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00:00 Now then, it's time for our regular Monday Asia View segment. South Korea says it is to fully
00:05 suspend its 2018 tension-reducing military deal with North Korea. The announcement from South's
00:12 National Security Council coming after Pyongyang sent hundreds of trash-filled balloons across the
00:19 border. Seoul partially suspended that agreement last year after the North put a spy satellite into
00:24 orbit. But the NSC said it would tell the cabinet to suspend the entire effect of the deal until
00:31 mutual trust between the two Koreas is restored. In the past week, North Korea has floated hundreds
00:37 of huge balloons to dump rubbish on South Korea. It's also simulated nuclear strikes against its
00:42 neighbor and allegedly as well jammed GPS navigation signals. The South's National
00:46 Security Director has called the moves "absurd, irrational acts of provocation" that a normal
00:52 country can't imagine. "We will not sit idly by in the case of more provocations. We will maintain
01:02 readiness to act. The government will do what is necessary to protect the South Korean people.
01:08 North Korea's launch of rubbish balloons and GPS signal jamming are absurd and irrational
01:15 acts of provocation. North Korea aims to cause anxiety among the South Korean people
01:21 through these lowly acts."
01:23 As I say, we're going to talk about that as part of our regular Monday Asia View.
01:28 We're going to cross to Beijing to talk to our correspondent who joins us from there, Yenna Lee.
01:33 So Yenna, Pyongyang now announcing then it is going to stop, it says, sending these trash balloons.
01:38 Yes, Pyongyang claims to have sent some 15 tons of garbage in retaliation to South Korean activists
01:48 sending over anti-regime leaflets, USBs with K-pop and K-drama content on them in the other
01:54 direction. Now, using balloons isn't particularly new. It's an old Cold War tactic. And although,
02:00 you know, K-pop and feces might seem a little silly on the surface, it's a serious reminder
02:06 of just how close the two countries are. Seoul proper and its surrounding areas account for 50%
02:13 of the population of South Korea. Gyeonggi province, which surrounds the capital borders
02:17 North Korea, in fact. This is why the sending of leaflets by rights activists is also controversial
02:24 within South Korean society too, with critics arguing that it's an unnecessary provocation.
02:30 Back in 2020, South Korea's parliament actually passed a law to criminalize the act. But last
02:36 year, the constitutional court struck it down in the name of free speech. And now the current
02:43 conservative government's National Security Council has just announced that it will suspend
02:48 their inter-Korean rapprochement deal over this saga. Yeah, now let's talk about something else
02:53 as well as part of our Asia View section. It's 35 years ago today that Chinese troops began to move
03:00 into Tiananmen Square to stop that pro-democracy movement in central Beijing. Soldiers, of course,
03:05 opened fire on protesters, brought about an end to weeks of demonstrations. Tomorrow is the
03:10 anniversary then of that massacre. Any sign of any commemorations where you are?
03:14 Absolutely not, as per usual. It was a massive movement that lasted for weeks, as you say,
03:25 with people demanding greater freedom of the press, democratic reforms, anti-inflationary
03:31 measures, etc. And it took place in hundreds of cities around the country. And the crackdown was,
03:35 of course, brutal. In 1989, Chinese authorities said that around 200 people died. But estimates
03:42 vary wildly. A UK diplomatic cable from the Times said that there were some 10,000 fatalities. So
03:49 it's an extremely sensitive issue here that authorities really try to scrub from citizens'
03:55 collective memory. Around this date, every year, authorities increase surveillance on victims'
04:00 families and on survivors. Parents of dead students are not allowed to mourn publicly.
04:05 Dissidents are often detained at this time of year. Students don't learn about what took place
04:12 on June 4, 1989. Censors erase all mention of it from the internet. And those who do wish to
04:18 commemorate have had to resort to creative ways to spark discussions, such as referring to May
04:25 35 instead of June 4. But as the years do go by, Stewart, younger generations of Chinese may not
04:32 know what happened then, let alone have the opportunity to discuss it. Yeah, now there is
04:37 one place, isn't there, where public memorials were allowed. That's Hong Kong. But what's it
04:42 like there now? A silence that really speaks volumes there, Stewart. Hong Kong and, to some
04:50 extent, Macau used to be the only places on Chinese soil where commemorations were possible.
04:55 And the former was really well attended, too. For decades, vigils in Hong Kong's Victoria Park
05:00 attracted tens of thousands of people every year. And officially, that event was banned in 2020
05:06 because of anti-COVID-19 measures. But it's safe to say that Beijing's national security law that
05:11 was pushed through the same year has made it impossible for such gatherings to take place
05:16 in any case. And since that crackdown on Hong Kong's relative freedoms, hundreds of thousands
05:23 of people have left the city. Nearly 300 people have been arrested as well. And just last week,
05:28 of course, 14 pro-democracy activists were found guilty of state subversion. So this year,
05:34 just like the last few, many commemorations are set to take place abroad in places with large
05:40 Chinese diaspora communities. Yeah, thanks very much, Anna-Lee, there with this week's Asia View
05:45 here on Finance 24. Thank you.