Military tension between North and South Korea — which last week resulted in the first attack on a civilian area in the peninsula since the end of the Korean War — has given some students cause for concern.
On Nov. 23, North Korea fired dozens of artillery shells onto the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, killing two marines and two citizens. The incident prompted South Korea to return fire. American officials said in a New York Times article written that day that a total of 175 shells were exchanged. North Korea later claimed that a South Korean military drill earlier in the day provoked the attack. According to the Times, it was an annual nationwide military drill called “Safeguarding the Nation.”
College sophomore Minh Joo Yi received word of the artillery exchange before her family in Seoul, South Korea.
“I was really shocked when I saw the news,” Yi said. “I called my mom at 3 a.m.”
Yi said she knew her family was safe, as they do not live near the site of the artillery fire. Even so, she called because she “just wanted to make sure.”
Wharton senior Joo Kim’s family, however, was closer to the site. “Being neighbors with NK, I guess we always live in danger of random attacks, but it is always a bad surprise when they end in fatalities,” Joo Kim wrote in an e-mail. However, she added that everyday life for her family hasn’t changed very much. “I actually knew about the attacks before them,” she wrote.
On Wednesday, after four days of South Korean and U.S. naval training off the coast of North Korea, Won Sei-hoon — the South Korean National Intelligence Service director — said there is “a high possibility that the North will make an additional attack” in a parliamentary committee meeting, according to a Dec. 1 Reuters article.
Joo Kim said she thinks the main motivation behind the attacks is to justify the succession of Kim Jong-un over current North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. North Korean governance is “based on strong military powers, and they might see this as something necessary,” Joo Kim wrote.
Political Science professor Michael Horowitz agreed. “North Korea is in the midst of a succession and this could have been a way for Kim Jong-un to demonstrate that he is ‘tough’ and will look out for North Korean interests,” Horowitz wrote in an e-mail. Another possible reason listed by Horowitz is to “extract concessions and aid from the international community.”
The incident made Yi “insecure,” partly because she has friends in the South Korean military. National law requires male citizens to serve a year of military service.
“After this, I’m starting to rethink whether peaceful reunification is possible,” Yi said.
According to College sophomore and Korean Student Association IT Chairman Vincent Park, the general sentiment among him and his friends at Penn is the “same all around.”
“Most of the Korean Americans here are worried/angry about the attack North Korea’s made,” Park wrote in an e-mail. “No one wants this conflict to escalate to a war, but most of us feel that South Korea’s aggressive policy is the best countermeasure against North Korea.”
Yi explained that the current South Korean stance of condemning the North’s actions is different from the “Sunshine Policy” used in the past, which aims to use persuasion, rather than motivate by force. “I don’t think we should do nothing,” Yi said. “On the other hand, I’m worried because whatever we do can anger them more.”
But according to Park, the more aggressive countermeasures are “the only way to deter North Korea’s future attacks.”
“I feel like reinstating a variation of South Korea’s old Sunshine Policy will not necessarily cause North’s random acts of aggression to cease, nor will it allow South to have any sort of political dominance in Korea relations,” Park wrote.
Joo Kim agreed with the sentiment. “I like that the government is taking a strong stance; we’ve lost too many innocent lives for ridiculous reasons,” she wrote, adding, “I do hope for a peaceful resolution though […] the Korean peninsula is just too small to risk another war.”
However, Horowitz is not optimistic for a peaceful, permanent resolution to the conflict on the Korean Peninsula. The area “has existed in this state of tension since the 1950s,” Horowitz wrote.
“That being said,” he added, “I think a more significant escalation to open war is unlikely.” He pointed to the U.S. and China as international leaders in future diplomacy talks. “China wants to preserve stability on the Korean Peninsula above all,” he wrote.
