'Unusual spectacle': South Korea stages first military parade in a decade
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Transcript
00:00 latest on this. Let's bring in Andrew Salmon, the Washington Times Asia editor in Seoul.
00:05 Andrew, this is the first parade in 10 years. Why is it happening now in South Korea?
00:09 Yeah, I mean, this is very unusual. I mean, France is a little bit unusual with Bastille
00:15 Day and running these kind of parades in its capital. Most democracies don't do these.
00:20 The Brits don't do them. The Americans don't do them. The Germans, the Italians and so
00:24 on. So this is an unusual spectacle. It's been brought back to life after a decade.
00:30 Why now? I think, well, as you know, there's a war on. Wars are good for our manufacturers
00:36 and some of the things rolling through Seoul as we speak, tanks, self-propelled artillery,
00:43 multiple launch rocket systems, all of which sales are just going through the roof right
00:49 now, mainly to NATO nations like Poland, Finland, Estonia, Turkey, which are buying these weapons,
00:55 I mean, Poland most particularly, in massive numbers as the democratic world is forced
01:02 to arm up. But of course, that's a very distant audience. There's a much closer audience for
01:08 this parade as well.
01:10 Indeed, North Korea, obviously. So what kind of message is this military parade trying
01:15 to send to the North?
01:16 Well, I think this is emblematic of the current government, a conservative government which
01:22 took power last year. Very, very different North Korean approach than a previous government,
01:27 which was engaging North Korea, which was very accommodative towards North Korea. This
01:32 one's taken a much more hardline stance. It's really promoting its alliance with the United
01:37 States. It's trying to form a sort of trilateral alliance with the US, or partnership rather,
01:42 US and Japan in the region to counter not just North Korea, but arguably also China
01:48 and Russia. So these are the guys who are in charge. But of course, the war gods have
01:53 been unkind to South Korea today. We've got pouring rain. I think sadly, the drill of
01:59 the South Korean troops is not of the same standard of the North Korean goose steppers.
02:05 And of course, it's taking place during the daytime, not this very eye catching kind of
02:09 parade pioneered by Kim Jong Un, which takes place at night.
02:13 Andrew, thanks for that. Andrew Salmon there reporting for us from Seoul.