Congress visits the DMZ: GOP Rep. warns of ‘nightmare scenario’ on Korean Peninsula

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) expressing concerns that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un could make a move to take advantage of a possible conflict between China and Taiwan.

The visit, which followed a stop in Japan, included a tightly controlled bus tour of Panmunjom and some of the Joint Security Area, which is operated by the United States and South Korea. Despite heavy rain, members of the delegation also toured some overlook points along the DMZ and one of the famous peace negotiation buildings located on the Military Demarcation Line dividing both countries.

The delegation said the zone and its echoes of the past are especially relevant given the threat of a nuclear North Korea, rising tensions with China, and the conflict in Ukraine. “I do worry about a Taiwan Strait conflict where Kim Jong Un sees an opportunity and tries to take advantage of it,” said Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL). “That would just be a nightmare scenario for the world. The bigger picture is that the threat from North Korea and its backers aren’t just a South Korea problem. It’s an East Asia problem. It’s a regional problem. It’s a global problem at this point. And now Kim Jong Un has operational ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] — if they can reach Los Angeles or Washington, D.C., then they can reach Paris, Moscow, Beijing, really anywhere in the world.”

Waltz added that it is unclear what the US’s allies would do in a Taiwan Strait scenario and emphasized that the goal should be to provide a united front to Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with a clear message that the US, South Korea, Japan, and other East Asian allies all would resist any attempts to invade the democracy that Taiwan is.

North Korea has provided military support to Russia during the invasion of Ukraine while China has provided rhetorical, financial, economic, and nonlethal military support. The congressman warned that if China opens up its arsenals and North Korea opens up its arsenals, particularly in artillery, that could be a game-changer, and called for clear red lines to be established by the Biden administration for the US’s stance towards North Korea and China.

Earlier this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report stating that North Korea had recently timed its missile launches and military demonstrations to counter US-South Korea exercises probably to attempt to coerce the United States and South Korea to change their behavior and counteract South Korean President Yoon’s hardline policies toward the North. The intelligence assessment further said that Kim “is continuing efforts to enhance North Korea’s nuclear and conventional capabilities targeting” the U.S. and its allies.

The joint military exercises between the US and South Korea resumed in 2022 after being suspended in 2018 by former President Donald Trump, who failed to reach a deal with the North Koreans regarding their nuclear weapons program. Previous US presidents have visited the DMZ, but Trump became the first to cross into North Korea to meet with a North Korean leader.

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, and the US response to it, could inevitably revive memories of the Korean War because the US and China first met on the battlefield in Korea. The war began when North Korea, an ally of the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea in 1950. The US-led UN Command was at first pushed back to the southern tip of South Korea, but the daring Incheon landing allowed the US and international forces, joined by South Koreans, to push back against North Korea. However, the CCP military’s invasion of North Korea and, soon, of South Korea that year eventually turned the war into a bloody stalemate near what is now the DMZ.

The Korean War remains significant, as the new Wall of Remembrance on the U.S. National Mall lists the names of 36,574 U.S. service members who died in the war, as well as the names of the more than 7,200 South Koreans who were killed augmenting the US Army. South Korea lost 58,217 soldiers during the war, according to the US Army’s Military Review, while North Korean and Chinese forces losses “remained unclear, with estimations as high as 1.5 million.

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