1.  The Death of Kim Jong-il- The top story of 2011 took nearly the entire year to happen, but Kim Jong-il’s death on December 17, 2011 I believe is the top story of the year for the Korean peninsula.  I think this is a bigger story than the Japanese tsunami because the aftermath of the tsunami will not have as much impact on the peninsula as the death Kim Jong-il over the next decade.

2. Japanese Tsunami- The March 11th tsunami was definitely the biggest story for Japan this year and I think it was a big story for Korea as well due to the radiation fall out fears from the follow on nuclear crisis.  For many days people in South Korea were concerned by the effects that the radiation would have on their country.  The tsunami also brought South Korea and Japan a little closer as Korea sent a number of rescue workers to assist in finding survivors as well as sending relief goods after the disaster. The US military as well played a key role in assisting the Japanese in rescue and recovery operations.

3. US-ROK FTA Issue – This has actually been a multi-year issue but this was the year that the FTA was finally ratified by both countries after much demagoguery against the FTA in both the ROK and the US.  When the FTA was finally ratified by the Korean parliament one left wing politicians protested the ratification by throwing a tear gas grenade at his fellow parliament members.

4. Pyeongchang to Host 2018 Winter Olympics – After a very long struggle to host the Winter Olympics, Pyeongchang after losing out in their last two bids to land the games finally was awarded the games after a third try.

5. Election of New Seoul Mayor – Former Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon resigned from office after he lost referendum to limit free school lunches to only those who can’t afford it.  His left wing rivals wanted free lunches for everyone.  Oh vowed to resign if he didn’t win the referendum and that is what he did.  Has anyone every heard of a mayor from a major city like Seoul resigning over such a issue?  Anyway this opened the door for the Korean left to win the Mayor position in Seoul and that is what they did when Park Won-soon won the election.  Park is well known in Korea for anti-US activism over the years.  The election of Park is also seen as a sign that the Korean left is in prime position to win the South Korean Presidential election next year.

6. Perceived Rise In USFK Crimes – There was a rape and sexual assault in Dongducheon plus an on going investigation into a questionable rape in Seoul involving USFK servicemembers that has brought much Korean media attention to crimes committed by USFK personnel.  The typical anti-US types are out in force with their typical demagoguery of the issue while USFK says the crime rate has actually been down this year despite the high profile crimes.  Regardless USFK ended up reestablishing a curfew that had been removed two years ago on all USFK personnel.

7. ROK Battles Somali Pirates – Over the past year the ROK military has had a number of incidents with Somali pirates to include storming a ship in January and killing 8 pirates. Five of the surviving pirates were brought back to South Korea for trial and convicted.  Encounters with Somali pirates have continued with some being a bit mysterious.

8.  Camp Carroll Agent Orange Issue – This was another anti-US issue that was filled with demagoguery by the usual suspects as 3 former USFK servicemembers claimed to have buried barrels of Agent Orange under Camp Carroll in the 1970′s.  Other claims would surface of Agent Orange being buried under other camps as well.  After a joint US-ROK investigation that included veteran interviews, ground penetration radar testing, digging, and water quality testing, no evidence of Agent Orange being dumped was ever found.  What was found was that a number of other less surprising pollutants such as petroleum products and weed killer in the ground water at Camp Carroll.  USFK has been paying to clean pollutants left in the ground at closed out USFK camps since 2009 so the Camp Carroll pollution will likely be cleaned up as well.

9. Cheju Naval Base Protests – The Korean left worked very hard to turn construction of a ROK Navy base on Cheju Island into an anti-US issue in order to create a 2008 mad cow like issue before 2012 elections.  However, this issue as I predicted never caught fire with the wider Korean public like they hoped due to a variety of issue.

10. Balloon Wars Continue – South Korean activists continued to fly anti-North Korean regime propaganda balloons into North Korea this year which caused the North Koreans to make threats to shoot at them.  The North Koreans ultimately decided to use their leftist thug allies in South Korea to resort to physical violence in order to stop the balloon launches.  The North Koreans even went as far as to try to assassinate the leader of the balloon activists.

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Note:  Feel free to add any stories from Korea in 2011 you thought I missed that should have made this Top 10 list in the comments section.