On the Korean Peninsula

China is not going to like this:

To the steady rat-tat-tat of machine guns and exploding bursts of smoke, amphibious tanks slice across a lake not far from the big green mountains that stand along the world’s most heavily armed border.

Dozens of South Korean and U.S. combat engineers build a pontoon bridge to ferry tanks and armored vehicles across the water, all within easy range of North Korean artillery.

For seven decades, the allies have staged annual drills like this recent one to deter aggression from North Korea, whose 1950 surprise invasion of South Korea started a war that has technically yet to end.

The alliance with the United States has allowed South Korea to build a powerful democracy, its citizens confident that Washington would protect them if Pyongyang ever acted on its dream of unifying the Korean Peninsula under its own rule.

Until now.

With dozens of nukes in North Korea’s burgeoning arsenal, repeated threats to launch them at its enemies, and a stream of tests of powerful missiles designed to pinpoint target a U.S. city with a nuclear strike, a growing number of South Koreans are losing faith in America’s vow to back its longtime ally.

The fear is this: That a U.S. president would hesitate to use nuclear weapons to defend the South from a North Korean attack knowing that Pyongyang could kill millions of Americans with atomic retaliation.

Frequent polls show a strong majority of South Koreans — between 70% and 80% in some surveys — support their nation acquiring atomic weapons or urging Washington to bring back the tactical nuclear weapons it removed from the South in the early 1990s.

 

Why would South Korea let the US do such a thing? 

South Korean President Yoon picks a new finance minister:

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on Monday nominated former chief economic advisor Choi Sang-mok to be the country’s next finance minister, with the incumbent widely expected to step down to run for election.

Choi, who is replacing Choo Kyung-ho, will need to maintain economic momentum ahead of parliamentary elections next April, which will determine the legislative support level for a number of bills proposed by the government including the ministry's proposal to restrict fiscal spending growth.

"With this (decision) Yoon is trying to make sure there is policy continuity in place ahead of election," said Park Sang-hyun, an economist at HI Investment & Securities. "Choi has been longtime finance ministry person and he basically spearheaded major economics policies of the Yoon administration from the very beginning so its a safe choice."

Currently, the ruling party controls only 37% in the 298-member parliament, compared with 56% or 168 seats held by the main opposition party.

The reshuffle comes as Yoon's approval rating has fallen for a third straight week to 32% in the last week of November from 36% in the second week, data from Gallup Korea shows.

Yoon and his ruling party will have to navigate a host of challenges in their quest to regain control of parliament in the upcoming April general election, including higher borrowing costs that have dented private consumption and added to the pressure on households grappling with elevated debt levels.

Moreover, despite the country's restrictive policy interest rate at 3.5%, consumer inflation accelerated for a third month in October amid higher food costs, far above the Bank of Korea's target rate of 2%.

Choi has a bachelor's degree from the Seoul National University law school, where Yoon also studied around the same time. Choi's career in government service has been mostly at the finance ministry, overseeing economic policy making, financial market policies, and external business relations.

Outgoing minister Choo is widely expected to run for elections in the Daegu district, a conservative stronghold in the country's southeast where he was born.

Yoon doesn’t need parliamentary approval to appoint a new finance minister, who also serves as deputy prime minister.

 

 

One way to keep population growth steady is not to starve people to death:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said it is a duty of women to halt a fall in the country’s births in order to strengthen national power, state media said Monday, as his government steps up the call for the people to have more children.

While getting a detailed read on North Korea’s population trends is extremely difficult because of the limited statistics it discloses, South Korea’s government assesses that the North’s fertility rate has declined steadily for the past 10 years. That is a concerning development for a country that depends on mobilized labor to help keep its broken, heavily sanctioned economy afloat.

Kim's latest appeal for women to have more children was made Sunday during the country’s National Mothers Meeting, the first of its kind in 11 years.

“Stopping the decline in birthrates and providing good child care and education are all our family affairs that we should solve together with our mothers," Kim said in his opening speech.

According to South Korea’s government statistics agency, North Korea’s total fertility rate, or the average number of babies expected to be born to a woman over her lifetime, was at 1.79 in 2022, down from 1.88 in 2014. The decline is still slower than its wealthier rival South Korea, whose fertility rate last year was 0.78, down from 1.20 in 2014.