Tension Assembly – Loud Rattle on the Korean Peninsula

Early Monday morning, “warning shots” were again fired in South Korea as a North Korean merchant vessel crossed the sea border. It turned, but the North Korean artillery fired ten warning shots.

Frequent incidents with disruptive effects
But it’s not just recent frequent incidents like this that have had a disturbing effect: a few weeks ago, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un amended his “nuclear doctrine” by law. So far it has been limited to defense. Now it theoretically no longer precludes a first attack.

South Korean Foreign Minister Park Yin expressed his concern in a meeting with his counterpart Alexander Schallenberg. It is feared that North Korea will soon attempt a new (seventh) nuclear test. In the shadow of the war in Ukraine and China’s increasingly hostile rhetoric towards Taiwan, Kim may feel encouraged to play with the nuclear button.

North Korea supplies Russians with missiles for Ukraine war
Schallenberg stressed Austria’s strong international commitment to the “denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula. But the ultra-communist regime in the north is firmly in place. It even supplies the Russians with artillery shells and missiles for the war in Ukraine, because Putin is running out of supplies at home.

During the last visit of South Korean President Ban Ki-moon to Vienna in 2021, the two countries agreed on a “strategic partnership”. His country is our third largest trading partner in the Far East, and many tourists from South Korea also visited Austria before the pandemic. There is catching up to do as Korea recently finally largely lifted Covid restrictions.

Meeting with fan Ban Ki Moon from Austria
In Seoul, Schallenberg also met former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (until 2016). A retired politician, the now 78-year-old Austrian (he was South Korea’s ambassador in Vienna for many years) is fully committed to the “Global Green Growth” initiative he initiated, which helps developing countries switch to renewable energy sources.