Threats Against Humanity (July 2023)

Reuploaded from the Odisha Society of Americas magazine in July 2023 at age 16, unedited from back then.

Opinionated Writing by Ishaan Padhi

Today we'll talk about North Korea and other threats as a result of this that threatens humanity as a whole.

North Korea was created on September 9, 1948, as a result of the end of World War II in 1945, and all of the territory the Empire of Japan took was withdrawn by the Japanese due to their loss. The United States took the Southern part of Korea, while the Soviet Union controlled the Northern part of Korea. The Korean peninsula was one of the showdowns between the Soviet Union and the United States during the cold war with the battle of Communism vs. Capitalism; once Stalin obtained the Atomic Bomb, he gave the go-ahead to the leader of North Korea, Kim Il Sung, to start the Korean War.

The Korean War, 1950-1953

The Korean War began in 1950, with North Korea invading the South, which brought direct conflict between the United States and South Korea against the North Koreans. North Korea pushed South Korea and the United States back to the Pusan Perimeter, which led to the almost defeated South Korea and the United States. A United Nations Counter-Offensive was proposed and deployed to the Korean Peninsula, managing to push the North Koreans to the Chinese-North Korean border. Still, an unexpected result occurred. The People's Volunteer Army, a part of the People's Republic of China, decided to join the war and intervene, to which the United Nations Forces retreated. It was a back-and-forth battle. Still, all led to the same result, to the 38th parallel, where the borders were initially settled before the Korean War had begun, this stabilized, and neither side could push the other back, and led to the creation of the Korean Armistice Agreement, which created the Korean Demilitarized Zone, also known as the DMZ, which still exists to this day. Either side never signed a Peace Treaty, and both North Korea and South Korea are still at war, known as a frozen conflict. This places extreme tension between both sides because, at any time, either side can invade the other.

North Korean Missile Tests

To this day, the Korean Peninsula has the northern part controlled by North Korea and the southern part controlled by South Korea. In the 21st century, North Korea is the biggest threat to peace and security in the Korean Peninsula. On October 9, 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test, and later conducted many more Nuclear & Missile tests; according to the publication Time, North Korea conducted 68 missile tests in 2022, and in 2023, it has gotten even worse, with 28 projectiles being launched from North Korea this year alone, with recently an ICBM, launched over Japan, to which a temporary evacuate-or-seek-shelter warning in Japan was issued with the possibility that the ICBM could hit Japan, which luckily it did not. North Korea has also tested an unmanned underwater attack drone, is planning to launch its first spy satellite, and has shown propaganda with Kim Jong Un showing a map of the Korean peninsula and planning an invasion of some sort to intimate South Korea and the United States.

Why we are worried about North Korea.

The whole world is worried about North Korea due to its Nuclear test capabilities, as currently, South Korea does not have any nuclear missiles, and I feel like that must change. We must place American Nuclear missiles in South Korea and have enough missiles to destroy any nuclear missile that is attempted to be shot at South Korea, Japan, and other allies. Unfortunately, it is not always that simple; any war on the Korean peninsula will kill millions of people. With 2.5 million people dying in the 1950-1953 Korean War, the span of only three years, with North Korean missile capabilities, the death toll was devastating. But we must do all we can to protect South Korea under any circumstances by placing U.S Nuclear missiles in South Korea and stationing even more U.S soldiers on the DMZ; that should send a message to North Korea that any invasion or attack will mean the end to the North Korean regime controlled by the Kim Dynasty. Recently in Propaganda, Kim Jong Un was seen with his 9-year-old daughter for the first time and more times after that, showing that his daughter might be the successor to Kim Jong Un should he ever die, which means a successor to Kim Dysanty now officially exists. Another scary factor is occurring as we speak in North Korea.

North Korean Concentration Camps

The whole world knows of the atrocities that Nazi Germany inflicted upon the Jews in Europe, with over 6 million Jews dying in Concentration Camps; unfortunately, as we speak, hundreds of thousands, even millions, of North Koreans are in Concentration Camps, being inflicted of starvation, torture, and forced hard labor. It is even said for some offenses, three generations of a family will live in Concentration camps; that means if an individual is placed in a Concentration Camp, his children and the children after that will be born and live to work in Concentration Camps, the same goes if your Grandfather committed a 'crime,' to which his children and his grandchildren are put to hard labor in the camps. The world has stood by for decades as this has been going on, and Concentration Camps of this scale have started to spread to other countries like the People's Republic of China, otherwise known as Communist China.

