EAST ASIA: Grappling with Security Crisis Triggered by N. Korea Nuke Test

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Oct 11 2006 (IPS) - North Korea’s underground nuclear weapons test, the first by the Stalinist state, has plunged East Asia into its worst security crisis – a situation so bad that analysts contend the fallout could be a string of difficult problems in the region.

“The nuclear weapons test reported by North Korea has plunged this region into dangerous uncertainty. Pyongyang has created a situation that is straining East Asia diplomatically and militarily,” said Professor Masao Okonogi, an expert on the Korean peninsula at Keio University in Tokyo.

Okonogi called Monday’s nuclear test a “tragic” development because it has turned East Asia into a nuclear weapons zone and has underscored that a solution to end the nuclear threat remains illusive.

“The result of this crisis is a divide again in East Asia,” he told IPS, pointing to Japanese and US moves to push stringent economic sanctions against North Korea, while China, Russia and South Korea want to keep open the option of negotiations as a means to ending the security crisis.

Chinese U.N. ambassador Wang Guangya said Tuesday, “I think we have to react firmly, but I also believe on the other hand that the door to solve this issue from a diplomatic point of view is still open.”

But Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who returned Monday from a landmark visit to China and South Korea, his first trip abroad since he took power last month, is leading a strong campaign to bring heavy economic pressure to bear on North Korea.

The Japanese media reported that Abe, a hawkish politician who has always called for a tough stance against Pyongyang, has been on the phone with Washington since his return last night, to ensure the heat is turned on as high as possible.

“Japan is prepared to take its own measures against North Korea as well as working together with the six-party platform with the countries involved,” he said at a press conference in Seoul Tuesday.

The six-party negotiation platform is composed of China, the two Koreas, Russia, Japan and the United States.

Backed by a scared public who reacted with shock and anger over the reported nuclear weapons test, analysts say Abe will now flex his muscles.

Japan, host to a large ethnic Korean population with ties to North Korea, conducted a total official trade volume with that country worth 214 million dollars in 2005, and permits a North Korean ship to dock in Japan.

South Korea and China are North Korea’s main trading partners, prompting analysts here to see Tokyo’s hard-line stance more as a political maneuver.

“The political opportunity is obvious for Abe who is already basking in the limelight after his trip to East Asia where he was received cordially, a welcome step after the cold atmosphere under Prime Minister Koizumi,” said Professor Hajime Izumi at Shizuoka University in Shizuoka City, Japan.

Indeed, the timing of the nuclear test, on the morning that Abe arrived in Seoul, has been a focal point in the Japanese media coverage.

“There is the feeling that Pyongyang timed the explosion to thumb its nose at Abe’s fledging steps to restore close ties between Japan and its East Asia neighbours,” Izumi commented on television.

Military analyst Keisuke Ebara also talked about North Korea planning a second nuclear weapons test as proof of its weapons possession, and said the country’s plutonium and uranium enrichment programme is capable of producing six to eight nuclear bombs.

“I don’t see North Korea giving up its nuclear weapons programme till it reaches its goal of forcing the international community to accept it. The situation poses a grave danger to Japan,” he said.

Defusing the crisis, argue experts, now depends heavily on the ability of the rest of the world, and East Asia in particular, to work together to contain North Korea.

The upcoming 15-member U.N. Security Council decision on the U.S. and Japanese proposals to impose 13 measures against Pyongyang that would restrict trade and financing is a crucial point in this strategy, despite the fact that North Korea ignored the UNSC presidential statement adopted on Friday that warned against the test launch.

On another front Japan’s powerful conservatives are now pressing Abe to beef up the country’s military capabilities as its best defensive option against Pyongyang.

“The nuclear weapons test has proved that soft diplomacy will not work anymore with Pyongyang. The only way open now is to re-think our soft strategy,” said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki.

But peace activists like Motofumi Asai, spokesperson for the Hiroshima Peace Research Institute in the first city to be hit by an atomic bomb dropped by U.S. forces, on Aug. 6, 1945, protest the growing tide of opinion in favour of a tough militaristic stance towards North Korea.

“Resorting to tough sanctions and military strength is not going to make North Korea believe it has its throat squeezed. The situation could precipitate a nuclear arms race in this region which would make things much worse than they are now. Please do not give up negotiations as a viable option,” he stressed.