Vol. 81/No. 11 March 20, 2017
Washington, Seoul – and Beijing – press NKorea
The military exercises are “saber-rattling” aimed at the people and government of North Korea, a March 2 statement by military officials in the North said. They come on top of steps by Washington to install an advanced Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, anti-missile battery in South Korea.
The latest moves are also designed to push the Chinese government, the main trading partner of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, to join efforts to tighten pressure on Pyongyang.
Stars and Stripes reported Feb. 28 that the U.S. Army has sent more than 100 Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to arrive in time for the war games. The vehicles, permanently assigned to 8th Army units, could be used in any attempt to cross the heavily mined DMZ zone between North and South.
Korea is the only unresolved national division imposed by the imperialist victors coming out of World War II. Some 70 years ago, Washington divided the country in two, with the collaboration of the Stalinist regime in Moscow, and then carried out a brutal war of aggression there. Some 3 million Korean civilians, half a million North Korean soldiers, hundreds of thousands of Chinese volunteers, and 100,000 South Korean and United Nations-sponsored soldiers, including 54,000 from the U.S., were killed. Entire towns and villages were leveled by U.S. carpet bombing.
Although an armistice was signed in 1953, to this day Washington refuses to sign a peace treaty with the DPRK. The two countries are technically still at war.
The United Nations Security Council and Washington stepped up their threats against the North after Pyongyang test-launched ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons on Oct. 19, 2016, and again Feb. 11.
The Wall Street Journal reported a leaked White House internal memorandum saying the new Donald Trump administration should consider the option of a military strike if Pyongyang moves toward testing an intercontinental ballistic missile.
On Feb. 18 the Chinese Commerce department announced it was suspending all imports of coal from North Korea, the country’s main source of hard currency. Coal is the North’s largest export — sales to China brought in an estimated $1.2 billion last year — and the country faces a widespread trade embargo from the capitalist world.
“This country, styling itself a big power, is dancing to the tune of the U.S.,” Pyongyang’s Korean Central News Agency said, referring to China without mentioning it by name, “while defending its mean behavior with such excuses that it was meant not to have a negative impact on the people living in the DPRK but to check its nuclear program.”
The Chinese action came in the wake of accusations by the Malaysian government that North Korea was responsible for the death of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Nam died after he appeared to be poisoned by two women at the airport there Feb. 13. The North Korean government says charges that they were involved are a slander.
Poking a finger at both Washington and Beijing, North Korea on March 5 launched four more ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan. The launching — in the first week of the Foal Eagle war games — also coincided with the opening of China’s National People’s Congress in Beijing.
Both Beijing and the DPRK oppose installation of the THAAD battery in South Korea. While Washington and Seoul say the anti-missile battery is being deployed to defend South Korea from attack by the North, its radar capacity would allow it to keep track of activity in China.
Beijing took retaliatory measures against South Korean businesses, including banning Chinese tour groups from visiting South Korea beginning March 15. South Korea’s largest export partner is China and some 8 million Chinese tourists visited South Korea last year.
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