Korea

Kim Jo Yong says the upcoming drills ‘will undoubtedly bring about negative consequences’ for Seoul and its allies.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential sister has condemned upcoming joint military exercises between the United States, Japan and South Korea, calling them “dangerous” and a “reckless show of strength”.

The comments by Kim Yo Jong, published by state media on Sunday, come a day before Seoul and its allies begin drills combining naval, air and missile defence exercises off South Korea’s Jeju Island.

The drills, called the “Freedom Edge”, will last through Friday.

Kim Yo Jong, who is vice department director of the North Korean governing party’s central committee, slammed the drills as a “dangerous idea”.

“This reminds us that the reckless display of power displayed by the US, Japan, and South Korea in the wrong places, namely around the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, will undoubtedly bring about negative consequences for themselves,” Kim Yo Jong said, using the official name for North Korea.

The statement follows a visit by her brother to weapons research facilities this week, where he said Pyongyang “would put forward the policy of simultaneously pushing forward the building of nuclear forces and conventional armed forces”.

North Korea perceives the trilateral drills as “scenarios for limited or full-scale nuclear strikes and attempts to neutralise its launch platforms”, Hong Min, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, told the AFP news agency.

“The North is likely using the allied exercises as a pretext to push ahead with nuclear modernisation and conventional upgrades,” he added.

Aside from the trilateral exercises, the US and South Korea also plan to stage the “Iron Mace” tabletop exercises next week on integrating their conventional and nuclear capabilities against North Korea’s threats, South Korean local media reported.

South Korea hosts about 28,500 American soldiers in its territory.

“Iron Mace” will be the first such drills taking place under US President Donald Trump and newly elected South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who have expressed willingness to resume dialogue with North Korea.

If “hostile forces” continue to boast about their power through those joint drills, North Korea will take countermeasures “more clearly and strongly”, North Korea’s top party official Pak Jong Chon said in a separate dispatch via the state news agency KCNA.

Since a failed summit with the US in 2019 on denuclearisation, North Korea has repeatedly said it will never give up its nuclear weapons and declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.

Kim Jong Un has been emboldened by the war in Ukraine, securing critical support from Russia after sending thousands of North Korean troops to fight alongside Moscow.

Moscow and Pyongyang signed a mutual defence pact last year when Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the reclusive state.

‘Mass surveillance’ tech has enabled world’s most restrictive state to exert ‘control in all parts of life’, UN Human Rights Office says.

North Korea has further tightened its grip on its population over the past decade, executing people for activities like sharing foreign TV dramas, according to a major United Nations report.

The UN Human Rights Office said on Friday that tech-enabled state repression under the Kim dynasty, which has governed with absolute power for seven decades, had grown over a decade of “suffering, repression, and increased fear”.

“No other population is under such restrictions in today’s world,” concluded the agency’s report, which is based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had fled the country and reported the further erosion of freedoms.

“To block the people’s eyes and ears, they strengthened the crackdowns. It was a form of control aimed at eliminating even the smallest signs of dissatisfaction or complaint,” recounted one escapee, cited in the report.

James Heenan, head of the UN Human Rights Office for North Korea, told a Geneva briefing that the number of executions for both normal and political crimes had increased since COVID-era restrictions.

An unspecified number of people had already been executed under new laws imposing the death penalty for distributing foreign TV series, including the popular K-Dramas from South Korea, he added.

The clampdown has been aided by the expansion of “mass surveillance” systems through technological advances, which have subjected citizens to “control in all parts of life” over the past 10 years, the report said.

Heenan also reported that children were being made to work in forced labour, including so-called “shock brigades” for tough sectors such as coal mining and construction.

“They’re often children from the lower level of society, because they’re the ones who can’t bribe their way out of it, and these shock brigades are engaged in often very hazardous and dangerous work,” he said.

Last year, the UN indicated that the forced labour could, in some cases, amount to slavery, making it a crime against humanity.

The sweeping review comes more than a decade after a landmark UN report documented executions, rapes, torture, deliberate starvation, and the detention of between 80,000 and 120,000 people in prison camps.

The new report covered developments since 2014, noting the government’s adoption of new laws, policies and procedures providing a legal framework for repression.

UN rights chief Volker Turk said in a statement: “If the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] continues on its current trajectory, the population will be subjected to more suffering, brutal repression and fear.”

North Korea’s Geneva diplomatic mission and its London embassy have not yet commented on the report.

SEOUL, Sept. 12 (UPI) — South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun called on Washington on Friday to reform its visa policies to avoid a repeat of last week’s immigration raid and detention of South Korean workers at a Hyundai electric battery plant in Georgia.

Cho met U.S. Sens. Todd Young, Bill Hagerty and Andy Kim in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday to express the South Korean public’s “deep concern” over the arrests of its professionals, the ministry said in a statement.

Multiple agencies led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 475 people, most of whom are South Korean nationals, at a Hyundai-LG Energy Solutions battery plant near Savannah, Ga., on Sep. 4.

After being held for a week, 316 South Koreans and 14 other employees were released and departed from Atlanta on a charter jet late Thursday morning local time.

The plane landed at Incheon International Airport near Seoul at around 3:23 p.m. on Friday, news agency Yonhap reported.

In his meeting with the senators, Cho “emphasized the urgent need for fundamental measures to prevent recurrence of such incidents and to protect our workforce from unfair treatment so that Korean companies can fulfill their investment commitments in the United States,” the ministry said.

He urged Congress to support visa reform, including the introduction of a new visa category for South Korean professionals on investment projects.

The senators “agreed that this incident should not negatively impact economic cooperation between South Korea and the United States,” according to the ministry.

“They welcomed the agreement between the two countries to explore long-term solutions, including the establishment of a South Korea-U.S. working group, to prevent similar incidents,” the ministry said. “They also pledged to explore necessary institutional support, including legislative action.”

On Thursday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called the immigration raid “perplexing” and said it could deter firms from making future investments in the United States. Lee touched on the subject during a press conference marking his 100th day in office, noting that South Korean firms regularly send skilled workers for short stays to help establish overseas factories.

The roundup came less than two weeks after Lee met with Trump in the White House, and has sparked widespread public shock and anger in South Korea. Seoul and Washington are looking to finalize a trade deal struck in July that includes a $350 billion investment pledge by South Korea.

Without visa reform, companies “will have to worry about whether establishing a local factory in the United States will be subject to all sorts of disadvantages or difficulties,” Lee said.

