Key takeaways from AP's examination of South Korea's split views on North Korea's nuclear threats

POHANG, South Korea (AP) — The Associated Press spoke with dozens of South Koreans for a detailed look at the nation's stark division in views about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's aggressive pursuit of nuclear-tipped missiles targeting the South and its major ally and protector, the United States.

How South Korea sees its northern rival is a famously complicated subject, split along deep societal fault lines: age, wealth, politics, status, history, sex.

The result is that some see little danger in North Korea's threatening rhetoric, weapons tests and aggressive military maneuvers — and some are stocking bunkers with goods meant to get them through a nuclear strike.

Here are some key takeaways from the AP examination of South Korea's unique, fragmented perception of its biggest enemy and closest neighbor, North Korea.

The exact details of the North's secretive nuclear program are difficult for outsiders to determine.

But a consensus has formed that the country, one of the world's poorest, is making steady — occasionally dramatic — progress in its drive for an arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles. That progress was underlined Thursday when North Korea test-fired multiple short-range ballistic missiles just days after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to make his nuclear force fully ready for battle.

The end of the three-year Korean War in 1953 resulted in an uneasy cease-fire, which means that the Korean Peninsula, separated by the world’s most heavily armed border, is technically still at war. Those tensions are palpable in South Korea, where every able-bodied man must serve in the military.

North Korea has been working on its nuclear program for decades, but it started in earnest in the 1990s. Its regular missile and nuclear tests are meant to build an arsenal that can accurately hit targets on the American mainland. There are still technical issues Pyongyang must master, but the development of such weapons may only be a matter of time.

Experts estimate that Pyongyang has as many as 60 warheads.

“Kim Jong Un might really use a nuke,” Kim Jaehyun, a 22-year-old undergraduate law student, told AP. “North Korea could really attack us out of the blue.”

Kim Jaehyun stockpiles a bulletproof vest and other military gear in the event of a war. He also regularly attends North Korea security seminars and reads articles on war scenarios.

“There needs to be at least one person like me who can raise how dangerous” North Korea is, Kim said. “People just take the looming threats too lightly. It’s like they see the knife coming closer to them but never think the knife could stab them.”

Anxiety in South Korea is partly linked to former U.S. President Donald Trump, who repeatedly questioned the decades-long Seoul-Washington alliance. This, along with the North’s rapid nuclear progress, has raised serious questions in Seoul about whether Washington would fulfill its oft-stated pledge to respond with its own nuclear weapons if the North attacked South Korea.

Shin Nari can quickly quantify her worry about nuclear war.

“Number-wise, from 1 to 10, I would say 8. … I take it very seriously,” said Shin, 34, a master’s student at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. She says a war could happen anytime. “In a few seconds, we could just blow up here.”

On the outskirts of Seoul, Jung Myungja, 73, was so worried about a nuclear attack that she commissioned the building of a bunker, about the size of a medium-sized walk-in closet, below the courtyard of her house.

“You never know what the future holds,” Jung said. “These days you get local news and (expert) opinions that say there is likely to be another war in this country. I personally think that can really happen again.”

Two longtime North Korea experts — Robert Carlin and Siegfried Hecker, both of whom have regularly visited the North — argued at the beginning of 2024 that Kim Jong Un had “made a strategic decision to go to war,” creating a situation on the Korean Peninsula that’s “more dangerous than it has been at any time since early June 1950.”

“If a fish lives in water, it doesn’t think about the water.”

That's how the Rev. Chung Joon-hee, a pastor at Youngnak Presbyterian Church in Seoul, one of South Korea’s biggest and most influential churches, explains why many South Koreans ignore the constant North Korean threat.

“This is our world,” he said. “There is nowhere to hide or go. … If there is a provocation or anything that happens, we have to accept that as context in our life.”

Many of the people in South Korea who don’t worry tend to have an abiding faith in Washington’s rhetoric about its “ironclad alliance” with Seoul — and the nearly 30,000 American troops stationed in the South as a deterrent.

Many in South Korea, regardless of age or economic background, also discount the nuclear threat as hollow because of a simple truth: Aside from occasional deadly skirmishes, the North hasn’t backed up its regular threats to use its weapons in a full-scale attack on the South.

