Monday Asia View: South Korea to suspend military pact with North over trash balloons

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00:00 Now then, it's time for our regular Monday Asia View segment. South Korea says it is to fully

00:05 suspend its 2018 tension-reducing military deal with North Korea. The announcement from South's

00:12 National Security Council coming after Pyongyang sent hundreds of trash-filled balloons across the

00:19 border. Seoul partially suspended that agreement last year after the North put a spy satellite into

00:24 orbit. But the NSC said it would tell the cabinet to suspend the entire effect of the deal until

00:31 mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored. In the past week, North Korea has floated hundreds

00:37 of huge balloons to dump rubbish on South Korea. It's also simulated nuclear strikes against its

00:42 neighbor and allegedly as well jammed GPS navigation signals. The South's National

00:46 Security Director has called the moves "absurd, irrational acts of provocation" that a normal

00:52 country can't imagine. "We will not sit idly by in the case of more provocations. We will maintain

01:02 readiness to act. The government will do what is necessary to protect the South Korean people.

01:08 North Korea's launch of rubbish balloons and GPS signal jamming are absurd and irrational

01:15 acts of provocation. North Korea aims to cause anxiety among the South Korean people

01:21 through these lowly acts."

01:23 As I say, we're going to talk about that as part of our regular Monday Asia View.

01:28 We're going to cross to Beijing to talk to our correspondent who joins us from there, Yenna Lee.

01:33 So Yenna, Pyongyang now announcing then it is going to stop, it says, sending these trash balloons.

01:38 Yes, Pyongyang claims to have sent some 15 tons of garbage in retaliation to South Korean activists

01:48 sending over anti-regime leaflets, USBs with K-pop and K-drama content on them in the other

01:54 direction. Now, using balloons isn't particularly new. It's an old Cold War tactic. And although,

02:00 you know, K-pop and feces might seem a little silly on the surface, it's a serious reminder

02:06 of just how close the two countries are. Seoul proper and its surrounding areas account for 50%

02:13 of the population of South Korea. Gyeonggi province, which surrounds the capital borders

02:17 North Korea, in fact. This is why the sending of leaflets by rights activists is also controversial

02:24 within South Korean society too, with critics arguing that it's an unnecessary provocation.

02:30 Back in 2020, South Korea's parliament actually passed a law to criminalize the act. But last

02:36 year, the constitutional court struck it down in the name of free speech. And now the current

02:43 conservative government's National Security Council has just announced that it will suspend

02:48 their inter-Korean rapprochement deal over this saga. Yeah, now let's talk about something else

02:53 as well as part of our Asia View section. It's 35 years ago today that Chinese troops began to move

03:00 into Tiananmen Square to stop that pro-democracy movement in central Beijing. Soldiers, of course,

03:05 opened fire on protesters, brought about an end to weeks of demonstrations. Tomorrow is the

03:10 anniversary then of that massacre. Any sign of any commemorations where you are?

03:14 Absolutely not, as per usual. It was a massive movement that lasted for weeks, as you say,

03:25 with people demanding greater freedom of the press, democratic reforms, anti-inflationary

03:31 measures, etc. And it took place in hundreds of cities around the country. And the crackdown was,

03:35 of course, brutal. In 1989, Chinese authorities said that around 200 people died. But estimates

03:42 vary wildly. A UK diplomatic cable from the Times said that there were some 10,000 fatalities. So

03:49 it's an extremely sensitive issue here that authorities really try to scrub from citizens'

03:55 collective memory. Around this date, every year, authorities increase surveillance on victims'

04:00 families and on survivors. Parents of dead students are not allowed to mourn publicly.

04:05 Dissidents are often detained at this time of year. Students don't learn about what took place

04:12 on June 4, 1989. Censors erase all mention of it from the internet. And those who do wish to

04:18 commemorate have had to resort to creative ways to spark discussions, such as referring to May

04:25 35 instead of June 4. But as the years do go by, Stewart, younger generations of Chinese may not

04:32 know what happened then, let alone have the opportunity to discuss it. Yeah, now there is

04:37 one place, isn't there, where public memorials were allowed. That's Hong Kong. But what's it

04:42 like there now? A silence that really speaks volumes there, Stewart. Hong Kong and, to some

04:50 extent, Macau used to be the only places on Chinese soil where commemorations were possible.

04:55 And the former was really well attended, too. For decades, vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park

05:00 attracted tens of thousands of people every year. And officially, that event was banned in 2020

05:06 because of anti-COVID-19 measures. But it's safe to say that Beijing's national security law that

05:11 was pushed through the same year has made it impossible for such gatherings to take place

05:16 in any case. And since that crackdown on Hong Kong's relative freedoms, hundreds of thousands

05:23 of people have left the city. Nearly 300 people have been arrested as well. And just last week,

05:28 of course, 14 pro-democracy activists were found guilty of state subversion. So this year,

05:34 just like the last few, many commemorations are set to take place abroad in places with large

05:40 Chinese diaspora communities. Yeah, thanks very much, Anna-Lee, there with this week's Asia View

05:45 here on Finance 24. Thank you.

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