Psychological warfare with K-pop and dung: Tensions flare between two Koreas

Hello and welcome to ACCESS Asia. I'm Yuka Royye. Coming up in this edition, psychological warfare with K pop and dung. North and South Korea's ratchet up propaganda as relations between the two neighbours hit new lows. They're welcome until there's too many of them over. Tourism and poor behaviour by some visitors are testing locals patients in Japan. And what do real life Hobbit holes look like? We'll visit a town in Australia where a majority of inhabitants live below the ground. Tension has flared up again between North and South Koreas in recent weeks, with both sides reviving Cold War style propaganda campaigns. North Korea has sent hundreds of balloons carrying rubbish and even animal feces across the border. South Korea responded by deploying massive loud speakers blaring K pop music and anti Pyongyang messages across the 38th parallel. Well, for more on what this all means, let's bring in Lee Sun Yin, fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars and the author of the sister North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, The Most dangerous woman in the world. Sun Yin, thank you for being with us. Thank you. North Korea has been warring the international community with their intensifying missile tests and deepening military ties with Russia. How this course concert in then? Is this cross-border escalation in propaganda warfare? Well, unlike the popular view out there, North Korea doesn't merely react to what the big powers do or say. They seem to have even a grand strategy of their own, and they escalate tensions and resort to provocations in incremental steps. So yes, this is an escalation, sending filth, trash and manure filled balloons into South Korea, as you just explained. And South Korea's response is proportional. It's measured broadcast speaker, you know, blaring pop songs and news into North Korea. That is not a moral. It is not immoral, certainly it's not illegal. It's sending information across frontiers, regardless of borders into the most information deprived nation on Earth, North Korea. So there is no moral or legal equivalence in what the two sides are doing to each other? No, while it's not morally wrong, perhaps, and very annoying to see a filth sent across the border, Seoul didn't take the dropping of manure lightly at all. Is there real concern that Pyongyang could use balloons to carry, for instance, biological weapons? North Korea excels in political warfare, including psychological manipulation. And yes, by sending manure and trash into the South, North Korea is intimating that it could do a lot more, for example, smear biological and chemical weapons on trash and in the future, thus causing major harm, even something akin to an act of war in that case. So South Korea is concerned that North Korea would even more avant-garde in its filthy, vulgar and even perhaps lethal behaviour. Now the redeployment of loud speakers are on the South Korean side may be symbolic of their frosty relations as they had previously been removed as part of diplomatic efforts. Is there then no hope of reviving talks between the two that have been stalled since 2018? I think there will come a time when North Korea reverts, goes back to a post provocation peace ploy, face a fake charm offensive. We've seen this several times before, even going back to the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, the original state founder, Kim Illinois Sung. In 1972, when U.S. President Nixon visited China, the dependent states of both China and the United States like Taiwan, Japan, South Korea dependent on the US, North Vietnam and other countries including North Korea dependent on China grew very concerned. And Kim Kim Illinois Sung came out beaming smiles and met with series of reporters, New York Times reporters, dozens of Japanese reporters, a Harvard Law School professor, thus coming across as a reasonable and even and affable leader. So there will come a time when North Korea reverses to that kind of peace ployed. And I feel that Kim Jong UNS, powerful sister, will be the face, the sunny face of that next North Korean charm offensive. And as you've just mentioned, the sister of the North Korean leader Kim Yo Jong, she might, might come back to the international community smiling with some charm offensive. But recently, she has warned of further action if the South keeps up what she called its psychological warfare. You've written a book about her. How powerful and dangerous a woman is she in Pyongyang's leadership? Well, we can't take everything that North Korea says at face value. But she has repeatedly issued formal statements threatening to preemptively nuke her peaceful neighbor state, South Korea. So she is saying, telling the world that she too, has the proverbial finger on the nuclear button. As does her brother, of course. And in North Korea, there are no checks and balances between different branches of the government. Of the 9 nuclear states in the world, North Korea, the North Korean leadership is the least restrained. So it's a concerning development that the Kims, the brother and the sister feel emboldened to continue to threaten to start a nuclear war. Sun Yun, thank you so much for your analysis. Thank