South Korea holds military exercises despite warnings from the North

[teko]

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By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, May 27, 2010; 10:28 AM

SEOUL -- South Korean warships fired big guns into the Yellow Sea and dropped anti-submarine bombs in a large-scale military exercise Thursday, despite warnings from the North that the action would bring the peninsula to the brink of war.

North Korea quickly declared that it was repealing military guarantees for the safety of cross-border exchanges between the two Koreas and would scrap an accord with the South designed to prevent armed clashes at the maritime border. The North warned of "immediate physical strikes" if any South Korean ships enter its waters, wire services reported.

U.S. Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of 28,500 American troops stationed in South Korea, said North Korea should "cease all acts of provocation."

The growing tension comes a week after Seoul accused North Korea of shooting a torpedo that sank a navy frigate in March. In furious reaction, the government of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il -- while indignantly denying that it sank the ship -- said it would cut all relations with South Korea.

Kim's decision to stop guaranteeing safe border crossings could lead to the closure of the Kaesong industrial complex, which is just north of the heavily armed border and is the sole remaining symbol of economic cooperation between the two countries.

In a college cafeteria here in the South Korean capital on Thursday, three civil engineering students wolfed down rice with spicy soup and watched a large-screen TV flash breaking news of the naval exercises. The military maneuvers took place in waters near where the torpedo apparently fired by the North sank a South Korean ship and killed 46 sailors.

The students fretted about what that sneak attack portends for their professional future. Echoing fears of many young people in this rich, wired and achievement-obsessed country, they said that never before in their lives has North Korea loomed so large -- as a potential threat to personal safety and as an irksome complication in career planning.

"If this crisis continues for much longer, it will hurt my chances of getting a job," said Yoo Youn-seong, a 24-year-old senior at Chung-Ang University. "The stock market has gone down, and international investors may decide to stop putting money into South Korea. I am also a little bit afraid the North will attack."

The March 26 sinking of the Cheonan warship has metastasized in the past week into a major international security crisis. Seoul has disclosed detailed evidence linking Pyongyang to the attack and has cancelled most economic links with the North. The Obama administration is pressuring China -- Kim's the principal benefactor-- to support U.N. Security Council sanctions against his government.

But the ship-sinking crisis has another dimension, one that is especially disorienting to young people in South Korea. Many of them have grown up thinking of North Korea as yesterday's irritant, one that their grandparents and parents had more or less salved.

Three years ago, in a poll conducted before a presidential vote, only 3 percent of voters named North Korea as a primary concern. They were much more concerned about economic growth and higher salaries. The young in South Korea, many polls found, were particularly indifferent to North Korea and the fulminations of its odd dictator.

A "sunshine policy" that began after a North-South summit in 2000 had seemed to defang Kim's menace. South Korea bought itself peace of mind by showering the impoverished North with food aid, fertilizer and economic investment. Polls here found that despite North Korea's periodic petulance -- exploding small nuclear devices in 2006 and 2008 and launching a flurry of missiles -- most South Koreans viewed Pyongyang as a manageable worry.
The ship-sinking crisis, however, appears to have significantly altered that view.

"I never before factored in the possibility of a war," said Kim Sun-young, 32, a researcher in molecular science at Yonsei University in Seoul. "But I am very now very nervous and worried, especially if there is a nuclear attack. It would mean the end. Maybe I will have to move to a different country."

Six out of 10 South Koreans approve of the sanctions against the North that were announced this week by President Lee Myung-bak, according to a Gallup Korea poll published Thursday in the Chosun Ilbo, a major daily newspaper.

The poll echoed other recent surveys showing that about 70 percent of South Koreans support the government investigation that blames Pyongyang for sinking the 1,200-ton warship.

Young people in South Korea have in the past been highly critical of Lee's leadership, which has taken a relatively hard line on North Korea, cutting food aid while demanding improvements in human rights and abolishment of nuclear weapons.

Shortly after Lee came into office in 2008, tens of thousands of mostly young people protested for months in downtown Seoul, denouncing Lee's support for the import of U.S. beef and demanding that he resign.

But now a majority of people in their 20s -- 51 percent -- approve of his sanctions against North Korea, the Gallup Korea poll found.

"South Korea has been giving and North Korea has been taking," said Park Jae-hyun, 24, a senior at Yonsei University. "I think the North has been ungrateful, and I support Lee Myung-bak's strong response to the sinking of the ship."

Still, a highly vocal coalition of young people, labor activists, opposition members and left-leaning intellectuals do not trust Lee's government or rejects its evidence that North Korea sank the ship. Web sites here brim over with claims that the investigation was a fraud.

Kim Jo-Young, a 20-year-old nursing student at Yonsei University, does not believe that North Korea torpedoed the ship and says she suspects that it may been blown up by South Korean plotters, in order to enhance Lee's popularity.

Yet, she also believes the risk of a conflict with North Korea is rising and she fears for her career.

"I feel like I really can't live in South Korea anymore," she said. "I am personally very stressed."

[teko]

Yes I agree, I think it is about to get ugly! Very ugly!

[adgal]

This is a situation that could become extremely serious very very quickly.  It has been tense at the best of times for so many years and I truly believe both sides are "just looking for an excuse".  It is very worrisome.