As tensions on the Korean Peninsula reach new heights with Pyongyang's latest nuclear test, Japan is planning for a possible mass evacuation of the nearly 60,000 Japanese citizens currently living in or visiting South Korea.
"There is a possibility of further provocations," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at a Monday meeting with ruling coalition lawmakers. "We need to remain extremely vigilant and do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people."
In response to North Korea's sixth nuclear test, Japan and the U.S. seek to ratchet up economic pressure on the rogue state through an oil embargo and other measures. But U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis on Sunday also said any threat to the U.S. or its allies "will be met with a massive military response -- a response both effective and overwhelming."
There are currently about 38,000 long-term Japanese residents in South Korea, as well as another 19,000 or so tourists and other short-term travelers. "If the U.S. decided on a military strike against the North, the Japanese government would start moving toward an evacuation on its own accord regardless of whether the American plans are public," a Japanese government source said.
Tokyo is working on a four-tier emergency plan based on the severity of the situation: discouraging unessential travel to South Korea, discouraging all travel to South Korea, urging Japanese citizens there to evacuate, and finally, urging them to shelter in place.
Should skirmishes erupt between the two Koreas, for example, the Japanese government would discourage all new travel to South Korea. At the same time, it would urge citizens already there to evacuate using commercial flights. Although the Japanese Embassy would help secure airline reservations, the government's role under this scenario would mainly be to provide information.
Seoul has agreed to give Japanese citizens access to safe zones, such as designated subway stations, churches and shopping malls, according to a Japanese source. The Japanese government has already provided its citizens in South Korea with information on over 900 such facilities.
“The Chinese use two brush strokes for “crisis”. One brush stroke stands for danger, the other for opportunity.”
Everyone is guessing about North Korea! Who knows what happens next… Probably less than markets fear.. but that won’t stop us worrying about it…
The reaction of markets (on a US holiday) might mean the antics of the Hermit Kingdom are losing some of their capacity for immediate shock and destabilisation. Are markets becoming blasé about the repeated threats? Probably not - the pressure on asset prices and price volatility remains high as participants anticipate a wide range of outcomes.
What’s the right asset positioning? Risk on/off? What are the dangers in terms of the liquidity/return/safe-haven equation? Do nothing and hope it all plays out positively? (Hope is never a strategy.) How contained will it be? Take a defensive stance and miss upside if/when its resolved? Or buy the dips because the risks are massively overstated and its “opportunity”!
Either you know… or you are guessing.
Smarter political minds than I might be able to work out scenario probabilities on how this plays out.
I buy into the current impasse as a China story: To what extent can/might China exercise guidance and control? It rather suited them to watch Trump fulminating and leave him embarrassed. That may no longer be true. It rather looks like the North Koreans are not playing to the script – clearly catching China as surprised and angry as the rest of us at a hydrogen blast 10 times more powerful than Hiroshima. The potential for China to lose patience with N Korea adds a new factor.
Initially it looked like China would be the likely winner, playing the blessed peacemaker role in its own backyard. We were trying to figure what potential upside for China of scoring geo-political points if Korea goads Trump into doing something “hasty” might be? And, what would be the figurative and literal fallout if the Americans lose patience.. (pretty much a worst case scenario)?
The current what-ifs could change in an instant… I read a number of analysts making contrarian calls about the opportunity to buy cheap Korean stocks and go long the Won. Perhaps it changes the China equation – especially if there is a flood of refugees from the North as some analysts suggest? Putting China under pressure immediately ahead of the Peoples National Congress in October (picking the next leaders) is an “interesting” shot across the bow.
Unable to make de-escalation progress using conventional diplomatic means at the United Nations, on Monday South Korean President Moon Jae-in proposed that the U.N. Security Council hold serious discussions about imposing an energy and capital blockade on North Korea, by cutting off oil supplies to Kim's regime coupled with a block of North Korean sources of foreign currency, the South Korean president's office said. Moon discussed the idea with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during a phone call, according to South Korea's Blue House.
"It's time for the U.N. Security Council to seriously consider ways to block North Korea's sources of foreign currency, including a halt to oil supplies to the North and a ban on its exportation of laborers," the office quoted Moon as saying in the wake of the 6th North Korean nuclear test.
According to Yonhap, the South Korean leader also said Sunday's nuclear test "was different from past experiments in size and character, and expressed his heightened concern over North Korea's claim that it was an H-bomb that can fit atop an intercontinental ballistic missile."
Putin, who is attending a BRICS emerging economies summit in China, sided with his South Korean peer and said that North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs destroy the international nonproliferation regime and pose a "real threat" to regional peace and stability.
He also noted that the leaders at the summit adopted a statement condemning the latest test. Moon underscored his commitment to resolving the North Korean nuclear issue diplomatically and peacefully. Putin, in turn, said the leaders at the summit agreed there is only a diplomatic solution to the problem.
"In order to do that, North Korea must refrain from additional provocations," Moon was quoted as saying during the 20-minute talks. The leaders agreed to hold further discussions at their summit in Vladivostok, Russia, later this week.
Meanwhile, in its populist tabloid Global Times, China's ruling communist party similarly slammed Kim's decision to demonstrably escalate tensions, writing that "the test marks another wrong choice that Pyongyang has made in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and against the will of the international community. This test will result in a new round of escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula and heighten the risk of the situation spiraling out of control due to possible miscalculations by all sides."
The article's condemnation continued: "The latest nuclear test and its recent launches of intermediate- and long-range ballistic missiles prove that Pyongyang is determined to obtain a nuclear strike capability and will not yield to external international pressures. The North Korean nuclear issue has now reached deadlock" and added that in the face of such a complicated situation, "China needs a sober mind and must minimize the risks Chinese society has to bear. The security of China's northeastern regions is a priority."
According to a DIA official assigned specifically to monitor North Korea, the secret "working" agreement was negotiated as an unofficial understanding between the two superpowers, and could result in a Chinese invasion of the Korean Peninsula between now and September 11th.
The source, who spoke to TruNews Correspondent Edward Szall through a proxy on Sunday night, and must remain unnamed due to his official capacity as a veteran member of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said both the U.S. and China are actively investigating the claims made by North Korea on Sunday, that they have successfully tested a miniaturized nuclear device and possess the technology to effectively mount it on a ballistic missile.
The source noted that if the Chinese are convinced the warhead North Korean state media showed Kim Jong-un inspecting Sunday at the “Nuclear Weapons Institute” is indeed a miniaturized homemade hydrogen bomb, they will launch an invasion of North Korea and annex it within the next week.
"If China rolls their army into North Korea, and annexes the country in the next week, we know he [Kim Jong-un] had miniaturized nukes,” the DIA source said.
Pressed about the timing of China's prospective attack, the DIA official said ominously: "You'll know in the next week."
The DIA is an external intelligence service of the U.S. government which answers directly to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and is responsible for approximately twenty five percent of all intelligence content that goes into President Trump's Daily Brief.
The DIA source noted that America’s only leverage against China in this situation is the “complete and utter destruction” of North Korea, which the Chinese do not want.
The source explained that China wants North Korea’s territory in one piece to preserve the nations untapped mineral resources, which they plan to extract, utilize and profit from.
The DIA source said Sunday that the Chinese and the U.S. both believe an invasion of North Korea by China from their border in the North would force civilians, North Korean military and government officials southward to the DMZ, and even into South Korea itself, where they would be rounded up and detained by prepositioned U.S. and South Korean military units.
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