“I hope he won’t get injured,” said Yeon Soo Lee, 55, a business owner from Gangneung, said of his son who is becoming a third-generation marine. “But I have no concern that he will be involved in a possible war that North Korea has been implying will happen these days.”

Kwon Young-il, a 28-year-old car salesperson who completed his active military duty in 2021 and is now in the reserves, says almost all the experienced soldiers he knows don’t think war is coming. That includes him.

What does he worry about? “Whether I should get a lunch box provided by the army or buy my own lunch at the post exchange,” he said of his reserve training. “None of my friends seriously think I will have to fight against North Korea.”

The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Cars drive along quiet roads at dawn in Seoul with Bukhan Mountain in the distance, Friday, May 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Commuters watch a news channel at Seoul Station in Seoul, Tuesday, May 28, 2024, showing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after a rocket launched by North Korea to deploy a spy satellite exploded shortly after launch the previous day. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

People form lines in front of food trucks at Yeouido Hangang Park, a popular destination for both residents and tourists, as dusk falls in Seoul, Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A statue of Lee Seung-bok, a 9-year-old boy who was killed in 1968 by North Korean infiltrators, is accompanied by an inscription that reads, "I hate communists," at the Lee Seung-bok Memorial Hall in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Wednesday, May 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A tour guide holds a map while explaining the Korean War to tourists on a bus heading to Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A mannequin wearing a gas mask stands next to a board explaining how to put it on at the War Memorial of Korea in Seoul, Wednesday, May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A worker places small South Korean flags at the graves of Korean soldiers who died in the Korean War ahead of Memorial Day at Seoul National Cemetery in Seoul, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Shin Nari, a 34-year-old graduate student who says she is worried about nuclear war, stands for a portrait in an underground parking lot that also serves as a bomb shelter in Seoul, Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Rev. Chung Joon-hee, a pastor at Youngnak Presbyterian Church, stands for a portrait in Seoul, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Standing behind a drill instructor, recruits wave to their family members during an induction ceremony at a Marine Corps base in Pohang, South Korea, Monday, May 27, 2024. In South Korea, military service is mandatory for most men. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Tourists use binoculars to view North Korea from the Dora Observation Post in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) in Paju, South Korea, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

A directional sign showing the distance to North Korea's Kaesong and Seoul stands in front of fences adorned with ribbons bearing messages wishing for the reunification of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Saturday, May 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday made his first public appearance since Sunday’s second apparent assassination attempt against him with an overflow crowd chanting “God bless Trump!” and “Fight, Fight, Fight” as U.S. Secret Service agents surrounded the stage to protect the Republican presidential nominee.

“It’s been a great experience,” Trump said in an evening town hall in Flint, Michigan, about holding events with thousands of supporters. But he also went on to call running for president “a dangerous business” akin to car racing or bull riding.

“Only consequential presidents get shot at," he said.

Earlier in the day, Vice President Kamala Harris struck a measured tone, even steering clear of mentioning Trump by name in an interview with Black journalists that starkly contrasted with the former president's own highly contentious appearance before the same group.

The two candidates briefly put their differences aside in a phone call Trump described as “very, very nice” even as crowds booed when he mentioned Harris by her first name.

“It was very, very nice, and we appreciate that,” Trump told his supporters. Harris said earlier in the day that she told Trump “there's no place for political violence in our country.”

Both sides are ramping up campaigning with no changes to Trump's calendar despite the apparent assassination attempt at one of his Florida golf courses, which has renewed accusations by Republicans that Democrats' criticism against Trump is inspiring violent attacks. Democrats have accused Trump in the past for his long history of inflammatory campaign rhetoric and advocacy for jailing or prosecuting his political enemies. But Harris was treading more carefully in the aftermath of the second apparent attempt.

The session with the National Association of Black Journalists earlier Tuesday was one of the few extensive sit-down interviews Harris has done since replacing President Joe Biden atop the Democratic ticket in July. She repeatedly criticized Trump on issues including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and opposition to abortion access, but was careful to refer to him as the former president and in other ways that avoided naming him directly.

Trump re-upped his past retaliation threats against election workers, donors and others as he tries to stoke fears about the integrity of the upcoming 2024 election.

He posted Tuesday on his social media site, “Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before.”

