ASIA / PACIFIC
July 2, 2018
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 5
On North Korean side of DMZ, it’s change in the air
By Eric Talmadge
The Associated Press
ANMUNJOM, North Korea — Lt.
Col. Hwang Myong Jin has been a
guide on the northern side of the
Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the
two Koreas for five years. He says that
since the summits between North Korean
leader Kim Jong Un and the presidents of
South Korea and the United States, things
have quieted down noticeably in perhaps
the last place on earth where the Cold War
still burns hot.
“A lot of things have changed. Listen to
how quiet it is,” he said as he stood on the
balcony of a large building overlooking the
blue and white barracks and concrete
demarcation line that mark the boundary
between North and South.
“The South used to blast psychological
warfare propaganda at us,” he said. “But
since the summits, they have stopped.
Now there is a peaceful atmosphere here.”
Indeed, all is quiet — deceptively so — in
the DMZ these days.
When Kim Jong Un was in Beijing
recently for his third summit with Chinese
President Xi Jinping, the northern part of
the zone was buzzing with busloads of
Chinese tourists taking selfies and eating
ice cream cones outside the surprisingly
well-stocked souvenir shop near the DMZ
entrance.
A group of ethnic Korean high school
students from Japan filed out of their tour
bus as North Korean People’s Army
soldiers watched disinterestedly with
automatic rifles slung over their
shoulders. Inside the souvenir shop, still
P
more tourists, from Europe, looked over
hand-painted
propaganda
posters.
American tourists are still banned from
visiting North Korea under an order
issued last year by U.S. President Donald
Trump that restricts all non-essential
travel.
Though the DMZ has taken on
something of a tourist trap atmosphere
over the years — the South side is also a
popular tourist destination and has its
share of kitschy souvenirs — Lt. Col.
Hwang stressed that it remains first and
foremost a military site.
“It’s not that we want tourists to come,
but people want to see,” he said. “There are
dangers.”
The dangers are, in fact, all around the
DMZ, though they are invisible to the
throngs of day-tripping tourists.
While world attention tends to focus on
the North’s development of nuclear
weapons, North Korea has for decades
stationed most of its conventional fire near
its border with the South. South Korea’s
capital, Seoul, is only about 50 miles away
from the DMZ and would be vulnerable to
a heavy artillery attack, potentially
augmented by chemical shells, that could
cause hundreds of thousands of
casualties.
Getting North Korea to agree to move at
least some of its big guns away from the
border will likely be a key topic of
negotiations in the months ahead,
particularly now that the U.S. and South
Korea have agreed to halt their next set of
annual war games, which never fail to
CALM & QUIET. Chinese tourists take photos
outside the museum of the armistice agreement be-
tween North and South Korea at the truce village in
the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) which separates the
two Koreas, in Panmunjom, North Korea. Since the
summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
and the presidents of South Korea and the United
States, things have quieted down noticeably in per-
haps the last place on earth where the Cold War
still burns hot. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
outrage the North and heighten tensions
on the peninsula.
Hwang generally follows a strongly
patriotic and unapologetic script as he
shows visitors around the usual spots —
the building where the armistice that
ended the 1950-1953 Korean War was
signed, a giant stone engraved with North
Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s last words,
various other spots where talks took place.
He still stays strongly on message — his
job is to get the North’s position across to
the tourists, even if they aren’t especially
interested in listening.
But he also pointed out a tree planted by
Kim Jong Un and South Korean President
Moon Jae-in when they held their first
summit here in April, and the pavilion
where Kim hosted Moon when he came to
the North’s side in May. And when
speaking to an American journalist,
Hwang also seemed a tad less belligerent
— or perhaps just a bit more relaxed.
“War only brings disaster to our people.
Nobody wants a war,” he said. “We held
military talks with the South here, too.
The talks are moving in the direction of
what humanity wants. That’s peace.
That’s a positive thing.”
Talmadge is The AP’s Pyongyang bureau chief.
Japan lawmaker slammed for calling childless people selfish
By Mari Yamaguchi
The Associated Press
OKYO — A leader
of Japan’s ruling
party has sparked
an uproar by calling people
without children selfish,
the latest in a series of com-
ments by senior politicians
urging women to have
more babies.
Toshihiro Nikai, secre-
tary-general of the Liberal
Democratic Party, said
recent generations think
they’re better off without
children. He contrasted
them with older people who
had large families despite
the devastation of World
War II.
He urged women to have
babies to contribute to
Japan’s prosperity. The
country is struggling with
an aging and declining
population.
“Before, during, and
after the war, nobody said
it’s better to not have
children because it would
be too much trouble. Today,
people have a selfish idea
that they are better off
without having children,”
Nikai said. “In order for
everyone
to
pursue
happiness, we should have
(women)
bear
many
children, so our country
will prosper and develop.”
Opponents said Nikai’s
remark neglected people’s
right to choose their family
T
size and was insensitive to
those who are forced to give
up hopes of having children
because of financial or
medical difficulties. They
also criticized Nikai for
rejecting family diversity,
including same-sex couples
and single parents.
Opposition
Constitu-
tional Democratic Party of
Japan leader Yukio Edano
told Prime Minister Shinzo
Abe in a parliamentary
debate that the decision
whether to have children
“is part of the most basic
right of self-determination,
in which third parties
should never interfere.”
Abe agreed, saying the
decision whether to marry
or have children should be
up to each individual, and
acknowledged that he and
his wife Akie have no
children. “We should not
impose our opinion on
others,” he said.
Abe pledged to provide
financial support for child
rearing and education.
Government statistics
show 946,060 babies were
born last year, the lowest
number since Japan began
compiling statistics in 1899
and below 1 million for the
second year in a row.
Abe
has
promoted
women’s advancement at
work to address labor
shortages
caused
by
Japan’s
aging
and
declining
population,
although rights activists
say his measures are
inadequate because they
are not based on human
rights.
Several
senior
law-
makers have been criti-
cized recently for urging
women to focus more on
childrearing.
In May, an Abe confi-
dante, Koichi Hagiuda,
angered some women and
single-parent fathers by
saying women should be
primarily responsible for
rearing children because
“all babies prefer mommies
(to daddies), there is no
mistake.”
Another ruling law-
maker, Kanji Kato, said
every
married
couple
should have at least three
children.
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