SEOUL - North Korea's reported nuclear
test sent shockwaves through Asia, nowhere more
than in South Korea in a society brainwashed over
the past eight years to believe in the benefits of
a Sunshine Policy toward the North. Just be nice,
provide food and aid, South Korea's leaders were
accustomed to saying, and North Korea's dictator
Kim Jong-il would turn out not to have been such a
bad guy after all.
That hope has now gone
up in a cloud emitted by the explosion
deep in a cave complex
near the town of Gilju in the mountainous
northeast. It is a region long noted for missile
sites
and even a nuclear
testing center - and also some of the cruelest
forms of torture ever inflicted on a subject
people.
Now the question is whether South
Korea wants seriously to get tough with North
Korea. President Roh Moo-hyun's seemingly firm
statements carry no assurance of bold action when
it comes to programs for getting into North Korea,
notably the special economic zone at Gaesong, just
above the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) about 64 kilometers
north of Seoul, and the program of tours to the
Mount Kumkang region, looming over the line on the
eastern end of the DMZ.
South Korea has
suspended talks on increasing South Korean
investment in the zone, but there's no sign of
suspending the activities of 15 South Korean
companies already there, manufacturing light
industrial objects with North Korean labor. And
South Korea's Woori Bank maintains a branch in the
zone - an activity that could be seen as bringing
money into North Korea that might support its
military activities.
Roh's reluctance to
do away with these programs, which have cost South
Korea far more than the South will ever earn from
them, parallels China's hesitation to punish North
Korea with such devastating measures as cutting
off food aid and trade, notably fuel, all of which
the North obtains from China. As North Korea's
only friend and ally, China viewed as almost a
betrayal - a "brazen" act that defied urgent
warnings not to do it, but such words so far have
not translated into action.
In contrast,
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting
Beijing and Seoul, called the test "unpardonable,"
promised punishment and delivered. Japan has now
cut off virtually all imports from North Korea and
is ordering North Korean vessels out of its ports
- a blow to trade that earns North Korea about
US$200 million a year.
The
contrasting attitudes
of China and Japan are showing up in the debate
in the United Nations Security Council at which Japan,
like the US, favors strong economic sanctions that
will drive the North still deeper into isolation.
It is those full-scale sanctions that North Korea
says will amount to a "declaration of war" - a
threat the North has been uttering for the past
few years - if the debate turned to sanctions.
The North Korean threat confronts South
Korea's soft-spoken Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon
with the toughest test of his long diplomatic
career when he succeeds Kofi Annan at the end of
the year as UN secretary general. Ban, formally
endorsed by the UN Security Council hours after
the test, said before he left for New York on
Wednesday that it cast a pall on what would have
been a happy day for him. The question in Seoul is
how or whether he will use his powers of
persuasion to get the UN to play a pivotal role.
The UN under Annan has been largely
ineffective, unable to curb its own corruption
while failing to stop long-running conflicts
anywhere. Ban may have the chance quite quickly to
begin to repair the damage in his own bailiwick,
the Korean Peninsula. For Ban, the challenge will
be to go beyond meaningless condemnations.
Ban's success in winning the approbation
of powers as diverse as the United States,
Britain, China, Russia and France for the UN's top
job shows, however, he may blink before going to
the brink. China and Russia, members of the
veto-wielding "Big Five" on the Security Council,
would surely have vetoed his candidacy for the
UN's top job if he had favored strong economic
sanctions.
Whenever the US called for
strengthening measures against North Korea, Ban
sided totally with China in opposing a firm
response. Yes, he fully approved a Security
Council resolution enjoining member nations
against dealings with North Korea that might aid
and abet its missile program after the North
test-fired seven missiles in July. No, he did not
want this resolution to serve as the basis for
strict sanctions against trade and financial
relations that might further cripple the North.
John Bolton, the hard-charging US
ambassador to the UN, lavished unreserved approval
of Ban for secretary general, but Roh, in the
weeks before the test, sometimes gave the
impression of thinking a nuclear test might not be
that big a deal as the South continued to ship
food and cement for reconstruction from flood
damage.
Roh blasted the nuclear test in
strong language hours after it happened, but he
did not come out publicly condemning the North
Korean missile tests in early July. His change in
tone is no doubt significant, but will lose its
impact in the miasma of half-measures both by his
own government and the UN Security Council. South
Korea does not have a seat on the 15-member
council, but Ban, who remains South Korea's
foreign minister while waiting to take over from
Annan, will convey his government's views in New
York.
Is there any chance the nuclear test
will finally jolt the Security Council - and Ban -
to their senses? South Korea has said it cannot
"tolerate a nuclear North Korea" and began showing
signs of acting firmly by halting a 4,000-ton load
of concrete - an "emergency" shipment to repair
damage from floods - after initial word came out
of the test. That kind of response may have
symbolic value but will do little good if the
South fails to follow through with far more
meaningful measures.
Some analysts fear,
though, after the initial outrage dies, the sense
of urgency will fade and the world will get used
to living with North Korea as a nuclear power. No
one wants to risk a second Korean War - or stage
the "pre-emptive strike" that North Korea
constantly is saying is the reason for developing
nukes in the first place.
Actually, the
real reason North Korea needs nukes is to build up
the power of Kim Jong-il, responsible for the
deaths of about 2 million of his people by
disease, starvation, executions or prolonged death
in prisons. A nuclear test, goes the logic, gives
Kim the sense of safety from retribution from his
own people.
Ban has been just as reluctant
to condemn the North's atrocious human-rights
abuses as to impose economic sanctions. He has
preferred to talk in the vaguest generalities,
calling in one recent UN speech for "global action
to strengthen the values of human rights and
democracy".
Now Ban has to rise above the
double-talk and try seriously to stop North Korea
from forging ahead as a nuclear power. Otherwise,
we face an Asian nuclear arms race in which Japan
and Taiwan quickly develop their own warheads and
China builds up its existing arsenal - all a
precursor to carnage on an unimaginable scale.
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 contact us about sales, syndication and republishing
.)
