In The Times:-
South Korea’s navy has unveiled the country’s first domestically built submarine that is capable of firing ballistic missiles into North Korea.
South Korea’s navy has unveiled the country’s first domestically built submarine that is capable of firing ballistic missiles into North Korea.
The commissioning of Dosan Ahn Chang-ho — named after an independence activist who was jailed five times by the Japanese — comes as tension rises in the region. Pyongyang has yet to agree to a denuclearisation plan while Beijing is upgrading its military hardware to catch up with the US.
Pyongyang tested its first submarine-launched ballistic missiles in 2016. It is now developing nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines to revamp its outdated fleet.
At a ceremony at the Okpo Shipyard, Rear Admiral Yang Yong-mo, the commander of South Korea’s submarine force, described the 84m-long diesel-electric boat as a strategic asset that “will firmly defend our seas.” It will be deployed after a year of sea trials, and two more boats are planned by 2023.
The 3,000-tonne Dosan Ahn Chang-ho has a crew of 50, has six vertical missile launching tubes and can operate for 20 days without surfacing. Until now the country has relied on 1,200-tonne and 1,800-tonne submarines.
One defence source told the South China Morning Post that the boat could in theory hit military bases in China but that Seoul had played this down to avoid irritating Beijing.
Today South Korea and the US will begin their annual military exercises, which has drawn the usual condemnation from Pyongyang. In Beijing, Ri Ryong-nam, the North Korean ambassador to China, told the Global Times, a party newspaper, that the drills would be “unwelcome”. Pyongyang also marked the 76th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War by seeking to strengthen its ties with Moscow. Kim Jong-un, the North’s leader, told President Putin that the friendship between the nations was “forged in blood in the struggle against the common enemy”.
Putin replied that the countries “cherish the memory of the service personnel of the Red Army and Korean patriots who dedicated their lives to the freedom of Korea”.