-
North Korea has destroyed parts of roads and railway lines connecting it to South Korea.
-
It comes after North Korea accused South Korea last week of flying drones over its capital.
-
Experts told BI that the destruction of roads was symbolic and unlikely to lead to a full-scale war.
North Korea blew up parts of roads and railways connecting it to South Korea on Tuesday, escalating tensions in the region.
In response, South Korea fired warning shots within its own border, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. It described North Korea’s actions as “extremely abnormal.”
However, the destruction is mainly symbolic and is unlikely to lead to war, experts told Business Insider.
“Most inter-Korean roads have been closed since 1953 anyway,” said Jim Hoare, a historian and former British diplomat in North Korea.
“It is in fact another symbolic gesture, but in reality it makes no difference to what the situation has been on the ground.”
Tensions between the Koreas have been simmering since the Korean War divided them in 1953.
That of North Korea approach that used to lean towards reunification of the two countries, but that has changed in recent months.
In 2020, North Korea inflated the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong, which previously served as the de facto South Korean embassy.
In December last year, state media reported that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un had announced that he would no longer seek reunification and that South Korea was now a hostile state.
“I believe it is a mistake we should no longer make to regard the people who declare us as the ‘main enemy’ as a counterpart to reconciliation and unification,” he said. in a statement.
Trade between the two Koreas has now declined to almost zero from $2.7 billion in 2015, according to Bloomberg.
The explosions come after North Korea accused South Korea last week of flying drones over the capital Pyongyang. South Korea has neither confirmed nor denied the accusation.
Kim’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, issued a stern warning on Monday: “The moment another (South Korea) drone is discovered in the sky over our capital will definitely lead to a terrible disaster,” she said.
Edward Howell, Korea Foundation Fellow at Chatham House, told BI that despite the aggressive tone of the communications, the growing escalations are “all part of the North Korean strategy that we are seeing right now, which is one of mismanagement.”
Howell added that North Korea has historically increased provocations during U.S. election years. “It wants to test and see if the US will make any concessions,” he said.
A full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula could cost the global economy $4 trillion in the first year, or 3.9% of GDP. according to analysis of Bloomberg Economics.
But while the situation appears tense, it is unlikely to culminate in a full-scale war. “If I were planning an invasion, I would indeed not blow up the routes south,” Hoare said.
For North Korea, “the destruction of the roads should be a dramatic spectacle, for both foreign and domestic audiences, of their hostility and disaffection towards the South,” said Peter Ward, a researcher at the Sejong Institute think tank . in Seoul, said the Financial times.
“But it allows them to do this in a way that attracts attention without inviting a military response,” he added.
“Because in the end, all they do is destroy their own roads, and if they want to rebuild them one day, the only thing they have enough of is concrete.”
Read the original article Business insider
