Japan has replaced North Korea as the number one threat to their security in a national survey of South Koreans, reported the Seoul-based newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.
In the poll, which surveyed 800 South Koreans on which country they believe poses the greatest threat to national security last week, 37.1 percent of respondents identified Japan as South Korea’s greatest threat, replacing the United States and North Korea as perceived top menaces.
Next in line, according to the results of the survey conducted by Research and Research (R&R), a marketing research and analysis company based in Seoul, was North Korea, identified by less than a third, or 28.6 percent, of respondents as most threatening. By contrast, the United States was deemed most threatening only by 18.5 percent, and China by 11.9 percent, of those polled.
Some stunning polling results since this news also came out today from Korea…
North Korea has poured all its resources into developing nuclear weapons, including a likely scheme to enrich uranium, the highest official from the communist state to defect to the South said on Thursday.
Hwang Jang-yop was the architect of the North’s Juche ideology, an extreme form of self-reliance advocated by the North’s late founder Kim Il-sung.
Hwang was head of international relations at the Workers’ Party of Korea, the ruling communist party, and a close confidant of current leader Kim Jong-il, before defecting in 1997.
“It is a small country, but it has thrown all its strength behind the programmes from the very beginning,” Hwang told a forum organised by South Korea’s opposition Grand National Party.
