https://www.scmp.com/rss/10554/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Even decades later, the wounds of a bloody uprising that shook the South Korean city of Gwangju in 1980 remain raw, but for retired reporter Bradley Martin, the most searing memory remains the heroism of a nameless rebel leader he met one day before his death. “He kept looking at me, and finally I asked him: ‘The military has encircled the city, they are far more powerful than you, they will kill you, what is your plan?’” Martin recalled in Seoul this week. “He said, ‘We will fight to the end,... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1948476/i-saw-death-his-eyes-decades-later-reporter-haunted-hero-bloody?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1948476/i-saw-death-his-eyes-decades-later-reporter-haunted-hero-bloody?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 May 2016 05:29:32 +0000 Public executions have declined and access to education, health care and food has improved in North Korea, but secret executions and illegal detentions have increased since leader Kim Jong-un took power in 2011. While the regime is sensitive to international criticism of its human rights abuses, increased secrecy and a reduced flow of defectors recently have made information gathering more difficult. These were some findings of the Database Centre for North Korean Human Rights, an independent,... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1937197/improved-access-education-health-care-and-food-north-korea-right?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1937197/improved-access-education-health-care-and-food-north-korea-right?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:15:41 +0000 Given that South Korea is a democracy locked in an ongoing cold war conflict with dictatorial North Korea, it would be reasonable to assume the most despised national leader among South Koreans would be Pyongyang's Kim Jong-un. In fact, it is Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. A survey of 1,000 South Koreans last year, conducted by the Seoul-based Asan Institute for Policy Studies on the popularity of global leaders, found that on a 1-10 scale - 1.0 being the lowest - Kim Jong-un won 1.3... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1876571/why-south-korea-likes-shinzo-abe-less-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1876571/why-south-korea-likes-shinzo-abe-less-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Nov 2015 03:00:30 +0000 Historical interpretations have long bedeviled relations between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But with Abe about to arrive in Seoul on Sunday, Park’s latest historical intervention has generated a storm domestically, rather than internationally. The furore began on October 12 when Park’s government announced that middle and high school history textbooks would, from 2017, be written by government authors. Current textbooks are produced by private... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/1874378/history-hangs-heavy-south-koreas-park-geun-hye-prepares-summit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/diplomacy/article/1874378/history-hangs-heavy-south-koreas-park-geun-hye-prepares-summit?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Oct 2015 04:30:30 +0000 Kim Myung-bok, 79, has not  set foot on his native soil for 60 years. Now, the slight, emotive veteran of the North Korean People’s Army begs for the chance to see his homeland one last time. “When a tiger is dying, it returns to its den,” said a weeping Kim this week in Seoul, quoting an archaic Korean proverb. “I don’t know if my family is alive or dead, but I want to visit my hometown again. Kim, who has spent his years since the war living in Brazil as a farmer, was on his first trip to the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1845237/after-living-asylum-brazil-former-north-korean-prisoner-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1845237/after-living-asylum-brazil-former-north-korean-prisoner-war?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 Jul 2015 11:40:42 +0000 An heir of mystery hung over a public spat within the Samsung empire last week. Big business in South Korea is often a family affair, never more so than on Friday when shareholders approved a highly contested deal that strengthened the Lee family's grip on the world's largest smartphone maker. The US$7.8 billion merger between Samsung Group's de facto holding company Cheil Industries and construction arm Samsung C&T Corp grants Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, currently vice-chairman of Samsung... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1841100/samsung-empire-has-heir-mystery-controversial-merger-stirs-anger?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1841100/samsung-empire-has-heir-mystery-controversial-merger-stirs-anger?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 19 Jul 2015 06:16:54 +0000 From the soccer World Cup to the summer Olympics, there are very few major sporting events that South Korea has not hosted. The latest to grace its shores is the Universiade, an international multi-sport event for university athletes that kicked off in Gwangju on Friday. But while some countries balk at the huge amounts of financial, political and social capital required for such major events, the South Koreans are always game for picking up the tab. What makes the country arguably Asia's most... