South Korea’s balloon barrage has hit a nerve in the North

Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has long been confined to her brother’s not-insignificant shadow. But, in recent weeks, Yo Jong has shown that she is far more than just her brother’s ashtray-carrying secretary. She has launched a series of fiery rhetorical attacks against South Korea, accusing “South Korean scum” of “polluting the inviolable territory” of the North by distributing “political and conspiratorial” material. The target of her ire is leaflets denouncing her brother’s regime, which have been distributed using balloons across the Korean border. Yo Jong’s way with words shows that she is a chip off the old block.

Her latest verbal assault came just a few weeks after she issued another invective, accusing the “military gangsters of the ROK [Republic of Korea]” of using South Korean drones to deposit “anti-DPRK propaganda leaflets” in the North.