South Korea – the Kiev connection

This week: Seoul riot police confront South Koreans demanding President Yoon Suk-yeol’s impeachment

Some features of the ousting of Syria’s government by US backed terrorists are already clear, notably the gains to Washington, Tel Aviv and Ankara. Others, notably the long term strategic responses of Moscow, Tehran and Beijing, will manifest themselves in their own good time.

Which is my way of saying we aren’t done with Syria; not by a long chalk. Meanwhile, with not a lot more to say on it for now, ¹ I’ll turn to the failed attempt – on the face of it bizarre – of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to impose martial law on his country. Why did he try? Why did he fail? Why is Team Biden’s twilight zone so deafeningly silent about it?

These questions and more were raised yesterday by Alex Christoforou and Alexander Mercouris in a twenty-six minute head-to-head. And who should emerge, Banquo’s ghost fashion, from the shadows but that comedian turned hapless instrument of US will, Volodymyr Zelensky? ²

I’ll get to the two Alexes in a jiffy but I’d be remiss if I didn’t flag up how one aspect of their talk links thematically to the thrust of Brian Berletic’s, as featured in my post yesterday. I’d quoted Brian as saying …

… the multipolar world grows economically, even militarily; surpassing the West in so many ways but still has not addressed collective and internal security. Russia and China protect their information spaces well but have neglected to help allies protect theirs. If your information space is undefended, the US can monopolize it, to turn a nation’s population against its own best interest, as in Ukraine.

… before adding my own two penn’orth:

This goes for the West too. How else could Australia have so acted against interests vis a vis its biggest trade partner, China? Why else would Europe have been so economically suicidal as to double down, long after its gamble had manifestly and catastrophically failed, on the US war to weaken Russia in Ukraine? 

Bangkok based Brian continues this theme as a guest of Shanghai based Andy Boreham on his Reports from China channel, in a sixteen minute discussion billed as Syria lesson: China needs to help more in this information war. But how does it link to The Duran podcast below?

The connection it seems is that while South Koreans view China with a degree of apprehension (no doubt amplified by, if not wholly reducible to, the information colonisation Brian speaks of) this, says Alexander, is tempered by two things. One, China is their biggest trade partner – and South Koreans may not be as willing as Australians to subordinate their own economic interests to US plans for Asia. Two, Washington’s strategy for SK is to have it cosy up with Japan against their superpower neighbour, China rising.

And the problem with that is, well, history. If China is viewed with some wariness, manufactured or otherwise, Japan still inspires deepest hatred. On the why of that, Korea has delivered a slew of films – and if you haven’t seen how good its cinema can be, it’s high time you put that right – set in or alluding to the nightmare of its twentieth century subjugation by Japan.

But what if Yoon’s ill-judged move, and the pushback of South Koreans taking to the streets, are less about US plans for Asia than about US plans – insofar as the two can even be separated as the forever wars show every sign of merging into planetary confrontation – for Europe? My cue to hand over to The Duran on the subject of …

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1. An hour or so after declaring I had “not a lot more to say on it for now”, I was moved to post Vanessa Beeley’s account of her final hours in Syria. An hour after that, a piece by Simplicius inspired my third post of the day – against my average output of under one a day –Bashar al-Assad was no Michael Corleone.
2. Should you suspect The Duran Duo of being a tad reductive in attributing Yoon’s abortive move to a Blinken and Sullivan desire to keep the Kiev pot a-simmering, see the WizWoz take, which ignores that aspect but adds class struggle detail lost on the Alexes. Add the two together and what do you get? The executive summary – and all for an investment of a mere forty of your precious minutes. Darn good value!