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1832623/south-korea-just-loves-hosting-big-sporting-tournaments?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1832623/south-korea-just-loves-hosting-big-sporting-tournaments?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jul 2015 17:15:15 +0000 Koreans used as slave labour in Japanese factories during the second world war have demanded that Tokyo withdraw its bid to give some of those sites Unesco world heritage status, as Seoul ramps up its PR battle with Tokyo over lingering historical issues. The move comes as both countries today mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic ties with relations at their lowest in years, largely because of differences over their shared wartime history. Japan is seeking to list 23 “Sites of the Meiji... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1824691/former-korean-slaves-demand-japan-drop-bid-give-war-factories?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1824691/former-korean-slaves-demand-japan-drop-bid-give-war-factories?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Jun 2015 16:00:00 +0000 President Park Geun-hye is finding herself at the helm of her second national crisis as Mers hysteria sweeps South Korea, but it is not yet clear if her grip has got any firmer. The nation's first female leader and her administration faced an avalanche of public and media criticism in April last year for what was widely perceived as a failed rescue operation and a botched recovery effort when the Sewol ferry sunk, dragging more than 300 people, largely schoolchildren, to graves in the Yellow... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1821113/park-geun-hye-under-fire-over-handling-mers-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-asia/article/1821113/park-geun-hye-under-fire-over-handling-mers-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Jun 2015 02:51:12 +0000 An entire town has been quarantined in South Korea in a fresh scare over Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), as the World Health Organisation comes under renewed criticism from a leading Hong Kong infectious diseases expert. The number of infections rose to 64 after 14 new cases, including one death, of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) were confirmed last night, the country's health ministry said. With public health and infection protection experts due to arrive in Seoul today and... https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1817810/town-quarantined-south-korea-hong-kong-expert-blasts-who-mers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/1817810/town-quarantined-south-korea-hong-kong-expert-blasts-who-mers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 06 Jun 2015 17:45:00 +0000 A hero of the Korean war who presented his medals to the people of South Korea has asked, in return, only for his ashes to be scattered on the soil of the nation. He also spoke of the amity he feels for his Chinese former foes, and he laid to rest an erroneous controversial nickname. Briton Bill Speakman, 87, donated his Victoria Cross - the highest medal awarded by the UK and Commonwealth nations for combat bravery - and nine other medals in an emotive ceremony in Seoul on Tuesday. "Korea holds... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1773820/british-korean-war-hero-who-fought-chinese-donates-victoria-cross-medal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1773820/british-korean-war-hero-who-fought-chinese-donates-victoria-cross-medal?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Apr 2015 15:30:00 +0000 South Korea's spy agency allowed a chink of daylight into its shadowy world yesterday as it threw open its doors to foreign media. But its officials were in no mood to shine a light on some of the scandals that have cast a pall over the service in recent years. Located down a side road amid wooded hills a few miles south of Seoul, the plain concrete buildings of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) are not signposted, and it is cloaked from view by rows of vinyl-covered greenhouses - a common... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1702517/south-korean-spy-agency-opens-its-doors-stays-mum-controversies?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1702517/south-korean-spy-agency-opens-its-doors-stays-mum-controversies?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Feb 2015 15:00:15 +0000 Surrounded by the minefields, artillery emplacements and fortifications of the world's most militarised frontier, the truce village of Panmunjom squats in the very centre of Korea's Demilitarised Zone. Its three blue-painted huts straddling the border, beyond which South and North Korean sentries stand glaring at each other, are international news icons, illustrating reports whenever tensions flare on the flashpoint peninsula. To its south, the US-South Korean Camp Bonifas - with bunkers... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1530474/panmunjom-truce-village-its-quiet-life-swedish-and-swiss-soldiers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1530474/panmunjom-truce-village-its-quiet-life-swedish-and-swiss-soldiers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Jun 2014 17:30:00 +0000 As the scale of the Sewol ferry disaster inexorably expands, the nation faces a difficult question: Did an aspect of Korea's social culture contribute to the high death toll? Some commentators wonder whether the behaviour of high school students aboard - who obeyed dubious orders given by the ship's crew to remain in place, even as the ship listed steeply and water flooded in - was a symptom of a hierarchical culture in which young people are taught to obey authority figures without... