Today’s Washington Posts asks if the new LMB administration will really put its food aid where its mouth is and choose principle over hunger in the North.

Does President Lee withhold food aid that may prop up the government of the North or will he help avert a possible humanitarian crisis? Choices.. choices…

Whereas some may have reservations of LMB’s policy to neighbors in the north, others are quite upset at his proposed “more mature” relationship with its neighbor to the east (you know, the country who’s name starts with a “J“).

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Robert wanted to see it on Youtube, well how about Veoh?  The video shown to Congress has been made public.  Check out the chummy picture in 5:40.

Update

The Washington Post has published an interesting article theorizing why the administration has made public, seven months after Israeli jets destroyed the site, the findings.  It also introduces an idea that the Bush administration (perhaps Dick Cheney, possessed by the ghost of John Bolton?) had less than an “honest” rationale.  Per the article:

“But there are still some who suspect the announcement is the work of Vice President Cheney and other administration neocons who are trying to upset those negotiations — and further ratchet up tensions with Iran. “

Even some Congressman who viewed the evidence were skeptical.  Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, had this to say after his meeting with CIA briefers:

“I think many people believe that we were used today by the administration because - not because they felt they had to inform Congress because it was their legal obligation to do that, but because they had other agendas in mind. . . . I think what we saw in the committee today, I think the chairman would agree that the relationship that we need to get international issues done, foreign policy issues done, a trusting environment between the administration and Congress, does not exist.”

So, is the Bush administration genuinely concerned about proliferation and North Korea, or is this a clumsy neocon plot?

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As you may all know, Lee Kun-hee has publicly resigned as Samsung Group’s Chairman.  Or has he?  According to today’s Washington Post, Lee’s power and influence may stay long after his announced resignation.  The tentacle-like arms of the Lee family are long and far reaching and the press conference yesterday may merely be a rehearsal to a puppet master pulling the strings from above. 

However, others take a more positive view and see it as the begining of the end for Korea’s plutocratic chaebols and its kleptocratic and “chummy” relationship with the government.  Yeah, right indeed.

In anycase, looks like Lee Kun-hee’s ajoshi drinking and golf buddies are up in arms, protesting the charges and burning pictures of Kim Yong-Chul.

At the end of the day, Korea may be at a cross roads of sorts, with a choice to reduce graft and corruption or just go with the program as usual.  An article from Bloomberg quotes our very own Brendon Carr who says dryly:

“Korea is corrupt fundamentally…. Corruption is illegal on the books, but it’s socially mandatory.”

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I’m sorry, but it’s really, really bad form for an ex-president to tour the United States while the sitting president is in town for a summit meeting in a bid to undercut his foreign policy initiatives.

Not that I expect much from DJ, of course.

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Speaking to newly promoted lieutenant generals this morning, President Lee defended comments by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Kim Tae-young, saying that Kim’s talk of preemptive strikes on North Korean nuclear facilities was in response to a lawmaker’s question, and hence natural. He said Kim’s comments carried no other meaning (other than, I’d suppose, that Seoul intended to whack North Korea in the event of an emergency), and that it was “undesirable” for the North to raise tensions over them.

He also said that since his inauguration, North Korea had been raising tensions, but he expected no further deterioration in the situation. In fact, he said, from the perspective that the North and South should talk honestly with one another, what was needed was not “strategic” dialogue aimed at each other, but rather substantive dialogue in which the two sides opened their hearts to one another.

You know, I have to say, going on record as saying that you didn’t expect things to get worse is almost like inviting North Korea to do something.

According to Yonhap, Lee’s comments are interpreted as an expression of the government’s intent not to get caught up in North Korea recent offensive, as well as a call for the North to formulate a new intra-Korean relationship appropriate to the new environment.

In particularly, Lee said his administration wanted to have sincere dialogue with the North concerning intra-Korean issues, but for this to happen, North Korea, too, had to change the way in which it has done things till now.

He explained he wasn’t asking just the North to change, but rather than both North and South should engage in dialogue that matched global trends. Only if this happened would dialogue benefit one another.

He added that through dialogue, North and South should boost cooperation with one another.

(English Yonhap story here)

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We might not have Roh Moo-hyun to kick around anymore, but one of the fringe benefits of the end of left-wing rule in South Korea is we get to listen to entertaining North Korean rants again:

North Korea slammed Tuesday South Korean President Lee Myung-bak for the first time since he took office in February, warning the hardline Lee administration will have to face “irrevocable catastrophic consequences” from inter-Korean confrontation.

The denunciation follows the North’s threats last week to turn South Korea into ashes if the South tries to launch a pre-emptive attack on the North, and delay disablement of its nuclear facilities over the dispute on the North’s alleged uranium-based nuclear program.

For those brushing up on their North Koreanese, the actual statement was “The South Korean authorities will earn only destruction through anti-North Korean confrontation,” with “destruction” being pamyeol.

