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S Korea's Moon says 'time to take action' on N Korea

16 Comments
By Hyonhee Shin and Sangmi Cha

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16 Comments
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Alas, economic incentives have no appeal to the Kim dynasty, which is only concerned with maintaining power of life and death over NK's citizens. It is naive to believe otherwise.

8 ( +11 / -3 )

PSmith

No, it won’t happen overnight. It will take time to build up a middle class, just like it’s taking time in China.

Oh, so that NK will develop into democratic, humanitarian, peaceful country like mainland China?

Great precedence.

10 ( +13 / -3 )

Sorry Moon but the Biden Administration isn't going to fall for your jerking the United States around like the previous one. but with a year left and a 29% approval rating no doubt you'll grab at straws if need be.

6 ( +10 / -4 )

Where is that uplifting feeling derived from the peace diplomacy in 2018 between South's Moon Jae In and North's Kim Jong Un in which the two leaders agreed the Korean Peninsula would be completely denuclearized? Their high-profile walking together across the armistice line at Panmunjom with hand in hand was an epoch-making event indeed.

What went wrong then? Probably, for the North, complete denuclearization meant South Korea shouldn’t allow U.S. forces to bring in nuclear weapons to the Peninsula while for the South, and the U.S. behind it, it only meant the complete dismantling of nuclear weapons and facilities thereof in North Korea.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

His final days in office cannot come soon enough. What an utter disaster.

5 ( +10 / -5 )

oldman_13Today 05:01 pm JST

His final days in office cannot come soon enough. What an utter disaster.

And you can rest assured the by South Korea's track record the next President will be a crook, a wako or a fool.

4 ( +9 / -5 )

So he tacitly admits he has been a complete failure on the issue and now thinks in his last year and becoming less and less relevant, that he can use a new US administration (who have already shown little interest in his ideas) to “secure his legacy”?

Sorry not going to happen. perhaps he needs to concentrate on domestic issues, but then again he has created enough problems and undermined the democratic system in the country enough already

4 ( +9 / -5 )

With a 29% approval rating, his party will lose in a landslide and then he will get the Park treatment of special prosecutions and jail sentences.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

What went wrong then? Probably, for the North, complete denuclearization meant South Korea shouldn’t allow U.S. forces to bring in nuclear weapons to the Peninsula while for the South, and the U.S. behind it, it only meant the complete dismantling of nuclear weapons and facilities thereof in North Korea.

No. One matter that upset the North was that the US and South Korea didn't halt all exercises. They cancelled the big division size multi service field exercises but much of the small unit training and simulated (computer and tabletop) exercises continued as usual. The North interpreted the US and South Korean promise to suspend exercises to mean no training whatsoever of any kind. That is one point that has left the North Koreans incensed with the US and South Korea.

The second thing that thoroughly enrages the North Koreans are the leaflets sent north on balloons from South Korea. It absolutely flips them out.

DPRK is demanding the US and South Korea suspend all mutual training of every kind believing that is what the US and South Korea agreed to in their first meeting with the last US President, and stop sending the leaflets over the border before they will consent to talks. Short of that they are turning their backs on South Korea.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

No, it won’t happen overnight. It will take time to build up a middle class, just like it’s taking time in China.

Lol, it won't happen overnight or at all. In the fullness of time China under Xi Jinping may find itself as shunned as the North Koreans. I would guess an increase in trade restrictions and other sanctions against China are far more likely than any relaxation of sanctions on North Korea.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Desert Tortoise

Lol, it won't happen overnight or at all.

It could happen if the the CCP drops the support for the NK regime. However you are right, that will be a long wait.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It could happen if the the CCP drops the support for the NK regime. However you are right, that will be a long wait.

The CCP will never willingly allow there to be a Korea with a democratic government, a free press, religious and personal freedoms, capitalist economy with private property rights and any degree of western orientation on its border. China would go to war to prevent that from happening. The CCP fears a democratic Korea more than almost anything else. As long as the CCP remains in power in China the one and only kind of Korean government the Chinese will permit on their border is what they have now. And with the Deaf, Blind Helmsman at the wheel in Beijing expect to see China become increasingly more like DPRK in terms of repression and government control of the economy.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Desert Tortoise: May 10 11:42 pm JST,

*The second thing that thoroughly enrages the North Koreans are the leaflets sent north on balloons from South Korea. It absolutely flips them out. *

The leaflets sent by balloon are part of the anti-Kim Jong Un regime campaign carried out by North Korean defectors living in South Korea. The Moon government prohibited such activities by law. This and another reason you mention may be direct causes for Kim Jong Un to flip out but the real cause is certainly what I pointed out.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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