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Living Target JULY 07, 2010 11:19 Chinese Maj. Gen. Luo Yuan, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, told a Hong Kong TV station Monday, “If a U.S. aircraft carrier enters the Yellow Sea, it will become a living target.” Unleashing hard-line comments, he said, “Just as we’d block a snoring person from approaching one’s bed, can we allow other people to perform a sword dance right in front of our door?,” adding, “China is not fish but a tiger lion.” The official Chinese daily Global Times also said that if the U.S. aircraft carrier USS George Washington...

South Korea and the United States will stage large-scale anti-submarine drills in the Yellow Sea after the United Nations takes action against Pyongyang for sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, Yonhap news agency said. "The joint drills will be carried out after the U N Security Council takes measure against North Korea," the agency quoting Col. Lee Bung Woo said. The United States’s 97,000-ton USS George Washington, an Aegis-equipped destroyer, and a nuclear-powered submarine are reportedly participating in the joint naval drills and a 4,500-ton destroyer, a submarine and F-15K fighter jets will take part from the South Korean...

US has to pay for provoking China * Source: Global Times * [03:14 July 06 2010] The widely anticipated and repeatedly postponed joint exercise between the US and South Korean navies in the Yellow Sea is still in the air. Yet the signs are that the other shoe will eventually drop in a week or two despite China's strong opposition. True, the US has the right to play its war game against the imagined threat from North Korea on the high seas. But the anxiety on the Chinese side will be huge if a US aircraft carrier enters the sea...

The defection of North Koreans via sea barges is on the rise since the Cheonan sinking in March, according to the military. Seoul is concerned that the defections could be part of a spying scheme by Pyongyang. Government sources in foreign affairs and defense told the JoongAng Ilbo yesterday that two North Koreans were spotted by the South Korean Navy on an unpowered barge in the East Sea, 40 kilometers (25 miles) away from Sokcho, Gangwon, at 9 a.m. June 26. “On the spot, they said their motive was to defect from the military,” one source said, “and were led...

Some military specialists suspect that China's failure to accept the findings of an international panel on the sinking of the South Korean coastal patrol ship in March is related to Beijing's probable foreknowledge of North Korean submarine movements. “I would suspect that either the PRC has on-site knowledge of DPRK submarines from a presence at their base or their own underwater monitoring systems in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea,” said one expert. “If their was the slightest indication of either foreknowledge or complicity it would hurt PRC standing in the international community.” China also has a close relationship...

South Korea and the United States are expected to fix dates for their joint naval exercises after assessing progress in Seoul's diplomatic efforts to rebuke North Korea at the U.N. Security Council, an official here said Monday. The two countries agreed last month to hold the drills after a multinational team of investigators blamed North Korea for torpedoing a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in the Yellow Sea on March 26. The attack left 46 sailors dead. Seoul has referred the incident to the Security Council, urging its members to punish North Korea. "The dates for the joint exercises are...

South Korea and the United States have agreed to stage joint naval exercises later this month in the West Sea, an official at the Ministry of National Defense said Friday. “We’ve decided to stage joint naval drills in the final week of this month,” the official said. “U.S. warships belonging to the U.S. 7th Fleet, including an aircraft carrier, will join the drills as planned before.” The two governments were originally scheduled to hold naval exercises, including a joint anti-submarine drill, in early June in a show of force against possible North Korean provocation in waters near the sea border....

East-Asia-Intel.com, June 9, 2010 The Obama administration is debating whether to dispatch the aircraft carrier strike group led by the USS George Washington to waters near Korea as a show of force. The strike group would ratchet up pressure on North Korea over its provocative sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan in March that killed 46 sailors. The carrier strike group would be sent for a joint U.S.-South Korean anti-submarine drill. The drill was put on hold June 4. Officials in the Obama administration are opposing the exercises and the carrier strike group deployment over concerns that the show...

US aircraft carrier will join a major anti-submarine naval exercise with South Korea next week in a show of strength to North Korea after the sinking of a warship, reports said Wednesday. South Korea, which accuses the North of torpedoing its ship Cheonan in March with the loss of 46 lives, is also mounting a diplomatic drive at the United Nations but indicated it would not seek new sanctions. The USS George Washington will leave its base in the Japanese port of Yokosuka around Saturday and arrive in the Yellow Sea early next week, Yonhap news agency quoted a military...

In the duel between North and South Korea, the question now is who will pull the trigger first? The answer may be neither, but don't count on it. The dueling now focuses on two quite different flashpoints. The first is the West or Yellow Sea, where North Korea has vowed to open fire against any South Korean vessel intruding in its waters. One issue there is how to define which waters are North Korean. The North refuses to recognize the Northern Limit Line, set by the United Nations Command after the Korean War (1950-1953) and challenged by North Korea in...

