South Korea Elects Liberal New President Who May Reconsider THAAD Deployment
South Korea really moved fast on what may go down as the biggest political scandal of the modern era. From when now former and impeached President Park Geun Hye was outed as being under the thumb of her best friend and daughter of a cult leader Choi Soon Shil to when Park Geun Hye’s impeachment was upheld by the court, that process took about 6 months and now a mere two months later South Korea has it’s new president thanks to a snap election.
Winning the election is liberal candidate Moon Jae In, who actually ran against Park Geun Hye but lost to her in 2013. What makes Moon Jae In’s election very important to watch is that’s openly announced his intention to revisit the THAAD deployment which has contributed to heightened tensions in the Korean peninsula and for us drama viewers led to K-dramas getting unofficially banned in China. Since this is a drama blog I’ll dispense with any international relations commentary but merely say that THAAD is a hot button issue even within South Korea, with the conservatives backing it as protection against the North and liberals against it for bringing saber rattling to rile up the crazy dude even more.
THAAD deployment was only an excuse to ban K-stars by China. I’m sure even without THAAD issue, China will limit the amount of kdramas/movies shown there.
Two important élections the same week. Emmanuel Macron and a new president for South Korea. Wish the best for our countries. But Our president is younger and handsome . LOL. And for once , the man is younger than his wife ( 24 years).
I don’t even know where to start with the last 2 sentences of your comment honestly.
Anyway hopefully the next big political event (in the far future) is Trump getting impeached. This man just fired the director of the FBI…is he possessed by the Spirit of Nixon or something? Anyway the truth always comes out just like it did with SK’s former disgraced President.
@ deb don’t take seriously my 2 sentences. It’s a blog about k Entertainment so i didn’t want to make politics comments. But i was happy that my country didn’t choose the wrong path like Us and Great Britain did. But i’m not as optimist as you are about the fact that the truth always comes out in politics. What happened with SK’s former President is something big. Hope that the new president will calm down the tensions. I wouldn’t like to be in his shoes ! Between 2 dictatures and a narcisist like Trump !
I have my issues with Trump, but firing Comey ain’t gonna be one of them. Obama wanted to do it but couldn’t because of the Clinton investigation.
@Kat Obama actually cared about getting to the truth (though that investigation was bogus anyway) and the appearance of a conflict of interest. This administration doesn’t give a crap. Funny how AG sessions recused himself from the investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia but then goes ahead and fires the head of the investigation. Coincidence right? Ha!
@DanaXOX There’s a reason Sessions didn’t do the report on the firing and the guy in charge of the Russia case did do the report. The fact Rubenstein managed to get confirmed with only 6 no votes in this divided Senate is almost a miracle. Politically it would have been smarter to keep Comey, but he did everything wrong last year both in taking over for the DOJ and in reporting the re-opening of the investigation imo, and to see politicians who demanded his head on platter 6 months ago now say it’s a bridge too far to get rid of him shows the hypocrisy of the D.C. bubble. More importantly, he’d lost the faith of the FBI agents under him. When you lose their respect, you’re done. He should have put aside his ego and resigned.
As far as the “bogus” investigation, my husband had TS clearance for much of his career and if he did what she did, he would have been dishonorably discharged and gifted a fast trip to Leavenworth and people in the community that deal with these issues all know it. I realize people come to see things through their own prism and people of good will can and do disagree. So it’s all good.
Oops that’s Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.
@Kat Whatever the case may have with your husband, no offense, the email server business was by no means unprecedented. Meaning plenty of other important officials have used/is using private servers without problem or the level of public outrage that was directed at Clinton. That’s not to say she wasn’t stupid for doing it and opened herself to attack.
And I’m not saying Comey shouldn’t have been fired. Yet the question remains: why was he fired now just as Yates’s testimony redrew attention to this Russia investigation and as the subpoenas went out yesterday for the investigation.
Confirming Rubenstein is not the same thing as anointing him as some backup for sessions. That requires an actual special prosecutor. And sessions did sign off on Rubinstein’s recommendation and, therefore, was inappropriately involved.
People will disagree. But I’m tired of hearing the facts being spun.
And I realized all of this didn’t have to be said: if Clinton were president and she fired comey in the midst of the (another) email investigation, everyone’s heads would explode.
Prisms. Lol
@cahill – funny comment… your last two sentences… lolol… yes your president has won the age gap difference with the Trumps by one year!! I hope the new SK president will mellow the political tension with China, we certainly don’t want to see a “WW III” happening ever…
Contrary, English people don’t think they have taken the wrong path down Brexit and that’s why we have another national election next month to strengthen Theresa May’s stance. Scottish people might not agree with us but we will wait and see.
I agree. Can’t say anything about other countries but Europeans seem to have a stronger reaction to Brexit than Britons do. Many British people I know don’t think they have taken the wrong path though. They keep saying that those who voted remain will one day understand why they cast the Brexit votes.
For so many years, there’s been not a lot of luck dealing with North Korea because of China propping them up. Now there appears to be a tiny tiny bit of hope of China leaning on them so for the people of NK I will hope a little luck will finally go their way. It is my understanding that China became more concerned because of that wacky assassination I believe happened around Feb time frame.
thanks to Motherdear China, who have neen funding their poor baby NKorea, now it has grown to be a monster and they dont want others to take self defense, what a bully selfish b*tch!
