Hyun Lee* | January 27, 2015 Originally published in Foreign Policy in Focus and Asia-Pacific Journal On the 70th anniversary of the division of the Korean peninsula, the Korea Policy Institute, in collaboration with The Asia-Pacific Journal, is pleased to publish a special series, “The 70th Anniversary of the U.S. Division of the Korean Peninsula: A People’s History.”  Multi-sited in geographic range, this series calls attention to the far-reaching repercussions and ongoing legacies of the fateful 1945 American decision, in the immediate wake of U.S. atomic bombings of Japan and with no Korean consultation, to divide Korea in two.  Through scholarly essays, policy articles, interviews, journalistic investigation, survivor testimony, and creative performance, this series explores the human costs and ground-level realities of the division of Korea. On January 10, after detaining her for questioning on charges of violating the National Security Law (NSL), South Korea deported U.S. citizen Shin Eun-mi and barred her from returning to the country for the next five years. For the past two months, the Korean American housewife had made daily headlines in South Korea after her speaking tour on her travels to North Korea sparked controversy and became the target of right-wing attacks. At one of the events, the detonation of a homemade bomb forced the evacuation of 200 people. South Korean authorities interrogated Shin for more than 50 hours before deporting her. They also arrested activist Hwang Sun, who emceed the speaking tour. “The gap caused by national division runs very deep in South Korean society,” says Shin. Indeed, the deportation of Shin and the arrest of Hwang follow on the heels of South Korea’s dissolution of the opposition Unified Progressive Party and growing concerns about an intensifying government crackdown on free speech. The South Korean Ministry of Justice recently announced that it will push to strengthen the controversial NSL to allow the Supreme Court to disband organizations it deems “anti-government.” For now, Shin, the author of A Korean American Housewife Goes to North Korea, a Korean-language travel journal, is back home in California. The entire ordeal, she says, has taken a toll on her physical and emotional health. In the following interview, she reflects on her recent speaking tour, the South Korean government’s deportation decision, and the kind of response her saga has received in the United States. Hyun Lee: Start by talking about your personal background and how this affected your perception of North Korea. Shin Eun-mi: I grew up in a very conservative Christian family. My grandfather on my mother’s side served three terms as a member of the Constituent Assembly in South Korea during Syngman Rhee’s rule and played a key role in railroading the NSL through the National Assembly in 1948. My father is from a military background, so I received a very thorough anti-Communist education growing up. My earliest memories of hearing about North Korea were through my father’s stories of how he had led his troops all the way to the northern tip of North Korea during the Korean War to crush the North’s People’s Army, and I remember feeling proud that I was the daughter of a war hero. Naturally, growing up, I believed without question that the North Koreans are our enemy. In grade school, we had anti-Communist poster contests in art class. The North Koreans I drew always had devil-like red faces with horns and a tail. I wrote in big letters, “Crush all commies!” I won awards in anti-Communist writing and speech-making contests. I imagined North Koreans having no human emotion, always carrying guns and ready to die for their party and country. I imagined children snitching on their parents and their parents being dragged away by the police in the dark. As a child, I was part of a children’s performance troupe called the Little Angels, which toured the world to project a positive image of South Korea. I studied voice in university, then came to the United States to pursue a doctorate degree at the University of Minnesota. I taught voice in Seoul until 2002, then settled in the United States, where I am currently a housewife. My trip to North Korea in 2011 completely changed my thoughts about the people of North Korea. Ironically, I eventually became the victim of the NSL, which my grandfather had helped to establish. Your first trip to North Korea was in October 2011, and you have been back five more times since then. What made you visit in the first place, and what made you return? My husband, who loves to travel, was surfing the Internet one day looking for our next vacation destination when he learned that North Korea was open for tourism to people of any nationality except for South Korean citizens. [We realized] that it was even possible for us [to travel there] since we are U.S. citizens. When my husband decided on North Korea as the next vacation spot, I had no desire to go with him. So at first I refused. But then I started to develop a curiosity about just how different North Koreans really are from us. So I decided to join him. There, I realized that the North Koreans are not at all different from us. Parents worry about their children’s education, housewives worry about the dinner menu, and young women worry about marriage, no differently from us. They were not at all the warmongering and robotic people that I thought they would be. I discovered that the people in North Korea are very pure and innocent.But North Korea was very poor. So in