Washington D.C. – Yesterday, a broad coalition of free-market and center-right organizations released a statement regarding a pending decision of Korea’s Seoul High Court, Korea’s court of last resort. The decision will be whether to stay the Korea Fair Trade Commission’s (KFTC’s) overbroad ruling against Qualcomm, Inc., the aggrieved party in the proceeding.
Below is the statement released by the coalition:
“We are troubled by the prospect that the Seoul High Court might fail to stay the KFTC’s grossly overbroad extraterritorial remedies against Qualcomm. Such a ruling by the Court would explicitly condone the KFTC’s intrusion upon U.S. sovereignty, resulting in far-reaching implications harmful to free trade, the United States economy, and intellectual property as a whole.
Earlier this year, the KFTC took the extraordinary step of seeking to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to how patents around the world are licensed. This unprecedented remedy is a bald-faced attempt to slash the value of a U.S. company’s global patent portfolio and shield Korean domestic companies from American competition.
“The KFTC’s extraterritorial remedies go well beyond protecting Korean consumers and purport to dictate the terms upon which a U.S. company can license its intellectual property—even well outside Korea’s borders. Such remedies result in a major transfer of patented technology from U.S. to Korean companies, severely undermining U.S. leadership in innovation and economic growth. This will adversely impact every company in the United States that holds a patent of any kind.
“As the U.S. embarks upon a review of its trade and investment relationship with Korea, we urge the Trump Administration to demand assurances from the highest levels of the Korean government that all U.S. companies will be protected from the KFTC’s extraterritorial overreach. Anything less is a direct attack on our economy, our intellectual property, and our sovereignty.” Continue reading
By • Frontiers of Freedom
Since 1950, when North Korea launched its invasion against the south, the United Nations Security Council had been in a permanent diplomatic warfare against Pyongyang. Out of the twenty two resolutions, seventeen were adopted through the 1990s and the almost two decades of the 2000s. In particular, eight resolutions between January 2013, and June 2017, condemning North Korea’s tests of nuclear weapons, were unanimously approved by the Security Council. The North Korean despot, Kim Jong-un, has not recognized the right of the Security Council to sanction his regime for its serial violations of international law. For decades, the international community has alternated between economic pressure and diplomatic dialogue, without any noticeable success. Most recently, the Trump Administration and Congress have floated the option of military action, coupled with regime change, and possible unification ofthe two Koreas.
Because of North Korea’s nuclear capabilities and its arsenal of heavy artillery aimed at the heavily populated Seoul region, there is no question that the entire situation in the Korean peninsula is an extremely complicated one. Continue reading
by Peter Roff • Townhall
Since coming to office South Korean President Moon Jae-in has moved quickly to put the past behind him. Politically, this is wise. His countrymen are tired of the byzantine games and corruption that for decades influenced the system of government and drove his predecessor from office.
His need to put his country’s house in order defies ideological concerns. He faces daunting security threats, especially from the North, but also a restless and dissatisfied people hungry for change. He leads an Asian tiger whose economic power is being challenged and which desperately needs to improve its trade relations with the West.
U.S. President Donald Trump is making the most of South Korea’s internal turmoil to bolster the U.S. efforts to exert its political and economic influence in Korea. Just a week before the special election that brought President Moon to power, Trump summed up the existing free trade agreement with South Korea as “horrible” and vowed to renegotiate the pact. Continue reading
Sentry posts belonging to North Korea, in the background, and the South on opposite sides of the Demilitarized Zone. Credit Jeon Heon-Kyun/European Pressphoto Agency
by Choe Sang-Huna • New York Times
South Korea has determined that North Korea is capable of mounting a nuclear warhead on its medium-range Rodong ballistic missile, which could reach all of South Korea and most of Japan, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
The government’s assessment, shared in a background briefing with foreign news media representatives in Seoul, followed a recent claim by North Korea that it had “standardized” nuclear warheads small enough to be carried by ballistic missiles. South Korean officials, like their American counterparts, have said that the North has made progress in miniaturizing nuclear warheads, but have been reluctant to elaborate.
But after four recent nuclear tests by the North, the latest on Jan. 6, some nongovernmental analysts in South Korea have said that they believe the North has learned how to fit its medium-range Rodong missile with nuclear warheads. The senior government official echoed that assessment, but did not provide any evidence of how the government has made its determination. Continue reading
by Peter Huessy
In the May-June issue of the National Interest, Doug Bandow of the CATO Institute calls for the withdrawal of American forces from the Republic of Korea, continuing a career of attempting to gut America’s security cooperation with the Republic of Korea.
Articles by Bandow, for example, in 1996, 1998, 2010, 2011, among others, repeatedly called for the complete withdrawal of American forces from Korea. Some more recent ones put forward the amazingly bizarre idea that only by withdrawing our military forces from the Republic of Korea would Pyongyang get rid of its nuclear weapons. Continue reading