A modern-day Cold War conflict featuring K-pop and garbage-filled balloons? These are just some of the bizarre psychological tactics that have been employed at one of the most volatile regions in the world - the Korean Peninsula.
Recently, South Korea announced that it would be amplifying its anti-propaganda broadcasts from its loudspeakers across the border with North Korea. Its recent broadcasts reportedly included BTS hits ‘Dynamite’ and ‘Butter,’ news of the South’s economic prosperity, and stated that North Korean mine workers based at the border lived “hellish, slave-like lives.”
This month’s broadcasts come after North Korea sent an onslaught of balloons to the South. However, these weren’t just ordinary balloons. These balloons were filled with waste, clothing scraps, cigarette butts, waste batteries, and in some instances, faeces. The North has floated over 2,000 of these balloons to the South since late May. In fact, one of its balloons was recently found in South Korea’s presidential compound, sparking security concerns.
The North says their balloon campaign is in direct retaliation against political leaflets flown by North Korean defectors in South Korea. The Kim Jong Un regime considers such leaflets a serious threat to its strict ban on foreign media. The South’s leaflets have even warranted threats from Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jang, who criticised the leaflets as “things of (South Korean) scum” and, ironically, a “crude and dirty play.”
Activists from South Korea have long been flying their own balloons into the North in an effort to spark democratisation and incite an uprising in the hermit Kingdom. Besides anti-propaganda leaflets, previous balloons have also contained USB sticks stored with K-pop music and K-dramas, friendly letters, U.S. dollars, and even instant noodles. While the South Korean Government has discouraged the balloon drops, they have usually been hesitant to intervene due to concerns surrounding freedom of expression. Despite South Korea’s parliament criminalising the practice in December 2020, South Korea’s unification ministry chose not to ask the defectors group that incited this month’s ordeal to stop their leaflet campaigns.
The recent tit-for-tat exchange between the two Koreas, though bizarre, provides a real indication that tensions are at an all-time high. Kim Jong Un’s recent meeting with Vladimir Putin rang real alarm bells in the Western world, considering the rogue state’s nuclear capabilities. Moreover, the regime demolished its landmark ‘Arch of Reunification’ monument in January this year, a sculpture that commemorated reunification proposals set by the state’s founder Kim Il-Sung. Most notably, in early June, South Korea suspended an inter-Korean agreement to lower frontline military tensions, an agreement enacted during historic peace talks with the North in 2018.
Despite these concerns, commentators continue to assert that a North-South military clash is not imminent. According to Ewha University professor Leif-Eric Easley, South Korea simply has too much to lose in a physical war despite its technological and economic superiority, making a war infeasible. Similarly, North Korea holds a meagre economy and a regime vulnerable to outside information. While its commitment to expand its nuclear capabilities is indeed a cause for concern, their nuclear status, as Easley argues, may give them ‘overconfidence’ in their ability to coerce considering their pailing economy.
The two Koreas are technically still at war, as a peace treaty was never signed following the Korean War. Rather, the war concluded when the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, which created the Korean Demilitarised Zone. This has shaped the North-South border into one of the world’s most fortified and tense.
Though reunification is unlikely in the near future, we can only hope that the escalation of inter-Korean conflict stops at K-pop and balloons.
Image Credit: Province of British Columbia © - Flickr
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