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All of Asia at risk if second Korean War erupts

Bloomberg Published on Tue, Aug 22, 2017 / 7:29 AM GMT+8

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(Aug 22): A recent survey commissioned by the New York Times found that people who could find North Korea on a map were more likely to favour talks over military action. A glance at North Asia’s geography explains why.

More than six decades after the Korean War ended without a peace treaty, the peninsula remains bisected in a perpetual stalemate, with the US-backed South Korean military lined up against more than a million North Korean troops. While tensions have occasionally flared – after Kim Jong Un’s weapons tests or American-led military exercises like the ones that that began Monday – the two sides have so far staved off another devastating conflict.

The 250-kilometre border defined in a 1953 armistice lays bare one obvious peril of any confrontation: The demilitarized zone sits on the doorstep of the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live.