the preface of my book, I described North Korea as “a poor country where beautiful people live.” I adopted the North Korean tour guide on our first trip, Seol-gyeong, as my goddaughter. So I returned many times since then to visit my goddaughter. Talk about your first trip to North Korea. What was most surprising? I arrived at the Pyongyang airport full of fear and curiosity. As soon as we met our tour guides and our driver, I was shocked. Seol-gyeong talked about her boyfriend, and another guide worried about his children’s education. Such mundane, everyday things — something I never imagined was possible in North Korea. I had imagined that they would be expressionless — certainly not smiling — but Seol-gyeong was so chatty, she reminded me of my own daughter. On the street, I saw couples holding hands, kids giggling and joking around, women gossiping on their cell phones, a man carrying his child on his shoulders. What would be just an ordinary street scene anywhere else in the world was the most shocking for me to see in North Korea. I’m a U.S. citizen of South Korean descent. Since North Korea considers the United States an enemy, I thought the North Koreans would really dislike people from the United States. But that wasn’t the case. The North Koreans we met on our trip gave us a warm welcome. They offered us food, beer, and became teary-eyed as they held our hands and said we are the same people. I can’t count all the times that I was deeply moved. How did these experiences change your perception of North Korea and your thoughts on unification? They changed my thoughts about the people of North Korea — that they are no different from us. We are misinformed about the North Koreans. They are not people who spend all their time wielding their guns and preparing for war. You would know this if you just had a chance to meet them face-to-face. To really know them, we need contact. We need to meet them face-to-face and converse with them. I came to the conclusion that we would have no problems getting along if we were to live together. And that’s how I came to think about unification. I started to long for a unified Korea and ending the state of war. You published a travel journal about your experiences in North Korea, and it became a bestseller in South Korea and even made it onto the recommended reading list published by the Ministry of Culture. Talk about the impetus behind writing the travel journal. I wasn’t planning on writing a travel journal. I didn’t think people would be interested in a travel journal about North Korea, and I didn’t want people to know that I had been to North Korea. When I told close friends about my trip, one of them suggested that I write about my trip and post it on a South Korean website called ohmynews. When I posted my first entry there, it was read by hundreds of thousands of people. I was shocked and overjoyed at the thought that people still care about North Korea and want unification. So I kept writing. After that, lots of publishing companies approached me about publishing my stories, and eventually, the series of my travel diaries was published as a book. You did a series of speaking tours in South Korea about your trip to North Korea, but the most recent one sparked controversy and drew allegations from right-wing groups and President Park that your “talk concerts” were “pro-North.” Talk about the most recent speaking tour. The speaking tour was organized by the Southern Committee to Implement the June 15 Joint Declaration and endorsed by many other civic groups. We started the tour in Seoul on November 19, then went to Gwangju, Daejeon, Daegu, and Iksan. Immediately after the first event in Seoul, there were sensationalized media reports calling the tour a “pro-North concert.” They falsely reported that I had said “North Korea is paradise on earth” and praised North Korea’s “hereditary succession of power,” and they re-broadcast these reports 24/7. It was like McCarthyism in the media. Right-wing agitators stood outside our events and yelled “Go back to North Korea!” The false media reports continued, and at each stop of our tour, the protests grew more intense. In Daejeon, just two hours before our scheduled event, the owner of the building where we were supposed to hold the event threatened to cut off electricity if we went ahead, so we were forced to cancel the event. But we refused to call off the tour and pushed on. We were also greeted by many supporters, who braved threats from right-wing agitators to fill the lecture halls. When we arrived at Iksan, in Jeolla Province, the university where we were scheduled to hold the event changed its mind, and we were forced to move the event to a Catholic church at the last minute. This is where the bomb incident occurred and we were forced to cancel the rest of our tour. A police investigation later revealed that the media reports about me were false. I am currently in the process of filing a lawsuit against those media outlets. What do you think caused such a backlash? I really have no idea. I had been to South Korea many times since 2012 and given many lectures about my travels to North Korea. In April last year, just six months before the most recent tour, I had done the same speaking tour, organized by the same people. We stopped at even more cities and I gave about 20 lectures in total without incident. The previous year, in 2013, the Ministry of Unification praised my book and produced a documentary about me. The same media that recently accused me of being “pro-North” had