Tim Shorrock reports in The Nation; A bitter dispute between South Korea and Japan over compensation for Korean victims of Japan’s war crimes escalated last week when Seoul announced that it would terminate a 2016 bilateral agreement with Tokyo to share classified military intelligence. The unprecedented move drew howls of outrage from US officials and analysts that...
Category: South Korea
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Keep Hope Alive: South Korea’s Moon Meets Dan Coats to Save Nuclear Talks
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats is in South Korea meeting with President Moon Jae-in. Moon is trying to coax Trump into an agreement with North Korea that will end the Korea war and gradually denuclearize the Korean peninsula. On this issue, many Democrats in Washington are mindlessly siding with John Bolton against the peace-minded...
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Trump-Kim Handshake Restarts Denuclearization Talks
If there’s one thing Democrats agree on, it is that President Trump’s very brief visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone to shake hands with North Korean leader is a “photo op” not a substantive move, a stunt not diplomacy. Kamala Harris said it. Elizabeth Warren said it. Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said it. So...
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Moon Rising: Trump and Kim Letters Revive Hope for Denuclearization Talks
Maybe the U.S.-Korea denuclearization talks aren’t dead after all. President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have exchanged friendly letters and Trump is headed to South Korea for a visit. These developments are boost for South Korean president Moon Jae-in who has facilitated the on-again, off-again negotiations of the two mercurial leaders. With talks...
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Richard Holbrooke’s Empty Legacy for 2020 Democrats
It all began so promisingly. Inspired by the idealism of President John F. Kennedy, young Richard Holbrooke, a gangly 21-year-old graduate of Brown, joined the Foreign Service in 1962. The State Department assigned him to the rural southern tip of Vietnam. In a region where the South Vietnamese army and its American advisers claimed to...