President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday pledged full support for the nation’s shipping industry to further bolster its competitiveness in the global market and to regain its leadership position by 2030. “Our pride as a top shipper has been recovered,” the president said during the launch event of HMM’s new mega container ship, called HMM Hanul, at Busan’s new port. “The Hanul is the final of the total 20 vessels that completes the strong recovery of the nation&rsqu

Politics June 29, 2021

A poll showed Monday that almost 6 in 10 Koreans were against the idea of President Moon Jae-in visiting Japan for the Tokyo Olympics next month. Of the 500 people surveyed by Realmeter over the past week, 60.2 percent responded in opposition to the president’s visit to Japan, while 33.2 percent said they were in favor of the visit. Among age groups, people in their 40s opposed the visit most strongly, with the rate reaching 71.5 percent. Unlike other polls, political inclination had a

Politics June 28, 2021

Cheong Wa Dae’s recent pick of a 24-year-old college student as a senior official handling youth policy is facing backlash both from opposition party members and young job seekers. On Wednesday, Park Seong-min, a former supreme council member of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea who studies Korean language and literature at Korea University in Seoul, started her work as a secretary for the presidential political affairs office. This is the first time that anyone in their 20s has ser

Politics June 23, 2021

President Moon Jae-in remains undecided on whether to attend the Tokyo Olympics next month amid a yearslong stalled diplomacy with Japan over wartime history and trade. “Nothing has been decided yet,” Moon’s chief of staff for policy Lee Ho-seung told a radio interview Tuesday when he was asked whether the president intended to attend the Summer Olympics that kicks off in the Japanese capital on July 23. As for the prolonged feud between the two countries, he said the Korea

Politics June 22, 2021

President Moon Jae-in returned home Friday morning after completing a weeklong trip to Europe, where he chatted and bumped elbows with other heads of state in a host of multilateral and bilateral meetings. “We are getting back to in-person diplomacy,” a Cheong Wa Dae official said on condition of anonymity. “Even though the size of the delegation may remain reduced for some time, we will continue to seek more opportunities for multilateral or bilateral meetings.” Follo

Foreign Affairs June 18, 2021

MADRID/SEOUL -- President Moon Jae-in and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Wednesday agreed to elevate bilateral ties to the status of a “strategic partnership,” under which the two countries will further enhance cooperation in a wide range of areas such as business and technology.   Moon arrived in the Spanish capital Tuesday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit the country since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to their joint statement, the

Foreign Affairs June 16, 2021

VIENNA/SEOUL – President Moon Jae-in and German pharmaceutical company CureVac’s CEO Franz-Werner Hass discussed ways to bolster vaccine partnership during a virtual meeting Tuesday. No new deal was immediately disclosed. Their 20-minute videoconference came on the heels of Moon’s summit talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G-7 gathering in Cornwall, England on Saturday, during which the leaders agreed to seek synergy between Korea, the world’s second-

Foreign Affairs June 15, 2021

VIENNA/SEOUL -- President Moon Jae-in and his Austrian counterpart, Alexander Van der Bellen, held a summit Monday to bolster ties as the 130th anniversary of bilateral relationship approaches next year. Moon, coming from the UK after attending the G-7 meeting over the weekend, arrived in Vienna on Sunday. He is the first Korean president to make a state visit to Austria since the two nations established ties in 1892. With the latest visit, the two nations agreed to elevate the relations

Foreign Affairs June 14, 2021

After his first overseas trip to the US in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic last month, President Moon Jae-in is now heading to Europe with a packed agenda. The president is scheduled to depart for the UK on Friday to attend the G-7 summit in Cornwall on June 11-13 and then travel on to Austria and Spain to make state visits until next week. Despite the packed schedule, the size of the delegation has been reduced compared to previous years but this time first lady Kim Jung-sook is accompa

Foreign Affairs June 10, 2021

Speculation is growing about a possible trilateral meeting between South Korea, the US and Japan at the upcoming G-7 summit in the UK later this week. On Monday, Washington said it is open to the possibility even though nothing has been confirmed yet. “We don’t currently have a trilateral scheduled between the US, Japan, and South Korea, but I will tell you there’s a possibility for virtually anything in these small spaces where you have just -- you know, in this case, 10 or

Foreign Affairs June 9, 2021

President Moon Jae-in on Monday called for a complete overhaul of military culture amid a public outcry over the suicide of an Air Force noncommissioned officer who was sexually assaulted by her male colleague. According to presidential spokesperson Park Kyung-mee, Moon ordered the creation of an independent task force with civilian representation to improve the barracks culture overall. “I cannot tolerate the latest incident that has sparked people’s outrage,” the preside

Politics June 7, 2021

President Moon Jae-in, who has so far excluded businesspeople when exercising his power to pardon criminals, may be mulling an exception for Lee Jae-yong, the imprisoned de facto leader of Samsung Group. According to Cheong Wa Dae sources, a subtle shift in the president’s tone was detected Wednesday at a luncheon meeting at the presidential office with the heads of the nation’s four largest conglomerates -- Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung

Politics June 2, 2021

Seoul’s Defense Ministry on Tuesday flatly denied speculation over the reasons behind Washington’s decision to send Janssen's COVID-19 vaccines for the Korean military, saying the vaccine type has been decided through consultations between the two countries. “The Janssen vaccine was the most proper option to cover 550,000 people among the stockpiles secured by the US Defense Department,” the ministry’s spokesperson Boo Seung-chan told a media briefing, refuting cla

Defense June 1, 2021

Foreign leaders and heads of international organizations on Monday pledged an inclusive green recovery for carbon neutrality and urged joint efforts to help developing countries join the initiative. The unified message came as the P4G summit wrapped up its two-day run in Seoul. It was the first time South Korea had hosted a multilateral international meeting on the environment. “We reaffirm that the fight against COVID-19 leaves important lessons for the global response to the climate

Foreign Affairs May 31, 2021

The outcome of last week’s summit between Presidents Moon Jae-in and Joe Biden drew mixed reactions from political party leaders here on Wednesday. Moon held a luncheon meeting with five party leaders at Cheong Wa Dae to brief them on the results of the summit. It was his first group meeting with the party leaders in a year and three months. During the meeting, the president urged bipartisan support for follow-up measures to implement key commitments made during the summit. The discussio

Politics May 26, 2021