Students react to tensions between North, South Korea

Members of the University’s Korean community said that they hoped North Korea’s recent attack on a South Korean island will not escalate into a greater conflict.

On Nov. 23, North Korea fired artillery shells at Yeonpyeong Island, prompting South Korea to return fire. During the hour-long exchange, two South Korean soldiers and two civilians were killed and 18 more people were injured. The island is located two miles from the Northern Limit Line, a maritime boundary that North Korea does not recognize.

The United States has since engaged in joint military exercises with South Korea in the Yellow Sea as a demonstration of solidarity. The Obama administration has rejected China’s request for emergency talks with North Korea, saying that doing so would reward the country’s aggressive behavior.

Students said that anger at North Korea was understandable but that they hoped the conflict could come to a peaceful resolution.

“The North Korean aggression is definitely worrisome and goes to show that the North Korean government is erratic and attention-hungry,” Sungwoo Chon ’13 said in an e-mail. “However, the most important priority is peace, because war would mean significant devastation for both Koreas, and frankly, South Korea has more to lose at this point.” Chon is an events director for the Korean American Student Association.

Brian No ’10, who is living in South Korea as a Princeton-in-Asia fellow, explained in an e-mail that Koreans will often say, “What other choice do we have? This is our home and we can’t go anywhere else.” No is currently working for the JoongAng Daily, a partner of the International Herald Tribune.

The situation has not had a significant impact on people’s daily lives in South Korea, No said.

“For the most part, it’s 100 percent business as usual,” he explained. “People here have been somewhat conditioned to just keep on living, something I’d describe as a milder form of how Israelis go about their everyday lives.”

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Korean native Hye Ryoung Rhee ’14, who lived in Herzliya Pituach, Israel, during high school, echoed the analogy between life in Israel and life in Korea during conflict.

“It seems like everything is really dangerous from outside,” she said. “Most people just see it as a show.”

No said that his parents, who live in America, do not appear concerned. “But it does seem that most people are getting fed up with the North,” he said.

“People here are also really upset with China because ... it goes out of its way to protect North Korea,” he added.

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Chon commended the American response to the attack. The continuation of joint military exercises “sends the message that the U.S. and South Korea will not tolerate belligerent behavior from the North Koreans,” Chon said. “I think the U.S. should continue to resort to diplomatic methods, like pressuring China to use its influence to deflate the situation.”

“We need to make it known to the North that they are in violation of numerous international laws,” Chon added.

Military service is compulsory in Korea, so North Korean aggression has forced young South Korean men to consider the prospect of taking up arms.

No said that one of his friends in the military had joked “that his unit was literally gearing up to wage war after Yeonpyeong.”

“People at work, for instance, have talked about what we’d do if the North were to attack Seoul, which is where half the country lives,” he said. Because the capital city accounts for more than one-fifth of South Korea’s gross domestic product, he explained, “the economic impact of such a scenario would also be unfathomable.”