done interviews with me and praised my book. But suddenly, this time, it was exactly the opposite. Tongil (unification) became jongbuk (pro-North). I don’t understand why the same lecture became so controversial. At the event at Iksan on December 10, a high school student set off a homemade incendiary device in the middle of your lecture, and two people were seriously injured. What happened? A young man stood up in the middle of my presentation and said, “Isn’t it true that you referred to North Korea as ‘paradise on earth?’” Before I even had a chance to respond, he pulled out a homemade acid bomb from his knapsack and hurled it in my direction. Had a staff person not gotten in the way to block it with his own body, I would have been seriously injured. The police later found that the assailant had packed other incendiary devices in his knapsack. The police were quick to declare that he had acted alone, but this is doubtful. Several witnesses said they had seen the assailant being dropped off at the church by other people. And when he arrived inside the church, another man, who appeared to have arrived earlier to save a seat for him, got up and gave him his seat, then walked out. What was strange that day was that when we arrived at the church, I noticed fire trucks lined up by the building. I remember wondering, “What are they doing here?” What shocked me also was that when the bomb went off, an explosives unit was on the scene within minutes. I still wonder if the local authorities had been tipped off in advance about what was about to happen. Prior to that day, the assailant had apparently posted online comments announcing his plan. There are many unresolved questions about this incident. For example, the police claimed they searched the assailant’s home after the incident. But when organizers of the speaking tour met with the assailant’s parents, they told them that there had been no such search. What’s even more surprising is that President Park said nothing about the terrorist incident. Instead, she publicly denounced our speaking tour as “pro-North.” The police downgraded the charge against the assailant, then called me in for questioning and raided Hwang Sun’s home. We were the victims of a terrorist act, but the South Korean police and the Ministry of Justice treated us as if we were the criminals. Talk about your what happened when the South Korean police and the Ministry of Justice took you in for questioning. The police summoned me three times and the Ministry of Justice once. In total, they interrogated me for over 50 hours. I was scheduled to return to the United States on December 12, but they barred me from leaving the country. The investigation started based on an allegation that my lectures were in violation of the NSL. But it only took them a few hours to realize that there is nothing to substantiate this allegation. So then they focused their investigation on the content of my book and lectures I had given in the United States — which is absurd. I wrote the book and gave those lectures in the United States, so why is it the business of the South Korean government? They asked about every line in my book, from the preface to the very last page and demanded to know what my intentions were behind each sentence. For example, I had written in my book, “Christ tells us to love our neighbors, and I realized the North Koreans are our true neighbors,” and they wanted to know, “What is the true meaning behind this sentence?” I wrote about cell phone use in North Korea and printed photographs of my trips in the book, and they wanted to know, “Do you really believe these are real?” They showed me a copy of an email exchange between me and another person in the United States. The Internet server for our emails is based in the United States, so I have no idea how that was in their possession. At any rate, they found nothing that I had done that was in violation of their NSL. Ultimately, they deported me based on immigration law, which states that a foreigner who acts against the national interest, disturbs the peace, and/or threatens the safety or security of the country may be deported. Did the U.S. embassy or the State Department get involved? As soon as I felt threatened, I contacted the U.S. embassy in Seoul. At first we exchanged emails, but after the bomb incident, I went to the embassy myself and met with a consul there. I explained about my situation, but he already knew my story very well. I requested protection, and his response was, “Go to the South Korean police for protection.” I had no communication with the State Department. You also requested a meeting with President Park, who famously said “Tongil is dae-bak” (“Unification is a jackpot”) and claims to be pro-unification. Did you get any response from her to your request to meet? If you were granted a meeting, what would you have said to her? No response. If she had agreed to meet with me, I was going to tell her, “The people of the South and North are not much different. We share the same history and culture through thousands of years. Please move forward for unification of Korea — for peace and for the people of the Korean peninsula.” Describe what happened when you arrived at the Los Angeles airport upon your return home. How did you think you would be treated within the Korean diaspora community in the United States? When I arrived at the airport, it was the same scene as in South Korea. People from my church had come to the airport to welcome me home. And on the other side were right-wing