My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and am now a writer who has
published three books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.
The only good news is that South Korea will abide by the Comfort Women
Agreement.......for now. Why do I have this feeling that the leftist government will eventually try
and find some excuse to break it? Why the South Korean government is keeping it is a fairly
complex one, but it boils down to this: current U.S. President Donald Trump is personally close
to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. If there is a conflict between South Korea and Japan, it
is most likely that Trump will side with Japan. The reasons are not hard to figure out. Japan is the
senior ally of the United States in northeast Asia, and a complete break with the United States now
would be a disaster for South Korea especially in dealing with North Korea (it must be noted that
China will not help in any dispute with North Korea). If the South Korean government tries to break
with the Comfort Women Agreement, then this could antagonize the United States as well as Japan.
So for now the agreement stays. What I find disappointing is that the South Korean government
will be essentially paying for North Korea to go to the Winter Olympics at Pyeongchang. Why? The
North Korean government certainly has more than enough money to pay for its athletes to go to
the Olympics. All other nations are doing the same thing (including the United States). North
Korea certainly has more than enough money to develop nuclear weapons, missile technology,
and running thousands of slave labor camps where the North Korean government keeps 200,000
people permanently locked up. So why should South Korea provide any funding for North Korea
just to even show up at the games? I can also ask the question of why North Korea should be
allowed at the Olympics at all. We should remember that the International Olympics Committee
had banned then Republic of South Africa for its racist polices. With North Korea's horrid record,
and being under so many United Nations' sanctions, why is it still welcome at the Olympics?!