South Korea News

The Daily Signal reports on South Korea with conservative commentary on the U.S.-ROK military alliance, North Korean missile threats, denuclearization negotiations, troop deployments, economic partnership, and Seoul’s frontline position defending against communist aggression.
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    • Opinion

    As South Korea Impeaches President, US Must Remain Steady Ally

    The South Korean National Assembly impeached President Park Geun-hye Friday by a resounding vote of 234-56. Under the country’s constitution, Park will immediately cede all her authorities to Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn but remain in office until the Constitutional Court reviews the impeachment proceedings. The largest liberal opposition party has declared that it will not…
    Bruce Klingner
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    • Opinion

    US Security Benefits When Japan, South Korea Share Intelligence

    South Korea recently announced it would restart negotiations with Japan for a military and intelligence sharing agreement. Washington should encourage this growing security cooperation. Moon Sang-gyun, spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense, said Sept. 27 that North Korea’s “nuclear and missile threats are escalating by the day, so our security situation is becoming…
    Bruce Klingner
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    • Opinion

    US Right to Affirm Necessity of Missile Defense in South Korea

    During Wednesday’s bilateral ministerial meeting, Secretary of State John Kerry underscored Washington’s resolve to defend our South Korean ally against missile attacks. The biennial “2+2 meeting” (secretaries of defense and state with their South Korean counterparts) took place in the shadow of an escalating North Korean nuclear and missile threat. Kerry vowed that the U.S….
    Bruce Klingner
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    • Opinion

    South Korea and Japan Resolve ‘Comfort Women’ Issue

    South Korea and Japan reached a landmark agreement Monday to settle long-standing divisive issues resulting from Japan’s 1910-45 occupation of the Korean Peninsula. The most emotional and complex topic was that of women forced into sexual slavery, euphemistically known as “comfort women.” Japan had asserted that the issue, included compensation, had been settled during the 1965…
    Bruce Klingner
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    • Opinion

    South Korea Looks To China for Help With Aggressive North Korea

    South Korean President Park Geun-hye traveled to Beijing this week to attend events commemorating the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. She met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss North Korea—both the regime’s recent provocations and the nascent effort at inter-Korean reconciliation. Both leaders warned North Korea against committing further provocations….
    Bruce Klingner
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    • Opinion

    North and South Korea Step Back From Precipice of War

    SEOUL, South Korea – After marathon talks, North and South Korea have reached an agreement to defuse the rising tensions, which had created the potential for a military clash along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Both Koreas can claim they achieved what they wanted. But, as with any development on the Korean Peninsula, the agreement will…
    Bruce Klingner
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    • News

    Japanese and South Korean Ambassadors Identify Strategies to Combat North Korea’s Growing Power

    Through its continuous work to build, deploy and sell nuclear weapons and its general belligerence toward the rest of the region, North Korea is putting pressure on nearby democracies. Those democracies should put the pressure right back on the hermit kingdom by opposing its missile development and sales and exposing its appalling human rights record….
    Diana Stancy
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    • Opinion

    South Korea–Japan Relationship: Time to Move Forward

    After Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s successful trip to America, South Korean media and its people were up in arms. Seoul criticized Abe for not making unambiguous apologies for Japanese wartime brutalities during his speech to the U.S. Congress and critiqued his use of the term “human trafficking” in reference to Japanese soldier’s abuse of…
    Eunjoong Kim
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    • Opinion

    Foreign Ministers of South Korea, Japan, and China Finally Meet

    Saturday, the Foreign Ministers of East Asia’s largest economies met for the first trilateral meeting in three years. The ministers have met on the sidelines of regional meetings before, but the hope is that this first three-way meeting between Ministers Yun Byung-se, Fumio Kishida, and Wang Yi is a step toward stabilizing relations amongst the…
    Riley Walters
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    • News

    South Korean Pastor’s ‘Drop Box’ Saves Hundreds of Unwanted, But ‘Perfect’ Lives

    Most people associate the words “drop box,” with the online file-sharing tool that allows users to share data across computers and smartphones from anywhere, instantly. But for Jong-rak Lee, a pastor from Seoul, South Korea, the term has a very different meaning. For Lee, a drop box is a way to save hundreds of unwanted…
    Kelsey Bolar
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    • Opinion

    U.S., South Korea Reverse Plan to Turn Over Military Command

    Washington and Seoul wisely decided during senior-level military talks on October 23 to abandon a 2007 plan to dissolve the existing allied military command structure on the Korean Peninsula. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and South Korean Minister of Defense Han Min-koo agreed to postpone indefinitely the planned return of wartime operational control (OPCON) of…
    Bruce Klingner
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