Dokdo Defense Drill Held for the First Time During the Lee Administration

The Dokdo defense drill may have been low key this year, but at some point when the Lee administration needs to provoke anti-Japanese sentiment to obscure some domestic political issue, expect some kind of Dokdo crisis. Even a conservative president has used this tactic. Anyone remember when President Lee Myung-bak tried to pass an information sharing deal with Japan a few years ago and it caused a public outcry and he had to cancel the deal?  It was so bad he had to fly to Dokdo and speak out against Japan to prove he was not a Japanese traitor:

 South Korea conducted regular defense drills near its easternmost islets of Dokdo on Thursday, a military official said, in what marked the first such exercise held under the Lee Jae Myung government.

“The Navy and the Coast Guard conducted the drills in the East Sea,” the official said, stressing they are part of regular drills aimed at defending South Korea’s territory and its people’s properties.

In a similar scope compared with the biannual drills conducted last year, the defense drills did not involve the Marine Corps.

Some of the drills in the past involved fighter jets and landing maneuvers on the islets, but they have taken place in a relatively low-key approach recently.

Yonhap

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