SEOUL - The North Korean "plan" for a
nuclear test has thrown the United States and
Asian friends and allies into disarray, just when
intense, close cooperation may be the only
antidote to a regional crisis of unpredictable
consequences.
All sides, from Washington
to Tokyo to Seoul and Beijing, are condemning the
threat made by North Korea on Tuesday that it
planned to test a nuclear weapon. Admittedly they
have protested with varying degrees of intensity,
but the fact is they are
as
far as ever from agreeing on what to do about it.
The imminent elevation of South
Korea's genteel, amiable and compromising foreign
minister, Ban Ki-moon, to the post of secretary
general of the United Nations only adds to the
confusion.
Ban may sternly denounce the
notion of testing a nuclear weapon, but he, as
much as South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, is
sure to oppose any semblance of the strong
measures advocated by Washington's controversial
ambassador to the UN, John Bolton.
While
South Korean officials content themselves with
vague warnings of consequences and talk of a
"strategic contingency plan", they want nothing to
do with Bolton's plea for going beyond words and
adopting sanctions designed to cripple North
Korea.
The view in Seoul is that the US
has already invited a strong North Korean reaction
by what's seen as a "tough" line, including the US
Treasury Department's crackdown on banks and
financial firms seen as serving as conduits for
US$100 "supernotes" counterfeited in North Korea,
as well as laundering money from the sale of
narcotics and arms.
South Korean officials
keep hoping Washington will somehow say Macau's
Banco Delta Asia, the first target of the US ban
on dealings with US banks or firms, has cleaned up
its act and the ban is off. North Korea has
repeatedly called for lifting of "sanctions",
while the US wants only to intensify them, and
Pyongyang has made them the rationale for refusing
to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear
program, which have been in limbo for months.
Ban himself has been a major player in
blockading a US campaign to put real teeth into
the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council
after North Korea test-fired seven missiles in
July, enjoining all members against dealings with
Pyongyang that might aid its missile program.
South Korea and China both opposed US
pleas to turn the resolution into the basis for
sanctions that would further damage North Korea's
economy, in terrible shape long before the
restrictions on Banco Delta Asia and other firms
added to the distress.
The US dream, as
espoused by Bolton in the UN, is for the Security
Council to come up with another resolution, one
that would make the threat of a nuclear test the
justification for severe sanctions designed to
bring the government of Kim Jong-il to its knees
and force him to come begging to the six-party
talks also involving China, Japan, Russia, the US
and South Korea.
That dream is not about
to come true. For one thing, China and Russia
oppose any such resolution, as they always have,
and France and Britain are none too keen about it
either. For another, as far as the South Koreans
are concerned, the net result of such punishment
would be to guarantee that North Korea tested a
nuke or two - and conducted more tests on the
missiles that might carry them to targets.
South Korean officials would still far
prefer the US to go along with calls for direct
talks with Pyongyang on a range of issues,
including sanctions as well as nukes. The US
refusal to negotiate with North Korea, other than
in the context of six-party talks in Beijing, is
seen in Seoul as a major obstacle to
rapprochement. South Korea's differences with the
US, however, may not go nearly as deep as its
problems with Japan, whose new premier, Shinzo
Abe, goes to Seoul on Monday to meet with Roh.
Abe, long at the forefront of the rising
Japanese right wing, if anything wants to get even
tougher than the US on North Korea. The threat of
North Korean nuclear weapons may be all that's
needed finally to get Japan to do away with
Article 9 of its post-World War II "peace
constitution" and authorize sending forces
overseas in defense of the country.
In any
case, Abe could press the case for sanctions so
severe as just about to wipe out all trade and
financial dealings with North Korea. Roh would
surely not want to go along with such a macho
display - and could change the topic with a rant
against Japan's claims on the rocky islets known
as Dokdo to Koreans, Takeshima to the Japanese.
Roh is also sure to advise Abe of the
adverse consequences of visiting the Yasukuni
Shrine memorializing Japan's war dead, including
war criminals. He may even press Abe for a pledge
not to visit the shrine, reminding him of the
outbursts in South Korea and in Beijing every time
Roh's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, insisted on
going there.
Amid such distractions, Roh
may also convey the view, as he has done
previously from time to time, that actually a
North Korean nuclear test would not be all that
dangerous. It's well known that North Korea has at
least six and possibly a dozen or so nuclear
warheads, so what difference does it make if they
go ahead and test one?
Abe will have
already gotten an earful on the evils of going to
Yasukuni, and possibly on the offense of Japanese
textbooks glossing over Japan's role in World War
II, from Chinese President Hu Jintao, whom he sees
on Sunday, the day before traveling to Seoul.
It's inconceivable that Hu would support
Abe's hard line toward North Korea - a policy that
China sees as reminiscent of the early days of
Japanese imperialism in Asia more than a century
ago. Already a nuclear power, Hu is sure to
empathize with Roh's desire for caution and
restraint when Roh goes there on next week, four
days after his summit with Abe.
South
Korea, like the US, looks to China to dissuade
North Korea from its nuclear ambitions. Just what
China is doing, or can do, though, is far from
clear. China's influence in Pyongyang, as seen
from its inability to talk North Korea out of
test-firing missiles, is highly limited.
China, South Korea, Japan and the US are
likely to remain as uncertain of their response if
North Korea should actually test a nuclear weapon.
The "isolation" of North Korea that most
experts predict would probably not last beyond the
first round of shrill denunciations and
recriminations, after which China and South Korea
would resume business as usual, while Japan and
the US would follow through on threats to tighten
their own sanctions. Militarily, nothing much
would happen beyond "states of emergency".
In terms of the actual security of the
region, however, a test could put surrounding
nations on a terrifying trajectory of a nuclear
arms race. Japan, besides giving up all pretense
of a "peace constitution", could rev up as a
military superpower facing not just North Korea
but China. North Korea, moreover, could increase
exports of nuclear technology and components to
Iran and other likely markets.
In this
dangerous milieu, Ban has the chance to get the
United Nations to play a serious role. A penchant
for smiling compromise and reconciliation, though,
has been the hallmark of a career that includes a
previous tour as ambassador to the UN and
right-hand man to another Korean, Han Seung-soo,
when Han was president of the UN General Assembly
in 2001.
"He's fair to all," said Moon
Jung-in, professor of international relations at
Yonsei University. "He doesn't have charismatic
leadership. He has consensual leadership." If that
quality is what's needed to lead the UN, it's
still far from clear if consensus will be
achievable when it comes to stymieing North
Korea's nuclear ambitions.
Journalist
Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and
the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia -
for more than 30 years. (Copyright 2006
Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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