The Galwan Valley incident this past week between China and India reminds a lot of what happened during the 1976 DMZ Axe Murder Incident. Instead of axes the Chinese used these improvised weapons to murder the Indian troops that were conducting duties in an area of the valley the Chinese claim was there’s.

An image has emerged showing a crude weapon purportedly used by Chinese forces in the fatal brawl along China’s disputed border with India on Monday.

The fight in the Galwan Valley left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead and raised tensions between the two powers.

China did not acknowledge any casualties among its forces. Both sides accused the other of an incursion.

The border between the two nations in the region is poorly demarcated and can shift with topographical changes.

The image that emerged on Thursday showed crude weapons that appeared to be made from iron rods studded with nails. It was passed to the BBC by a senior Indian military official on the India-China border, who said the weapons had been used by the Chinese.

Defence analyst Ajai Shukla, who first tweeted the image, described the use of such weapons as “barbarism”. The absence of firearms in the clash dates back to a 1996 agreement between the two sides that guns and explosives be prohibited along the disputed stretch of the border, to deter escalation.

The image was widely shared on Twitter in India, prompting outrage from many social media users. Neither Chinese or Indian officials commented on it.

Media reports said troops clashed on ridges at a height of nearly 4,267m (14,000 ft) along a steep terrain, with some soldiers falling into the fast-flowing Galwan river in sub-zero temperatures.

BBC News

You can read more at the link, but with the DMZ Axe Murder Incident, U.S. troops were trimming a tree on the North Korean side of the JSA which prompted what many believe was a planned attack by the North Koreans. I would not be surprised if this attack has long been planned by the Chinese as well considering the use of these improvised weapons. With all the coronavirus and economic issues in China, what better way to divert domestic attention by stoking nationalism by killing a few Indian troops?

Currently it doesn’t appear that the Indians are about to mount a strong response like the U.S. did after the DMZ Axe Murder Incident. If they don’t this will only embolden the Chinese to further take action either against India again or in a place like the South China Sea against other nations they have border disputes with.

Via Flickr user m20wc51. Hat Tip to Don for the link.

It appears we may be beginning to see the playing of the anti-U.S. card by the Korean left:

Amid deteriorating inter-Korean relations, a South Korea-U.S. working group is taking flak for hampering progress in bilateral ties due to its excessively harsh standards adopted on North Korea. 

Critics say unlike its initial goal of coordinating policy on the North, the group is obsessed with whether Seoul-driven initiatives to engage with Pyongyang violate economic sanctions on the reclusive state, with some even calling for its breakup.

The working group, co-chaired by Lee Do-hoon, special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs and U.S. Special Envoy for North Korea Stephen Biegun, was set up in November 2018 following three inter-Korean summits earlier that year. 

Upon its establishment, the government had high hopes that it would be in close communication with the U.S. via the organization. But due to Washington’s stern stance that inter-Korean economic cooperation should proceed in step with significant progress in denuclearizing the North, the group has been more focused on whether inter-Korean exchanges and cooperation violate international and U.S. sanctions.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration has been holding off on playing the anti-U.S. card because of the efforts of the Trump administration to work out a deal with North Korea. However, no deal to end sanctions was ever reached. The Kim regime has lost patience thinks now is the time to pressure the Moon administration to unilaterally violate sanctions. This is because the Moon administration firmly won the April parliamentary elections and the Trump administration is bogged down with a number of issues.

To unilaterally violate sanctions the Moon administration will need to set conditions to blame the U.S. for the new tensions with North Korea. Sending out the activist groups to blame the South Korea-U.S. Work Group is just the start of this effort.

I doubt anyone who follows inter-Korean issues ever expected this to last very long:

North Korea appears to have dispatched soldiers to some empty guard posts inside the Demilitarized Zone, sources said Thursday, following its warnings that it would beef up its military presence in border areas.

On Wednesday, the General Staff of the (North) Korean People’s Army vowed to set up “civil police posts,” which had been withdrawn from the DMZ under an inter-Korean military agreement, as part of next steps against South Korea after the demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office in the border town of Kaesong.