The Michigan town hall was billed as focusing on the auto industry, a pillar of the battleground state. Trump alleged Democrats would undercut American car manufacturing by pushing for the adoption of electric vehicles and repeated false claims that Chinese automakers are building large factories across the border in Mexico to flood the U.S. with vehicles.

Trump has appearances later in the week in New York, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina.

Harris has her own stops in Washington, as well as Michigan and Wisconsin in the coming days, with the two candidates overlapping in concentrating on the industrial Midwest and Pennsylvania and North Carolina — all swing areas that could decide an election expected to be exceedingly close.

Harris answered questions from three association journalists at a small, relatively quiet venue at the Philadelphia studios of public radio station WHYY. That was very different from Trump's addressing the NABJ conference in Chicago in July, when he was antagonistic to the moderators and sparked an uproar by questioning the vice president’s racial identity.

Her manner was a departure from her campaign rallies, where Harris often receives some of her loudest applause by declaring that her professional background as a prosecutor means, “I know Donald Trump's type.”

Pressed about reports of eroding support among Black male voters, Harris said she wasn't “assuming I’m gonna have it because I’m Black.” She ducked a question about whether she'd support efforts by some congressional Democrats for reparations from the government to compensate descendants of slaves for years of unpaid labor by their ancestors.

Biden has backed the idea of at least studying reparations.

So far, Biden and Harris have tried to avoid politics in their responses to Sunday’s incident, instead condemning political violence of all kinds. The president also urged Congress to increase funding to the Secret Service.

Trump has claimed, without evidence, that months of criticism against him by Harris and Biden, who call him a threat to American democracy, inspired the latest attack.

“I really believe that the rhetoric from the Democrats" is “making the bullets fly And it’s very dangerous. Dangerous for them. It’s dangerous for both sides,” Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post.

Authorities say Ryan Wesley Routh camped outside the golf course in West Palm Beach, where Trump was playing on Sunday, for nearly 12 hours with food and a rifle but fled without firing shots when a Secret Service agent spotted and shot at him.

Subsequently arrested as he drove on the highway, Routh’s past online posts suggest he has not been consistent about his politics in terms of supporting Democrats or Republicans. The attack came barely two months after Trump was wounded during a rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump also met on Tuesday with sheriff’s office deputies who activated the highway traffic stop that took Routh into custody.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, said at a Georgia Faith & Freedom Coalition event on Monday that “it’s popular on a lot of corners of the left to say that we have a both sides problem.” But “no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump."

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her briefing with reporters Tuesday that there should be zero tolerance for violence-inciting rhetoric. She bristled at the suggestion that Biden and Harris have stoked division by calling Trump a threat to democracy, saying that there were concrete examples of the former president being that — such as when he helped incite an attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

In response to Vance's comments, Jean-Pierre said, “When you have that type of language out there it’s dangerous. It’s dangerous because people look up to that particular national leader, and they listen to you." She said such comments open the door for "people to take you very seriously.”

Dan Curry, 44, of Saginaw, Michigan, attended the town hall on Tuesday and said he is worried about the prospect of more violence against Trump.

“They say the Republicans are the gun-crazed lunatics trying to shoot people, but you don’t see us going after them,” said Curry, while adding these attacks may mobilize more support for Trump.

“It energizes his base,” he said. “How could it not?”

Weissert reported from Washington and Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Philadelphia, Matt Brown in Washington, Jill Colvin in New York and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is interviewed by the National Association of Black Journalists at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, left, is interviewed by National Association of Black Journalists members Gerren Keith Gaynor, far right, Eugene Daniels, second from the right, and Tonya Mosley, third from the right, at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking during an unscheduled stop to greet student volunteers at Community College of Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, center, greeting student volunteers at an unscheduled stop at Community College of Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, left, on stage with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, right, during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump waves to supporters as he arrives for a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is interviewed by members of the National Association of Black Journalists at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is introduced for a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, center, speaking during an unscheduled stop to talk to student volunteers at Community College of Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, left, on stage with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, right, during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris is interviewed by members of the National Association of Black Journalists at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, center, gestures as he is introduced for a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waving before boarding Air Force Two, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris meets with staff on the tarmac before boarding Air Force Two, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Phoenix Awards Dinner in Washington, Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives at Harry Reid International Airport to board a plane after a campaign trip, Saturday, Sept.14, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)