Sung-Hee Choi writes from Jeju Island in South Korea:
A map indicates a possibility of militarization of the Jeju.
Fr. Mun Jeong-Hyeon has suspected of the possibility of the militarization of the southern part of the Jeju Island, considering two airfields in the east and west parts of the Island.
The Alttre airfield ( 1.2 km runway), constructed during the Japanese imperialism and currently unused but owned by the Ministry of National Defense, and the Jungseok airfield (2.7 km runway) built in Pyoseon in 1998. There have been government arguments for long years on the need of a new airfield (expansion) which has officially been told as the civilian use. But would it be purely civilian use?
The map indicates that if a naval base is built in the Gangjeong village, at least the southern part of the Jeju could be easily militarized with the links to the two airfields in its both sides.
I think this speculation about an air base should be taken seriously. Especially because it is an isolated Navy base on an island the U.S. military could want Air Force access for two reasons. One would be to have fighter planes there to "protect" the U.S. warships that are docked at the base. Secondly the Navy officers will want to have a runway nearby where they can frequently fly in and out of the base on Jeju.
The fact that Gangjeong villagers only recently learned that the Navy wanted more of their land for housing Navy personnel indicates that the whole plan is only being unfolded piece by piece. It's what they call in the military "need to know". The Gangjeong village, and quite possibly large portions of Jeju Island, are being sacrificed to U.S. plans for "containment" of China and the people on the island are obviously being spoon fed the real story on a "need to know" basis.
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