The feud between the two Korea has been going on for so long, everyone is starting to take it as a joke saying N Korea is bluffing but I think any matter with such a corrupted leader shouldn’t be taken so lightly. Look what happened to the US, they took their president as a joke and in the end they elected a joke. So, never underestimate N Korea, wouldn’t want to end up like Kim’s half brother, that was pretty sick. Good luck to every country in the world, last year to now hasn’t been the best in regards to politics for any country.
I will never take the leader of NK as a joke. In the past , they took Hitler as an hysteric, …No comment. People should learn from History.People tend to easily forget the past and has a great capacity to do always the same errors .
You don’t but a lot of people do. It’s become a numb feeling when n Korea make threats to s Korea or even the US. The US provokes them in a way, making fun of Kim through film and such so really a lot of people aren’t taking him seriously. But yes, humans need to learn from their past.
@Nee Yes, but if they joke about a despot who kills humans of his own country, good for them but for me every human is precious !
Well it’s mere an entertainment blog but I still want to point out the huge drama China has created over THAAD issue. One of my acquintance who has life-long experience of dealing with defence technology and other defence related matters and who has also been in almost all of the countries told me THAAD is useless against N Korean missiles. N Korean’s nuclear arsenal is much more extensive and affective than news reports would like you to believe that’s why that country is still untouched by outer world.
China and Russia have hundred of times more efficient missile defence systems in their respective countries yet China is making hue and cry inspite knowing THAAD is unable to touch their most of the missiles.
S Korean protests are coming from the facts first they have to pay huge money for such a useless thing and second they don’t want to go on the wrong side of fat crazy Kim guy.
Whatever fat Kim is much more smarter than the world would like you to believe. Making S Korea a nuclear wasteland is certainly not in his wish-list.
My prayer is whole of east Asia could remain peaceful place devoid of any conflicts and N and S Korea could reunite and end their respective suffering.
North and South Korea to unite? so will South Korea be ok to have Kim as their President?? those who are mighty always get the throne!
Dumbass.. thousands of years old civilisation has been divided with a border for like 50 years. The Berlin Wall got taken down by PEOPLE and thus East and West-Germany united. Completely possible here too, only if peace and communication prevail. But you can choose to remain brainwashed 🙂
Wow, calling someone “dumbass”, why is that necessary?
Well it would be highly inconvenient for both of the countries to reunite at present time. But if both of the country can maintain a healthy relationship without any external interference and can have cultural, economic and technological exchanges then they can have a common ground which can make reunion possible in future.
Don’t forget that N Korea too seeks this kind of relationship with S Korea.
That country is suffering due to heavy econoimical sanctions by international organisations.
@Prettyautumn
Yes you are right S and N Korean are brothers with thousand of years history together but unfortunately one of them is caught in time warp.
Some of people may don’t know but Kim family of N Korea is actually from S Korea.
Only communication and education work in this world. Europeans and Americans so conveniently love to forget their own violent history and they take their peace and prosperity for granted. If South-Korea and Japan hadn’t been economically developed and important partners and allies to USA, do you really think NK would have existed? If SK and Japan had been countries like Afghanistan or Iraq, NK had been bombed with nuclear weapons a long time ago lol. If communication prevails, change can happen from inside. If people from both SK and NK do like they did in East and West-Germany, there would be no border. Unfortunately bigger political powers have too much interest and are keeping this status quo there. Also, if China really wanted, NK wouldn’t exist at all the day the decide to stop the insanity of the Kim dynasty, but it’s too convenient for them to keep NK at their backyard.
i just don’t understand how can system defence in one country can be so many problem,s Korean need more than THAAD,remember how strategist s. korea is.
it little bit ironic if s.korea change their mind about this,and i just hope their new government more patience and wise than before so not easy to them to get provocation from other country (especially from America and China)
I don’t think Mr. Moon is a real liberalist. He’s socialist, maybe comunist. And his party’s policy, “Sunshine Policy”, is like trojan horse for South Korea itself.
IKR, they call him liberal and yet he wants THAAD out?? I thought its the Liberal in US who pushed that THAAD in Korean peninsula, during time of Obama.
What’s hilarious is Americans pushing their brand of politics and idea of liberalism on others and expecting them to follow suit.
SK should do what is best for SK, not what liberal Americans or Communist China wants.
Bravo Dee, i totally agree???
second that he is a communist.
lololol ”communist’’/’’socialist” so y’all dumb americans have been seriously brainwashed to the core 🙂
Learn how to write and maybe people will take you seriously ?
@Alice Lol a triggered American hahahha, haven’t you had enough by electing stupid presidents war mongering and causing political turmoils with the Soviet Union all around this world ? Oh, I forgot, the political hegemony of the United States of America makes your ultra capitalist, economically liberalist and right-wing states so GREAT. Thumbs up to y’all Americans in your way to destroy this planet and causing more and more humanitarian crises and keep being worried about grammar, when peoples lives are literally at peril 🙂
I am an American, living and loving my country. I lived in 15 other countries and experienced beautiful commonality Of being human everywhere. I am ashamed of Trump, every day. Not all Americans think the same!!!