South Korea begins drill in Yellow Sea

By Hao Zhou

The South Korean military launched its biggest-ever anti-submarine maneuvers Thursday near the disputed western maritime border with North Korea.

The exercises, which are expected to run through Monday, involve 4,500 troops from the South Korean army, navy, air force and marines, as well as a 14,000-ton amphibious landing ship, a 1,800-ton submarine and a 4,500-ton KDX-II class destroyer, plus 50 fighter jets, according to the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency.

"We will not tolerate any kind of provocations by the enemy, and the drills will allow us to be fully prepared for combat," a South Korean official with the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Yonhap.

The war game comes eight days after Seoul and Washington ended a massive joint naval and air drill in the Sea of Japan as a show of force against the North.

Lü Chao, an expert on Korean Peninsular issues from the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, said Thursday that the confrontation between the two Koreas has escalated to an "extremely severe" situation.

The waters where the dills are being conducted this time are much more complicated than the Sea of Japan, as both the North and South have never agreed on a demarcation of the sea border, Lü told the Global Times Thursday.

Previous maritime frictions between them all happened here, but all of them were "unintended," he said. "Seoul this time is obviously intent on provoking Pyongyang in the disputed area after it failed to gain an apology from the North over the sinking of Cheonon."

Agencies contributed to this story