people shouting, “Go back to North Korea!” I was focused on getting out of there quickly, so I only learned later that there was a physical confrontation and the police arrested two right-wing agitators for assault. I realized that the gap due to national division runs deep in our community. I’m not sure how I will be treated by the Korean American community. I suppose truth will prevail one day. What’s most urgent is reconciliation between North and South Korea — in other words, a return to the post-June 15 era. Hwang Sun, who appeared with you in the speaking tour, is now under arrest on charges of violating the NSL. The government has taken your book off the recommended list of books and has ordered all libraries to return all copies of the books to the Ministry of Culture. Your thoughts? Hwang Sun is the mother of two young children. She poses no flight risk. And since the police have already raided her home and taken everything, there’s no risk that she will destroy evidence. I hope they will allow her to go through investigation and stand trial without being detained. It was the South Korean government that selected my book for its list of recommended books, and it was the same government that rescinded this decision and announced a recall of my books. I don’t know what to say. I never considered the selection of my book for the government’s list as a matter of personal glory, because I’m not a professional writer. But it does raise a question for me. The content of my book hasn’t changed since the time the government saw fit to put it on the list, so what has changed to make it so controversial? All this follows on the heels of the controversial dissolution of the opposition Unified Progressive Party and the South Korean government’s frequent use of the NSL to stifle free speech. Can you comment generally on the current political climate in South Korea? I don’t know much about South Korean politics. But I do think the dissolution of a political party should be decided by the voters, not by the government. As for the NSL, it surely hinders freedom of speech and expression, which should be guaranteed in a genuinely democratic country. What are your future plans and hopes? What do you take away from this whole experience? I haven’t yet thought seriously about my future plans or hopes. For now, I want to take a good rest and recover from mental and physical exhaustion. The gap caused by division between North and South Korea runs very deep. Without resolving the problem of division, I don’t believe we can expect to have true democracy, let alone peace on the Korean peninsula. The most urgent task is national reconciliation and peaceful unification. *Hyun Lee is a member of the Working Group on Peace and Demilitarization in Asia and the Pacific as well as a fellow at the Korea Policy Institute. She co-produces Asia Pacific Forum, a weekly radio show on culture and politics in Asia and the Asian diaspora. #NationalSecurityLaw #NorthKorea #parkgeunhye

By Hyun Lee | November 12, 2015 Co-published with Foreign Policy in Focus Standing in the way of South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s series of controversial labor market reform initiatives is the Korean Confederation Trade Unions (KCTU). The union confederation has vowed to “stop freight trucks in their tracks” and “immobilize the country” if the government continues to push through its comprehensive reform package. The proposed reform would increase labor flexibility on a scale that is unprecedented since the country’s adoption of International Monetary Fund (IMF)-imposed structural adjustment policies in the late 1990s. Cloaked as a solution to growing youth unemployment, Park and South Korea’s ruling conservative party propose to replace the country’s seniority-based wage system with a flexible, performance-based system. The reform would start in the public sector and introduce a wage peak system, under which older workers swap an extended retirement age for fixed salaries regardless of their seniority. The reform would also relax conditions for the termination of workers, increase the use of temporary contract workers, reduce job security in all labor sectors, and allow employers to change their employment regulations without worker consent. The reform initiative comes as South Korea pursues a series of free trade agreements (FTAs) that will further undermine the country’s food sovereignty and limit its sovereign sphere by impeding its policy-making powers. The Korea-US FTA, in its third year of implementation, has given foreign corporations the power to control South Korea’s domestic policies through the controversial investor-state dispute system, which enables foreign corporations to challenge the country’s laws on the grounds that they may interfere with the corporation’s ability to make profits. The Park administration is also in the final stages of completing a trade deal with China, which has farmers worried about the flood of cheaper products from China into South Korea’s agricultural market. And South Korea has just announced its intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the secretly negotiated mega trade deal, the full text of which was only recently been released. KCTU is forging a broad united front with farmers and the urban poor not only to oppose the labor market reform but to mount a challenge to Park’s broader pro-corporate, pro-free trade agenda. It has called for a mass convergence in Seoul on November 14 to build momentum for a potential general strike in