Ye Olde Rodong also said a “perilous path of thorns” lies ahead in North-South relations, and it would have an affect on the circumstances surrounding [the Korean Peninsula].

Even more interesting, the Rodong called President Lee Myung-bak out by name, referring to him as “Lee Myung-bak yeokdo” (”Traitor” or “Rebel” Lee Myung-bak).

This is why nobody should ever feel bad about US leaders calling Kim Jong-il names.

Anyway, Cheong Wa Dae said it was trying to figure out North Korea’s intention in directly insulting the popularly elected leader of South Korea.

UPDATE: My bad — the actual line cited in the KT piece was, “The Lee Myung-bak administration will bear complete responsibility for freezing intra-Korean relations and creating an irreversibly catastrophic situation, owing to their flunkyist pro-American anti-North confrontational schemes.”

That’s a great turn of phrase.

Interestingly, the Rodong also took cited the Lee administration’s “Denuclearization and Openess 3000″ policy, calling it “reactionary pragmatism.” In particular, it said Lee was trying to degrade intra-Korean relations into some a “trinket of practical diplomacy,” and that predicating intra-Korean relations on North Korea completely abandoning its nuclear program and opening up was “extremely absurd.”

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You know, I think the North Koreans are trying to say they are displeased with the direction the new South Korean administration has taken in regards to intra-Korean affairs.

Yawn…

(HT to reader)

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Pyongyang is apparently miffed that South Korea no longer has a leader who will bend over and take it:

In a sign of tense inter-Korean relations, North Korea Thursday expelled most of Korean officials from the Kaesong Industrial Complex.

The turnaround of the North’s stance came in an apparent protest over the current Lee Myung-bak administration’s tough policy in dealing with the reclusive nation.

President Lee has said his government would pursue pragmatic policies by linking inter-Korean economic exchanges to the international efforts to resolve the lingering standoff over the North’s nuclear development program.

Lee’s stance is in stark contrast with the previous two governments which had been seeking the reconciliatory “sunshine policy” engaging North Korea.

North Korea reportedly showed 11 of 13 South Korean officials the door.

UPDATE: In particular, the North Koreans cited South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-jung’s March 19 comment to an association of small and mid-sized businesses that “it would be difficult to expand the Kaesong Industrial Complex without a resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue” as their reason for demanding the removal of the South Korean officials from Kaesong.

The North Koreans apparently made the request verbally on March 24. Seoul asked that the North put its official position in writing, but the North refused. Following repeated requests by the North for the officials’ removal, the South finally complied this morning.

UPDATE 2: This underlines the basic “problem” with President Lee Myung-bak’s “practical” policies towards the North and a “new basic spirit,” namely, good luck getting North Korea to play along. I put “problem” in quotes because I have a sneaking suspicion that Lee is a bigger hardliner than he sounds and doesn’t view it as a problem — he predicates relations with the North on reciprocity and a solution to the nuke issue, which, given how the North doesn’t “do” reciprocity and has no intention of giving up its nukes, essentially means intra-Korean relations stand poised to go in the tank. And LMB knows it.

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It’s not particularly surprising that the plans exist, but it’s certainly new to hear them mentioned in public:

The South Korean military is prepared to launch a pre-emptive attack on North Korea’s nuclear installations if they become a military threat, Gen. Kim Tae-young, the newly designated chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a hearing yesterday.

It was the first time the military has confirmed contingency plans for a pre-emptive attack on Pyongyang’s nuclear facilities and comes as Seoul’s new conservative government is being closely watched for signs of how it will approach North Korea

Kim also expressed his intention to defend the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea, which he called “as significant as the land border.”

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Nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests:

President Lee Myung-bak on Tuesday called for a pragmatic diplomacy to maximize the national interest, adding, “I don’t agree with such concepts as pro-American or pro-Chinese policy.”

Lee made the remarks to Foreign Ministry officials at a ministry policy briefing. “If their national interests are matched, both nations can become allies. But if there is a clash of national interests, there is no alliance,” he said. “Of course, we should maintain a solid alliance with the U.S. But the U.S. would not want to maintain an alliance with South Korea if the alliance clashes with its own national interest.”

LMB also took time to crush Foreign Ministry morale:

Lee criticized the way ties with the U.S. and Japan have been handled. “If we look back on what our country has done in regional and multilateral cooperation, we can see that we have conducted diplomacy that is incompatible with the trends of the 21st century,” he said. “The Foreign Ministry has played a central role in doing that.” He added that “I am not merely dissatisfied with the ministry’s performance; it is worse than that. Let me make it clear that I have complaints about what the ministry has done so far.”

In addition, Lee called for the resumption of shuttle diplomacy with Japan and, more interestingly, the start of shuttle diplomacy with North Korea.

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