Day and night, Eo Jungeun’s home is filled with the sound of North Korean propaganda.
Her South Korean neighbourhood is tucked along the demilitarized zone dividing the two nations. Loudspeakers from the north blare incessant messages praising leader Kim Jong Un and celebrating the country’s latest military advances.
South Korea has lashed back, blasting K-pop music, local radio and international news in hopes of reaching the ears of northern soldiers.
For Eo and her neighbours, the sonic warfare has become a perpetual reminder of the decades-long tension.
“I can hear that noise all day long,” Eo told CTV’s Genevieve Beauchemin, standing in the garden outside her home.
It may be difficult to tune out the noise along the 250-kilometre border, but for the rest of the world, provocations from North Korea have become impossible to ignore.
U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday to address how best to deal with the latest incitement from the rogue state, which claimed to have tested a hydrogen bomb over the weekend.
The U.S. reportedly floated its toughest sanctions yet against North Korea in a draft UN Security Council resolution Wednesday that, if approved, would ban all oil and natural gas exports to North Korea. The proposal would also freeze all foreign financial assets belonging to Kim and North Korea.
Such action would require the approval of China and Russia, two veto-holding members of the UN Security Council and economic partners of North Korea.
According to China’s state news agency, Xi told Trump that China is insistent upon “resolving the nuclear issue through talks.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin echoed a similar sentiment Wednesday during a meeting with South Korea’s president in Russia. Putin said that while North Korea’s nuclear test violates international law, more talks are needed to address the problem.
"As never before, everyone should show restraint and refrain from steps leading to escalation and tensions,” Putin said.
Trump has been outspoken in condemning North Korea’s test, at one point warning of "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if the nuclear threats continued.
Asked about the possibility of U.S. military action against North Korea on Wednesday, Trump was vague.
"Certainly that's not our first choice, but we will see what happens," Trump said.
Ambassador: ‘There is no panic’
Fears that North Korea is developing an arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking cities in the U.S. and Canada have heightened concerns about the possibility of war.
But South Korea’s ambassador to Canada, Maeng-ho Shin, says citizens of Seoul aren’t living in a state of fear.
“South Korea has experienced so many provocations from North Korea for 50, 60 years, so there is no panic. Our stock market is very stable. But it is true that this crisis is the most serious since our Korean War in the early 1950s,” Shin told CTV’s Power Play on Wednesday.
Shin said it’s important that South Korea continue to work closely with military allies, such as the United States, while also developing its own independent defense strategy.
He admitted that finding a diplomatic solution seems increasingly difficult these days, but that South Korea hasn’t given up hope on avoiding conflict.
“I think we believe that the window of opportunity is not closed completely if the international community can act united -- if we cut supply of oil to North Korea and if we can cut the source of finance of North Korea … then I think we can fix this problem.”
Back at Eo’s home, reprieve from the blaring loudspeakers comes every now and again when she decides it’s time for a vacation.
“I was in Calgary for a month a few years ago. It was so peaceful there,” she said.
With a report from CTV’s Genevieve Beauchemin from South Korea and files from The Associated Press
