SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea said on Sunday it was stepping up anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts over its border with rival North Korea, after North Korea launched another balloon that could carry garbage into South Korea.
Cold War-style psychological warfare between the two Koreas has heightened already high tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with the rivals threatening stronger measures and warning of devastating consequences.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said a North Korean balloon flew Sunday morning north of Seoul, the South Korean capital, after crossing the border. Later on Sunday, the South Korean military responded by expanding loudspeaker broadcasts on all major sections of the 154-mile-long inter-Korean border.
“The tension-escalating actions of North Korea’s military could have critical consequences,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. “The responsibility for this kind of situation rests with the North Korean government.”
Details on the expansion of the South Korean loudspeaker operation were not immediately available.
On Thursday, he resumed frontline propaganda broadcasts for the first time in about 40 days in response to balloon activity in the North.
But observers say South Korea has yet to hold the hour-long broadcast and has yet to activate all loudspeakers.
The latest South Korean broadcasts include K-pop songs and news about BTS member Jin’s torch relay ahead of the Paris Olympics and the defection of a senior North Korean diplomat.
The broadcast also called the mine-planting works by North Korean soldiers on the border “living like hell slaves,” according to South Korean media.
Experts say South Korea’s propaganda broadcasts could demoralize North Korean troops and citizens on the front lines, undermining North Korea’s efforts to limit access to outside news for its 26 million people. South Korean officials have previously said broadcasts from loudspeakers can travel about 6 miles during the day and 15 miles at night.
North Korea has yet to issue an official response to the ongoing South Korean broadcast.
But in 2015, North Korea fired artillery across the border in response to South Korea’s first loudspeaker broadcast in 11 years, prompting South Korea to return fire, according to South Korean officials.
There were no casualties.
The latest balloon over North Korea on Sunday was the ninth since late May. North Korea has floated more than 2,000 balloons to drop waste paper, scraps of cloth, cigarette butts, waste batteries and even fertilizer in South Korea, although so far they have not caused any major damage to South Korea.
North Korea said the initial balloon launch was in response to South Korean activists sending political leaflets to the North via their own balloons.
Like South Korea’s frontline broadcasts, North Korea views civilian government activities in the South as a major threat to the authoritarian government led by Kim Jong Un.
In an angry response to past South Korean leaflets, North Korea in 2020 destroyed a vacant South Korean-built liaison office in the region and in 2014 shot down an incoming balloon.
In a statement last week, Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned that South Korean “scum” should be prepared to pay a “terrible and expensive price” for their leafleting activities. He said more South Korean leaflets were found in North Korea.
That raises concerns that North Korea may carry out a physical provocation, rather than a balloon launch. South Korea’s military said North Korea could launch balloons or plant mines under the river.
In early June, South Korea suspended a 2018 de-escalation deal with North Korea, a move required to restart propaganda broadcasts and conduct live military exercises in the border area in response to the North’s balloon campaign.
On June 9, South Korea made a propaganda broadcast for about two hours but did not do so again so as not to stir up hostilities until Thursday.
South Korea warned on Friday it would conduct loudspeaker broadcasts in a more comprehensive manner and take other, more forceful measures if North Korea continues its provocations like balloon releases.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have been high due to North Korea’s provocative missile tests and the expansion of US-South Korean military exercises that North Korea has called invasion exercises. Experts say North Korea’s growing ties with Russia could tempt Kim Jong Un to carry out greater provocations.