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1486408/culture-obedience-scrutinized-following-korean-ferry-disaster?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1486408/culture-obedience-scrutinized-following-korean-ferry-disaster?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 17 Apr 2014 15:53:17 +0000 In an impoverished nation, and just a few minutes' drive from the world's most heavily armed border, stands an unlikely outpost of capitalism. The Kaesong industrial complex inside North Korea is a critical asset for South Korea. At a time when Chinese are free to invest in North Korea, sparking some fears in Seoul of economic colonisation, Kaesong represents the South's only economic foothold inside its estranged neighbour. It also represents a blueprint for the possible rejuvenation of the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1386568/glimpse-inside-kaesong-north-koreas-curious-capitalist-outpost?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1386568/glimpse-inside-kaesong-north-koreas-curious-capitalist-outpost?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:30:15 +0000 Kim Jong-un, who marks his second year in power in Pyongyang this week, has shown himself to be more politically gifted than his father, as well as more risk tolerant and more reformist. But for each of these attributes there is a significant caveat: the recent execution of his uncle suggests both ruthlessness and paranoia. The "Young Marshal" has displayed a greater affinity for public politics than his rarely spotted father, Kim Jong-il. The son "is more charismatic, more photogenic, a natural... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1381400/execution-shows-its-no-more-mr-nice-guy-north-koreas-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1381400/execution-shows-its-no-more-mr-nice-guy-north-koreas-kim-jong-un?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Dec 2013 20:45:00 +0000 Drinking in the champagne air as we pass out of the shadow of the pines and into the sunlight that drenches the bald granite summit of Mount Bugak, the colossal city sprawls at our feet. It's easy for Seoulites to forget - and for visitors never to realise - that just a few minutes' drive above the bustle of the megalopolis' central business district lie spectacular alpine roads, dramatic terraced parks, shaded mountain hiking trails and cool, deer-inhabit-ed forests. At 342 metres high, Mount... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1288451/high-maintenance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1288451/high-maintenance?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Is a fad for cosmetic surgery transforming South Korea's beauty queens into the kind of identikit clones previously favoured in North Korea's robotic military parades? If comments on social news and entertainment website Reddit are any indication, the answer could be "yes". On Wednesday, a Japanese blog published mug shots of 2013's 20 Miss Korea hopefuls, noting their uncanny similarity. The pictures were reposted under the title: "Korea's plastic surgery mayhem is finally converging on the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1223697/south-koreas-cosmetic-surgery-craze-creates-identikit-beauty-queen-clones?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1223697/south-koreas-cosmetic-surgery-craze-creates-identikit-beauty-queen-clones?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Apr 2013 06:09:23 +0000 While most South Koreans shrug off North Korean threats with their customary "so what?" attitude towards the threatening regime, some signs suggest the rolling crisis in North-South relations is causing at least some nerves to fray. On Tuesday, the top trending item on Naver, Korea's most popular web portal, was survival kits - personal packages featuring such items as bottled water, message pads, emergency rations and fire-starting equipment. There also appears to be some stockpiling of crisis... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1190805/latest-crisis-has-some-south-koreans-looking-threats-more-seriously?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1190805/latest-crisis-has-some-south-koreans-looking-threats-more-seriously?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 14 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Are Asia's newest super-rich willing to ditch their weekend golf games in favour of thrashing supercars around a racetrack at a purpose-built resort on an island in the Yellow Sea? That is the bet being made by Weingrow, an investment firm with offices in London's New Bond Street and Seoul's Gangnam district, and its partners, Britain's Williams and Italy's Automobili Lamborghini. Weingrow's managing director, Akis Stark, announced last month in Seoul that a memorandum of understanding had been... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1185525/f1-racing-club-asias-mega-rich?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/motoring/article/1185525/f1-racing-club-asias-mega-rich?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:00:00 +0000 With its latest nuclear test, North Korea, a country that thrives on paranoia, has thrown down the gauntlet to the one person in South Korea who was poised to ease tensions with Pyongyang: President-elect Park Geun-hye. Park, whose policies might be defined as centre-right, assumes power on February 25. She made it clear during the December election campaign that she would seek to thaw incumbent Lee Myung-bak's frozen relations with Pyongyang through incremental confidence-building steps. Her... