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2 COMMENT How to turn the
tables on Pyongyang By
Francesco Sisci
BEIJING - After the North
Korean nuclear-weapon test of October 9, the
leading countries of the six-party talks have
initiated a blame game to point out who is in a
position to receive the greatest profit from
Pyongyang's action.
Conservatives in China
argue that the Japanese will likely gain most from
the test: a long-awaited excuse to develop Japan's
nuclear capabilities and
forfeit the country's pacifist constitution.
Conservatives in Japan, on the other hand,
blame China for still cozying up to Kim Jong-il,
the North Korean leader, and for having been tardy
in applying strong economic sanctions against
defiant Pyongyang.
In South Korea,
opposition rises against President Roh Moo-hyun,
holding him responsible for being too lenient with
the North, and for having failed to accomplish
anything substantial with the Pyongyang regime,
putting the country in greater jeopardy, as now
the South is also under the threat of North
Korea's nuclear bombs.
The American masses
divide the blame among all the other countries.
Only Russia among the members of the
six-party talks remains silent, being some kind of
observer.
However, although four of the
countries exchange the blame among one another,
they obviously share a common discontent with
North Korea's behavior. None of the countries
admit that they have benefited from Pyongyang's
defiance. Now, North Korea is more isolated than
ever as no one will defend its behavior, nor wants
to be seen as an accomplice of the test.
A
debate among the four surfaced after the test
regarding the type of sanctions that should be
issued against North Korea. Some argue for harsher
actions, while others argue for more moderate
ones. As of now, it is decided that there are no
benefits in cooperating with Kim, while the
difference in opinion lies in the decisions of how
ruthless one should be to him.
It is true
that the test has sparked a larger debate in China
and the US about whether one should live with a
nuclear-armed North Korea. Despite the harsh
rhetoric, as days go by it seems that the world
has to face this reality. This very acquiescence
could be seen as a positive result for Kim, who
has achieved de facto recognition of his country's
new status, albeit at the cost of any support his
country had previously.
China, the ally
that fought for North Korea in 1950, has for the
first time joined sanctions against Pyongyang, a
hostile move on its part. The China-North Korean
alliance is in effect broken.
Kim has come
down to this because he lost his trust in China.
He felt that Beijing was not supporting him, but
instead supported the US and Japan in cornering
him, thus leaving him only one way: to support
himself.
However, it is hard to say
whether, from a purely defensive point of view,
North Korea is better off now with the atomic bomb
but without friends than before, without the bomb
but still with a friend like China, however
questionable might be its friendship to Kim.
In fact it is also questionable whether
the bomb has increased North Korea's security at
all. The reason the US refrains from a tactical
strike against North Korea is not fear of the
bomb, but concern about the thousands of guns
pointed at the South and at sprawling Seoul. It
would be impossible to eliminate all such weapons,
and even a few surviving cannons could kill
thousands of South Koreans and ravage its booming
economy. The bomb, if anything, makes the guns
even less tolerable and brings new urgency to the
old question of the political survival of the
North Korean regime. Should Kim survive? If so,
how should one accommodate him? The easy answer
now more than ever is: no, he cannot be allowed to
survive.
One can think otherwise; after
all, the US accommodated India, which became a
nuclear power in 1998, although that was before
September 11, 2001, and involved a democratic
country that was, and is still considered,
dependable. But North Korea is different. To
accommodate Pyongyang's nuclear power, the US
needs to revise its policies heavily, which will
create a huge snowball effect. If one turns a
blind eye to Pyongyang's bomb, it will be even
harder to press against Iran's nuclear program,
especially now that in the administration of US
President George W Bush there are people saying
more loudly that Iran's support is necessary to
stabilize Iraq.
If Pyongyang can have its
bomb, Japanese militarists will be harder to
restrain. This in turn would make the Chinese even
more uncomfortable, and South Koreans too may
aspire to their own bomb. This could be especially
serious in the next 10 years. In this time span,
China's gross domestic product (GDP)should
overcome the Japanese GDP, taking away Japan as a
dominant power of the region, a position that it
has held for more than 100 years. This is
something that is causing and will continue to