“Under the current circumstances, Korean companies will be very hesitant to make direct investments in the United States,” he said.

South Korean companies will be “very hesitant” about investing in the US following a massive immigration raid at a Hyundai plant in the state of Georgia last week, President Lee Jae-myung said.

More than 300 South Koreans who were arrested in the raid are due to return home on Friday, after their departure was delayed “due to circumstances on the US side”, officials said.

“The situation is extremely bewildering,” said Lee, noting that it is common practice for Korean firms to send workers to help set up overseas factories.

“If that’s no longer allowed, establishing manufacturing facilities in the US will only become more difficult… making companies question whether it’s worth doing at all.”

Last week, US officials detained 475 people – more than 300 of them South Korean nationals – who they said were working illegally at the battery facility, one of the largest foreign investment projects in the state.

A worker at the plant spoke to the BBC about the panic and confusion during the raid. The employee said the vast majority of the workers detained were mechanics installing production lines at the site, and were employed by a contractor.

South Korea, a close US ally in Asia, has pledged to invest tens of billions of dollars in America, partly to offset tariffs.

The timing of the raid, as the two governments engage in sensitive trade talks, has raised concern in Seoul.

The White House has defended the operation at the Hyundai plant, dismissing concerns that the raid could deter foreign investment.

On Sunday, US President Donald Trump referenced the raid in a social media post and called for foreign companies to hire Americans.

The US government would make it “quickly and legally possible” for foreign firms to bring workers into the country if they respected its immigration laws, Trump said.

SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean charter plane left for the U.S. on Wednesday to bring back Korean workers detained in an immigration raid in Georgia last week, though officials said the return of the plane with the workers onboard will not happen as quickly as they had hoped.

A total of 475 workers, more than 300 of them South Koreans, were rounded up in the Sept. 4 raid at the battery factory under construction at Hyundai’s sprawling auto plant. U.S. authorities released video showing some being shackled with chains around their hands, ankles and waists, causing shock and a sense of betrayal among many in South Korea, a key U.S. ally.

South Korea’s government later said it reached an agreement with the U.S. for the release of the workers.

Korean workers expected to be brought back home after days of detention

South Korean TV footage showed the charter plane, a Boeing 747-8i from Korean Air, taking off at Incheon International Airport, just west of Seoul. South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said it was talking with U.S. officials about letting the plane return home with the released workers as soon as possible. But it said the plane cannot depart from the U.S. on Wednesday as South Korea earlier wished due to an unspecified reason involving the U.S. side.

The Korean workers are currently being held at an immigration detention center in Folkston in southeast Georgia. South Korean media reported they will be freed and driven 285 miles by bus to Atlanta to take the charter plane.

South Korean officials said they’ve been negotiating with the U.S. to win “voluntary” departures of the workers, rather than deportations that could result in making them ineligible to return to the U.S. for up to 10 years.

The workplace raid by the U.S. Homeland Security agency was its largest yet as it pursues its mass deportation agenda. The Georgia battery plant, a joint venture between Hyundai and LG Energy Solution, is one of more than 20 major industrial sites that South Korean companies are currently building in the United States.

Many South Koreans view the Georgia raid as a source of national disgrace and remain stunned over it. Only 10 days earlier, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and President Trump held their first summit in Washington on Aug. 25. In late July, South Korea also promised hundreds of billions of dollars in U.S. investments to reach a tariff deal.

Experts say South Korea won’t likely take any major retaliatory steps against the U.S., but the Georgia raid could become a source of tensions between the allies as the Trump administration intensifies immigration raids.

South Korea calls for improvement in U.S. visa systems

U.S. authorities said some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working. But South Korean experts and officials said Washington has yet to act on Seoul’s yearslong demand to ensure a visa system to accommodate skilled Korean workers needed to build facilities, though it has been pressing South Korea to expand industrial investments in the U.S.

South Korean companies have been relying on short-term visitor visas or Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers needed to launch manufacturing sites and handle other setup tasks, a practice that had been largely tolerated for years.

LG Energy Solution, which employed most of the detained workers, instructed its South Korean employees in the U.S. on B-1 or B-2 short-term visit visas not to report to work until further notice, and told those with ESTAs to return home immediately.

During his visit to Washington, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun met representatives of major Korean companies operating in the U.S. including Hyundai, LG and Samsung on Tuesday. Cho told them that South Korean officials are in active discussions with U.S. officials and lawmakers about possible legislation to create a separate visa quota for South Korean professionals operating in the U.S., according to Cho’s ministry.

Trump said this week the workers “were here illegally,” and that the U.S. needs to work with other countries to have their experts train U.S. citizens to do specialized work such as battery and computer manufacturing.

Atlanta immigration attorney Charles Kuck, who represents several of the detained South Korean nationals, told the Associated Press on Monday that no company in the U.S. makes the machines used in the Georgia battery plant. So they had to come from abroad to install or repair equipment on-site — work that would take about three to five years to train someone in the U.S. to do, he said.

The South Korea-U.S. military alliance, forged in blood during the 1950-53 Korean War, has experienced ups and downs over the decades. But surveys have shown a majority of South Koreans support the two countries’ alliance, as the U.S. deployment of 28,500 troops in South Korea and 50,000 others in Japan has served as the backbone of the American military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

During a Cabinet Council meeting on Tuesday, Lee said he felt “big responsibility” over the raid and expressed hopes that the operations of South Korean businesses won’t be infringed upon unfairly again. He said his government will push to improve systems to prevent recurrences of similar incidents in close consultations with the U.S.

Kim and Tong-Hyung write for the Associated Press.

SEOUL, Sept. 8 (UPI) — The defense chiefs of South Korea and Japan met in Seoul on Monday to discuss cooperation across a range of issues, including North Korea‘s growing nuclear and missile threats.

The meeting between South Korea’s Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back and his counterpart, Gen Nakatani, marked the first visit by a Japanese defense minister to Seoul since 2015. Nakatani is in town to attend the Seoul Defense Dialogue, an annual security forum that runs from Monday to Wednesday.

The ministers “reaffirmed their firm commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and agreed to continue South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation in response to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats,” they announced in a joint statement.

“They also emphasized the need to jointly address the deepening of military cooperation between North Korea and Russia,” the statement added.

