
Acting president asks ex-US gov't officials to support tariff talks
Acting President Han Duck-soo asked a group of former US government officials Wednesday to support South Korea's upcoming tariff negotiations with the United States, his office said.
Han met with a group of former US officials and academics, including former Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Center for Strategic and International Studies President John Hamre.
The acting president noted their contributions to the development of the South Korea-US alliance and asked that they continue to help strengthen the relationship further from the think tanks and other institutions they belong to.
He especially called for the academia's support "from the side" to ensure South Korea and the US find a "win-win" solution in upcoming tariff and other economic talks between the two countries.
Campbell and the others were in Seoul to attend the Asan Plenum hosted by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.
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Korea Herald
6 hours ago
- Korea Herald
North Korea ramps up anti-US indoctrination for students with new tactics
North Korea has introduced new methods to drill anti-US ideology into students in Pyongyang, including the establishment of anti-US exhibition halls, state media reports said Friday. Schools in Pyongyang have been "effectively conducting anti-imperialist and anti-American class education tailored to students' ages and psychological characteristics," the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported in a Korean-language dispatch. State media further explained that 'new educational methods are being actively explored and applied' at Jangsan Senior Middle School and Ryonghung Primary School in Pyongyang. At the schools, ideological education centers that 'show the aggressive nature of imperialists' have been set up, KCNA reported. Indoctrination is conducted regularly through such anti-US exhibitions so that 'the process of learning and daily life itself becomes a process of cultivating class consciousness.' Efforts are also being made to provide practical education through field visits at Ryomyong Senior Middle School in Pyongyang to 'arm the students with thorough anti-imperialist and anti-American class consciousness,' according to KCNA. 'Students are deeply imprinting the unchanging hostile view that the aggressive nature of enemies never changes and that illusions about the enemy mean death,' through visiting key places for class consciousness education and holding 'rallies to resolve revenge," state media reported. KCNA also noted that educators at Sinri Primary School in Pyongyang are using materials that show the 'tearful lives experienced by their grandparents' generation in the past, thereby increasing the effectiveness' of anti-US ideological education. Taedonggang Senior Middle School and other schools in Pyongyang 'have prepared students to become embodyers of passionate patriotism and firm class consciousness.' To that end, anti-US ideological materials are 'widely incorporated into teaching practice,' and exhibitions of paintings on anti-US themes are being held, KCNA added. The North Korean state media report came ahead of the 'month of anti-US joint struggle,' which the country designates as the period between June 25 and July 27. North Korea claims the Korean War broke out on June 25, followed by a US invasion, while celebrating July 27 as the 'Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.' North Korea has traditionally reinforced anti-American propaganda and sentiment during that period, though the level of anti-US messaging has varied depending on its ties with Washington. Pyongyang suspended anti-American events held during this month and toned down anti-US rhetoric from 2018 to 2021 in the wake of the first US-North Korea summit on June 12, 2018. However, the Kim Jong-un regime resumed politically charged events in 2022, including nationwide anti-American rallies and art exhibitions.
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![[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea's deep political divide](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fall-logos-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fkoreaherald.com.png&w=48&q=75)
Korea Herald
16 hours ago
- Korea Herald
[Robert J. Fouser] South Korea's deep political divide
Lee Jae-myung of the slightly center-left Democratic Party of Korea began his presidency with a whirlwind of activity after winning a decisive victory in the recent presidential election. Though only ten days have passed, the election seems like a distant event. As with other elections, the results offer insight into the current state and future direction of South Korean politics. This was the ninth election held since the 1987 democratic reforms that permitted the direct election of the president to a single five-year term. Since then, no party has won more than two presidential elections in a row, and power has shifted from center-right to center-left groups four times. Similar shifts between parties have occurred in National Assembly elections, which are held every four years. These shifts suggest that South Korean voters are evenly divided. Lee Jae-myung's recent victory underscores this pattern. Going into the election, most polls predicted he would win over 50 percent of the vote, but he ultimately won 49.4 percent. Park Geun-hye is the only presidential candidate since 1987 to win a majority of the vote, having won 51.6 percent in 2012. Left-wing candidate Kwon Young-guk got just under 1 percent of the vote. Combined with Lee's 49.4 percent, center-left candidates earned a total of 50.4 percent. Though this is a majority, it is only slightly above the 50.2 percent that center-left candidates earned in 2022. In contrast, Kim Moon-soo, the leading center-right candidate from the People Power Party, won only 41.2 percent of the vote. This is the second-lowest percentage for a candidate from the established center-right bloc since 1987. Only Hong Joon-pyo did worse in 2017, winning 24 percent of the vote. Controversial right-wing candidate Lee Jun-seok won 8.3 percent of the vote, bringing the total for center-right candidates to 49.5 percent. Though Lee Jae-myung had a large lead over second-place candidate Kim Moon-soo, the combined vote total of center-right candidates has remained close to 50 percent in every election since 1987. In 2022, center-right candidates, including election winner and now disgraced former president Yoon Suk Yeol, garnered 49.4 percent of the vote. In 2017, Moon Jae-in won the election with 40.1 percent, and center-right candidates received 52.2 percent of the vote. These statistics suggest that South Korea is evenly divided between center-right and center-left groups, each dominated by a large party with historical roots. This means elections are decided by a small shift in votes or division within one of the groups. Both occurred in the recent election, helping Lee Jae-myung open a large lead over Kim Moon-soo. The same thing helped Moon Jae-in win in 2017. A look at any map of recent election results explains why neither group can win by a large margin. The results of the 2025 election show the country divided evenly between east and west, with the People Power Party in red on the right and the Democratic Party in blue on the left. There are splashes of red in the Gangnam area of Seoul and in rural areas of North and South Chungcheong Provinces, but most of the area is blue. The Honam region, centered on Gwangju, is deep blue. The east is dominated by red, with the Yeongnam region, centered on Daegu and Busan, being heavily red. This sharp division between Honam and Yeongnam has been a constant in South Korean elections since 1987. Though this division has lessened slightly in recent years, it remains significant at all levels of politics. Democratic Party candidates show strength in Busan and Ulsan, which have attracted residents from around the country. However, People Power Party candidates rarely win anywhere in Honam. The problem for the Democratic Party is that Yeongnam's population is twice that of Honam. Nationally, voters in their 40s and 50s overwhelmingly supported Lee Jae-myung, offsetting Kim Moon-soo's strong support in Yeongnam. Meanwhile, Lee Joon-seok's anti-establishment rhetoric attracted male voters in their 20s and 30s, who supported him in large numbers, confirming the emergence of another generational divide that first appeared in the 2022 presidential election. Ultimately, the election was triggered by the successful impeachment of Yoon Suk-yeol for briefly imposing martial law in December 2024. Although polls showed that 60 percent of voters supported impeachment, Lee Jae-myung received just under 50 percent of the vote. This suggests that established regional and generational divides influenced voters more than the desire to repudiate Yoon by punishing the People Power Party at the ballot box. These deeply entrenched divides are likely to continue to influence South Korean politics for years to come. Robert J. Fouser, a former associate professor of Korean language education at Seoul National University, writes on Korea from Providence, Rhode Island. He can be reached at robertjfouser@ The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed.


