In November 2010, North Korean forces fired approximately 170 artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two civilians and two soldiers. South Korea retaliated by targeting North Korean gun positions, reportedly killing up to 10 people.
The attack on Yeonpyeong Island – located just south of the disputed Northern Limit Line (NLL), the maritime border between North and South Korea – prompted widespread international condemnation, with the United Nations declaring it one of the most serious events since the end of the Korean War in 1953.
Yet despite global finger wagging, it is worth remembering that South Korea was conducting military exercises near Yeonpyeong, apparently the motivation for the North’s attack.
This level of provocation from the South, often playing ‘war games’ with the US in disputed waters near the NLL, goes uncriticised in the world’s media, but it has an impact on stability in the region. Nevertheless, the North Korean attack was both appalling and hugely counterproductive in their efforts to engage with the US.
In 2013, the residents of Yeonpyeong and neighbouring islands are getting very anxious once again. While many analysts believe the threat to send nuclear bombs across the Pacific to be nothing more than attention-seeking noise, it is the people literally on the front line who have much to fear.
Justin McCurry, in an article for the Guardian, visited Baengnyeong Island earlier this month. Unlike in Seoul, he found people frightened and fearing the worst. As one woman commented: “People say they are not worried, but in truth I’m terrified. North Korea has attacked this area before. How are we supposed to stay calm?”
Baengnyeong, like Yeonpyeong and Daecheong, is in an extremely dangerous area. North Korea doesn’t recognise the 1953 United Nations NLL, and instead adopts their own Inter-Korean MDL which sees these three islands – all no more than 15km from the North’s mainland border in the Yellow Sea – precariously placed right in the heart of a major territorial dispute. It is in these waters that South Korea and US conducts joint military exercises, often firing small rockets into waters the North claims.
There have been several naval battles in this area over the past two decades, with the single worst incident being the sinking the South Korean corvette Cheonan off the coast of Baengnyeong in 2010, resulting in the loss of 46 seamen. This is the last frontier of the Cold War.
In Seoul, the atmosphere is still relatively calm. While news reports are dominated with the ever-evolving “escalation in tensions”, restaurants are still packed, schools are open and there haven’t been an extraordinary war drills. Life goes on; they’ve seen it all before.
It would seem that the level of concern is far greater in Europe and North America than in South Korea. Local people agree that any threat should be taken seriously, but most acknowledge that it is not in the North’s interest to commit national suicide. If the generals running that country are serious about preserving their status, they will not engage in full-blown conflict.
Minor, but potentially deadly, skirmishes like the Yeongpeyong Island incident are more likely than a full engagement. North Korea cutting off phone lines, closing industrial towns and moving missiles across the country are not new events, and how many countries inform their enemy of their plans in advance? Any attack, no matter how big, would normally come as a surprise, not via images of Kim Jong-un holding conference with a map of Hawaii over his shoulder.
Andrew Farrell works as an English language teacher in Korea.