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1149668/nuclear-test-complicates-matters-seouls-new-president?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1149668/nuclear-test-complicates-matters-seouls-new-president?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 It was a move that surprised nobody but shocked everybody, and experts are now awaiting evidence of the fallout. Was North Korea's third test of a nuclear weapon proof that it has mastered a uranium-based detonation, a more sinister threat than the plutonium-based devices it tested previously? One thing already clear is that Kim Jong-un is determined to press ahead with North Korea's strategic programme, regardless of the cost of ever-more economic sanctions, ever-deeper diplomatic isolation and... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1148818/how-will-world-react-north-koreas-latest-bombshell?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1148818/how-will-world-react-north-koreas-latest-bombshell?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 A massive issue lies in wait for South Korean president-elect Park Geun-hye when she assumes office in February, relations with the north. Since the establishment of two states in 1948, the issue has stumped her predecessors. Neither hardliners wielding sticks nor appeasers dangling carrots have managed to curb Pyongyang's behaviour. President Lee Myung-bak has frozen aid and contact in a bid to force North Korea to denuclearise. That policy has failed, and Lee's hard-line stance was more than... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1109395/park-geun-hye-balance-policy-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1109395/park-geun-hye-balance-policy-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Just days after the return of the hawkish Shinzo Abe to power in Japan, South Koreans today head to the ballot box to elect their new president. Polls indicate the race between right-winger Park Geun-hye and leftist Moon Jae-in is too tight to call. With many in the region fearing that Abe will take a harder line on historical and territorial disputes, diplomatic storms loom, regardless of the victor. But a win for Moon could push Seoul closer to Beijing. Tokyo is the target of ire from both... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1107720/south-koreans-head-ballot-box-elect-new-president?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1107720/south-koreans-head-ballot-box-elect-new-president?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 North Korea's rocket launch marked a huge leap in its strategic capabilities, but given its timing, experts are divided over who the launch was aimed at influencing. With South Koreans going to the polls to elect a new president on December 19, some believe that the timing was aimed southward, particularly given that the South's own space programme is moribund. South Korea has twice failed to launch a satellite. A third attempt is on hold, because of technical problems. Seoul's presidential... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1103962/experts-divided-over-north-korean-rockets-political-target?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1103962/experts-divided-over-north-korean-rockets-political-target?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Dec 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Kim Ki-duk, winner of the Golden Lion for his savage morality tale Pieta at this year's Venice Film Festival, is in a triumphant mood - and who can blame him? The eccentric South Korean screenwriter and director - who lives and works in a converted van on a hillside - is internationally known for the shocking themes and scenes of his films. But while the 51-year-old auteur is a favourite on the international festival circuit, he has long been a prophet without honour in his home country, unable... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1083996/film-lead-kim-ki-duk-unrepentant?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1083996/film-lead-kim-ki-duk-unrepentant?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Threats are more common from North Korea than laughs, but the European co-producers of Pyongyang-based romantic comedy Comrade Kim Goes Flying hope their film will put a more cheerful face on the hard-line state. Comrade Kim had its world premiere at last month's Toronto Film Festival, then played at the Pyongyang Film Festival. Its South Korean premiere was on October 10 at the Busan International Film Festival, where South Korea's National Security Law banning any material deemed to be... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1064905/postcard-andrew-salmon-busan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1064905/postcard-andrew-salmon-busan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 If war ever breaks out in Northeast Asia, a fair bet for ground zero is the small South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. Lying just 12 kilometres off the coast of North Korea, it was the target two years ago of the first North Korean artillery strike since the 1950-1953 Korean War. Today, its garrison is digging in deep and residents of the 17- square-kilometre island are determined to stay on - whatever the risk. "People living here have been here 60 years, on average," Kang Myung-song, 67, the... