Monday, April 13, 2026

North East Asia Tension Confrontation

South Korea and Japan have named Dokdo/Takeshima and maritime territorial disputes have continued day after day.To this end, military and maritime exercises are being strengthened.North Korea is firing missiles into the East Sea (sea of Japan and South Korea). In response, South Korea launched the “King Jeongjo,” the first Aegis destroyer that can intercept North Korea’s ballistic missiles at sea.
It will be handed over to the Navy at the end of 2024 and deployed after completing the electrification process.
The Navy and the Defense Acquisition Program Administration announced on the morning of the 28th that they held a launching ceremony for the 8,200-ton Aegis destroyer (DDG-995) at Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan.King Jeongjo is the first ship of Gwanggaeto-III Batch-II, which refers to the next Aegis destroyer, and the fourth Aegis ship of the Navy. Two more Aegis ships will be built in the future. Earlier in April, the name of King Jeongjo, selected by the Hammyeong Establishment Committee, was officially given through the launching ceremony.After the construction contract was signed in 2019, King Jeongjo went through a groundbreaking ceremony and a groundbreaking ceremony last year. The ship is 600 tons larger than King Sejong’s (76,600-ton) Aegis, and has advanced in its vertical launch pad capability, armament, and stealth functions. In particular, it will install a Korean vertical launch system-II to carry long-range shared missiles and ship-to-ground ballistic missiles.In terms of anti-submarine warfare capabilities, advanced integrated sonar (sonar detection) systems developed by domestic technology have been applied to detect underwater threats such as submarines and torpedoes. It is equipped with long-range anti-submarine torpedoes and light torpedoes to have timely anti-submarine attack capabilities. In addition, the Korean supersonic fighter KF-21 Boramae, which completed a 34-minute test flight on the 19th of last month. Foreign media also paid attention to the development of the world’s eighth supersonic fighter jet after the United States, Russia, and China.
However, three days later, a flight video of the next-generation fighter Gen-35 (J-35) being developed by China was suddenly released on Chinese SNS. The defense industry observed that China was conscious of the test flight of the KF-21.

Since then, China has been comparing KF-21 and Zen-35 to highlight the excellence of Chinese fighter jets. However, the evaluation of the overseas defense industry is cold. Analysts say that the canopy of the Gen-35’s glass cockpit and the shape of the sawtooth engine exhaust have copied the U.S. F-35. The part that protrudes under the cockpit, which appears to be an infrared detection and tracking device, is similar to the F-35’s electro-optical tracking device. The U.S. military media and others pointed out that it is questionable whether the Gen-35 has even secured key technologies such as engines that can handle high-level manoeuvres.

SEOUL(REUTERS)Some point out that China only caused controversy over “fake” while trying to compare the fifth-generation Gen-35, which emphasized stealth performance, to the 4.5-generation fighter KF-21, which emphasized armed capabilities.U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived at Taipei’s Songshan Airport at around 10:44 p.m. on the 2nd (11:44 Korean time). It is the first visit to Taiwan in 25 years since then House Speaker Newt Gingrich visited Taiwan following his visit to China in 1997.
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Wu Zhao-sheh and Sandra Odkirk, head of the U.S. Association of Korean Residents (AIT), welcomed Pelosi at the airport. A U.S. Navy C-40C plane carrying a delegation of six congressmen, including Pelosi, arrived in Taiwan about seven hours after taking off from Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur airport later in the day. It took about three hours more than a regular route as China bypassed the Philippine archipelago to avoid the disputed South China Sea route.There was also an urgent situation in which U.S.-China fighter jets were operated at the same time. About 20 minutes before the landing of the private jet, China’s state-run Anxi Shimbun reported, “The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force Su-35 fighter jet is passing through the Taiwan Strait.” According to NHK’s report that eight F-15 fighter jets and five aerial refueling planes took off from the U.S. military base in Okinawa at around 8 p.m., U.S. and Chinese fighter jets may have long-distance confrontation between Pelosi’s planes.

Indonesia decided to jointly develop fighter jets with Korea from 2016 and planned to produce 48 units in Indonesia by transferring one KF-21 prototype and technology instead of paying about 1.6 trillion won, 20 percent of the total project cost of 8.1 trillion won, for 10 years. However, since 2017, the amount of arrears accumulated due to overdue contributions has reached 800 billion won, raising doubts that there may be no willingness to cooperate in defense.

H.S HA

ASIA JOURNAL

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