The Clash of the Koreans: Naval Skirmish in the Yellow Sea

Both North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and South Korea have a bit of a long history with each other when it comes to sea battles. The Yellow Sea has witnessed many such incidences of fire from both sides, especially near the contentious Northern Limit Line (NLL). The NLL was an unfair one-sided boundary decision taken by the U.N (US led) forces after the 1950-53 Korean War ended. As the agreement to set this boundary did not involve many parties, North Korea has always maintained that it considers the border as invalid.

What happened on Tuesday was another such audacious disregard for the international water boundary by the North Korean ships. A South Korean Defense source was quoted on Yonhap, "A North Korean patrol ship crossed the Northern Limit Line and did not cease fire when we fired warning shots." Not only did it not pay heed to the fired warnings, the ship actually fired back and the firing escalated from just a warning to a full-fledged firefight where the North Korean ship is believed to have even been hit. Though this news came in unofficially, no official military reports were given out to the press to confirm the incident.

North Korea has been the sore point in the eyes of many countries around the world. For South Korea, it has been just a plain 'pain in the ***'. It was expected that North Korea would come up with such a stunt considering its penchant of doing things like this whenever major diplomatic events take place in the region. This incident came just ahead of the President Barack Obama tour of Asia. North Korea is just seeking attention it seems, for it has been trying to arrange direct talks with the Obama administration for a long time now.

North Korea has just recently riled the world all over again. It was big news on 3rd November when North Korea came out in the open with news that it had made more arms-grade plutonium. This audacious declaration came as a flaunt of disobedience after it was punished with more U.N sanctions after its nuclear test in May.

Usually, any such war like situations between the two Koreas are treated very seriously in the investment markets. But this time, there was no noticeable impact of the event in the bonds market and buying continued as usual. Market analysts conclude that investors have grown tired of North Korean antics and so pay no attention to them. In fact, all these incidents manage to do, is remind the world what a giant security threat North Korea has become for one and all.