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1027797/yeonpyeong-islanders-remain-defiant-two-years-after-north-korean-attack?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1027797/yeonpyeong-islanders-remain-defiant-two-years-after-north-korean-attack?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Two high-profile North Korean defectors working for South Korea's spy agency have revealed how regime officials routinely stashed huge sums of foreign currency in their homes. Both men are analysts at the Institute for National Security Strategy, an affiliate of South Korea's National Intelligence Service. They said Kim Jong-un, who took power after his father Kim Jong-il's death in December, appears to be trying to take control of various foreign-exchange schemes controlled by the party and... https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1024748/north-korean-officials-stash-foreign-currencies-home-defectors-say?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1024748/north-korean-officials-stash-foreign-currencies-home-defectors-say?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It might have shocked South Koreans and ignited a searing controversy in the country, but Silenced has yet to bring closure to the victims of the sex crimes the film so harrowingly depicts. Silenced, directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk, is a dramatisation of a novel of the same name that was itself inspired by a serial sex abuse case at a school for the hearing impaired in the southwestern Korean city of Gwangju between 2000 and 2004. Its subject was reportedly so disturbing that it had difficulty... https://www.scmp.com/article/1004178/voice-silenced?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1004178/voice-silenced?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Kim Jong-un was granted his official job title yesterday when a party congress named him first secretary of the North Korean Workers' Party, sealing his succession at the head of the nation's secretive regime. However, the youthful leader was not granted the expected general secretary position, the state-run Korea Central News Agency reported. The job of 'eternal general secretary' remains the province of his late father, Kim Jong-il, who died of a suspected heart attack in December. Another... https://www.scmp.com/article/998063/kim-granted-official-title-eve-feared-missile-test?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/998063/kim-granted-official-title-eve-feared-missile-test?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:00:00 +0000 South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged China to do more to prod North Korea towards reforms, but added that his real hope for change inside the ultranationalist, hardline state lay with the North's public. Lee is gearing up to host the high-profile Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul next week. At the summit, more than 50 world leaders including President Hu Jintao, US President Barack Obama, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, together with heads of... https://www.scmp.com/article/996204/change-can-happen-s-koreas-leader-says?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/996204/change-can-happen-s-koreas-leader-says?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 While the world hails an apparent breakthrough in talks - brokered between Washington and Pyongyang in Beijing - regarding North Korea's nuclear plans, experts in Seoul remain deeply cynical of the negotiations delivering any real progress on the ultranationalist state's atomic weapons programmes. North Korea and the US announced on Wednesday that in return for 240,000 tonnes of American food aid, Pyongyang would suspend nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and enrichment of uranium, and... https://www.scmp.com/article/994198/seoul-sceptical-nuclear-deal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/994198/seoul-sceptical-nuclear-deal?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000 The death of Kim Il-sung draped the mantle of power across Kim Jong-il's narrow shoulders. Now, with Kim Jong-il laid to rest, it is his son Kim Jong-un who carries the flame of communism's only family dynasty. The local and international risks facing Kim Jong-un appear significantly steeper than those his father faced on his accession to power in 1994, but there are also good reasons for a smooth succession. 'Kim Jong-un faces the greater challenges,' said Dr Andrei Lankov, a North Korea... https://www.scmp.com/article/988751/smooth-transition-power-son-expected?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/988751/smooth-transition-power-son-expected?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 They don't so much court controversy as demand it. In a nation where respect for leaders lingers, an unlikely quartet of internet broadcasters are bypassing traditional media and pushing the frontiers of satire in their gloves-off attacks on South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. Their podcast, 'Naneun Ggomsuda' ('I am a petty-minded creep') features savage attacks on the conservative president. The title is a reference to Lee, mockingly referred to by the four as 'His Highness'. The nation's... https://www.scmp.com/article/986571/podcast-pulls-no-punches-savage-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/986571/podcast-pulls-no-punches-savage-attacks?