According to the military sources, several soldiers were spotted being dispatched to empty sentry posts inside the buffer zone from late Wednesday. 

North Korea is believed to have around 150 such posts, and some of them were vacated in accordance with the inter-Korean tension-reducing pact signed in Sept. 19, 2018.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is a pretty prestigious recognition for Coupang:

Coupang is No. 2 on the 2020 CNBC Disruptor list.  
   
It is the first Korean company to make it onto the list, which has been published by the U.S. business channel since 2013. Coupang was also the first Korean company to be nominated.  
   
Each year, the broadcaster identifies 50 private companies with breakthroughs influencing business and market competition. All private, independently owned start-up companies founded after Jan. 1, 2005 were eligible to be nominated this year.  
   
Coupang was ranked No. 2 from a total 1,355 nominees selected by the station and a board of advisors.    
   
How the companies reacted to the coronavirus was key in the selection process this year. CNBC gave credit to the retailer’s fast delivery service, and its effort to replenish necessities, such as face masks and hand sanitizers, during the pandemic.    
   
The American broadcaster ranked Coupang high on the list considering its ability to withstand a rush of online orders during the virus outbreak while maintaining its quality delivery service. CNBC complimented the company for freezing the prices of face masks and hand sanitizers to prevent customers from being adversely affected by the disruption in the supply chain caused by the outbreak.    
   
Coupang said in a statement Wednesday that its vast logistics network and infrastructure it aggressively built in recent years may have helped it reach second place. The retailer claims more than 70 percent of the Korean population lives 10 minutes away from its “Rocket Delivery” logistics hubs.    
   
Coupang said it will continue to contribute to the fight against the pandemic. It created around 20,000 jobs in the first quarter in the face of a national unemployment crisis.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

A screen capture from a North Korean state television broadcast from Wednesday shows the North’s demolition of the inter-Korean liaison office on Tuesday afternoon. [YONHAP]

I figured that South Korea would take notice of President Trump’s threat to pull U.S. troops out of Germany. However, I would not be surprised if the Moon administration would welcome removing half of U.S. troops:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday he will cut the number of U.S. soldiers in Germany by about half, fueling concerns in Seoul he could make similar reductions to American troops in Korea.    
   
“One of the only countries that hasn’t agreed to pay what they’re supposed to pay is Germany,” Trump said to reporters at the White House in Washington. “So I said, until they pay we’re removing our soldiers, a number of our soldiers, by about half. And then when we get down to 25,000, we’ll see where we’re going.”  
   
Trump claimed that Germany was “delinquent” in payments to NATO and has been treating the United States “very badly on trade.”    
   
He added, “And I’m not only talking about Germany, by the way; I’m talking about plenty of other countries,” without specifying further.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Why are these people in the Moon administration surprised by any of this? This is all straight out of the North Korean playbook:

 The office of President Moon Jae-in strongly condemned the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Wednesday for her “rude and senseless” criticism of Moon and warned that it won’t tolerate the North’s unreasonable words and acts anymore.

“It is a senseless act to disparage (Moon’s speech earlier this week) in a very rude tone without understanding its purpose at all,” Yoon Do-han, Cheong Wa Dae’s senior secretary for public communication, said in a war of words between the two Koreas. (……..)

It’s an “unprecedentedly unreasonable” act to deliberately distort the purpose of the proposal, he stressed, adding that the North should have “basic etiquette.”

The North said Moon had “begged” it to accept his scheme to send either National Security Director Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon as a special envoy.

Making public such a sensitive issue unilaterally is something of a taboo in diplomacy and other state-to-state relationships.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but as long as Seoul’s response continues to be strongly worded statements they will continue to keep being pushed around by the Kim regime. They know there will never be any real consequences for their provocations as long as Moon is in power.

It is pretty clear that Kim Jong-un is using his sister to be the hard liner to push the Moon administration to make as many concessions as possible. When concessions are made then Kim Jong-un will pop up looking like a reasonable peacemaker.