North Korea has deployed troops, artillery and missiles to Russia to aid in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and is believed to be receiving financial support and advanced military technology for its own weapons programs in return.

The meeting comes after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Beijing last week to attend a military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Kim stood alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the display of military might in Tiananmen Square, the first time the three leaders have been seen together publicly.

The appearance was viewed by many analysts as a major diplomatic win for Kim in his efforts to further cement North Korea’s status as a de facto nuclear state.

Ahn and Nakatani stressed the importance of promoting bilateral security ties and three-way cooperation with the United States amid a “rapidly changing security environment,” their joint statement said.

The defense chiefs agreed to boost mutual visits and personnel exchanges while seeking opportunities for high-tech defense cooperation.

“In particular, they agreed to explore future-oriented and mutually beneficial cooperation opportunities in cutting-edge science and technology fields such as AI, unmanned systems and space,” the statement said.

Seoul and Tokyo have seen their historically frosty relations thaw in recent years. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba met last month and called for closer cooperation on trade and security issues.

Ishiba, however, announced his resignation on Sunday, raising questions about the future of Tokyo’s diplomatic relationship with Seoul.

South Korea’s presidential office said Monday that it planned to “continue positive relations going forward” with Japan, news agency Yonhap reported.

Sept. 7 (UPI) — A senior South Korean official said Sunday that the country will charter a plane for the return of hundreds of workers who were detained during an immigration raid at a Hyundai battery factory in Georgia.

Kang Hoon-sik, the South Korean presidential chief-of-staff, said that negotiations with the administration of President Donald Trump had concluded during a speech at a high-ranking ruling party-government meeting, the state-funded Yonhap News Agency reported.

More than 300 workers from South Korea were arrested during the Thursday raid at the factory, which Hyundai Motor Group and LG Energy Solution operate. More than 150 other workers were also detained.

The Thursday raid was announced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and included officers from other agencies, such as Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

It marked one of the largest immigrant raids in modern American history and it was not immediately clear why the ATF participated in the crackdown.

“There are still administrative procedures left,” Kang said. “Once the procedures are complete, the chartered plane will depart to bring our citizens.”

Kang’s comments came after South Korean officials convened an emergency meeting Saturday to discuss the issue. South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun said during that meeting that officials were “deeply concerned” about the arrest of the workers.

In additional remarks reported Sunday by the South Korean newspaper Kyunghyang Shinmun, Kang added that President Lee Jae-myung stressed that the rights and interests of South Korean citizens and the economic activities of companies investing in the U.S. “should not be unfairly violated” during U.S. law enforcement processes.

“The government will not let down its guard and will do its best until the citizens return safely,” Kang said.

Kang also said that South Korea would pursue measures to improve its visa system and residence permits for business travelers related to U.S. projects in the future.

Hyundai said in a statement Friday that none of the workers detained were directly employed by the carmaker and that it “is committed to full compliance with all laws and regulations in every market where we operate.”

Foreign Minister Cho Hyun says he is ‘deeply concerned’ over detention of 300 South Koreans, while opposition calls it a ‘grave matter’.

South Korean President Lee Jae-myung has ordered all-out efforts to respond to the arrests of hundreds of the country’s citizens in an immigration raid on a Hyundai Motor-LG car battery factory in the United States.

Thursday’s arrest of some 475 workers – more than 300 of them South Korean nationals – at the plant near Savannah in the southern US state of Georgia was the largest single-site enforcement operation carried out by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an arm of the US Department of Homeland Security.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun on Saturday said President Lee has instructed officials to swiftly resolve the matter, stressing that the rights and interests of South Korean nationals and the business operations of South Korean companies investing in the US “must not be infringed upon”, South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency said in a report.

Cho said the government has set up a team to respond to the arrest of more than 300 Koreans at the facility, under construction in the southern state of Georgia, and that he may go to Washington, DC, to meet with officials if needed.

“We are deeply concerned and feel a heavy sense of responsibility over the arrests of our nationals,” Cho was quoted by Yonhap before an emergency meeting on Saturday to tackle the incident.

“We will discuss sending a senior Foreign Ministry official to the site without delay, and, if necessary, I will personally travel to Washington to hold consultations with the US administration,” he said.

The plant where the raid took place – part of US President Donald Trump’s escalating immigration crackdown – is intended to supply batteries for electric vehicles.

Responding to a reporter’s question about the immigration raid, Trump on Friday remarked during an event at the White House, “I would say that they were illegal aliens, and ICE was just doing its job.”

Steven Schrank, an ICE official, justified the detentions, saying some of those detained had illegally crossed the US border, others arrived with visas that prohibited them from working, and some overstayed their work visas.

South Korea’s opposition People Power Party (PPP) reacted angrily to the detentions, warning they “could pose a serious risk” to the country.

“This is a grave matter that could lead to broader repercussions for Korean companies and communities across the United States,” PPP chairman Jang Dong-hyeok said in a statement.

Senior PPP spokesperson Park Sung-hoon blamed Lee for the incident, saying his “pragmatic diplomacy” towards the US “failed to ensure both the safety of citizens and the competitiveness” of South Korean businesses.

He said Lee’s government even promised at least $50bn of investments during his recent meeting with Trump, a gesture that only resulted in a “crackdown” against South Korean citizens.

In a statement, Hyundai said it was “closely monitoring” the situation, adding that none of those detained “is directly employed” with the company.

LG Energy Solution said it was “gathering all relevant details”, adding it “will fully cooperate with the relevant authorities”.

South Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, is a key automaker and electronics producer with multiple plants in the US. Its companies have invested billions of dollars to build factories in the US, in a bid to access the US market and avoid tariff threats from Trump.

Sept. 5 (UPI) — The United States, Japan and the Republic of Korea came together in Seoul this week, then in Tokyo Friday, for two Trilateral Quantum Cooperation meetings, the State Department said.

The meetings were to recognize the value of trilateral cooperation to strengthen and secure emerging technologies, a press release said. Experts from government and industry met to share best practices and discuss how to protect quantum ecosystems from physical, cyber, and intellectual property threats.

“Our trilateral partnership helps ensure Americans can benefit from the breakthroughs in quantum computing that have the potential to reshape the global balance of power, spark entirely new industries, and revolutionize the way we live and work. These workshops highlighted the growing importance of trilateral cooperation in safeguarding innovation and strengthening the quantum ecosystem, which has the promise of increasing human flourishing and the economic prosperity of Americans and our partners,” said a press release from the State Department’s spokesperson.

