IR Blog Post 2- businessweek.com/news

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-29/lee-vows-north-korea-will-pay-as-china-calls-for-talks.html

Lee Vows North Korea Will Pay as China Calls for Talks


1) The President of South Korea says he will make sure Kim Jong Il regime will pay for their military attack on the city of Yeonpyeong. The attacks occured on November 23 when the city began getting bombarded with bombs and other explosives. He felt that the South Korean's government's slow/weak response to the attack showed weakness in their government. "Emergency" discussions involving North and South Koreas, China, the U.S, Russia, and Japan will be held next month in an attempt to settle disputes before the become bigger this meeting is being hoped to gain some peace settlements between the Koreas. They hope that North Korea will change their behavior before tensions get worse.

2) The attack has not had a big impact on South Koreas economy with most of the shock being absorbed with more hope of peaces than retaliation. South Korea is taking China's proposal for "talks" very cautiously for fear that something else could happen while the meeting was occuring while their government is at a weak spot being occupied. Many South Koreans do not want their leaders to go to the meeting hoping that they can connect better and be more involved with decisions.

3) Over 80 percent of South Koreans said that they felt their government should have shown a stronger military response to the attacks. They felt that the response was slow and a very weak attempt. With this being said about 65% say they are opposed to war and will do what they can to avoid taking that step. There are however about 33% that say they would easily risk everything to go to war to show how strong they actually are.

A) Do you think the "talks" that China is trying to have will help the situation or in fact make things worse between the two nations?

B) If South Korea refuses to join in the discussions what do you think will happen?


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AM1XU20101123

The article is North Koreas response to their attack on the South Korean city of Yeonpyeong. North Korean officals said that there firing came after many repeated warnings. The claim is that South Korea fired artillery shells from 1 p.m until North Korea took military action. They are trying to do whatever they can to take responsiblilty for what happened and will continue to deny the fact that they were the ones who initiated the attack.