South Korean city lives near the DMZ

PAJU, South Korea - April Lee Woo-young moved with her family in a fancy high-rise apartment complex here, just six kilometres from the demilitarized zone that divides from the impoverished and heavily armed North Korea.

Ms. of Lee's new home is on the other side of the River strongly within reach of the North Korean artillery batteries. But she says, is not concerned after last month's attack of a South Korean island from the North, the four people killed.

"I really feel not is a threat here," says Ms. LEE, 32 years old, your 3-year-old son playing nearby. She chose the neighborhood, says because "it has clean air and it is a good place to raise a child."

This booming city - that is applied to the DMZ - and its swelling population show how South Koreans to will have you in many ways to the threat from the North and discount-the possibility of war with its neighbours.

Associated press A Korean army soldier walks a Board, a swimming pool at the Imjingang advertising station in Paju, located near the demilitarized zone of Panmunjeom, South Korea, in July.

Paju's success also complicates the calculus for South Korea's leader, how you weigh on attacks by North Korea responds and helps explain Seoul caution so far. South Korea's fear people a conflict that could destroy the prosperous, modern nation have built.

"The South has more to lose from a war," says Lee ju-Hyun, a senior City Government officially in Paju. "We are economically developed much more." Despite its location, Paju is the fastest growing municipalities in South Korea. Paju's population has in the last decade more than rose 80%. About 20,000 people in that city in the last year alone says the Government moved.

In many ways, rise, Republic Korea as a whole reflects the city. Paju's economy is driven by high-tech manufacturing. Factories here used code changes from computer chips and the sophisticated LCD panels in laptops and flat screen television.

LG display co. has one of the largest LCD display manufacturing centers in the world in Paju, invest more than $7 billion built into the project so far. Such industrial development has transformed the city.

Apartment towers have sprouted with names like Vivaldi and noble country. Downtown streets are lined with coffee shops, fast food outlets, furniture showrooms and electronics stores.

Ms. LEE's Hillstate apartments have no bomb shelters, but a well equipped gym and an indoor golf driving range is located on the ground floor.

In the DMZ in the North is the view of the farm fields and villages. The main signs of economic progress is built, an industrial park of South relations home, South Korean factories were warmer, instructed the North Korean on cheap labour force.

Since North Korea's erstwhile benefactor, the collapse of the Soviet Union, North Korea's economy with the help of China along lagged. Food and fuel are chronically short supply. Pyongyang has focused on what resources, it has one of the largest maintenance on its military.

North Korea's bombardment of Yeonpyeong Iceland - home of fisheries and agriculture villages as well as a South Korean marine outposts - last month end some people, to reconsider the wisdom of life caused so close at North.

Lim Hyun Jin commutes to Paju from Seoul for your job as a shop assistant in a cosmetics shop. I had planned, move in Paju, she says. "But after Yeonpyeong, I changed my mind."

Paju's Mr. Lee says that immediately after the attack on Yeonpyeong, some residents to stock up on water and instant noodles rushed and has some foreigners, to inform in the city. But he says people quickly restored.

-Meinungsumfragen during the Yeonpyeong attack have found that a large majority of the South Korean felt their military a stronger response to the North Korean barrage.The South would have by burning approximately the same number of bivalve molluscs from own artillery back north batteries responds.

However, people in Paju, say Seoul take care that the conflict should be escalated. ""If South Korea had emphatically acted against the North, the situation would have been worse,"says a 30-year-old cellphone-seller, who refused to give his name."It is better to stop now. "More to do, is dangerous."

Most respondents in Paju say you see little chance in the North an artillery strike, starts on your city and even less that there is a war. A large number of Korean troops and some US soldiers are stationed in the area. But most American combat forces bases have moved further South.

"I don't think that it is a war in my life", says Mr. LEE, who was born and raised in Paju, oversees civil protection for the City Government. He says, people in Pyongyang provocations are used. "If you get used to and taken it really hurt."

LG has become another mammoth factory its LCD screen production complex Add. The city plans to move that is expected in the coming years in Paju apartments for 200,000 more people and is transformed into parks and universities of former US Army bases.

"It used to be, everyone was a farmer." This was actually only landscape, "says Lee Sang-Hoon, 67, who was born in 1950 in Paju before war of Korea and now runs a small restaurant downtown.""Now it is a city."

"A war can't believe it really the Korean people in their hearts," he says.

View the original article here