the coming months. But it’s a risky fight, since Park has shown that she is willing to take extraordinary measures to silence her opposition. At the center of it all is a man named Han Sang-gyun, the newly elected KCTU president with seemingly unshakeable resolve, hardened from years of fighting labor struggles in the streets. He served three years in jail for leading the 2009 occupation of a Ssangyong Motors plant, in which 900 workers barricaded themselves for 77 days to protest layoffs and which ended in a violent showdown with the police wielding water cannons and tear gas. After being released from jail, he climbed on top of an electric transmission tower to stage a protest 164 feet up in the air. His aerial protest, which lasted 171 days in the harshest months of winter, forced candidates in the 2012 presidential election to declare their positions on the Ssangyong dispute, which still continues today. In 2014, in KCTU’s first direct election with the participation of all 800,000 rank-and-file members, Han ran on a pledge, if elected, to launch a general strike and make KCTU “Park Geun-hye’s greatest fear.” Han recently spoke about KCTU’s efforts to stop the proposed labor market reform, as well as the impact of IMF-imposed structural adjustment policies and the Korea-US FTA on South Korea’s labor market. Hyun Lee: We first came to know of you in January 2013 when you and other former Ssangyong Motors workers were living on top of an electrical transmission tower 164 feet above ground to protest the unjust layoff of 3,000 workers by Ssangyong Motors back in 2009. Tell us about your personal background – about the Ssangyong fight and what led to your decision to become the president of KCTU. Ssangyong Motors workers’ occupation of their factory in Pyeongtaek in 2009 (Photo: libcom.org) “Layoffs are akin to murder” – that was the leading slogan of the Ssangyong Motor workers during our 77-day factory occupation to oppose layoffs in the simmering summer of 2009. I was the union representative then, and I still shudder when I think back at the time I spent with comrades who were willing to risk their lives in that fight. The crackdown by the government, which had mobilized all of its might and special weapons, was a gruesome battle between the government, which had defined the workers as its enemy, and the workers, who were left to writhe in agony as they struggled to stay alive. Twenty-eight workers have died so far as a result of the trauma caused by the government violence. I had the unfortunate fate of receiving this tragic news while in jail, and that was incredibly hard to endure. Han Sang-gyun on top of an electrical supply tower in November 2012 (Photo: The Korea Times) After spending three years in jail, I wanted to fulfill our vow to live our lives in a world without irregular and precarious work, so I climbed a 124,000-volt electric transmission tower with my comrades. The reality in South Korea, where dismissed workers have to plead to be heard and bring attention to their pitiful and unjust plight, is not changing and in fact becoming more barbaric. I decided to run for the position of KCTU president in order to change this reality, where workers live in constant fear of dismissal and can be dismissed at any time and where even after they are dismissed, workers blame their own incompetence. I wanted to confront capital and those in power who want to institute a system of modern-day slavery, and fight for the liberation of 10 million irregular workers. I wanted to devote myself to turning this world of low-wage exploitation, where people work themselves to death for less than $2,000 a month, into a world where workers can live with respect and human dignity through meaningful labor. Lee: When you ran for office as KCTU president in 2014, you pledged to launch a general strike if elected. Why was this important? And why do you think the KCTU rank and file chose you as the president? KCTU represents the interest of 20 million workers. To fight for workers, who have their backs against the wall and are attacked from both sides by the government and capital, there is no other path but a general strike. The KCTU election in 2014 was the first election with the direct participation of all 800,000 members. I think the expectation that I won’t simply be complacent in a situation where struggle may be difficult and that I will find a way out is the reason they elected me as KCTU president. What we are about to embark on is a general strike not only to fulfill that expectation but more importantly to stop the Park Geun-hye government’s labor market reform, which will turn the entire country into a pool of irregular/precarious workers who can be dismissed at any time without cause. Lee: You have been confined inside the KCTU office, and the government has issued a warrant for your arrest. Why? And what are your days like? Seoul City Hall Plaza, April 24, 2015 (Photo: Solidarity for Peace and Reunification in Korea) After I became KCTU president, we called for a mass demonstration on April 24 to oppose the anti-worker laws that the government is pursuing. This was followed by Labor Day on May 1. Workers came out to the streets en masse for legal demonstrations. Lots of people were on the streets, so inevitably, this led to some minor violations of traffic laws and the Law on Assembly and Demonstration. So the prosecutor’s office ordered me to report to them for an investigation, and I told them that I would comply. But because we couldn’t agree on a date that was