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| ▲ This footage, captured from the North's Korean Central Television, shows a women's football match between South Korea and North Korea at the Asian Games at Wenzhou Sports Centre Stadium in Wenzhou, some 300 kilometers southeast of the main host city of Hangzhou in China, on Sept. 30, 2023. The subtitle beside the score for the South Korean team reads "puppets." (For Use Only in the Republic of Korea. No Redistribution) (Yonhap) |
N Korea-puppet
N. Korea's derogatory labeling of S. Korea as 'puppet' shows lack of confidence: official
By Lee Minji
SEOUL, Oct. 5 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's recent use of the term "puppet" to describe South Korea while televising a women's football match between the two sides is an apparent sign of lacking confidence, a government official said Thursday.
A score bug on North Korean state TV referred to South Korea as such during a quarterfinal match during the Asian Games on Sunday. The official Korean Central News Agency also said the country's women's football team advanced into the semifinals following a 4-1 match with "the region of south Korean puppets."
While Pyongyang has frequently used sharp-worded expressions to denounce the South on political and military issues, the use of such a derogatory term for a sporting event was seen as unusual.
"North Korea has generally used the term South Korea in sports games. But the regime has revealed its own lacking confidence by using such an extremely belittling expression and overreacting even in a sporting event," an official at the unification ministry told reporters on condition of anonymity.
In response to the incident, a presidential official said Tuesday the government does not read into all the different terms Pyongyang uses to refer to the South as they continuously vary.
The Hangzhou Asian Games is the first international multisport competition for Pyongyang since the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia. The North skipped the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, citing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic.
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