Kim Jong-un Provoking South Korea by Comforting Japan

A view of the North Korean island of Jangjae from the Manghyang Observation Deck in Dae Yeonpyeong Island, Ongjin County, Incheon, South Korea, on the morning of the 6th. Yeonpyeong Island=Yonhap News

North Korea is seen holding a fireworks display in Pyongyang on the 5th. North Korea is trying to deflect internal dissatisfaction to the outside through such fireworks displays and military provocations against the South, as signs of public sentiment are showing due to serious food shortages and other issues caused by international sanctions following the nuclear development of the Kim Jong-un regime. The increasing intensity of North Korea’s military provocations and internal solidarity events paradoxically proves that the Kim Jong-un regime has that much anxiety about maintaining the regime. This scene was reported by the Korean Central News Agency the next day. Korean Central News Agency·Yonhap News

Amid North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-un defining inter-Korean relations as a ‘state of war’ and raising the threat of military conflict, he recently expressed his condolences over the earthquake damage in Japan by sending a telegram to Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. This is interpreted as an ‘interference strategy’ by the Kim Jong-un regime to cause a rift in the cooperation system of the three countries, South Korea, the U.S., and Japan, by throwing a conciliatory message to Japan.

According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the 7th, North Korea raised military tensions by conducting artillery fire near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea for two consecutive days on the 5th and 6th. On the 5th, more than 200 shots were fired in the direction of the NLL from the northern Jangsan Got area of Baengnyeong Island and the northern Deoksan Got area of Yeonpyeong Island. The shells fired at this time were confirmed to have approached up to 7 km north of the West Sea NLL. In response, the Marine Corps in the northwest islands mobilized K9 self-propelled guns and tank guns to counter-fire, and the shells fell in the West Sea buffer zone. It has been a year and a month since December 2022 that North Korean military shells fell in the maritime buffer zone, where shooting and maneuvering training is prohibited under the 9·19 South-North Military Agreement.

Our military is conducting maritime shooting training in Baengnyeong Island on the 5th when North Korea conducted coastal artillery fire near the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea. On this day, our military fired about twice as many as North Korea’s provocation, 400 shots, showing a strong deterrence will against North Korea. Photo provided by the Ministry of National Defense

On the previous day, the 6th, about 60 shells were fired from the Gae Meo Ri battery in the northwest of Yeonpyeong Island using howitzers and field guns, all of which fell in the maritime buffer zone northeast of the Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the West Sea. Our military did not respond to North Korea’s shooting on this day, judging it to be less threatening than the shooting on the 5th because it was conducted inland or sideways in North Korea. Regarding the background of North Korea’s consecutive West Sea artillery fire, Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, diagnosed that it is “showing the will to restore military training due to the abolition of the 9·19 military agreement and testing our military’s response.”

Chairman Kim sent his first telegram to Prime Minister Kishida to console the recent earthquake damage in Japan. In a letter dated the 5th and disclosed through the state-run Korean Central News Agency on the 6th, Chairman Kim called Prime Minister Kishida ‘Your Excellency’ and said, “I have heard the news that unfortunately, Japan has suffered many human casualties and material losses due to an earthquake from the beginning of the New Year, and I express my deep sympathy and condolence to you and through you to the families and victims.”

Prime Minister Kishida has repeatedly expressed his intention to work for the realization of a North Korea-Japan summit with Chairman Kim to resolve the issue of Japanese abductees. Therefore, Chairman Kim’s telegram this time is evaluated as a signal to improve North Korea-Japan relations using the abductee issue as an opportunity while showing his humanitarian side as a leader of a normal country to the international community. It is like throwing a ‘bait’ to shake South Korea-Japan and South Korea-U.S.-Japan security cooperation. Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Unification Research Institute, explained, “It could be part of a strategy to dilute South Korea-U.S.-Japan cooperation by showing a possibility of a conciliatory attitude towards Japan while showing a super-hardline stance towards South Korea.”