convenient for them, they issued an arrest warrant. And since June 23, I have not set foot outside the KCTU building. Outside the building, hundreds of police stand guard day and night on surveillance duty in order to arrest me. Although I am confined in the office, I am still just as busy. Many KCTU meetings take place at the office, several times a day. People from all regions bring me home-cooked meals. I’m not able to move around a lot, so I’m getting fat, and that worries me a bit. (Laughs) I haven’t been home for almost 5 months, but my family comes to visit me often. They haven’t abandoned me yet! (Laughs) Lee: President Park Geun-hye and the ruling conservative New Frontier Party (NFP) are intent on pushing forward a comprehensive labor market reform package. Talk about these reforms and the impact they will have on South Korea’s workforce as well as the labor movement. Article 33 of our constitution guarantees workers the right to form labor unions and exercise independent association, collective bargaining, and collective action to confront capital and protect our interests. But the government is trying to undermine labor unions through policy directives that trample on the spirit of our constitution. The most problematic aspects of the proposed labor market reform would enable employers to terminate workers whenever they want without cause and make all workers irregular/precarious workers. There are two proposed laws related to irregular/precarious workers. One would allow the use of dispatch/contract workers in all labor sectors, and the other would extend the contract term of irregular workers from two to four years. If this passes, an employer can hire young workers for four years, fire them temporarily, then rehire them for another four years. This means that they would have no reason to hire permanent, regular workers, and it would simply be a matter of time before the entire labor force in South Korea becomes irregular or precarious. It is already very easy for employers to lay off workers in our country. A company can lay off workers not only in cases where it is actually financially struggling, but even if it projects that it may run into a deficit in a few years. Currently, white-collar workers in banks and large corporations are forced into early retirement even before they reach the age of 50. At least in their case, they receive some compensation. The proposed law on general dismissal would enable an employer to terminate its workers based on “low performance” and send them away empty-handed. This would allow a company to get rid of unwanted workers without spending a dime. Also, according to the current law, a company can only change its employment regulations with the explicit consent of the majority of its workers. The labor market reform that the government is pursuing would allow employers to change their employer regulations as they please without worker consent. If this passes, a worker can lose his/her job or have his/her wages docked simply for falling out of favor with his/her employer, and there would be no reason for the employer to listen to the demands of a labor union. This would create a slavery-like work environment where workers constantly have to curry favor with their boss. This is designed to eliminate all means of resistance by organized labor, which is precisely the aim of the Park Geun-hye government. South Korea already has the highest percentage of irregular/precarious workers and the greatest labor flexibility of all OECD countries. The government’s policy is aimed at making permanent a structure in which workers can work the maximum work hours but still incur rising debts, and this spells disaster. The Park Geun-hye government, which refuses to hold the chaebols responsible and instead passes on distress to workers, is fanning the outrage of workers and the urban poor, and their outrage is about to reach a boiling point. Lee: KCTU was born on the eve of the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Its general strike to oppose labor law reforms in 1996 and International Monetary Fund (IMF)-imposed structural reforms in 1997 catapulted KCTU to international recognition. Please talk about that history and how the so-called “IMF crisis” of 1997 altered South Korea’s economy and conditions for workers. In 1996, the then-Kim Young-sam government railroaded the legislative process to pass a series of labor laws that would make it easier for employers to lay off workers and hire temporary/contract workers. A month-long general strike of millions of workers stopped the government from enforcing the law and boosted the confidence of workers that we can make a better world through our own power. It was that spirit that eventually led to the entry of progressives in South Korea’s political arena. A South Korean worker protesting IMF-imposed structural adjustment policies (Photo: todayboda.net) But the same law was reintroduced as part of a structural adjustment program imposed by the IMF after the Asian financial crisis in 1997. In the past, if you worked hard, it was possible to raise a family with hope for the future. But the IMF-imposed structural adjustment policies introduced a system for easy layoffs. The Act on the Protection of Dispatched Workers allowed companies to hire temporary workers on short-term contracts. Immediately after the passage of these laws, the Hyundai Motor Company announced layoffs, even though it was not in any financial hardship. So we understood that these laws are about forcing workers