In August, South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung reflected on the partnership after having met President Donald Trump.

“The golden era is yet to come, not because we lack something, but [because] possibilities are endless,” Lee said, describing future cooperation.

He said Japan can’t be left out of this equation, as trilateral cooperation among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo will be essential to address North Korea and drive technological innovation.

Likely to help in quantum computing is new deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce Paul Dabbar. He was the president and CEO of Bohr Quantum Technology before his Senate confirmation. He led the development and deployment of emerging quantum network technologies while at Bohr.

North Korea announced in 2019 that it intends to adopt quantum computing for economic development. NK Economy reported quantum computers are being highlighted in the Korean Workers’ Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun.

Quantum computing and its lower toll on the power grid — relative to supercomputers — could hold appeal for North Korea.

Rolling blackouts and power outages are common in the country, according to defectors and former residents of the country.

Seoul demands protection for nationals, investors as Trump’s immigration crackdown sees hundreds detained in ICE raid.

South Korea has complained after United States immigration officials detained hundreds of workers during a raid on a Hyundai-LG battery plant being built in the state of Georgia.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul on Friday demanded the rights of its investors and citizens be respected following the raid the previous day, which forced construction of the factory to be suspended.

The episode highlights the disruptive effect President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is having on his efforts to attract foreign investment. The Hyundai-LG plant is part of the biggest foreign investment in the state of Georgia.

“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of US law enforcement,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Lee Jaewoong, said in a statement.

Since Trump returned to power in January, the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency has been bolstered by record funding and new latitude to conduct raids.

The president has said he wants to deport “the worst of the worst” criminals. But ICE figures show a rise in the detainment of non-criminals.

Lee did not specify exactly how many South Koreans were detained, calling the number “large,” but media reports suggested that 300 or more had been taken into custody.

The Atlanta office of the US Justice Department agency ATF said in a post on X that up to 450 people in total had been detained.

The Korea Economic Daily reported that as many as 560 workers at the Hyundai Motor facility and LG Energy Solution (LGES) had been detained.

Of that number, some 300 are South Korean nationals, according to the Reuters and AFP news agencies, citing South Korean media and unnamed sources.

A South Korean government official told Reuters that the detainees were being held at an ICE detention facility.

Lee said the ministry is taking active measures to address the case, dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team centred on the local mission.

In July, Seoul pledged $350bn in US investment to ease tariff threats from Trump, who was elected last year on a promise to lead the largest migrant deportation programme in US history.

Goodwill messages continued this week’s unprecedented public display of diplomatic unity between Beijing, Pyongyang and Moscow.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un told Chinese President Xi Jinping that North Korea will support China in protecting its sovereignty, territory and development interests, as the pair met just a day after an unprecedented show of unity with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing.

The bilateral meeting between Xi and Kim on Thursday came as Russia also hailed North Korea’s role supporting its war in Ukraine, continuing the public display of close relations between Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow after their meeting at Wednesday’s huge military parade in China’s capital to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

In an article published on Friday by North Korea’s state-run outlet, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim was quoted as saying, “No matter how the international situation changes, the feeling of friendship cannot change” between Pyongyang and Beijing.

“The DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] will as ever invariably support and encourage the stand and efforts of the Communist Party of China and the government of the People’s Republic of China to defend the sovereignty, territorial integrity and development interests of the state,” Kim said after meeting with Xi, according to KCNA.

Xi also reportedly told Kim that China and North Korea are “good neighbours, good friends and good comrades” that share one destiny, and he was willing to “defend, consolidate and develop” the countries’ relations, KCNA said.

KCNA also confirmed that Kim departed Beijing on Thursday, concluding his first trip outside of North Korea since meeting with Putin in Russia in 2023.

Top-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials – including Cai Qi and Foreign Minister Wang Yi – attended a send-off ceremony for Kim, according to KCNA.

During Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing – in which the People’s Liberation Army displayed its latest generation of stealth fighters, tanks and ballistic missiles amid a highly choreographed cast of thousands – Xi hailed China’s victory 80 years ago over “Japanese aggression” in the “world anti-fascist war”.

Putin and Kim were among some 26 mostly non-Western world leaders in attendance, with the pair meeting with Xi for two and a half hours on the event’s sidelines in an unprecedented display of unity. The trio discussed “long-term” cooperation plans, according to KCNA.

Putin and Kim also met prior to the parade, with both leaders praising the deepening military partnership between Moscow and Pyongyang.

Seemingly rattled by the meeting, United States President Donald Trump addressed Xi in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying: “Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

A Kremlin aide dismissed Trump’s remarks, saying “no one even had this in their thoughts”.

Following the meeting, Putin also sent Kim a congratulatory message for North Korea’s foundation day, in which he hailed Pyongyang’s support for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“Your combat force’s heroic involvement in liberating the Kursk territories from the invaders is a distinct symbol of friendship and mutual aid between Russia and North Korea,” Putin’s message read, according to KCNA.

“I am confident that we will continue to work together to consolidate the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries,” Putin added.

North Korea has controversially sent thousands of soldiers to fight in Kursk – a Russian region briefly occupied by Ukraine – and also provided artillery ammunition and missiles to support Moscow in its war against Kyiv.

During their meeting in Beijing, Kim also reportedly told Putin his country would “fully support” Russia’s army as a “fraternal duty”, KCNA previously reported.

Seoul, South Korea – Go Kyoung-min, 34, a nurse at Severance Hospital in Seoul, found a new sense of balance in her life during the first half of this year.

As the mother of twin daughters born in 2021, Go often felt guilty about not spending enough time with her children because of work.

But after opting into the four-day workweek offered by her workplace, Go was able to spend more time with her family, attending daycare events she had previously missed and relying less on her in-laws for childcare.

Severance is the first hospital in South Korea to trial a four-day workweek, aiming to improve the work-life balance of its staff.

Under the program, introduced in 2023 following an agreement between labour and management, some hospital employees are allowed to take three days off per week in exchange for a 10 percent reduction in salary.

Staff take turns participating in six-month rotations, after which they return to a five-day week.

The program appears to have improved nurses’ health and wellbeing, enhanced the quality of medical services, boosted organisational efficiency, and reduced turnover rates, the Korea Worker Institute-Union Center said in a report about the trial released last month.

According to the report, turnover among participating nurses with less than three years’ experience fell from 19.5 percent to 7 percent.

