SEOUL — At downtown Seoul’s posh Koreana Hotel, every room has a nightstand with a Bible, a room-service menu — and a gas mask.
Call it the new normal in South Korea.
A year of increased tension with nuclear-armed North Korea has shattered the hopes held by many South Koreans who wished for better relations with their aggressive, communist neighbor.
In March 2010, a North Korean submarine sank a South Korean naval ship, the Cheonan, killing 46 seamen. In November, the North fired nearly 200 artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, hitting military and civilian sites and killing four people.
Last week, jumpy South Korean marines fired rifles at a civilian airliner landing in Seoul, after mistaking it for a North Korean warplane. No one on the Asiana Airlines flight from China was injured.
“Before Cheonan and Yeonpyeong, there was denial and a kind of nostalgic feeling toward North Korea,”said Choi Kang, professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security.
He said many South Koreans thought “we should have better relations with North Korea. We should provide food aid, blah, blah, blah.”
“Since the attacks, South Koreans’ general understanding of North Korea has become very negative, and I don’t think it’s reversible at this point in time,” he added.
The bombardment of Yeonpyeong Island marked the first time Pyongyang had attacked South Korean territory since the Korean War ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty.
“Prior to this, targets were military. Targets were kind of localized,” said Army Maj. Gen. Larry Wells, deputy chief of staff for U.S. forces in Korea.
“I think prior to the sinking of the Cheonan, a majority of South Korean citizens would say, ‘We know North Korea is there. We know what’s occurring there, but we don’t think they’d ever attack us.’ “
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak responded to the attacks by suspending the large-scale aid that dovish predecessors Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun had provided almost unconditionally.
Chun Young-woo, senior secretary to the president on national security and foreign affairs, said Mr. Lee has the “same goal” as Mr. Kim and Mr. Roh but argued that their so-called “Sunshine Policy” had given Pyongyang a dangerous sense of entitlement.
“Under the Sunshine Policy, we used to provide abundant food and fertilizer and almost everything North Korea wanted,” he said.
According to the United Nations, North Korea faces “regular, significant food shortages.”
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