The fear is with these territorial incursions is that one day a lower level commander may take action against one of these provocations which leads to a larger conflict:

Recent incursions by China into Japan’s territorial waters and airspace showcase a deliberate effort by Beijing to normalize its increasingly assertive actions against its regional neighbors, according to two defense experts. A Chinese survey vessel on Saturday briefly entered territorial waters off Kagoshima prefecture on Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands. Five days earlier, on Aug. 26, a Chinese Y-9 surveillance aircraft breached Japanese airspace over a small island off Kyushu, an unprecedented action by a Chinese military aircraft.

The incidents add to an already tense relationship between China and Japan, whose claims in the Senkaku Islands are repeatedly tested by the Chinese coast guard. China’s coast guard is even more aggressive against the Philippine coast guard, bumping hulls and employing water cannons and other measures in territorial disputes in the Philippine exclusive economic zone of the South China Sea.

The two incursions of Japanese territory were “provocative and risked flaming tensions in the region,” according to Brian Hart, a fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ China Power Project. “The greater long-term implication is that Beijing is employing its military forces in increasingly provocative ways, which heightens the risks of misperceptions, miscalculations, and dangerous accidents,” Hart told Stars and Stripes by email Wednesday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

This would be a really interesting mission to be part of. Hopefully they are able to find this wreck:

Teams from the U.S. and South Korea tasked with recovering wartime remains launched a joint underwater search in South Korea this week for a bomber and its crew that crashed during the 1950-53 Korean War.

Twenty-two divers and underwater archaeologists from the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and the South Korean Agency for Killed in Action Recovery Identification, or MAKRI, started searching Tuesday for a U.S. B-26 Invader off Haeundae Beach in Busan, according to a Ministry of National Defense news release. Investigators are using sonar equipment and magnetic detectors to comb through 4.6 square-miles of water until the search ends Sept. 27, the ministry said Tuesday.

South Korea’s navy and coast guard will provide weather information and logistical support throughout the investigation. Three crew members of the B-26 assigned to the 5th Air Force are believed to have died when their aircraft crashed into the sea after taking off from the K-9 Busan East Air Base in January 1953, according to the ministry. 

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Read more at: https://www.stripes.com/theaters/asia_pacific/2024-09-04/korean-war-dpaa-b-26-missing-busan-15065538.html
Source – Stars and Stripes

Executions like this is why many of the ruling elite in South Korea are supposedly becoming disillusioned with the Kim regime:

 South Korea’s spy agency said Wednesday it is closely monitoring signs of North Korea executing multiple officials to hold them accountable over heavy flood damage earlier this year.

At an emergency party politburo meeting in late July, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he will punish officials for the damage from heavy rains that flooded areas in the northern provinces of Jagang and North Phyongan and displaced thousands.

The National Intelligence Service said it is closely monitoring the situation after detecting signs of the executions.

Kang Pong-hun, the former chief secretary of the Jagang Provincial Committee of the North’s ruling party, is believed to be possibly among the executed officials.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Hopefully no ROK Heads reading this from Korea finds a bag of shit on their doorstep today:

North Korea again launched balloons likely carrying trash toward South Korea on Wednesday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, marking a resumption of its trash-balloon campaign after a near monthlong halt.

The JCS said an unspecified number of balloons could travel to northern Gyeonggi Province, just north of Seoul, and advised the public not to touch fallen balloons and report them to the military or police.

Since late May, the North has launched thousands of balloons carrying trash in a tit-for-tat move against anti-Pyongyang leaflets sent by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea. Pyongyang last launched such balloons on Aug. 10.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

Drones are now an extremely important part of modern warfare and the ROK military is planning to purchase some of the most combat proven systems:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects what the North claims to be suicide drones at the Drone Institute of the Academy of Defence Sciences, Aug. 24, in this photo released by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency two days later. Yonhap

The South Korean military is set to purchase Polish loitering munitions within this year, a move experts believe will significantly bolster the nation’s ability to counter North Korea’s purported suicide drones. The Polish drones, proven effective on the battlefield in Ukraine against Russian forces, could be a game changer in airborne warfare, analysts said.

According to military sources, Tuesday, the Ministry of National Defense recently submitted a request to acquire military drones to the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA), which is now preparing to announce the bid.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This regime elites may be disillusioned, but will they actually do anything about it? It appears not really because very few have defected or spoke out against the Kim regime:

More North Korean elites are “disillusioned” with the Kim Jong-un regime, as they feel anxious on concerns that any small mishap could deprive them of their lives under his leadership, a former North Korean diplomat said Tuesday.

Ri Il-gyu, a former counselor of political affairs at the North Korean Embassy in Cuba, made the remark in a session during the Global Korea Forum (GKF), a global forum hosted by the unification ministry and designed to garner international support for South Korea’s bid for peaceful unification.

“Perception by the North’s elite group toward the regime has changed a lot,” Ri said. “They are disillusioned with Kim’s impromptu behaviors. Even with doing something wrong a little bit, North Korea shoots them to death.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.