SEOUL: North Korea has launched hundreds more balloons filled with trash southward, Seoul said on Saturday, the latest salvo in the two countries’ tit-for-tat campaigns of provocation and propaganda.
According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea has dispatched over 900 trash balloons in the past three days, including around 190 on Friday. Approximately 100 of these balloons have already landed, primarily in Seoul and northern Gyeonggi Province. The military noted that the balloons carried “mostly paper and plastic waste” and posed no safety threat to the public.
Since May, North Korea has sent nearly 5,000 trash-filled balloons southward in retaliation for propaganda balloons released by South Korean activists. In response, Seoul has halted a military agreement with Pyongyang designed to reduce tensions and resumed some propaganda broadcasts via loudspeakers along the border.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, commented that North Korea’s balloon strategy is an ineffective propaganda tactic. He noted that while Kim Yo-jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un, might believe these balloons create political discord in South Korea, they more likely damage North Korea’s international reputation. Easley also pointed out that South Korean residents are frustrated by the necessary cleanup and concerned about potential escalation.
Easley suggested that restarting diplomacy between Pyongyang and Seoul, contingent on South Korean civic groups voluntarily halting balloon launches, might be the most practical solution.
These latest launches coincide with a visit by Japan’s outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Seoul, where he met with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol. They discussed the importance of cooperation among Korea, Japan, and the United States to address the North Korean nuclear threat.
Relations between the two Koreas are currently at a low point, with North Korea recently announcing the deployment of 250 ballistic missile launchers near its southern border.