Korea Herald
a day ago
- Korea Herald
Korean border goes quiet, Trump overture — Is new breeze blowing?
Silence fell on the inter-Korean border for the first time in about a year, as North Korea abruptly halted its propaganda and noise broadcasts on Thursday — a day after Seoul preemptively paused its own loudspeaker broadcasts along the frontier. While it remains uncertain whether Pyongyang's pause will endure or signals a turning point, the mutual silence has raised cautious hopes at a time when inter-Korean relations are at their lowest ebb. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed Thursday that 'there has been no noise since the last anti-South Korea broadcast was heard late last night on the western front." The South Korean military, however, said it 'is closely monitoring North Korea's movements' to see whether the halt to anti-South Korean propaganda broadcasts will continue. The liberal Lee Jae-myung administration took the proactive step of fully pausing loudspeaker broadcasts along the inter-Korean border as of 2 p.m. Wednesday. The presidential office explained that the move aimed at 'restoring confidence in inter-Korean relations and establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula.' The previous conservative Yoon Suk Yeol administration resumed propaganda broadcasts along the inter-Korean border in June 2024, for the first time in around six years, in response to North Korea's consecutive launches of trash-filled balloons. North Korea had responded to anti-South Korea broadcasts since July last year, transmitting sounds such as screeching metal, ghostly wails and animal noises, which had tormented residents in border areas for nearly a year. 'As North Korea responded to our government's pause of loudspeaker broadcasts toward the North, the suffering of residents in border areas has been alleviated,' a senior Unification Ministry official said on condition of anonymity on Thursday during a closed-door briefing. 'It is assessed that this has served as a meaningful opportunity to ease military tensions between the two Koreas and restore mutual confidence," the official added. The measure followed the Unification Ministry's public call on Monday for civic groups to stop sending anti-North Korea leaflets across the inter-Korean border, marking a shift from the previous policy under the Yoon administration. However, the Unification Ministry official confirmed that 'there are no official communication channels between South and North Korea.' North Korea has refused to answer regularly scheduled military-to-military calls from South Korea since April 7, 2023. The two Koreas are supposed to hold calls twice a day —in the morning and afternoon — via liaison and military hotlines. Pyongyang did not respond to Seoul's call through the liaison hotline Thursday morning, the official added. Inter-Korean relations have entered a prolonged downward spiral, including North Korea's designation of South Korea as an "enemy" state in its constitution. However, the inauguration of President Lee Jae-myung — who has vowed to restore inter-Korean communications and reduce tensions — along with the return of Trump, has raised hopes of a new diplomatic thaw on the Korean Peninsula. Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, said Wednesday that Trump "remains receptive to correspondence with Kim Jong-un, and he'd like to see the progress that was made at that summit in Singapore, which I know you covered in 2018 during his first term." The White House's response came after NK News, a Seoul-based media outlet specializing in North Korea issues, reported Wednesday that North Korean diplomats in New York had refused to accept a letter from Trump to Kim on multiple occasions, citing an unnamed informed source. Trump and Kim held three in-person summits between 2018 and 2019 and exchanged at least 27 personal letters, according to publicly disclosed records, as key means to build rapport between the two leaders. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University's Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said North Korea's refusal to receive Trump's letter — if the media report is true — can be seen as Kim telling Trump to first take action. 'It is a message of pressure that preemptive measures — such as a substantive change to the US' hostile policy toward North Korea — must be taken in order to restore leader-to-leader relations and exchanges of personal letters, as in the past,' Lim said. Lim also noted that growing alignment between North Korea and Russia, and internal circumstances in North Korea — such as Kim's goal to inspire anti-South and anti-American sentiment for the regime's stability — could be reasons for its apparently cold response to Trump's letter. 'However, it is difficult to conclude that North Korea's position is fixed and unchanging in the mid-to-long term,' Lim added, pointing to various factors, including developments in the war in Ukraine and consequent changes in US–Russia relations.