Page 1 of
5 CHINA AND THE
US PART 9: The North Korean
perspective By Henry C K Liu
(To see the previous installments in
this series, please use the links at the bottom of
this article.)
To North Korea, having
been linked by US President George W Bush to Iraq
and Iran as members of an "axis of evil" that did
not merit bilateral negotiation, the implication
from the stream-roller push toward the invasion of
Iraq was a US invasion of North Korea as well. The
only reasonable response to such an imminent
threat to its national security was to develop
nuclear capability as
quickly as possible as a
deterrent against attack.
On May 12, 2003,
the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued a
"Detailed Report on the History of the
Denuclearization of the Korea Peninsula", pointing
out that "due to the US strong-arm policy of the
nuclear crushing of the DPRK, a grave situation in
which a nuclear war may break out is being
created". The report, predictably ignored in the
US press, pointed to the January 20, 1992, Joint
Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean
Peninsula adopted between the North and the South
and to the fact that the North had since
unceasingly made affirmative efforts to implement
it. The report accused the United States of
frustrating North Korea's aspirations and efforts
for denuclearization, endlessly making nuclear
threats against the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea (DPRK), and rupturing the process of the
denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
The report outlined the background of the
1992 joint declaration, which stipulates, as a
basic provision, "that neither the South nor the
North shall test, manufacture, produce, possess,
store, deploy or use nuclear weapons. The joint
declaration, in essence, proceeded from the goal
of fundamentally removing US nuclear weapons off
the Korean Peninsula. The nuclear issue on the
Korean Peninsula is strictly a product of the US
policy of turning South Korea into a US nuclear
base."
The report accused the US of having
first created a nuclear issue when it "deployed
Honest John nuclear missiles for action in South
Korea in the latter half of the 1950s. Moreover,
The US introduced neutron shells, the evil weapon
of the 20th century, in South Korea in the first
half of the 1980s, further highlighting the
[gravity] of the nuclear issue."
The
report further accused the US of having "pursued
the so-called NCND [no confirmation, no denial]
policy ... yet [it] has not bothered to conceal
the fact that it deployed nuclear weapons in South
Korea but used it as a means to threaten us [North
Korea]".
The report traced the history of
the nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula to May
14, 1957, when US secretary of state John Foster
Dulles during a news conference officially
disclosed a plan to introduce nuclear weapons to
South Korea, and on the same day, defense
secretary Charles Wilson gave more detail to this
plan and admitted that the types of nuclear
weapons included "Honest John" nuclear missiles
and various other types of nuclear weapons
deployed in Europe, as reported by the Associated
Press.
On July 15, 1957, US Army
authorities officially announced that US forces in
South Korea would start nuclear arming and that
five combat units capable of waging atomic war
would be deployed in South Korea, according to
Tongyang News Agency reporting from Washington.
On February 3, 1958, US forces put on
display a 280-millimeter atomic cannon and an
Honest John nuclear missile, which had been
deployed in South Korea, in an airfield of the US
1st Corps near Uijongbu and showed them to
reporters, as reported by Tongyang, Reuters, and
Haptong News Agency.
On December 16, 1958,
the US announced through the United Nations
Command that the UN forces in South Korea were
equipped with Matador missiles capable of
delivering nuclear warheads, according to Reuters
from Seoul.
During a news conference on
June 20, 1975, US secretary of defense James
Schlesinger said: "I think you know that we have
deployed tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea,"
according to a report by Jiji Press of Japan from
Washington. According to a Haptong News Agency
report filed from Washington that same month,
during a House of Representative hearing to
examine the US defense budget for 1976 held on May
30, 1975, it was officially revealed that about
1,000 nuclear weapons and 64 aircraft loaded with
nuclear weapons had been deployed in South Korea.
South Korea had been turned into "the biggest US
nuclear [weapons] exhibition hall".
The
January 1981 edition of Defense Monitor, a
magazine published by the US Defense Intelligence
Center, noted that the nuclear weapons introduced
to South Korea included 80 warheads for Honest
John missiles, 192 tactical nuclear bombs for
fighter-bombers, 152 nuclear shells for 155
howitzers, and 56 nuclear shells for eight-inch
howitzers. The US even deployed for action in
South Korea 56 neutron bombs, of which countries
in Europe and other regions had refused to allow
deployment within their borders, and introduced a
large number of field-portable nuclear backpack
devices.
A US Defense Department
announcement reported by Hanguk
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