you very much. Like many popular places around the world, Japan is grappling with over tourism. Record numbers of visitors have been arriving, over 3 million recorded in the month of April alone. Ojo Dipui is here with me. So the cheap yen is bringing an influx of visitors to Japan. That's a boon for the economy, of course, but it's also a burden for locals. Tell us why. Well, tourists do bring a lot of money, but also bad behaviour. There have been complaints that visitors are literally trespassing and even breaking traffic rules. Locals are having to literally spell it out for rude tourists. Some shops have put up signs telling foreign customers to stop opening items before purchasing them. For example, people are being asked not to run across the street just to take a selfie. But tourists just ignore the signs and they go to places where they're not allowed to go. Some people even chase geishas, traditional entertainers like paparazzis, and as a result, authorities in Kyoto have banned parts of the famous Guillen district because of tourists bothering geishas. Now more and more bloggers and influencers are denouncing this kind of behaviour online. Let's check out this video showing a tourist disrespecting a shrine. And there was also an altercation that went viral a few weeks ago after a group of tourists were filmed arguing with a local. Now, many in Japan say that visitors are ill mannered, but others say, hey, we've all that misbehaved at some point in our lives. It's OK. Take a take a look at this video that went viral of a drunk passenger in Tokyo. Yeah, having a bit too much to drunk I guess. Now things are also heating up at Japanese major tourist magnet that's Mount Fuji, So much so that authorities have moved to block the view. What's going on there? Mount Fuji is the most Instagrammable site in Japan. It's a UNESCO World Heritage site. It's a place of religious pilgrimage and the inspiration of countless artists and writers. But the problem is that it's a victim of its own success. Hordes of people are invading the parking lots of a supermarket and a dentist practice just take photos of Mount Fuji and authorities have had to put up a giant mesh screen to block the view. But people, what do they do? They they poked holes through the net to to fit their phones in there. So now a metal fence will be built by the end of this month instead. And to curb the overcrowding on the volcano itself, hikers will have to pay a €12.00 fee as of July and entries will be limited to 4000 people per day. Now, Mount Fuji, of course, holds a special place in the heart of the Japanese people. One property developer in Tokyo has taken this very, very seriously, hasn't it? Yes, the developer built A10 Storey apartment block, but decided to demolish it just before completion because it blocked residents view of the mountain. Now, such deep respect for cultural landmarks shows why some tourists are perceived as rude when they disregard local customs. And understanding these customs can be tricky, though. For instance, if you could walk around the street and you eat a sandwich, well, it's shocking in Japan. But here in Paris, there's no big deal. You do that all the time. Yeah, Right. So despite the generally calm and polite nature of Japanese society, the recent search in tourism is really testing their patience. Well, thank you so much for all that. Now it's known as the Opel capital of the world. The town of Copper Pedi in the Outback of southern Australia has thrived on mining for centuries. It's also known as an underground city, with some 60% of the town's 1500 residents living in carved dwellings to escape the region's scorching heat. Our colleagues at Francis Levision have this report. Located in the middle of the Outback, you'll find the mining town of Coober Pedi originally put on the map for the mining of Opals and today its main attraction is the town itself, with the many of its homes, shops and businesses built underground come in. As you can see, it's all hand built. Living below the surface has its advantages like low energy costs. You don't need AC because the temperature fluctuates from 20 to maybe 27°. That's all you have because you live underground. The idea for living underground came about at the beginning of the 20th century. This museum is one of the first troglodyte dwellings, so come up through here guys. Built in 1916, it continues to be preserved today. This is how the early miners, you know, he used to live. He carved just a basic bed frame out of the sandstones. Residents of Coober Petty have come up with clever ways to avoid the heat. Hey, mate, how you going, man? Good, good, good. Like these two friends who've come out to enjoy a night time round of golf in the cool evening air during the day. He just wouldn't do it. No, it's just way too hot. So even people, that's why a lot of miners don't mine in the summertime because it's just too hot to be out in the fields. In order to play in the dark, the holes are lit up and they use fluorescent golf balls. Despite Cooper Petty's rough environment plagued by heat and dust, some 1500 people live in the town today, half as many than during its Opal boom. And that's it for this edition of Access Asia. Do stay tuned if you can. There's more World News coming up.