Average sick leave per employee also fell by one day during the trial, while it increased by 0.7 days in wards on five-day weeks.

Go said the four-day workweek not only improved her work-life balance but helped her be more focused and kinder to her patients.

“I work in the pancreatobiliary ward, where many patients face critical situations. This makes the workload heavier. With a four-day workweek, I feel I can take more time to listen to patients and care for them with greater responsibility,” she told Al Jazeera.

“My children used to be happy when their grandparents picked them up from daycare, taking it for granted. But once I did it more often, they expected me to be there.”

Go’s experience is unusual in South Korea, a country notorious for its long working hours, where staying late is often seen as a mark of a good employee.

South Korean workers logged an average of 1,865 hours in 2024, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the sixth-highest among developed countries and well above the OECD average of 1,736 hours.

They worked 248 hours more than their counterparts in neighbouring Japan.

While long workdays are still the norm, shorter work arrangements are gradually spreading in the private sector.

Some companies, particularly IT firms and startups, have been experimenting with four-day or four-and-a-half-day workweeks for several years.

South Korea’s major conglomerates have also shown interest in more flexible work arrangements, with Samsung Electronics, SK Group, and Kakao introducing programmes offering employees periodic breaks of a full or half-day.

Lee Jae-ho, 42, a father of two who works at sports and health technology company Kakao VX, has benefitted from one such program, getting one Friday off each month and working 1.5 hours less on the remaining Fridays.

Lee said working fewer days does not necessarily reduce efficiency.

“When I have a Friday off or shorter hours, I adjust my schedule in advance, so the reduced workdays have little impact on productivity,” Lee told Al Jazeera.

“I have more time to have dinner with my family, recharge, and pursue my hobbies and growth.”

The push to reform South Korea’s work culture has gained momentum since the election of left-leaning President Lee Jae-myung in June.

During his campaign, Lee pledged to cut working hours below the OECD average by 2030 and introduce a four-and-a-half-day workweek.

At a July news conference, Lee reiterated that South Koreans needed to work less, suggesting that a system of long hours with low productivity was unsustainable.

“We have competed more on quantity than on quality,” Lee said.

Cafe24, South Korea’s leading e-commerce solutions provider, implemented a full four-day workweek in July, after previously offering workers every other Friday off, while maintaining employees’ salaries and overall hours.

In June, Gyeonggi Province, which surrounds Seoul, launched the country’s first pilot project of a four-and-a-half-day workweek without wage cuts among local governments, set to run until 2027.

The programme, running until 2027, encourages small and midsize businesses and public institutions in the province to experiment with reduced working hours by providing financial support to cover the increased labour costs.

Some experts and business leaders have expressed concerns about the moves to cut the working week.

Kwon Young-sik, director of human resources at Yonsei University Health System, the parent organisation of Severance, has said permanently shifting to a four-day workweek would cost about 100 million won ($720) per ward in labour costs alone.

“Over the past three years, about 1.2 billion won has been spent on labour costs,” Kwon said last month at an event where Severance’s labour union presented the results of the pilot programme.

At the same event, Lee Kang-young, general director of Severance, said institutional and financial support would be “absolutely necessary” for a four-day workweek to be sustainable.

Park Nam-gyoo, a business professor at Seoul National University, said he would be concerned about productivity and disparities in the labour market if a four-and-a-half-day workweek became the norm.

“South Korea is an export-led economy. It faces an uncertain future if it fails to remain competitive globally,” Park told Al Jazeera.

He said the country needed to consider its low birthrate, sluggish economy, and challenges to its global competitiveness.

But workers like Go and Lee hope more people can experience the benefits they have enjoyed.

“There were absolutely no drawbacks. The only downside in my case was that, as it is a pilot programme, only a few could participate, so I feel sorry for my colleagues who couldn’t. Other than that, it ran smoothly without any operational issues,” Go said.

“Just as the five-day workweek was initially met with concern but eventually settled in, a four-day workweek is expected to gradually bring positive changes to society,” Lee said.

SEOUL  — The first summit between South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and President Trump was a picture of easy chumminess.

On Monday, the two leaders bonded over the fact that they both have survived assassination attempts, and they talked golf. When Trump admired the handcrafted wooden fountain pen Lee used to sign the White House guest book, saying “it’s a nice pen, you want to take it with you?” Lee offered it as an impromptu gift. At a Q&A in front of reporters, Lee thanked Trump for bringing peace to the Korean peninsula through his previous summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and urged him to meet with Kim again.

“If you become the peacemaker, then I will assist you by being a pacemaker,” Lee told Trump, drawing a chuckle.

These scenes, along with the two-hour closed door meeting between the two leaders that followed, seemed to put to rest fears that Lee — a former governor and legislator with little prior experience on the international stage — might be subject to a “Zelensky moment”: cornered and berated by a counterpart who has long complained that Seoul takes Washington for granted.

Karoline Leavitt, White House press secretary, holds a trade letter sent by the White House to South Korea during a news conference. On July 30, the U.S. struck a trade deal with South Korea, but details have been scant.

(Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

It was an outcome for which South Korea painstakingly prepared.

As a presidential candidate earlier this year, Lee had vowed he would bring home a diplomatic win at all costs, even if it meant he had to “crawl between Trump’s legs.” To smooth along trade negotiations with the U.S. in late July, South Korean officials brought with them red caps emblazoned with the slogan: “MAKE AMERICA SHIPBUILDING GREAT AGAIN.” And ahead of Monday’s summit, Lee compared notes with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whom he met last week, and brushed up on his assignment by reading “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”

Those early efforts so far have seemingly paid off. Key South Korean proposals, such as a $150-billion plan to help revitalize the U.S. shipbuilding industry, have been received favorably, helping secure the trade deal with Washington last month, according to South Korean officials.

“We’re going to be buying ships from South Korea,” Trump said on Monday. “But we’re also going to have them make ships here with our people.”

But despite what is widely viewed as a positive first step for Lee — establishing face-to-face chemistry with a figure known for both unpredictable swings and a deeply personal style of diplomacy — analysts say it is too early to call it a win. Several unresolved issues still loom large, and these may yet be snarled in the details as working-level negotiations play out.

