US pressure repulsed!

Kim Jong Un opening a factory on May Day

By our Asian affairs correspondent

US imperialism stepped up its destabilising efforts in Asia last week, spreading baseless rumours about the health of Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un and launching new provocations against People’s China around the Xisha islands in the South China Sea. Some believe that the war lobby, the cross party ‘deep state’ that represents the most aggressive sections of the US ruling class, is using the Trump administration’s disarray over the coronavirus crisis to pursue their old Cold War plan for total US hegemony on both sides of the Pacific.

In Washington, President Trump dismissed reports that Kim Jong Un was gravely ill as “fake news”. He said he could not “tell you exactly” the status of Kim’s health, though he did have a “very good idea” about his condition. “But I can’t talk about it now,” Trump said. “I just wish him well.”

The Democratic Korean leader’s reported absence at the 15^th April birthday celebrations of the great Korean communist leader Kim Il Sung fired speculation in south Korea that Kim Jong Un had contracted COVID-19 or had suffered a crippling heart attack. But all these bogus stories clearly came from reactionary circles within south Korean intelligence who ultimately report to the US army of occupation and the CIA.

This week Kim Jong Un opened a fertiser factory on May Day and sent a message of gratitude to workers building tourist facilities in the coastal town of Wonsan. He’s also sent greetings to Syrian President Bashar Assad, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

South Korean intelligence has a long track-record of spreading lies and disinformation about the north. In 1986 they claimed that Kim Il Sung had been shot dead. A few hours later Kim Il Sung was publicly seen at Pyongyang airport greeting a Mongolian delegation.

Meanwhile, the Chinese navy drove a US warship out of Chinese territorial waters off the Xisha islands, telling them they’d be better off focusing on dealing with COVID-19 prevention and control at home rather than destabilising regional security and peace overseas. A similar illegal incursion in Chinese waters off the Xisha islands happened in March, which was denounced in Beijing as hegemonic behaviour.

Chinese war-planes and naval forces followed the US guided missile destroyer USS {Barry} when it trespassed into China's territorial waters off the Xisha Islands on Tuesday, said Colonel Li Huamin. They followed and monitored its course, identified the ship, warned and expelled it, Li said.

The USA’s provocative actions seriously violated international law and related norms, seriously violated Chinese sovereignty and security interests, and intentionally increased regional security risks, Li said.

“We urge the US side to focus on the epidemic prevention and control on its homeland, contribute more to the international fight against the pandemic and immediately stop military actions against regional security, peace and stability,” Li said.

Chinese troops will resolutely fulfil their duty, safeguard national sovereignty and security as well as peace and stability in the South China Sea, Li said.

A Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the media that the USA was eager to show that it still had the military capability even amidst multiple COVID-19 outbreaks inside its military, but this has further exposed the USA’s own fear that it is losing presence in the region.

China was ready to defend itself against US military provocations even in its prime, and expelling a destroyer is a warning to the USA, showing the Chinese military is capable of and determined in safeguarding sovereignty and territorial integrity, the expert said.

Historic DPRK-US Summit

By our Asian Affairs correspondent

Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks with US president Donald Trump in Singapore this week that many hope will pave the way to lasting peace on the Korean peninsula. Chairman Kim met President Trump in a historic summit in Singapore on Tuesday. The meeting, at the Capella Hotel on Singapore’s Sentosa Island on 12th June,

ended with the signing of a joint statement and an agreement for further face-to-face meetings in Washington and Pyongyang in the future.

On his return to Washington Donald Trump tweeted that the ‘nuclear threat’ had gone. “Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office.” Trump said. “There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong-un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future”.

The joint document called the summit “an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future”. It added that "President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in this joint statement fully and expeditiously."

Chairman Kim pledged his “firm and unwavering commitment to the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula” while the Americans “committed to provide security guarantees” to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), according to the agreement signed by both leaders in Singapore following decades of hostilities between the two nations.

            Though the lifting of the harsh sanctions regime against the DPRK has been left for future negotiations the Americans have agreed to halt the provocative US-south Korean war-games while Trump spoke about the eventual withdrawal of all American troops on the Korean peninsula at the press conference that followed the end of the talks.

            Kim Jong Un confirmed his commitment to the “complete denuclearisation of Korean Peninsula”, a phrase that covers the American nuclear arsenal that threatens north Korea as well as the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent. Washington and Pyongyang have also committed to recovering the remains of American POWs and the remains of those missing in action during the Korean War “including the immediate repatriation of those already identified”.

Both countries have agreed to hold follow-up negotiations led by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a relevant high-level DPRK official, “at the earliest possible date” in order to implement the outcomes of the historic summit.

Trump said north Korea's denuclearisation process would be starting “very quickly” while the DPRK leader stated that the world was about to see “a major change”. Both sides expressed a unified position on the importance of respecting the principle of step-by-step and simultaneous actions to achieve peace, stability, and denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

The Democratic Korean leader said that if Washington continues to take “sincere steps to build trust” the DPRK will also take “measures of goodwill”. During the summit, the two leaders agreed to continue the dialogue and accepted each other's invitations to visit north Korea and the United States.

 Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, in Moscow this week Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. Kim Yong Nam is coming to Moscow to attend the FIFA World Cup opening ceremony, Peskov told a daily news briefing, without giving more details. Peskov reiterated Russia's position that there is no alternative to political and diplomatic methods of settling the Korean problem.

Korea is One!

Democratic Korean leader Kim Jong Un took a giant step for peace last week when he crossed the Armistice line in Panmunjom for talks with the south Korean leader, Moon Jae In. Their joint declaration and modest first steps to north–south normalisation that have followed will, hopefully, pave the way for the “new era of peace” that both leaders have pledged to work for.

Moon Jae In is responding to the demand for peace on the street that propelled him into office at the last election whilst his party reflects the views of realistic circles within the south Korean ruling class that want an end to American-inspired confrontation and a return to economic co-operation with the people’s government in the north.

Kim Jong Un is following in the footsteps of great leader Kim Il Sung, who first proposed the establishment of a united confederal republic based on the principle of ‘one country, two systems’ back in 1980. That’s the principle that led to the peaceful return of the former British and Portuguese colonies of Hong Kong and Macau to People’s China in 1997, and it’s one that clearly would end the imperialist imposed partition of the Korean peninsula.

Last week’s summit showed that the Korean people as a whole can resolve their problems without outside interference. Whether or not they will depends on US imperialism, which has regularly intervened in south Korean politics since 1945 to prop up venal, puppet leaders willing to do the bidding of Washington, and whose troops continue to occupy south Korea and threaten the north.

US president Donald Trump has been claiming credit for the north–south summit and some of his supporters are campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize for the war-lord in the White House. The peace prize is discredited by the fact that past recipients include former US president Barack Obama, Henry Kissinger – the chief henchman of disgraced US president Richard Nixon – and Mikhail Gorbachov, as well as three Israeli leaders. But the immensely vain Donald Trump clearly wants it as another trophy achievement. Well, if he wants it let him earn it when he meets Kim Jong Un in the near future by taking genuine steps for peace on the Korean peninsula and withdrawing all US troops from south Korea.