The South Korean Navy fired warning shots Saturday night after two North Korean patrol boats crossed into South Korean waters, state media said. The two North Korean patrol boats separately crossed a maritime border in the Yellow Sea. One retreated after receiving a warning communication from the South Korean Navy, and the other retreated after two rounds of warning shots were fired, Seoul's Joint Chiefs of Staff told the state-run Yonhap news agency. Tensions between the two nations have run high since the mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship in the border area on March 26. Fifty-eight men escaped...

Japan and the United States reaffirmed Thursday that, together with South Korea, they will respond in a united manner to North Korea based on the findings of the probe being conducted into the unexplained sinking of a South Korean warship, Japanese officials said. The decision was made in a meeting between Akitaka Saiki, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, and U.S. special envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth. They met at a time when suspicion is growing that the March 26 sinking in the Yellow Sea, which killed 46 crew members, might have been the...

Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Tuesday a "surprise attack" sank one of South Korea's naval ships in March and that the country will remember the incident as a "day of shame" for its military. Kim made the remark during a report to President Lee Myung-bak at a meeting of top military commanders, but stopped short of directly mentioning North Korea, though the communist nation has been widely believed to be responsible. "Our naval ship came under a surprise attack on March 26 while on a patrol mission. We bitterly regret that it revealed a hole in the defense posture and...

Seoul's defence minister on Sunday vowed retaliation over the sinking of a South Korean warship which killed 46 sailors near the disputed sea border with North Korea last month. "Those responsible for killing our soldiers must pay the price," Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told a KBS television programme aired nationwide on Sunday. "Retaliation -- in whatever form it is -- must be done." It echoed South Korean Navy chief Admiral Kim Sung-Chan's reprisal pledge during Thursday's mass funeral for the sailors, attended by President Lee Myung-Bak. South Korea has not openly blamed its communist neighbour for the blast which tore...

A team of scientists believes that the Navy corvette Cheonan sank after being hit by a heavy 206 kg torpedo that ran at a speed of 65 km/h. Bae Myung-jin, a professor at the Sound Engineering Research Lab of Soongsil University, on Thursday said his team analyzed data about the seismic waves generated at the time of explosion of the Cheonan, which were provided by the Korea Meteorological Administration and the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources. "As a result, we presume that the torpedo ran at the Cheonan at the speed of 65.7 km/h and exploded underwater 2.3...

Government officials say the wrecked hull of the Navy corvette Cheonan could in itself provide powerful evidence what kind of external explosion sank the ship on March 26, even if no shrapnel from a torpedo or mine is found. "We'd better not jump to any conclusion until the final outcome of the investigation, but the salvaged hull itself can constitute evidence," Foreign Ministry spokesman Kim Young-sun said Thursday. A senior government official asked, "Is there decisive evidence other than the salvaged hull? It's important to find shrapnel of an explosive device, but that would be nothing but corroborating evidence." The...

stray South Korean mine could not have sunk one of the country's warships, the defence ministry said Wednesday, in comments likely to heighten suspicions that North Korea was to blame. "Its technically not possible," said spokesman Won Tae-Jae, dismissing suggestions that a South Korean mine planted in the Yellow Sea in the 1970s might have blown the corvette apart. The mysterious sinking of the 1,200-tonne Cheonan near the tense inter-Korean border with the loss of 46 lives has spawned a series of theories -- including a stray mine, a grounding, an onboard explosion or even metal fatigue. Investigators who examined...

The military will draw up a new operational plan for the Yellow Sea after its existing one was leaked in the wake of the sinking of a naval vessel late last month. A military official said yesterday that the Navy cannot conduct missions with the existing plan because it and other military secrets have been leaked to North Korea since the sinking. “We have re-designated the operational zone of naval patrol ships to cope with the North’s coastal artillery since last year’s (inter-Korean) naval clash,” the official said. “In particular, we find it inevitable to review the operation of monitoring...

Top South Korean officials moved inexorably Friday toward blaming North Korea for the sinking of a Navy ship three weeks ago, in a case in which many see the government's integrity and judgment in the balance. While South Korea’s defense minister warned of “a grave national security issue,” the government clearly hoped to avoid an escalating crisis that might jeopardize economic success as well as the ability of President Lee Myung-bak to govern effectively. The government “keeps saying there will be a firm response,” says Han Sung-joo, a former foreign minister and ambassador to the United States, “but that doesn’t...

An "external explosion" is likely to have caused a South Korean naval ship to sink near the sea border with North Korea, a chief investigator said Friday after experts examined the ship's wreckage retrieved a day earlier. "Rather than an internal explosion, the possibility of an external explosion is very high," said Yoon Duk-yong, co-head of the state investigation team looking into the March 26 sinking of the 1,200-ton patrol ship Cheonan. "But for a final conclusion, it is necessary to make a detailed analysis while leaving all possibilities open." Yoon, a renowned scientist named to lead the investigation along...