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May 23

South Korea's Winter Olympics sets off some jitters with under 100 days to go

The Washington Post

This once-sleepy village is buzzing with activity. It's just over 100 days until South Korea's PyeongChang Winter Olympics are due to start and the builders are in the final sprint.


Among locals, there's excitement in the air — but also some serious nerves.

Cho Hyun-sab moved to the area from the suburbs of Seoul especially for the games. Just over a week ago, he opened a dumpling restaurant in anticipation of the crowds. He hopes to start a franchise. "This is branch number one," Cho said while manning a number of steaming trays.

However, the 32-year-old is careful not to be too optimistic. He suspects the games may have been overhyped in South Korea. "The general expectations are so high," he said. "I don't want to be disappointed."


These concerns aren't necessarily unusual for an Olympic host. But the PyeongChang Games also have a more unusual issue: a nuclear weapons-minded North Korea that sits around 50 miles from the Olympic venues.


Now, with just weeks to go until the event, North Korea could be a major problem for the PyeonChang Games. North Korea has made significant progress with weapons programs in recent months, testing missiles and conducting a huge underground nuclear bomb test in September despite international condemnation.

The circumstances have sparked some alarming talk among Olympic officials. In September, the French sports minister suggested that the country would keep its team at home if their safety could not be assured.

Last week, a British official told the BBC that the country had an evacuation plan for the games and that "welfare" officers would be traveling with the athletes to "make sure that they feel entirely content."

The North Korea issue also comes alongside other big problems that are unique to the PyeonChang Games, including the political scandal that led to the impeachment of South Korea's president this year and a diplomatic spat with China over the deployment of a U.S.-made missile defense system.

Worse still, the issues may not only affect the Olympics but tourism as a whole. The country's central bank announced Sunday that the number of foreign visitors to the country had plunged almost a quarter in the first nine months of the year compared to last.

It's a worrying combination for organizers. South Korean President Moon Jae-in has tried to calm nerves, telling reporters at an event in New York City in September that "a successful hosting of the PyeonChang games would erase worries over security and show the world regional peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula."

Olympic organizers have tried their best to reassure potential visitors and take their minds off the threat from North Korea - even adding a capitalized "C" to the county's Romanized name so it is not mistaken for the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. But the situation is complex: To be reassuring, organizers often have to remind people of the very threat they want them to forget.

Choi Moon-soon, governor of Gangwon Province, which contains PyeonChang, has told local media that the worries could lead to the games becoming a "global humiliation" for South Korea.

Some suggest that the risk of conflict with North Korea is overhyped. "People outside Korea are concerned about the North Korean threat, but there have been threats for many decades," said Lee Kean-hee, 34, who runs a shop opposite the Olympic Stadium that sells the local specialty of dried pollock, a fish. "Koreans living here are not so concerned, so you don't need to be either."

North Korea has made things difficult before for South Korea ahead of sporting events . A year ahead of the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games, North Korean agents bombed a Korean Air flight, killing everyone on board. And during the 2002 World Cup, a North Korean warship opened fire on a South Korean patrol boat, leaving six soldiers dead.

However, experts think that that any attack at the games themselves is unlikely. "I think the Olympics will be safe," said Robert E. Kelly, an expert on North Korean security issues at Pusan National University.

Notably, two North Korean athletes — figure skaters Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sies — have qualified for the games, and many hope they will serve as an insurance policy against any provocations. Sim Jae-kook, mayor of PyeongChang County, said that although it is unclear whether North Korea will participate in the games, it has said it will send a team to the PyeongChang Paralympics, which begin soon after.

Choi Kang, vice president of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, a Seoul think tank, said that he did not expect any provocative actions during the games but that North Korea may stage a missile test or atmospheric nuclear test in the coming months.

"Unfortunately, South Korean Olympic organizers cannot do much to prevent such things from happening," Kang said.

Even if North Korea doesn't end up doing anything, the impression it might could still harm the games. "I'm not surprised the ticket sales are low," Kelly said. "North Korea generates a lot of unnecessary hysteria in the West."

Sim noted that officials need to be prepared not only for North Korea but also for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and disasters both natural or "artificial."


But with local officials are aware that they are in a race to finish the preparations.

"By this time it'd be natural for all the venues and infrastructures to be complete," said Lee Sung-han, chief secretary of PyeongChang County. In some areas, she said, people "might even wonder if this is the location for the Winter Olympics."


In the end, the PyeongChang mayor said, things will work out: "Koreans have a tendency to work at the last minute."

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