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:00 +0000 A dispute over a South Korean naval base being built on an island that is hugely popular among Chinese tourists has brought into sharp focus Seoul's conflicted position between strategic ally Washington and rising economic partner Beijing. Work on a 490,000-square-metre base on Cheju island, a tourism destination 90 kilometres off South Korea's southwest coast, started in 2006 but has been halted seven times, for a total of 10 months, due to protests. Demonstrators say the base is part of... https://www.scmp.com/article/981384/china-row-holiday-islands-navy-base?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/981384/china-row-holiday-islands-navy-base?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Oct 2011 16:00:00 +0000 While North Koreans celebrated the birthday of Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang this week, a group of defectors and activists in Seoul were detailing how cracks are spreading across the isolated state's once-impenetrable information firewall. Increasing cross-border trade with China and the rising availability of electronic products such as Chinese cellphones are making the wall more porous than ever; ordinary citizens can now send and receive information outside state channels. These trends create... https://www.scmp.com/article/738598/mobile-phones-punching-holes-pyongyangs-news-firewall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/738598/mobile-phones-punching-holes-pyongyangs-news-firewall?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:00:00 +0000 As military tensions derail both South Korea's limited diplomatic engagement with North Korea and the possibilities of further investment, concerns are rising in Seoul: is its northern neighbour becoming a virtual colony of China? Talk about a policy dilemma. Seoul's conservative administration has turned its back on the engagement-focused 'sunshine policy' (generally seen as running from 2000 to 2008) of its two liberal predecessors. It argues that despite the billions sent north, Pyongyang... https://www.scmp.com/article/733196/state-total-dependence?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/733196/state-total-dependence?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Special forces frogmen dropped into the sea from helicopters, jet fighters roared overhead, and huge fountains of water exploded from the sea as the port city of Inchon re-enacted the daring seaborne landing that turned the tide of the Korean war in 1950. On September 15, the 60th anniversary of the operation, landing craft circled offshore, then 'Animal Company', 7th US Marines, surged over the sea wall, charging applauding veterans and officials sitting in viewing stands fronting the funfair... https://www.scmp.com/article/724998/war-veterans-relive-landing-inchon?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/724998/war-veterans-relive-landing-inchon?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Even for an officer who had fought throughout the second world war, it was a hideous sight: dozens of shot-up trucks, heaped with the bleeding bodies of butchered American infantry, crawling south through the freezing mountains south of Kunu-Ri Pass, North Korea. Major David Wilson of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a highly experienced veteran of the war against Japan, had never seen anything like it before. He was reminded of passages he had read of Elizabethan naval battles: 'I had... https://www.scmp.com/article/718023/bloody-debut-new-superpower?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/718023/bloody-debut-new-superpower?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0000 It may be the 'forgotten war', but on the 60th anniversary of its outbreak, South Korea's filmmakers are bringing the Korean conflict back to screens large and small. 'The Korean war is one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century,' says John Lee, director of summer blockbuster Into the Fire. 'Although a lot of Korean people might know when the war started and ended, not too many people are well aware of what happened in between.' One of those in-between events forms the basis for Lee's... https://www.scmp.com/article/717555/south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/717555/south-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0000 A South Korean warship is shattered. Forty-six sailors are dead or missing. Suspicions point to the likelihood of an attack from North Korea. South Korea's public is seething. So read the headlines. But the lack of a 'smoking gun' constrains policy options, be they military, economic or diplomatic. And even if forensic evidence implicating Pyongyang is discovered by investigators, Seoul's response is restrained by regional and geopolitical hard truths. 'We are in the realm of no good policy... https://www.scmp.com/article/713027/not-korean-war-no-longer-business-usual?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/713027/not-korean-war-no-longer-business-usual?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:00:00 +0000 The arrests of two would-be assassins in South Korea last week has shone a light on the shadowy world of spies who cross the border of this divided peninsula. It was revealed last Tuesday that the North Korean pair had been detained after entering the South in the guise of defectors, via Thailand. They are awaiting trial. Their mission was reportedly to kill Hwang Jang-yop, a former head of the North Korean workers' party. Hwang is regarded as the top-ranked defector resident in the South. The... https://www.scmp.com/article/712432/spies-and-assassins-tread-familiar-path-korean-history?