SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea said Sunday it would step up anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts across the tense border with North Korea after North Korea launched more balloons possibly loaded with garbage into the South.
The Cold War-style psychological battle between North and South Korea has further escalated already high tensions on the Korean peninsula, with both sides threatening tougher measures against each other and warning of devastating consequences.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korean balloons had crossed the border and flown north of the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Sunday morning. Later that day, it said the South Korean military was responding with expanded loudspeaker broadcasts along all major sections of the 154-mile border between the two Koreas.
“Any action that increases tensions by the North Korean military could have serious consequences for the country,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. “The responsibility for this situation lies entirely with the North Korean government.”
Details about the expansion of the Korean speaker business were not immediately released.
North Korea on Thursday resumed propaganda broadcasts on the front lines for the first time in about 40 days in response to previous balloon activity.
But observers noted that South Korea did not have round-the-clock broadcasting and had not yet mobilized all of its loudspeakers.
The latest South Korean broadcasts included K-pop songs, news about BTS member Jin running the torch ahead of the Paris Olympics, and news about a senior North Korean official defecting.
According to South Korean media, the broadcast described the work of North Korean soldiers laying landmines on the border as a “hellish slave life.”
Experts say South Korean propaganda broadcasts could undermine morale among North Korea’s frontline soldiers and civilians and undermine efforts to deny outside news to its 26 million people. South Korean officials have previously said loudspeaker broadcasts can reach up to six miles during the day and 15 miles at night.
North Korea has not issued an official response to South Korea’s continued broadcasts.
But in 2015, North Korea responded to South Korea’s first loudspeaker broadcast in 11 years by firing artillery shells across the border, prompting South Korea to fire back, according to South Korean officials.
No casualties were reported.
North Korea’s latest balloon launch on Sunday was its ninth since late May. North Korea has previously released more than 2,000 balloons dropping waste paper, rags, cigarette butts, discarded batteries and even fertilizer into South Korea, but so far without causing any major damage to the country.
North Korea said the first balloon launch was in retaliation for South Korean activists using South Korean balloons to send political leaflets into North Korea.
Like South Korea’s frontline broadcasts, North Korea sees South Korea’s private leafleting activities as a major threat to the dictatorial regime led by Kim Jong Un.
North Korea has been infuriated by past leaflet distribution by South Korea, destroying a South Korean air liaison office on its territory in 2020 and opening fire on incoming balloons in 2014.
Kim Jong Un’s strongman sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned in a statement last week that South Korean “scum” must be prepared to pay a “terribly high price” for leafleting, and said more South Korean leaflets had been found in North Korea.
This raised concerns that North Korea might launch a physical provocation rather than just launching balloons, with South Korea’s military saying North Korea could launch balloons or even plant mines downstream.
In early June, South Korea suspended a 2018 de-escalation agreement with North Korea as a necessary measure to counter North Korean balloon attacks by resuming propaganda broadcasts and conducting live-ammunition military drills in the border area.
South Korea aired a roughly two-hour propaganda broadcast on June 9 but did not broadcast it again until Thursday to avoid inciting hostility.
South Korea warned on Friday it would use loudspeakers more thoroughly and take other stronger measures if North Korea continues its provocative acts, such as launching balloons.
Tensions are already rising on the Korean peninsula due to a series of provocative missile tests by North Korea and escalating joint U.S.-South Korean military drills that Pyongyang says are invasion rehearsals, and experts say growing ties between North Korea and Russia could encourage Kim Jong Un to launch even greater provocations.