The Spread of Concentration Camps Outside of North Korea & The Threat of China

Many people and new reports have been reported regarding Concentration Camps called "Re-Education Camps" by the People's Republic of China, where over 1 million Uyghur Muslims have been placed in Concentration Camps for their beliefs & some even abducted by the People's Republic of China and put into camps with their families not knowing what has happened to them, in February 2020, hackers leaked information of the People's Republic of China's imprisonment of Uyghur Muslims, some even stating how long their family members will be imprisoned for, some for a decade and longer. Currently, as we speak, a genocide is occurring in the People's Republic of China over Uyghur Muslims, something from a playbook that North Korea has done for decades with concentration camps of their people. The world cannot do anything about it, and they choose not to. The People's Republic of China has also gotten stronger and stronger with its grip on power. Examples such as Hong Kong; with the handover in 1997, the People's Republic of China agreed to Hong Kong retaining its legislative system and people's rights and freedom for fifty years as a special administrative region (SAR) of China. As a result of the National Security Law signed in 2020, this promise was broken. Now Hong Kong is under the complete dictatorial control of Hong Kong, with many people being imprisoned for using their freedoms as stated in the agreement. The People's Republic of China has also censored their people for years regarding the Tinamin Square Massecure, creating the Great Firewall of China, and recently shutting down protests over COVID rules in China which are considered extreme rules. Another threat by China is regarding Taiwan, otherwise known as the Republic of China.

Taiwan

Taiwan, aka the Republic of China, was officially founded in 1949, as the original government of Mainland China fled to Taiwan as a result of losing the civil war, over time; the Republic of China is now a thriving Democracy that is now under threat by the People's Republic of China threatening to take it back by force. Recently in 2022 and 2023, the People's Republic of China conducted military drills and exercises against Taiwan for U.S officials like Nancy Pelosi and other delegations meeting in Taiwan in 2022, and current Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy meeting with the President of Taiwan in 2023 in the U.S, with a delegation meeting in Taiwan as well. President Biden has vowed to protect Taiwan with U.S. forces, which is the right call because Taiwan has something highly vital to the world to function. Many people dislike this position and ask why we care about Taiwan so much, and to those people, here is the consequence of Taiwan falling to the People's Republic of China,

When the prices for every piece of electronics become high to the point where it's unaffordable, including smartphones, electronic machines, the chips that power our vehicles, laptops, computers, and supercomputers that businesses and NASA use, the technology we need to have to communicate with our satellites, every other piece of tech no matter the size that uses any semiconductor chips, where our military cannot expand further, and the budget placed for our military are unsustainable because more money is being put to purchase chips at an exceedingly higher cost, which then the budget gets increased. Even more, money is required for our military. People do not realize that semiconductor chips power our economy, lives, national defense, and security, the same chips we use to educate children by using technology that requires chips. Our entire world becomes upside down if Taiwan falls to China; TSMC's revenue share is 58.5%, with Samsung being next at 15%; if Taiwan falls, there will be more demand for Samsung, then prices will go up. People need to realize that every single item you touch that is electronic in some form factor uses chips. Imagine all those simple gadgets, a toaster, microwave, electric stoves, electric oven, and every piece of tech.

Our position on Ukraine

The Current battle that everyone is talking about is the War in Ukraine, and while it is different from Taiwan, it is an important battle that we must be funding. People have been complaining about us being involved in a Proxy war, and there is no point; well, there is. We have always been engaged in proxy wars under Republican and Democratic Presidents; if Ukraine falls, grain prices will increase, & Poland will be under threat of invasion, just like the Soviet Union did in 1939. The Russian Federation has already violated the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. The Russian Federation agreed not to attack Ukraine and to recognize its territories as Ukraine, including Crimea, in exchange for Ukraine handing over its Nuclear Weapons, to which Ukraine agreed. Still, the agreement was violated in 2014 and again in 2022, and Russia will continue to break more agreements. We must fund Ukraine until their victory, Ukraine was supposed to have collapsed by now, which is way overdue. However, just like how Finland fought against Stalin, their resolve is still firm, and this time with funded weapons, Ukraine can win ultimately. We must support them until the end to protect the peace of NATO. Russia's position of preventing nations from joining NATO failed, as Finland is the newest member of NATO, with Sweden still awaiting approval.

What the world must do

We must place Nuclear Missles on South Korean Soil and provide weapons to shoot down any missile from North Korea and place more soldiers in the DMZ to deter North Korea from attacking South Korea; we must do our best to eventually unite Korea into one and ultimately liberate the people from their Concentration Camps, just like we did in World War II, we must protect Taiwan at all costs, and recognize Taiwan as an independent country, and recognize the People's Republic of China as illegal occupiers of Taiwanese Territory. We must continue to fund Ukraine until their victory and make plans to eventually liberate Ugiyer Muslims from their Concentration Camps and continue to be peacemakers and fighters for peace and human rights. We got ourselves involved in Global Affairs long ago, and there is no turning back; we must continue to support the liberation efforts and efforts to turn dictatorships into democracies like the Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, and North Korea.

Sources provided below

(https://time.com/6266737/north-korea-ballistic-missile-tests-2023/#:~:text=More%20and%20More%20Missiles%3A%20North,three%20months%20of%20this%20year.)

(https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/02/asia/xinjiang-china-karakax-document-intl-hnk/)

(https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/china-xinjiang-uyghurs-muslims-repression-genocide-human-rights)

(https://www.nkhiddengulag.org/about-the-camps.html)