“I actually thought they could get along surprisingly well because both Lee and Trump aren’t ideologically motivated in their thinking and practice of foreign policy,” said James Park, an East Asia expert at the Quincy Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

“But it remains to be seen how their relationship unfolds. Should strong tensions emerge on trade and security issues that both sides find it difficult to compromise on in the future, the relationship between Lee and Trump will be tested. There’s a case in point — how the friendship between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fractured in recent months over tariffs and India’s purchases of Russian weapons.“

Although Trump promised on Monday to honor last month’s trade agreement — which lowered the tariff rate on Seoul to 15% from 25% — details have been scant and the deal has yet to be formalized in writing. But both sides have touted it as a win, leaving room to reignite long-running disagreements over issues like U.S. rice and beef, which have been subject to import restrictions in South Korea.

As part of that deal, South Korea also pledged to invest $350 billion into key U.S. industries. But behind the scenes, officials from both countries reportedly continue to disagree how this fund will be structured or used, with U.S. officials seeking far more discretionary power than the South Korean side is willing to give.

U.S. Army soldiers attend a transfer of authority ceremony in South Korea. In the past, President Trump has said that South Korea should pay $10 billion a year to help keep the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country.

(SOPA Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The summit hasn’t fully quelled South Korean concerns over defense and military cooperation either.

In the past, Trump has said that South Korea should pay $10 billion a year to help keep the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country. That is around nine times what Seoul currently pays under an existing agreement between the two countries.

While South Korean officials said that the defense cost-sharing issue was not discussed during Monday’s summit, Park says that the issue may resurface down the line.

“The alliance cost-sharing issue has been a consistent interest of Trump’s over the years,” he said.

Trump’s grievances over the cost of stationing the U.S. military in South Korea has fueled concerns that the U.S. will pull out troops from its bases here to counter China, making the country more vulnerable to North Korea’s military threats.

The scenario has gained plausibility in recent months, following reports earlier this year that U.S. defense officials were reviewing a plan to relocate thousands of U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea to other locations in the Indo-Pacific, such as Guam.

While any reduction of troop size has long been a political anathema in South Korea, Lee Ho-ryung, a senior research fellow at the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA), says that this may be less of a sticking point for President Lee than history might suggest, citing a speech the South Korean leader delivered shortly after the summit in which he pledged to increase Seoul’s own defense spending.

“The content of that speech and Q&A suggest that the two sides have somewhat aligned on these issues,” she said. “But it will still need to be further discussed at the working level.”

When asked by a reporter on Monday whether he was considering reducing the number of U.S. troops in South Korea, Trump deflected by saying “I don’t want to say that now because we’ve been friends.”

But then he pivoted to another suggestion that raised eyebrows in South Korea.

“Maybe one of the things I’d like to do is ask them to give us ownership of the land where we have the big fort,” he said. “I would like to see if we could get rid of the lease.”

Under an existing arrangement known as the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), South Korea currently grants the U.S. military rent-free use of the land where its bases are located. Speaking to legislators on Tuesday, South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back summarily dismissed the suggestion, hinting that it may have been a negotiating tactic.

“It is impossible in the real world,” he said. “But from the perspective of President Trump, I think it may have been a comment intended to allow him to make a different strategic demand.”

In the meantime, a second round of negotiations with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un would be a win for both leaders.

But many experts believe that the window for getting North Korea to denuclearize under the previously discussed terms — partial sanctions relief — has closed since the failed summits between Trump and Kim in 2018 and 2019. North Korea recently dismissed any attempts to convince it to give up its nuclear weapons as a “mockery of the other party.”

Personal chemistry between President Lee and Trump can go only so far this time, says Lee of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

“North Korea is effectively evading any economic sanctions through Russia and China,” she said. “Sanctions relief is no longer the enticing carrot that it once was.”

Former prime minister and the wife of ex-president Yoon Suk-yeol both indicted on separate charges on the same day.

South Korean prosecutors in separate cases have indicted former Prime Minister Han Duck-soo for aiding and abetting former President Yoon Suk-yeol’s short-lived imposition of martial law last year, and the ex-president’s wife, Kim Keon-hee, for bribery and other charges.

The charges were laid against Han, 76, on Friday, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency. Additional charges include perjury and falsifying official documents.

Han had been under investigation by a team of special prosecutors for several weeks, according to media reports.

Former First Lady Kim was also indicted on charges stemming from her alleged participation in a stock manipulation scheme and acceptance of gifts from the controversial Unification Church, among other activities.

Lawyers for Kim have denied the allegations against her and said news reports about some of the gifts she allegedly received were groundless speculation.

Assistant special counsel Park Ji-young told a televised briefing that Han was the highest official who could have blocked Yoon’s attempt to impose martial law.

Park said Han still played an “active” role in Yoon’s martial law declaration by trying to get Yoon’s decree passed through a Cabinet Council meeting as a way to give “procedural legitimacy” to it.

Han has maintained that he conveyed to Yoon that he opposed his martial law plan.

Kim and her ex-president husband have been arrested and are in jail, with Yoon already undergoing trial on charges that include insurrection for his attempt to impose military rule.

His wife had been the subject of numerous high-profile scandals, some dating back more than 15 years, which overshadowed his turbulent presidency and inflicted political damage on him and his conservative People Power Party (PPP).

Yoon was formally impeached in April.

Former Prime Minister Han stepped in twice to serve as acting president during the post-martial law chaos between December and May, but he later resigned to participate in South Korea’s presidential election.

He failed, however, to secure the candidacy for the PPP.

The June 3 election was later won by the liberal Democratic Party’s Lee Jae-myung, who had livestreamed himself climbing over the walls of South Korea’s National Assembly to vote down the martial law declared by Yoon.

WASHINGTON — President Trump greeted Lee Jae Myung, the new president of South Korea, by asserting that a “Purge or Revolution” was taking place there and threatening to not do business with Seoul as he prepared to host the new leader at the White House later Monday.

Trump elaborated later Monday that he was referring to raids on churches and on a U.S. military base by the new South Korean government, which they “probably shouldn’t have done,” the president argued.

“I heard bad things,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday morning. “I don’t know if it’s true or not. I’ll be finding out.”

The warning shot previewed a potentially hostile confrontation later Monday as Lee, the liberal leader and longtime critic of Seoul’s conservative establishment, sits down with Trump to discuss Seoul and Washington’s recent trade agreement and continued defense cooperation. Lee leads a nation that has been in a state of political turmoil for the last several months after its former leader, the conservative Yoon Suk Yeol, briefly imposed martial law last December which eventually led to his stunning ouster from office.

