North Korea went rogue at the Winter Olympics, flying a flag that depicts contested islands off the peninsula’s coast — and some everyday South Koreans…
North Korea went rogue at the Winter Olympics, flying a flag that depicts contested islands off the peninsula’s coast — and some everyday South Koreans couldn’t be happier.
During the unified Korean women’s hockey team game Sunday, cheerleaders for the Hermit Kingdom waved flags depicting a unified peninsula, which include the controversial Dokdo Islands in the Sea of Japan to the east.
South Korea controls the islands, but Japan and North Korea have also claimed sovereignty.
The land battle is so divisive that South Korea edited out a reference to the islands from a traditional folk ballad that the nation’s figure skaters performed over the weekend — an effort to avoid politicizing the Olympics and offending Japan.
South Korea also agreed to only wave flags that did not feature the disputed islands — a move unpopular with some who harbor bad blood over Japan’s occupation of the peninsula from 1910 to 1945.
