Trouble between the Koreas rumbles on

It has been just over a week since the most recent trouble between North and South Korea broke out, and the political posturing – and military manoeuvring – continues.

South Korea's intelligence chief is reported to have said they think that North Korea is very likely to attack again. Won Sei-hoon, director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, was quoted by South Korea's Yonhap news agency saying “There is a high possibility that the North will make another attack”.

It must be considered, however, whether Seoul would have to take some of the blame if the North did attack, as their actions, and those of their ally, the US, seem very provocative. The South Koreans are building up their defences on Yeonpyeong island, the site of the conflict, and the US has sent warships, fighter jets and more than 6,000 personnel to the area, where 70,000 South Korean troops are already present.

On 28th November, the US and South Korea began carrying out joint military exercises in the disputed area. Beijing has expressed its anger at the joint military exercises. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said on 26th November, “We hold a consistent and clear-cut stance on the issue. We oppose any party to take any military acts in our exclusive economic zone without permission.”

In July 2010, some 20 US warships and 200 planes carried out similar manoeuvres with the South Korean military in the waters bordering both North Korea and China, according to the International Action Center. The nuclear powered carrier, the USS George Washington, which carries 75 fighter jets and is currently in the Yellow Sea area, also took part in the July exercises. Beijing expressed their displeasure to the exercises at the time, and it must be asked why they need to carry out two major military exercises within such a short time frame.

Much of the Yellow Sea area is disputed by the two Koreas. A US-led UN team awarded it to South Korea following the 1950-53 Korean War, but North Korea has never acknowledged the boundary, known as the Northern Limit Line. It believes Yeonpyeong Island, and the waters surrounding it, to be North Korean territory.

The US and South Korea have also rejected China's calls for the resumption of the six-nation talks on ending North Korea's nuclear programme. The BBC suggests that Seoul and Washington are anxious to avoid the impression that bad behaviour from the North will be rewarded with talks or offers of aid.
Talks have been stalled since April 2009, but Pyongyang has recently expressed interest in restarting them. The US has said that talks cannot resume until North Korea apologises for the torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, and stops further nuclear enrichment plants from operating. North Korea has denied any involvement in the sinking of the corvette Cheonan.

Others in South Korea, however, have suggested the worst may be over. "There will be ongoing measures to beef up our forces including the stationing of new weapons, upgrading our marines on Yeonpyeong island but I think on this particular crisis we are reaching the apex and we will see a gradual de-escalation," Chung Min Lee, ambassador for international security affairs, is reported by the BBC to have said.

Sources: BBC News, International Action Center

For more information on North Korea and South Korea dispute, see the menas borders website.

Border Focus: North and South Korea

A South Koreans soldier patrols the DMZ

What is disputed?

In essence, the whole peninsula is disputed, as both the North and the South theoretically seek reunification upon their own ideological lines: neoliberal social democracy for the South and a militant communism for the North. But reunification has become an increasingly distant dream over the past half century as the systems have become fully entrenched in their respective spheres. On a more immediate basis, tension between the two countries centres around their border onshore, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and their UN-designed maritime border, the Northern Limit Line (NLL).

What is the history of the dispute?The two Koreas were unified until the end of World War II. They were governed by the Korean Empire until it was brought under the Japanese sphere of influence following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, and it was eventually annexed in 1910.

It was divided into Soviet and American occupied zones along the 38th parallel, when the Japanese were forced to relinquish control at the end of World War II. UN-supervised elections were held in the south in 1948, but when the North refused to participate, separate governments were created for each area.

Both nations, however, continued to claim sovereignty over the Korean Peninsula as a whole, and this led to the Korean War (1950-53), when the Soviet–backed North Koreans invaded. The UN, and especially the US, came to the defence of the South, and they succeeded in pushing the North’s troops beyond the original border. Fresh from its own civil war, Communist China came to the North’s defence and an 1953 armistice re-established the border near the 38th parallel. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 ended the fighting, but both nations are officially still at war as a peace treaty was never signed.

In the ceasefire of 1953, the DMZ was created, when each side agreed to move their troops back 2km from what had been the front line, creating a buffer zone 4km wide. The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) indicates exactly where the front was when the agreement was signed.

The MDL was extended into the sea by the US-led UN military forces after the ceasefire, and this Northern Limit Line now serves as the de facto maritime boundary. The 1953 Armistice Agreement specified that the UN Command (ie South Korea) would retain control of five islands, including Yeonpyeong and Baengnyeong Islands. The NLL was not part of the actual Armistice Agreement because the two sides could not agree how the territorial sea should be measured: the UN favoured three nautical miles, while the North favoured 12. The NLL, unsurprisingly, adopts the UN preferred option.

