It is now clear, if it wasn't before, that Kim Jong-un's ascension to follow his father as North Korea's supreme leader is going to be a turbulent time on the Korean Peninsula. How dangerous it gets in the region may depend on how much aggressive behaviour South Korea is willing to tolerate from its neighbour without pushing back hard.
After a brief period of calm following the 20-something's introduction as the heir apparent to an ailing Kim Jong-il, the North Korean regime has shocked the outside world twice in a matter of days. First by unveiling a uranium-enrichment facility – described as "stunning" by a U.S. scientist who was invited to see it – that could be used to produce more nuclear weapons for a regime that has already defied the world by detonating two of them. Then, on Tuesday, it shelled an inhabited South Korean island, killing two soldiers and wounding dozens of others, prompting a heavy retort from South Korea's own artillery.
On Wednesday, the bodies of two civilians were found.
The fighting ended after about an hour, though exchanges of angry rhetoric are likely to continue much longer. Pyongyang blamed Seoul for provoking the fighting by holding military drills close to their border. President Lee Myung-bak put South Korea's military on highest alert and warned he would order strikes against North Korean missile bases if there was any further fire from the North.
The question now is not whether the North will launch another provocation, but when. A more delicate calculation is how much more Mr. Lee and the South Korean government can absorb without following through on its promises to hold the North accountable for its actions.
Earlier this year, a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, was sunk, killing 46 sailors. Though Pyongyang has consistently denied involvement, an international investigation concluded the Cheonan had been struck by a North Korean torpedo. Mr. Lee ramped up the rhetoric, pledging "firm and definite" action, but in the end the only punishment Pyongyang faced was a watered down resolution from the United Nations Security Council after North Korea's long-time ally, China, blocked an effort to escalate sanctions.
Today, South Koreans are confronted with television images that most had thought was confined to old film reels of the 1950-53 war: Smoke billowing skyward from a village and residents being evacuated following an artillery barrage from the North. It was a reminder that no peace treaty has ever been signed between North and South, and that the two sides remain technically at war.
Six decades ago, North Korea fought UN forces to a standstill thanks to intervention by Chinese troops. This week, the Security Council will hold an emergency meeting to address the latest flare-up, and again China can be expected to protect its neighbour and de facto satellite.
On Tuesday, while the White House was calling for North Korea to "halt its belligerent action," China's Foreign Ministry said only that it had "noticed the reports" of artillery fire on the Korean Peninsula and was "concerned about the issue."
Mr. Lee, during a visit to the South Korean military's joint chiefs of staff, condemned the shelling of Yeonpyeong as "an invasion" and promised the response this time would involve actions and not just words.
It's hard to see how. Armed with effective impunity in the form of China's veto at the UN Security Council – not to mention Pyongyang's own small nuclear arsenal – Kim Jong-il is free to pursue a course of action that suits his domestic agenda. Rallying the military, which in recent years has surpassed the Workers Party as the country's most important institution, around his son requires victories that can be sold as belonging to the "Young General."
Mr. Kim must also understand that his country's economy is collapsing and is unlikely to achieve its stated goal of becoming a "strong and prosperous" nation by 2012. In Pyongyang, every failure in society is blamed on U.S. and South Korean aggression. New violence along the world's most heavily armed frontier may provide a handy excuse to give to those who are waiting for economic progress that isn't coming.
In the hours after the shells stopped flying, North Korea's KCNA news agency issued a pair of bulletins.
The first was a shrill warning to the South and its allies. "Should the South Korean puppet group dare intrude into the territorial waters of [North Korea] even 0.001 of a millimetre, the revolutionary armed forces of [North Korea] will unhesitatingly continue taking merciless military counteractions against it."
The second was a report that Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un had toured a soy sauce factory and a medical school together. Father and son made no mention of the deadly border skirmish.
The oddly timed report seemed designed for domestic consumption, as if to signal that it was just another day for the Kims – and that everything was going as planned.
Mark MacKinnon