to the edge of a cliff. These laws were not only aimed at laying off workers but at destroying labor unions. If there were workers leading a struggle to demand their rights at the workplace, the employer could simply evoke this law to dismiss them at any time, undermine their legitimate labor union activity, and uproot the labor union from the workplace. Back then, we had no idea just how serious the problem of irregular/precarious employment could become. Since then, layoffs and the use of contract workers have turned 10 million workers into irregular/precarious workers. Today, you won’t find a single household without at least one irregular worker. The biggest disaster in South Korean society today is income inequality and the lack of decent and secure jobs. That is why this year, KCTU created a movement center to address head on all the problems related to irregular/precarious employment. Lee: Compare the KCTU of 20 years ago and the KCTU of today. What is the biggest challenge in carrying out a general strike on a similar scale? Twenty years ago, the term “worker” or “laborer” was not popular at all in South Korean society. Workers were derogatorily referred to as gong-soon-yi (factory girl) or gong-dol-yi (factory boy). There were no human rights for workers, who faced rampant exploitation and oppression. Through the popular democratic uprising of 1987 and the mass worker struggle of 1996, we built KCTU and declared workers as owners of society. The movement that faced off against dictatorship and ushered in democracy in South Korea was made possible by the flag raised by workers. And for the first time, there was hope that people can live decent and dignified lives as workers. Since then, KCTU has failed to address head on the problems of the ever-growing irregular/precarious workers. Until recently, no organization properly represented the 10 million such workers, and this ultimately weakened KCTU’s ability to fight. For some time, capital has pursued its strategy of labor exploitation by reining in those in power and taking control of the police, the prosecutor’s office, the national assembly, and the media, which all stand on the side of capital to oppress workers. And they have created fear among workers that struggle can lead to losing everything. Astronomical fines and seizure of property for so-called damages, warrants for imprisonment, termination from employment, destruction of democratic unions – these are the forms of punishment for those who dare to fight. Despite this, we have no choice but to fight. KCTU is calling for a general strike despite all this because without a fight, what’s left of organized labor, the only means to defend the rights of workers, can ultimately become obsolete. The lives of 20 million workers are on the line. Lee: It has been three years since the implementation of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA), touted as the largest trade deal for the United States since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and which became a model for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a mega-trade deal among 12 Pacific Rim countries. What has been the impact of the Korea-U.S. FTA on South Korea’s workers and farmers? And what would be the impact of the TPP if South Korea decides to join? South Korean farmer protesting the Korea-US FTA (Photo: Voice of People) Workers and farmers fought hard to stop the Korea-US FTA but ultimately failed. Farming areas have become devastated, and workers have become prime targets of exploitation by transnational capital. The government has basically decided to give up on food sovereignty. Their logic is that we have to give up on agriculture in order to sell semiconductors, ships, and automobiles and that that is the only way for our economy to thrive. So they implemented the FTA by force. If you go to the rural areas today, you will find no farms that are economically competitive. The youth have abandoned the rural areas and have all gone to the city. But in the city, there are not enough jobs, so they have basically become day laborers who don’t even earn the minimum wage and barely eke out a living. Today in South Korea, there are 9.4 million workers, who, despite working long hours, earn less than $2,000 month. The Korea-US FTA has made low-wage exploitation a permanent feature of our society, and transnational capital now rules our economy. The government is now in the final stage of completing the Korea-China FTA and has announced its intention to join the TPP, which will cover a massive economic region. Joining the TPP will inevitably increase competition with Japan, and this is projected to cause damages that will exceed those of the Korea-US FTA. The reason why South Korea has not pursued an FTA with Japan thus far is that Japan is more competitive in many economic sectors. Experts warn that if Japan has increased access to South Korea’s market through the TPP, our economy will quickly become jeopardized and it could lead to mass unemployment. Japan’s agricultural products are similar to what South Korea produces, and if they flood our domestic market, it would be the death knell for our agricultural sector and food sovereignty. Lee: KCTU has called for a mass demonstration on November 14. Please talk about the significance of the November 14 demonstration as well as what’s at stake in this broader fight. KCTU’s top demands are to stop the labor market reform, create tougher conditions for termination of workers, and transfer irregular/precarious workers