While both sides acknowledge the DMZ as the border between the two, the North does not accept the NLL, and since 1999 has been arguing in favour of a more southerly ‘West Sea Military Demarcation’.

How serious is the dispute?

The dispute between the two Korea’s is very serious, not only for the people living on the peninsula, but because any dispute between the two threatens to involve their international backers: the US for the South and China for the North.

Since the 1950s the tension on the peninsula has remained high and there have been numerous border clashes. A series of low-level armed clashes around the DMZ area between 1966-69 has been called the Second Korean War by some; there have been numerous assassination attempts on South Korean presidents by the North; and the North has dug at least four tunnels crossing under the DMZ in what appears to be preparation for a military strike. The North claims that they are for coal mining, and the walls have been painted black to give the appearance of coal.

The South, and their American allies are not innocent either, and there have been numerous incidents of American helicopters and other aircrafts invading northern airspace. They have been shot down on at least two occasions.

There have been political wrangling as well as military, including the bizarre 'flagpole war' of the 1980s. The South Korean government installed a 98.4m tall flagpole with a 130kg South Korean flag in Daeseong-dong, a South Korean town that lies within the DMZ. In retaliation, the North promptly built what was then the tallest flatpole in the world at 160m, with a 270kg North Korean flag, near Panmunjom, the town on the MDL where the Armistice talks took place in 1953.

Also on the MDL is the Joint Security Area (JSA), where all negotations since 1953 have taken place. Amusingly, the area has been built so that the MDL goes through conference rooms, and even down the middle of conference tables, so North and South Koreans can meet face to face while remaining on their own jurisdiction.

The NLL has also been the cause of numerous disputes. The fact that it enforces a 3 nautical mile territorial sea has prevented the North from accessing its rightful Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), as dictated under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. As a result, the North does not recognise the line, and its fishing boats consistently work close to, or over, the limit line, often escorted by North Korean naval boats.


What has happened in recent years?

Relations began to improve in the early 1990s, with the 1991 'Agreement on Reconciliation, Nonaggression and Exchanges and Cooperation between the South and the North' (also known as the ‘Basic Agreement’) which acknowledged that reunification was the goal of both governments, and the 1992 'Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula'.

Anti-North Korea bias skews reporting of island crisis

A look at any news website this morning will have told you that North Korea has attacked a South Korean island, killing at least one soldier and injuring numerous military and civilian personnel.

As far as background information goes, they will probably tell you that the North and the South never officially ended the 1950-53 Korean war, and that the North fired a torpedo in March 2010, sinking a South Korean ship and killing 46 people. The shadowy nature of the North Korean regime will be raised, as will their nuclear programme.

Part of the problem with any reporting on the Koreas is that in the West, we generally get our information from the South. In the world of 24 hour news, the media is looking for instant experts and official quotes, and these are unlikely to come from the North. Due to the time difference, this new crisis has been reported as part of the morning news. Opinions are made at the first reading, and the largely anti-North Korean western media immediately blames Pyongyang. In fact, if the media had waited, there would have been time to hear from the North, who in the late morning UK time, released a brief statement accusing the South of firing first. "Despite our repeated warnings, South Korea fired dozens of shells from 1pm ... and we've taken strong military action immediately," the North's official KCNA news agency said in a brief statement.

A similar situation occurred over the sinking of the Cheonan in March 2010. The North was immediately accused by the South and the US, and it was, of course, no surprise when an “international” investigation, ie one run by Seoul and Washington, found their accusations confirmed: they were unlikely to find anything else. The reclusive nature of the Pyongyang regime, of course, doesn’t help the North’s reputation in the world, but it seems that at least due consideration should be given to the North’s defence. In early November, Pyongyang released a detailed defence, pointing out that the international investigation found that an aluminium torpedo sank the warship, whereas all of its torpedoes are made of steel alloy.

It is as yet unclear what the truth of this most recent skirmish is, though that hasn’t stopped wild rumours of Kim Jong-il’s death from flying around the internet. Nor has it prevented UK Foreign Minister William Hague from issuing a statement, saying the UK “strongly condemns North Korea's unprovoked attack on the South Korean island”. Who fired first may never be known, though it can be sure that most of the world will continue to blame the North.

For more information on the Korean dispute, see the menas borders website.