(지난 호에 이어)

2. Impact of Korea-Japan Summit

There are internal impact and external impact. The internal impact is growing anger of Koreans.

Almost 80% of South Koreans are extremely anger for what Yoon did in Japan. They think that he is worse than Lee Wan Yong who gave Korea on the golden platter to Japan. They ask Yoon not to come back from Japan which he describes as Japan as "beautiful country". Beautiful Japan was the title of Shinzo Abe's book in which Abe was arguing for the restoration on Japan of the Meiji era.

Every week, hundreds of thousands of people go down to the street to blame Yoon and his advisors for sacrificing Korea for the glory of Japanese emperor. As of April 1, the candle-light, there were 33th demonstrations. On April 1, 200,000 people joined anti-Yoon demonstration. There were Koreans living abroad to show their support to the anti-Yoon demonstration.

There are many reasons for being angry.

To begin with, Yoon's ignorance of economic policy and his pro-Chaebol policy has resulted in the slowing down of economic growth. The forecast of GDP growth of Korea for 2023 is mere 1.7% which is even lower than the growth of the Japanese economy of 1.8%. The rate of growth of the Korean economy has been always superior to that of the Japanese economy for last twenty years.

South Korea has never had trade deficit, but since Yoon took over the power in 2022, Korea has been having mounting trade deficit. In March of 2023, Korea's trade balance was a deficit o USD 4.62 billion, while in March 2022, the trade balance was surplus of USD 2.15 billion. In March 2022, Korea was under the liberal progressive democratic government of Moon Jae-in.

It is to be noted that the major part of Korea's trade deficit is due to the trade deficit with China. In January of 2023, Korea's trade deficit with China was USD 4.0 billion. This is due to the beginning of Chinese trade sanction against Korea for its joining the Indo-Pacific Strategy designed to contain China.

Furthermore, Yoon has destroyed the peace on the peninsula obtained by sustained peace process with North Korea. But since Yoon took over the government, the North-South tension has gone up and the dark cloud of war is covering the sky of the peninsula. North Korea has been launching drones to South Korea and launching missiles aiming at South Korea military bases. Pyongyang makes it clear that it is ready to fight. Moreover, on March 13, it made successful test with under-water nuclear drone.

Thus, Koreas have good reasons to be angry with Yoon and his gang, but the disaster of the Yoon-Kishida summit was serious enough to make Koreans really mad against Yoon.

Koreans' anti-Yoon demonstration will continue until Yoon's Yoon's impeachment. He will go to Washington on April 26. He will be given first class treatment. In return he will present more free gifts to Biden including more chips, electric cars, batteries and even the membership of Quad. The date of his impeachment will be sooner.

But Yoon will react violently; he will mobilize the prosecutors, the police and court judges to captures innocent citizens to rule Korea with fear using the murderous security law.

Apart from the negative impact of the Yoon-Kishida Summit, the serious external impact is its impact of the possible Korea War 2.0. Even during the presidential campaign, Yoon provoked many time North Korea by mentioning pre-emptive attack and demonizing North Korea. What Yoon wants is the worsening North-South tension, which has been useful for election victory. In other words, the North-South tension has been a useful political tool for the pro-Japan conservatives.

However, before the Yoon-Kishida summit, North Korea was provoked to prepare shooting war. Now the formalization of GSMIA and the share of real time exchange of information of North Korean missiles launches could lead to Japan's unilateral military action against Pyongyang.

Remember that Japan announced that it could attack North Korea even without South Korea's consent. If this happens under the military alliance which was agreed upon behind door-though Yoon denies- the South Korea's armed forces will have to attack North Korea.

The outcome is obvious, both Koreas will be ruined and Japan will come back to Korea and the second annexation of Korea could happen. The new annexation is perhaps what the pro-Japan conservatives want, because they will be able to exploit the Korean people just like their ancestors who became rich and famous by serving the Japanese masters.

To sum up, the Yoon-Kishida summit has two devastating results. On the one hand, it has made Korea a faithful servant of Japan and, on the other hand, it has surely given the neo-Meiji Reformation Group (NMRG) led by the Liberal Democratic Party under Kishida to return to Korea as conqueror. (끝)

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