to permanent, regular employment. But we all know that we can’t win if we fight our struggles alone. We can’t resolve the problems faced by farmers, the urban poor, youth, and workers if we don’t fight together. So in each region, farmers, workers, and the urban poor are working together to organize for November 14. This is unprecedented, and KCTU is taking the lead in forging a united front at the regional level. So it’s not about coming together just on November 14 but working together leading up to November 14 and beyond. There are 11 demands for the November 14 demonstration, and they include: stop the labor market reform; abolish irregular/precarious employment; stop rice imports; stop crackdowns on street vendors; and hold the chaebols responsible. But these are simply a compilation of the top demands of the various sectors that are coming together. We know we can’t win all of them. More importantly, our unified goal is a fundamental change in a national system that favors the chaebols and overlooks the interests of the common people. The November 14 demonstration is an important step in this fight. That’s why all are resolved to converge in Seoul in a historically unprecedented scale on November 14. I’ve spent many hours worrying about preparations for November 14 while stuck in this windowless building, and these hours have been filled with apprehension and anxiety. But something amazing is unfolding as we speak. At least 50,000 irregular/precarious workers plan to converge in Seoul. Workers in various industrial sectors have resolved to oppose the labor market reform and also aim to mobilize 50,000 for November 14. Elderly farmers with canes will charter buses to join the mass demonstration. The urban poor, and youth and students, too, are determined to occupy Seoul. I’m only frustrated that many irregular/precarious workers who wish to join the demonstration but can’t afford to charter a bus. In the lead up to November 14, each region has been holding its own rally, and we have sent people on a national bus tour to educate and organize across the country. In Seoul, we are also doing an ad campaign on the city buses. It’s very expensive to buy an ad on a city bus, so we’re unable to do it on a large scale. But through the ads, we point out what’s wrong with the labor market reform and appeal to the general public about our fight to oppose it. And the general public has been applauding our efforts. We have staked everything on this fight. If the Park Geun-hye government continues to railroad the labor market reform despite our pleas, then we will also be ready for next year’s general election in April and the presidential election the year after that. We are more determined than ever to cast a unified ballot in the upcoming elections. Lee: Lastly, what are the plans for beyond November 14? I believe when workers from all regions gather in Seoul on November 14, we will regain our confidence, which will be critical as we prepare to strike. If the national assembly pursues the labor market reform and the government issues a directive to enforce the administrative and legislative reforms, we are prepared to launch a general strike. And this time, it will not be a one-day strike. We’re talking about stopping production, freight trucks stopping in their tracks, railroad and subway workers on illegal strikes, and paralyzing the country so that the government will feel the outrage of the workers. That’s what we’re preparing for. KCTU also opposes the Park Geun-hye government’s attempt to introduce state-authored history textbooks. A good president should write new history through his/her actions, but ours simply wants to revise the past. South Koreans have always been critical of Japan’s distortion of history, but now the Japanese media is pointing its finger back at us for doing the same thing. This is an embarrassment. Friendly soccer match between North and South Korean workers on October 29, 2015 (Photo: Yonhap News) Last month, a KCTU delegation traveled to Pyongyang for a friendly football competition between workers of North and South Korea. Peaceful unification is a long-cherished aspiration of our people, and the workers will demonstrate that the only way out of our current crisis is through reconciliation and economic cooperation between the North and South. Our spirits are buoyed by the fact that people as faraway as the United States are interested in and cheering on our efforts. I hope the November 14 demonstration will help us regain our confidence to lead a successful general strike so that when we speak again, I can relay news of our victory. Please stand with us in solidarity and be with us in spirit. Hyun Lee is a member of the US-Korea Solidarity Committee for Peace and Democracy and a fellow at the Korea Policy Institute. Photo captions Photo 1 – KCTU president Han Sang-gyun (Photo: KCTU) Photo 2 – Ssangyong Motors workers’ occupation of their factory in Pyeongtaek in 2009 (Photo: libcom.org) Photo 3 – Han Sang-gyun on top of an electrical supply tower in November 2012 (Photo: The Korea Times) Photo 4 – Seoul City Hall Plaza, April 24, 2015 (Photo: Solidarity for Peace and Reunification in Korea) Photo 5 – A South Korean worker protesting IMF-imposed structural adjustment policies (Photo: todayboda.net) Photo 6 – South Korean farmer protesting the Korea-US FTA (Photo: Voice of People) Photo 7 – Friendly soccer match between North and South Korean workers on October 29, 2015 (Photo: Yonhap News) #TPP #SouthKorea #globalization #Labor #freetrade