📷 Image Credits: CGTN
In a recent development, South Korea’s military has reported that North Korea has ceased sending trash-laden balloons across the border to South Korea. This decision comes after South Korea threatened ‘unbearable’ retaliatory measures following the trash balloon activities. The North Korean announcement to halt the balloon launches came shortly after the South Korean military discovered over 700 balloons flown from North Korea in various parts of the country. Tied to these balloons were items such as manure, cigarette butts, scraps of cloth, waste paper, and vinyl.
Observers suggest that as a countermeasure, South Korea may restart front-line loudspeaker broadcasts into North Korea that include criticisms of North Korea’s human rights situation, world news, and even K-pop songs. North Korea is known to be extremely sensitive to such broadcasts since most of its population lacks official access to foreign TV and radio programs.
It remains to be seen whether South Korea will proceed with implementing the punitive measures following North Korea’s suspension of the trash balloon launches. In a statement, a North Korean vice defense minister mentioned that the balloon activities were a response to South Korean leafleting campaigns and aimed to showcase the unpleasantness caused by scattered wastepaper. He warned that if South Korean activists resume floating anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets via balloons, North Korea will resume flying its own balloons carrying rubbish in retaliation.
The trash balloon campaign is not the first of its kind, but experts believe it is meant to stoke internal division in South Korea over its conservative government’s policy toward North Korea. This development comes as North Korea has been ramping up tensions with increased weapons tests since 2022, including a recent drill simulating a preemptive attack on South Korea with nuclear-capable weapons. As the two Koreas are currently at one of their lowest points in years, dialogue and diplomacy between the nations remain strained.
