POHANG, South Korea — The Related Press spoke with dozens of South Koreans for an in depth have a look at the nation’s stark division in views about North Korean chief Kim Jong Un’s aggressive pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles concentrating on the South and its main ally and protector, the US.
How South Korea sees its northern rival is a famously sophisticated topic, cut up alongside deep societal fault strains: Age, wealth, politics, standing, historical past, intercourse.
The result’s that some see little hazard in North Korea’s threatening rhetoric, weapons assessments and aggressive navy maneuvers — and a few are stocking bunkers with items meant to get them by a nuclear strike.
Listed here are some key takeaways from the AP examination of South Korea’s distinctive, fragmented notion of its greatest enemy and closest neighbor, North Korea.
The precise particulars of the North’s secretive nuclear program are tough for outsiders to find out.
However a consensus has fashioned that the nation, one of many world’s poorest, is making regular — sometimes dramatic — progress in its drive for an arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles. That progress was underlined Thursday when North Korea test-fired a number of short-range ballistic missiles simply days after chief Kim Jong Un vowed to make his nuclear power absolutely prepared for battle.
The tip of the three-year Korean Conflict in 1953 resulted in an uneasy cease-fire, which implies that the Korean Peninsula, separated by the world’s most closely armed border, is technically nonetheless at struggle. These tensions are palpable in South Korea, the place each able-bodied man should serve within the navy.
North Korea has been engaged on its nuclear program for many years, nevertheless it began in earnest within the Nineteen Nineties. Its common missile and nuclear assessments are supposed to construct an arsenal that may precisely hit targets on the American mainland. There are nonetheless technical points Pyongyang should grasp, however the growth of such weapons could solely be a matter of time.
Consultants estimate that Pyongyang has as many as 60 warheads.
“Kim Jong Un may actually use a nuke,” Kim Jaehyun, a 22-year-old undergraduate legislation pupil, informed AP. “North Korea might actually assault us out of the blue.”
Kim Jaehyun stockpiles a bulletproof vest and different navy gear within the occasion of a struggle. He additionally commonly attends North Korea safety seminars and reads articles on struggle eventualities.
“There must be not less than one individual like me who can increase how harmful” North Korea is, Kim stated. “Individuals simply take the looming threats too evenly. It’s like they see the knife coming nearer to them however by no means assume the knife might stab them.”
Anxiousness in South Korea is partly linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly questioned the decades-long Seoul-Washington alliance. This, together with the North’s speedy nuclear progress, has raised critical questions in Seoul about whether or not Washington would fulfill its oft-stated pledge to reply with its personal nuclear weapons if the North attacked South Korea.
Shin Nari can rapidly quantify her fear about nuclear struggle.
“Quantity-wise, from 1 to 10, I might say 8. … I take it very significantly,” stated Shin, 34, a grasp’s pupil on the College of North Korean Research in Seoul. She says a struggle might occur anytime. “In a couple of seconds, we might simply blow up right here.”
On the outskirts of Seoul, Jung Myungja, 73, was so nervous a few nuclear assault that she commissioned the constructing of a bunker, concerning the dimension of a medium-sized walk-in closet, beneath the courtyard of her home.
“You by no means know what the long run holds,” Jung stated. “Today you get native information and (knowledgeable) opinions that say there’s prone to be one other struggle on this nation. I personally assume that may actually occur once more.”
Two longtime North Korea specialists — Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker, each of whom have commonly visited the North — argued at first of 2024 that Kim Jong Un had “made a strategic choice to go to struggle,” making a state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula that’s “extra harmful than it has been at any time since early June 1950.”
“If a fish lives in water, it doesn’t take into consideration the water.”
That is how the Rev. Chung Joon-hee, a pastor at Youngnak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, certainly one of South Korea’s greatest and most influential church buildings, explains why many South Koreans ignore the fixed North Korean menace.
“That is our world,” he stated. “There’s nowhere to cover or go. … If there’s a provocation or something that occurs, we’ve got to simply accept that as context in our life.”
Most of the individuals in South Korea who don’t fear are likely to have an abiding religion in Washington’s rhetoric about its “ironclad alliance” with Seoul — and the practically 30,000 American troops stationed within the South as a deterrent.
Many in South Korea, no matter age or financial background, additionally low cost the nuclear menace as hole due to a easy fact: Except for occasional lethal skirmishes, the North hasn’t backed up its common threats to make use of its weapons in a full-scale assault on the South.
“I hope he gained’t get injured,” stated Yeon Soo Lee, 55, a enterprise proprietor from Gangneung, stated of his son who’s changing into a third-generation marine. “However I’ve no concern that he shall be concerned in a attainable struggle that North Korea has been implying will occur nowadays.”
Kwon Younger-il, a 28-year-old automotive salesperson who accomplished his lively navy obligation in 2021 and is now within the reserves, says virtually all of the skilled troopers he is aware of don’t assume struggle is coming. That features him.
What does he fear about? “Whether or not I ought to get a lunch field supplied by the military or purchase my very own lunch on the submit change,” he stated of his reserve coaching. “None of my buddies significantly assume I must combat in opposition to North Korea.”
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The Related Press receives help for nuclear safety protection from the Carnegie Company of New York and Outrider Basis. The AP is solely accountable for all content material.