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/712432/spies-and-assassins-tread-familiar-path-korean-history?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:00:00 +0000 For years they toiled in North Korea's gulag system. Now survivors of the notorious labour camps want to turn the tables on the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, and see him arraigned before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Three survivors of the infamous Yodeok Camp, members of the Seoul-based Citizens Coalition for the Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, spoke to foreign media last week. In December, the group filed a report to the ICC, set up to try those accused... https://www.scmp.com/article/705086/victims-kim-jong-ils-gulag-demand-justice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/705086/victims-kim-jong-ils-gulag-demand-justice?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:00:00 +0000 When he flew into Pyongyang to make the Barack Obama administration's first official contact with Kim Jong-il's regime on Tuesday, Stephen Bosworth was occupying arguably the hottest seat in East Asian diplomacy: he is the man America has chosen to denuclearise North Korea. If a truckload of diplomatic experience, a low-key public profile and a hefty dose of good luck are the core qualifications for the role of US special representative for North Korean policy, then Bosworth appears... https://www.scmp.com/article/701147/quiet-american-diplomat?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/701147/quiet-american-diplomat?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000 At the Special Sea Attack Team base on an island in the Yellow Sea, black-clad commando squads armed with automatic weapons surge up ladders onto the deck of a training ship, fast-rope down building exteriors and detonate explosives. The SSAT, an elite South Korean coastguard unit whose mission is to counter maritime terrorism, is preparing for a new role in light of recent North Korean missile launches. The coastguard is just the front line in a tougher defensive posture adopted by South... https://www.scmp.com/article/685592/elite-coastguard-reflects-seouls-tough-new-stance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/685592/elite-coastguard-reflects-seouls-tough-new-stance?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:00:00 +0000 Its population is starving and its sabre-rattling has plunged East Asia into crisis, but recent defectors who have risked all to escape the North Korean regime are testament to the formidable hold it exerts: some still cannot criticise the country's 'Dear Leader', Kim Jong-il. This apparent contradiction exposes the difficulties faced by staff at Hanawon ('Institute of One-ness'), a complex of red-brick buildings nestled among forested hills and tranquil paddy fields a 90-minute drive... https://www.scmp.com/article/682049/still-thrall-dear-leader?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/682049/still-thrall-dear-leader?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 30 May 2009 16:00:00 +0000 North Korea's allegation last week that South Korea's intelligence service had plotted against the country's leader, Kim Jong-il, caused a sensation. Though met with derision in Seoul, the announcement, unprecedented for Pyongyang, ignited a wave of speculation about who or what was behind it. On Thursday, the communist state's official media carried a message from the state security ministry announcing that it had apprehended a man surnamed Ri who was, it said, on a '... terrorist mission... https://www.scmp.com/article/664725/relations-firing-line?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/664725/relations-firing-line?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000 As six nations meet in Beijing to discuss North Korean denuclearisation and winter falls across the Korean Peninsula, increasing enmity between Seoul and Pyongyang has driven bilateral relations to their coldest point in a decade, endangering the last remnant of the tattered 'sunshine policy'. Since his February inauguration, conservative South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has insisted that economic aid will go to North Korea only when progress has been made on denuclearisation, ending what... https://www.scmp.com/article/663440/peninsula-pique?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/663440/peninsula-pique?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000 A South Korean court has jailed the captain and a crewman of a Hong Kong-registered supertanker for involvement in Korea's largest oil spill, sparking outrage from the owner and international shipping groups. Captain Jasrit Chawla and engineer Syam Chetam, both Indian nationals, were sentenced to jail terms of 18 months and 8 months for criminal negligence and fined 20 million won (HK$107,700) and 10 million won respectively. Daejeon District Court, which heard the case on appeal, cited... https://www.scmp.com/article/663355/tanker-pair-jailed-over-s-korean-oil-spill-causing-industry-outrage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/663355/tanker-pair-jailed-over-s-korean-oil-spill-causing-industry-outrage?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 10 Dec 2008 16:00:00 +0000