U.S. admiral: No indicators of North Korean assault plans amid South’s political unrest

SIMI VALLEY, California — North Korean military forces have shown no signals of attacking South Korea during the current political unrest, the commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said Saturday.

Adm. Sam Paparo told a conference at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library that military intelligence agencies stepped up monitoring the military forces in North Korea shortly after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who survived an impeachment vote on Saturday, declared martial law earlier in the week.

The four-star admiral said U.S. military forces in the Pacific went into a heightened watch status.

Increased surveillance was needed “because there is the potential for opportunism” by Pyongyang.

“But thus far [there has been] no opportunism on that part,” he told a panel at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, called his South Korean counterpart, Adm. Kim Myung-soo, who also exchanged messages with Adm. Paparo.

Mr. Yoon went on TV to apologize to South Koreans for declaring martial law. He withdrew the order in the face of legislative opposition.

“So there is a little bit of political uncertainty in Korea,” Adm. Paparo said.

“I am convinced that from a security standpoint there is stability there. There is stability from a civil military standpoint. There is stability from a security standpoint presently. So it remains right now a purely political matter,” he said.

South Korea has had peaceful protests, with no real fear of civil-military unrest, Adm. Pararo noted.

He said North Korea has provided 12,000 troops to Russia, but it’s not clear that the forces are in active combat in Ukraine.

He said that Russia didn’t ask for the forces, but Pyongyang offered them and Moscow accepted.

In exchange, North Korea expected to receive Russian ballistic missile technology involving warhead reentry and submarine know-how, he said.

He said that Moscow may also supply North Korea with advanced jets, including MiG-29s and Su-27s.

On Taiwan, Adm. Paparo expressed confidence that U.S. and allied forces would prevail in a conflict with China.

From China’s perspective, its leaders have doubts that the People’s Liberation Army could conduct a difficult amphibious assault across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, he said.

“That’s why they’ve set a benchmark for 2027,” he said, referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s order for the PLA to be ready for an attack on Taiwan.

Any such Chinese assault now would involve “tremendous risk” to China, he said.

However, the U.S. military is concerned that China’s calculus for conducting an attack or invasion in terms of casualties, lost money and other factors is eroding, Adm. Paparo said.

He said the U.S. military in the region has made “great gains” in building key warfare capabilities such as plans to use drones in a future conflict.

Gen. Eric M. Smith, the Marine Corps’ commandant also at the Reagan event, declined to say whether his troops would be dispatched to Taiwan in the future.

“But what I would say is the advantage lies with us because our last combat was captured on somebody’s iPhone 14,” he said.

“The Chinese’s last combat was captured on oil and canvas, and they should not forget that” the general said, referring to the PLA’s lack of warfighting experience.

China’s military can bluster, he said, but going in harm’s way in a conflict is tough.

“And we have a lengthy history of going in harm’s way, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. We’ve built a culture of warrior excellence. We’ve built a culture of warfighting. We’ve built a culture of interoperability in the joint force, [and] the PRC has not had to deal with that in decades,” Gen. Smith said.

Earlier at the confab, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the U.S. must continue denying advanced technology to China.

She said export controls on technology, sanctions and tariffs targeting China are limited tools in the U.S.-China competition.

Currently, 100% of advanced microchips used for artificial intelligence are produced in Taiwan, and losing the island democracy to China would be a national security disaster, the secretary said.

China is building 21 semiconductor manufacturing plants in a bid to end-run U.S. sanctions and controls on chips, she said.

“We are not going to beat China by trying to slow them down,” Ms. Raimondo said. “We are going to beat China by going faster.”