Trump did not identify specific raids. But earlier this month, South Korean police conducted a raid on a church led by a conservative activist pastor whom authorities allege is connected to a pro-Yoon protest in January that turned violent, according to Yonhap news agency. A special prosecutor’s team that is investigating corruption allegations against Yoon’s wife, former first lady Kim Keon Hee, also raided the facilities of the Unification Church after allegations that one of its officials gave Kim luxury goods.

Meanwhile, Osan Air Base, which is jointly operated by the United States and South Korea, was also the target of a raid last month by investigators looking into how Yoon’s activation of martial law transpired, according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper. South Korean officials have insisted the raid was in the areas controlled by Seoul.

“WHAT IS GOING ON IN SOUTH KOREA? Seems like a Purge or Revolution. We can’t have that and do business there,” Trump posted on social media Monday morning. “I am seeing the new President today at the White House. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!”

Yoon, who was elected to a five-year term in 2022, was considered more ideologically aligned with Trump and had even taken up golfing again after the U.S. president was reelected last November to try to forge a bond with him.

The liberal Lee, an outspoken critic of Seoul’s conservative establishment who had narrowly lost to Yoon in that 2022 election, led the South Korean parliament’s efforts to overturn Yoon’s martial law decree while impeaching him. The nation’s Constitutional Court formally dismissed Yoon in April.

Before Trump’s Truth Social post Monday morning, the first in-person meeting between Trump and Lee had been expected to help flesh out details of a July trade deal between the two countries that has Seoul investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S. The agreement set tariffs on South Korean goods at 15% after Trump threatened rates as high as 25%.

Trump declared at the time that South Korea would be “completely OPEN TO TRADE” with the U.S. and accept goods such as cars and agricultural products. Automobiles are South Korea’s top export to the U.S.

Seoul has one of the largest trade surpluses among Washington’s NATO and Indo-Pacific allies, and countries where the U.S. holds a trade deficit has drawn particular ire from Trump, who wants to eliminate such trade imbalances.

Lee’s office said in announcing the visit that the two leaders plan to discuss cooperating on key manufacturing sectors such as semiconductors, batteries and shipbuilding. The latter has been a particular area of focus for the U.S. president.

On defense, one potential topic is the continued presence of U.S. troops in South Korea and concerns in Seoul that the U.S. will seek higher payments in return.

Ahead of his visit to Washington, Lee traveled to Tokyo for his first bilateral visit as president in a hugely symbolic trip for the two nations that hold longstanding historical wounds. The summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was interpreted by analysts as a way to show unity and potential leverage as Japan and South Korea face new challenges from the Trump administration.

Lee was the first South Korean president to choose Japan for the inaugural bilateral visit since the two nations normalized ties in 1965.

Elected in June, Lee was a former child laborer with an arm deformity who rose his way through South Korea’s political ranks to lead the liberal Democratic Party and win the presidency after multiple attempts.

Lee faced an assassination attempt in January 2024, when he was stabbed in the neck by a man saying he wanted Lee’s autograph and later told investigators that he intended to kill the politician.

Lee arrived in the U.S. on Sunday and will leave Tuesday. He headlined a dinner Sunday evening with roughly 200 local Korean-Americans in downtown Washington on Sunday night.

Kim writes for the Associated Press.

Aug. 24 (UPI) — North Korea has test-fired two missiles newly designed to protect against aerial attacks, overseen by leader Kim Jong Un, state media announced Sunday.

The supreme leader oversaw the missile tests along with multiple members of the Workers’ Party of Korea and military officials, the Korea Central News Agency reported. The outlet said the missiles have “superior combat capability” and a “fast response” to attacks from aerial targets such as drones and cruise missiles.

The testing came less than a week after Ulchi Freedom Shield 25, joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea, ABC News reported. The annual training exercises began Monday and were expected to end Thursday.

The training was expected to include live-fly events with U.S. F-35A and F-35C Lightning II aircraft as well as space-related elements, the Defense Department said. The Pentagon said the exercises work to strengthen the agencies’ response capabilities.

“Ulchi Freedom Shield 25 underscores the continuing military partnership between the U.S. and South Korea and is implemented in the spirit of the Oct. 1, 1953, mutual defense treaty,” the Defense Department said in a post Thursday.

“It continues to reinforce the role of the alliance as the linchpin for regional peace and security, reaffirming the ironclad commitment between the U.S. and South Korea to defend their homelands.”

Hours before North Korea’s missile test, U.N. Command confirmed the South Korean government fired warning shots at about 30 North Korean soldiers who crossed the Demilitarized Zone.

South Korean “forces issued several warning broadcasts in an attempt to notify the soldiers that they had crossed the [Military Demarcation Line], but they did not respond to the broadcasts,” a spokesperson for the U.N. Command’s Military Armistice Commission said in an email to Yonhap News Agency.

South Korean “forces then fired warning shots in a designated warning shot area to compel the [North Korean] soldiers to return to the north side” of the demarcation line.

Yonhap said the North Korean military has been working to fortify the border with South Korea since April 2024, adding barbed wire fences and anti-tank barriers near the Demilitarized Zone.

Pyongyang claims South Korea’s army fired more than 10 warning shots from a machinegun towards North Korean troops.

North Korea has accused South Korean forces of firing warning shots earlier this week at its soldiers who were part of a border reinforcement project, warning Seoul that its actions risked raising tensions to “uncontrollable” levels.

In a report published on Saturday, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted the North ‘s Korean People’s Army Vice Chief of the General Staff Ko Jong Chol as saying that the South should stop its “premeditated and deliberate” provocation, which he described as “inciting military conflict”.

Calling the incident a “serious provocation”, Ko said the South Korean military fired more than 10 warning shots towards North Korean troops.

“This is a very serious prelude that would inevitably drive the situation in the southern border area, where a huge number of forces are stationing, in confrontation with each other, to the uncontrollable phase,” Ko said.

The incident took place on Tuesday as North Korean soldiers were working to permanently seal the heavily fortified border that divides the peninsula, state media outlet KCNA said, citing a statement from Ko.

South Korea did not immediately comment on the reported encounter, and the country’s official news agency, Yonhap, reported that it had no immediate confirmation from officials in Seoul on Pyongyang’s claim.

The reported firing of warning shots is only the latest confrontation between North and South Korean forces, which have been at odds for decades over the heavily guarded border that divides both nations.

