100,000 Chinese Troops at N.Korean Border

[Kevin Shasteen]

Just passing this along as an FYI.

 

Just heard a report on the radio that a newspaper called the Pakistani Times had an article in it reporting that China has posted 100,000 - what they called - 'rogue soldiers' (whatever that means) at the North/South Korean Border.

 

Looks like some big crap is about to hit the fan over there...if this report can be taken as fact.

 

Kevin,

(Yea,Still an Inliner)

[JMortensen]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/16/wkor16.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/09/16/ixportal.html

 

That looks like last year's story...

[Kevin Shasteen]

Yea it does look like last years story - boy that would be the news anchor blunder of the year...wouldnt it

 

A little googling indicates that the solders, IF THE REPORT IS TRULY CURRENT, are amassing at the border. The actual amount of soldiers depend on which report you read and range from 10,000 to 150,000...let us assume it is the least amount of soldiers (I hate assuming).

 

Here's the link I found: http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200410/200410070022.html

 

10,000 Chinese Troops Dispatched to N. Korean Border

 

10,000 Chinese Peoples Liberation Army regulars were hastily deployed on Monday and Tuesday to the towns of Shahe, Kaishantun and Nanping of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, a district on the border with North Korea, a local source said.

 

According to the source, between Monday and Tuesday, 10,000 Chinese troops entered the villages, which border on the North Korean towns of Musan and Hweryong, North Hamgyeong Province, aboard military trucks. The deployment was so sudden that there were not enough barracks available and soldiers are being quartered at farmhouses.

 

The provincial government has ordered farming families in the area to cooperate in providing board and lodging to 5~6 soldiers per household.

 

It's has yet to be made clear why there was a sudden large deployment of troops to the border region, but locals suppose it might be connected with the fact that the Sanhe-Kaishantun-Nanping region was the area in which the most North Korean defectors appeared.

 

A Korean-Chinese said he heard from soldiers that they were sent to the region ahead of the winter season to prepare for the possibility of mass defections by armed North Korean soldiers. He added that the soldiers said the sudden deployment was because there were "more-than-clear" signs in North Korea of an impending mass defection.

 

The price of 1kg of rice in North Korea has suddenly jumped to W1,700 (as of Tuesday), and with signs of mass starvation, the possibility that soldiers, too, may mass defect as they find it impossible to deal with hunger and malnutrition is gradually rising.

 

So they are amassing at the border and doing so under the guise of "stopping their people from defecting during the winter".

 

Let us hope that is the real reason they are there.

 

Kevin,

(Yea,Still an Inliner)