When less than two weeks ago, it was announced that US President Donald Trump would send Uss Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to the Korean Peninsula to demonstrate the US military power with provocative pride to Kim Jong-un, many South Koreans were afraid of the outbreak of the new war with neighbors. Others celebrated their allies, applauding Trump's demonstration of power, the New York Times writes.
Manipulation and fraud
But after it was discovered that USS Carl Vinson was actually sailing to the Indian Ocean thousands of nautical miles away from Korean waters, South Korea united in a sense of anger over the US moves that they experienced as manipulation and fraud.
''Trump's lie around Carl Vinson'', was the headline in a Seoul daily newspaper. "Xi Jinping and Putin surely laughed at this. North Korea is often accused of displaying false missiles on parades, but are the United States now taking over the North Korean method of "bluffing"? reads the question in the article under the aforementioned title.
Further on, it is also questioned whether South Korea and Japan have been informed about the location of the aforementioned aircraft carrier and whether American disinformation has hurt their strategy to curb the nuclear ambition of Kim Jong-in, bearing in mind the apparent vanity of the "armada" threat.
In addition to flying around the aircraft carrier in South Korea, New York Times reporter writes from Seoul, people are also upset by Trump's statement in the last week's Wall Street Journal interview claiming that the Korean peninsula was "a part of China".
Though China has repeatedly attacked Korea in history and forced it to pay tribute, many Koreans consider the claims that they are " part of China" extremely offensive.
People feel tricked
"Fifty million of us, as well as a many people around the world, can not feel different than disillusioned and shocked," said a spokesman for the South Korean Democratic Party Youn Kwan-suk.
It is not uncommon for US aircraft carriers to come to waters near the Korean Peninsula as part of a joint military exercise with South Korea and Japan. But when the US Navy Command announced on April 9 that Carl Vinson was ordered to sail from Singapore to the Western Pacific, the decision was considered to be exceptional given that last month the vessel had participated in exercises near the Korean Peninsula.
"We're sending the armada," said President Trump, who either deliberately lied to disturb the enemy, and raised his popularity, or inadvertently, because of the apparent bad communication with the Pentagon, he said the truth without actually knowing where is the armada he was talking about.
The South Korean Defense Ministry refused to comment on the embarrassment with the words: "The US and South Korea do not discuss the details of their responses to North Korean provocations."