The last border clash between the archrivals was in early April when South Korea’s military fired warning shots after a group of 10 North Korean soldiers briefly crossed the border.

Those troops were spotted in the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries, parts of which are heavily mined and overgrown.

In more recent months, South Korea has been taking steps to ease border tensions following the election of President Lee Jae-myung in June.

‘Corresponding countermeasure’

North Korea’s army announced last October that it was moving to totally shut off the southern border, saying it had sent a telephone message to United States forces based in South Korea to “prevent any misjudgement and accidental conflict”.

Shortly after its announcement, it blew up sections of the unused but deeply symbolic cross-border roads and railway tracks that had once connected the North and South.

Ko, in the statement published by state media, warned that North Korea’s army would retaliate to any interference with its efforts to permanently seal the border.

“If the act of restraining or obstructing the project unrelated to the military character persists, our army will regard it as deliberate military provocation and take corresponding countermeasure,” he said.

Last year, North Korea sent thousands of rubbish-carrying balloons southwards, saying they were retaliation for anti-North Korean propaganda balloons sent by South Korean activists.

Later, Seoul turned on border loudspeaker broadcasts for the first time in six years, which included K-pop tunes and international news. Pyongyang responded by blaring strange sounds along the frontier, unsettling South Korean residents.

Seoul has since turned off the loudspeaker broadcasts following orders from newly elected President Lee.

SEOUL, Aug. 20 (UPI) — On the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, two voices offered radically different interpretations of what a vision for the peninsula should look like. One seeks accommodation with permanent division; the other proclaims unification as a historic calling.

In his Liberation Day address, President Lee Jae Myung departed from the long tradition of framing the national destiny around reunification. He declared:

“Liberation Day is not only a holiday for the South; it is also a day the North celebrates. … We will recognize the North’s system and will not interfere in its internal affairs.”

By effectively endorsing a “two-state” reality, Lee signaled that his administration would accept permanent division so long as Pyongyang demanded it. For critics, this was nothing less than an abdication of the historical mission of unification, one that independence fighters saw as inseparable from liberation itself.

The dissonance deepened later that evening, when Lee presided over what was billed as a “people’s inauguration” in Gwanghwamun. The spectacle was less a unifying celebration than a partisan rally, capped by his controversial pardons of political allies.

The controversy over Lee’s Liberation Day pardons was sharpened by the identities of those he chose to absolve.

Cho Kuk, a former justice minister, was convicted of academic fraud and abuse of power stemming from efforts to secure elite university placements for his daughter.

Yoon Mee-hyang, a former lawmaker and activist, was indicted on charges of embezzling funds from a civic group that supported surviving “comfort women” –Korean women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.

For many citizens, forgiving such figures on a day meant to honor national sacrifice and liberation struck a jarring note.

A day earlier, on Thursday, another vision had been articulated before an international audience in Seoul. Hyun Jin Preston Moon, chairman of the Global Peace Foundation, framed Korea’s division as a foreign construct that could — and must — be overcome.

“Thus, the division of the peninsula was a ‘foreign construct’ that had nothing to do with the aspirations of the Korean people and their movement for independence and self-determination,” he said. “Their dreams and aspirations were brushed aside like a sacrificial pawn on the global chessboard of great powers seeking to shape the future of Northeast Asia.”

Moon emphasized that North Korea itself already has abandoned unification as a national goal, underscoring the bankruptcy of the regime’s vision.

“The world should view the DPRK’s efforts … as a feeble effort to gain global legitimacy in pursuing a permanent two-state solution on the peninsula. The only real path to denuclearization is the peaceful unification of the two Koreas,” he said.

Rather than clinging to a Cold War framework, Moon called on Koreans to recover their ancient mandate of Hongik Ingan — “to live for the benefit of humanity.” He presented the Korean Dream as a unifying vision capable of renewing national identity, overcoming economic and demographic crises, and inspiring the world.

“The vision for this new age is the Korean Dream. It will not only engender a rebirth of Korean culture and historical heritage, but reconnect all Koreans to the providential calling of our people rooted in our founding ideals,” Moon said.

The Korean Dream, he argued, transcends left-right ideological divides by grounding itself in Korea’s history and in universal values. It offers a framework not only to heal the wounds of division, but also to address the internal crises facing both North and South — from the South’s demographic collapse and overreliance on export-driven conglomerates to the North’s political repression, poverty and isolation. By providing a common vision that speaks to both sides of the 38th parallel, it holds the potential to overcome obstacles that ideology and power politics have failed to resolve.

Concluding his address, Moon underscored the gravity of the moment:

“We live at a historic crossroads in a time when the fate of the peninsula and our people lie in our hands. … I believe that divine providence is guiding us to undo the mistakes of the past and lead our people to the promised land of unification centered upon the Korean Dream.”

A shifting global order

Korea today stands at a decisive inflection point. The U.S.-led liberal order that shaped the post-Cold War era is being remade. Under President Donald Trump, Washington has reasserted economic nationalism, redrawing trade rules and demanding fairer burden-sharing from allies.

For a nation like South Korea, where exports account for nearly half of gross domestic product, U.S. tariffs and global supply-chain realignments strike at the heart of its economic model. At the same time, China’s slowdown and mounting confrontation with the United States leave Seoul with shrinking room to maneuver.

Compounding these external pressures is an internal crisis: the world’s lowest fertility rate, the erosion of the traditional family structure and an export-driven economy still dominated by a handful of conglomerates. Without a new animating vision, Korea risks demographic decline, economic stagnation and growing irrelevance in the face of global upheaval.

Beyond old ideologies

Against this backdrop, Lee’s decision to legitimize permanent division appears out of step with the scale of the challenges. It reflects the lingering habits of South Korea’s progressive camp — approaching the North through a lens of coexistence while ignoring the deeper shifts transforming the international system.

Yet, what Korea needs today is not an outdated ideological posture, but a forward-looking national purpose that can unite its people, rally allies and meet a rapidly changing world.

The Korean Dream offers such a vision. It ties the nation’s destiny not to resignation or division, but to renewal — a chance to overcome historical wounds, restore national unity and provide a model of reconciliation for the world.

Eighty years after liberation, the true vision for the Korean people remains contested. Whether Korea’s future is defined by resignation to division or by a bold embrace of unification will determine not only its national destiny, but also its standing in the world.