[Chosun Ilbo] North Korea has heightened the level of provocations against South Korea because it has found the weak spot that prevents South Korea, the U.S. and China from acting, experts speculated Wednesday. "The regime must have judged that there would be no counterattack that could threaten it" no matter how many artillery shells it rained on Yeonpyeong Island, because South Korea and the war-weary U.S. do not want the Korean Peninsula engulfed in a conflict, and China does not want the North to collapse, a South Korean security official speculated.
◆ South Korean Indecisiveness
In January, the North fired about 100 coastal artillery shells at Baeknyeong and Daecheong islands but not beyond the Northern Limit Line, the de-facto maritime border. At the time, South Korean officials threatened firm retaliation.
But in August, when some of about 130 North Korean coastal artillery shells landed in waters off Baeknyeong and Yeonpyeong islands well past the NLL, Seoul again only vowed to counterattack, "if their shells land on our territory." The South had remained on the defensive, so the North apparently felt it could attack Yeonpyeong Island with impunity, experts say.
The first reaction from Cheong Wa Dae to the attack on the island was that it does not want an escalation.
Prof. Lee Jo-won of Chungang University said, "The North launched such a bold provocation because it knew how afraid the South is of a war" and noticed that South Korea's rules of engagement softened during the previous administrations that pursued the Sunshine Policy of rapprochement.
◆ U.S. Paralysis
In the fist North Korean nuclear crisis in the early 1990s, the North was afraid of an attack from the U.S., which did at one time consider a "surgical strike" on the Yongbyon nuclear facility.
Prof. Kim Sung-han of Korea University said, "The North now has about 10 nuclear bombs but the U.S. doesn't know where they are, so it would be difficult to launch the kind of a surgical strike that was considered in the 1990s."
The North recently showed a uranium enrichment facility with hundreds of centrifuges to a U.S. expert and may have more elsewhere. The North also gambled that the U.S. is overstretched in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and will not get involved in another.
Prof. Yoon Duk-min of the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security pointed out that the area around the NLL is under the South Korean military's control, so the North believes there will be no counterattack from the U.S. if no damage is done to American soldiers or citizens.
◆ Chinese Preference for the Status Quo
North Korean hereditary supremo Kim Jong-il huddled closer to China with two visits to his country's most powerful ally last year alone. After the North torpedoed the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan in March, Beijing stuck up for Pyongyang.
"China wouldn't abandon the North even if it was embarrassed by the regime's recent shenanigans," said Prof. Kim Hung-kyu of Sungshin Women's University.
The last thing China wants to see would be the collapse of the regime and consequent instability in Northeast Asia. "China should shut down the pipeline to the North to force it to calm down, but it would never do such a thing. Kim Jong-il knows all too well that China would never forsake him," the security official said.