<This is part one of a two-part series>
There are many people among the Korean-American community who worry that the U.S. regional offices of the South Korean presidential Peaceful Unification Advisory Council is turning into a lobby for the current Moon Jae-in administration. The concern among Korean-American conservatives continues to grow, as Choi Kwang-chul, the newly-appointed head of the advisory council’s American regional branch gave a series of interviews to the South Korean media where he said he will do his best to persuade the U.S. Congress to pass the controversial H.R. 3446, or the Peace on Korean Peninsula Act. Choi also said he will work on making the United States believe in President Moon’s so-called Korean Peninsula peace process. The plan has already proven to be a failure to almost everyone except for hardcore leftists in South Korea.
The Peaceful Unification Advisory Council is a presidential advisory body established in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and headed by the president. Its function is to confirm the national consensus on democratic and peaceful unification of the motherland and gather pan-national will and capabilities to propose and advise the president on the establishment and implementation of all the necessary policies in order to achieve democratic and peaceful unification. The organization consists of more than 7,000 advisors commissioned by the president. The council’s declared purpose is to faithfully represent the will of the people in order to achieve a democratic and peaceful unification.
Choi Kwang-chul began his term as vice-chairperson of the 20th advisory council representing the American continent and the western hemisphere last month. The regional branch consists of 20 offices located in major cities, including 15 in the United States, 2 in Canada, and 3 in Central and South America. The regional branch has more than 2,000 advisors and it is the biggest branch overseas.
In his interview with South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency on September 26, Choi said he will focus on making the advisory council’s American branch the central pillar of peace diplomacy. “I will work on maximizing the public diplomacy capability of the Korean-American community by focusing on H.R. 3446 that was recently introduced in the U.S. Congress,” he said. The bill calls for urgent diplomatic negotiations with North Korea to end the Korean War and signing a peace treaty. It also asks the Secretary of State to consider ways to establish liaison offices in Washington and Pyongyang and review ways to reduce restrictions on Americans visiting North Korea, especially for family-related purposes. Currently, there are around 20 congressmen who are sponsoring the bill.
“We understand that there will be limitations in conducting our campaign to persuade more lawmakers to sponsor the bill, since we are not currently able to meet them as freely [as we used to] due to COVID-19,” he said. “However, we are optimistic that we can achieve our goal of attracting 100 congressmen to join in sponsoring the bill.”
He admitted that the chance the bill will be passed in the U.S. House of Representatives may be low, but not impossible. “It could be difficult for the bill to be passed when considering how the U.S. mainstream views North Korea issues,” Choi said. “However, I do not think that the possibility is low if we can continuously deliver the message to the Congress that the value of peace on the Korean Peninsula would meet the national interest of the United States.”
In his recent interview with the Overseas Korean Newspaper on September 23, Choi explained his motives more directly. “The Korean Peninsula is the only region in the world that is still divided, which is causing too many pain and sorrows,” he told the newspaper. “Ending this situation and moving toward permanent peace and prosperity is the only hope that will guarantee the future for all Korean people, and it coincides with the national interest and constitutional values of the United States, which is a country that loves human rights and peace. Now is the time where Koreans living in America, who are proud voters in the country, raise their voice to call for the success of the Korean Peninsula peace process.”
Choi is the president of the Korean American Public Action Committee (KAPAC). KAPAC was established in 2017 and is a civic group advocating for Korean-Americans’ rights in the United States. On its website, it describes itself as “a non-profit organization to promote community service, to organize and conduct volunteer programs and community service projects and to organize youth groups to undertake projects to benefit the needy and the community to encourage leadership, character, compassion, and good citizenship.”
However, their recent activities appear to be more political than its official description. On its website, it provides information on how Korean-Americans around the United States can send a letter to their congressmen and senators in the region to support the Moon administration’s so-called “anti-leaflet” law. This was the law that the international community, as well as the United States, condemned for possibly violating South Koreans’ freedom of speech and denying North Koreans’ access to information. On KAPAC’s instruction section, it says “the United States is a country that limits the freedom of speech of the president by permanently deleting Trump’s Twitter account to protect national security and safety, and we obviously cannot interpret provocative leaflets that are sent to North Korea and threaten others’ life and safety as freedom of speech.”
A sample letter written on January 29, 2021 by KAPAC to Rep. Andy Kim reads as follows:
<The North Korean defectors dispersing the leaflets by balloons across the border to North Korea has created serious security concerns wherein the residents near the border area were subjected to life threatening situations due to the increase of military tension caused by the leaflets with infuriating contents. The leaflets are extremely provocative with indecent contents that are inappropriate for our children and what they contain goes beyond criticizing the North Korean regime. >
The statement above almost sounds like the North Korean dictator’s sister Kim Yo-jong, who called defectors in South Korea “human scum” and “mongrel dogs” for sending items across the border.
The sample letter from KAPAC continues:
<Further, I would like to point to the fact that the Korean War never ended, and that the Korean peninsula has been still under ceasefire for the last 70 years after Korean War broke out. The situation of which is so extremely sensitive and volatile that even minimally slight provocation of mishap may lead to a possible Korean war again.>
This organization does not mention the fact that it was North Korea who demolished the inter-Korean liaison office in Kaesong, which occurred shortly after Kim Yo-jong’s threatening speech. It also ignores Pyongyang’s continuous provocations with its missile and nuclear programs, which are in violation of the UN resolutions.
In our upcoming article, One Korea Network will cover how KAPAC apparently worked to lobby the U.S. Congress to support another controversial bill often called the “Divided Families Reunification Act” that is aimed at easing restrictions for Korean-Americans visiting their family members living in North Korea. Additionally, we will discuss how this organization tried to work as a bridge connecting South Korean leftist politicians with lawmakers in the United States. We will also discuss media reports that cited insiders who argued Choi Kwang-chul had undue influence in the South Korean government’s appointment of branch chiefs of the advisory council’s American branch.
