A group of 16 South Korean officials and businessmen yesterday attended a special meeting at a North Korean tourist resort, bowing to Pyongyang’s threat to seize their property there unless they showed up.
The sanctions-hit North is stepping up pressure on the Seoul government to lift its ban on tours to the scenic Mount Kumgang resort, which once earned the communist state tens of millions of dollars a year.
The North had said the businessmen must show up for what it calls a survey of their assets — or risk losing them.
It has also threatened to seek another business partner, rather than the South’s Hyundai Asan, unless Seoul lifts its ban on tours soon.
Hyundai Asan began the tours in 1998 as a reconciliation project in the divided nation. Nearly 2 million South Koreans traveled to Kumgang in the next decade.
The South suspended the trips after a soldier shot dead a Seoul housewife who had strayed into a poorly marked military zone in July 2008.
North Korean officials met the South Koreans and told them the survey of real estate assets would be carried starting Wednesday next week, a statement from Hyundai Asan said.
It quoted a North Korean official as saying the survey was a “step to implement the special measures” announced on March 4, when the North threatened to scrap all tourism agreements and find a new business partner at Kumgang.
The tours earned about US$487 million for the North over a decade, and Pyongyang is eager to restart the business.
The South says the two governments must reach firm agreements on the safety of visitors before tours can resume. It says the North should also permit a joint investigation into the shooting.
In other news, more than half of South Korea’s young people do not know what year the Korean War started, a nationwide survey conducted to mark the 60th anniversary of its outbreak showed.
The survey results, published yesterday by Chosun Ilbo newspaper, reveal widespread ignorance about the defining moment in the country’s history despite government plans to stage 44 commemorative events this year.
The Gallup poll surveyed 1,703 people aged over 13. Among teenagers, 62.9 percent did not know what year the war started and among those in their 20s, the figure was 58.2 percent.
Overall, 60.9 percent of respondents knew the war began in 1950, but the remainder either did not know or gave the wrong date.
Asked which country was responsible for it, 43.9 percent blamed North Korea; 16.9 percent blamed both Koreas; 11.5 percent Japan and China; 10.9 percent the US; 8.5 percent the Soviet Union; and 2.3 percent South Korea alone.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese