Last class, I was talking with my group project members. Our topic is going to be about the tension between North Korea and South Korea and how it affects different countries and people. Since I am from the United States I only know my perspective on the conflict between the Korea's. Now I know that my perspective is heavily influenced by American media, which is very biased, and I am shown little international news. I had a hard time understanding why China would want to make sure that nothing happens to North Korea. My two classmates that are from China explained to me that any missiles or fighting that happen in North Korea could also hit China since the two countries border each other. Also, they told me that there are some Chinese citizens that live in North Korea and obviously no country wants its citizens to be harmed.
This helped me to realize my ignorance in not realizing that the two countries have relations and it's not as simple as just cutting off the relationship. I think that some of this stems from not being able to read articles from multiple news sources since I can only read one language and have the access to American news articles. In some ways, the news creates propaganda to convince you of their side without explaining all the different perspectives that countries might have for their choices. My other classmate Daiki explained to me that there are several US military camps in Japan and that there could be missiles or fighting that happen in Japan just because US troops are occupied in Japan. I knew that there were troops in Japan but it never occurred to me that Japan could get caught up in this fiasco just because of that relationship. Japan also has large boats called destroyers in the North Korean pacific coast along with the United States that are capable of shooting missile down. What about the recent conflict of setting up a defense system in South Korea? The Defense system that the the United States wants to set up is called THAAD.
What I haven't talked out about yet is the radar that goes with THAAD. Surprisingly, the radar has a wide enough range to be able to see about eighty percent of China's missile sites that are along the coast. Why is this a problem to everyone? Just as the United States would never allow a radar like this to be set in Mexico by a country like Russia, China doesn't want the United States to know where practically all of it's missiles are located. Which leads to unsteady relations with China, who we've spent the last couple centuries repairing our relationship with through trade agreements and surmounting a large amount of debt. Also if THAAD were to shoot a nuclear missile in the air then the radiation would be in the environment above all the countries and would end up in their food and water. Should we blame North Korea and It's people for the conflict?
I think that North Korea's people are not at fault and have been brainwashed by a tyrannical leader. The United States, Russia, China and South Korea are all at fault as well Since the Korean War. Relations between all these countries have been rocky since the Korean war because they pinned themselves on opposite sides and didn't come up with a better solution other than to try to capture the opposing country. All countries involved killed many North Korean citizens and the citizens have hated the United States since this incident. Why might this topic be important? This is important because if President Trump makes terrible decisions like bombing North Korea, we will have to shoot missiles down and lead to further destroying our atmosphere and life in Pacific Asia. The Asian Pacific conflicts are on of the most important topics today and I was never taught anything about why we even have conflict there in the first place, until we did the group project.
Basically what I'm trying to say is that I need to keep a more open mind and think of situations from different people's perspectives before making any conclusions. I think that most of the American populous can relate to this since on a daily basis I hear such ignorant people saying that the solution is just blow up North Korea and it's that simple. Most of these people give little thought to the people that will be affected and that there has to be a better solution. Perhaps that solution if educating your fellow peers and showing them the ignorance in their ways. In the end this can only be resolved by everyone working together to resolve this issue.
Notes: added a third and fourth paragraph with a hyperlink to try to show what I'm talking about. Added a hyperlink at the end of paragraph one.
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