Asian leaders caution N. Korea on nuclear test
By Choe Sang-Hun International Herald Tribune
Published: October 4, 2006
South Korea and China warned North Korea on Wednesday that if it tested a nuclear weapon it would face a chill in relations with Seoul and Beijing, its two key aid sources.
Analysts in the region warned, meanwhile, that the Pyongyang was likely to test a bomb if Washington does not relax sanctions.
North Korea's announcement Tuesday that it would conduct a test triggered alarms from Washington to Tokyo but also raised suspicions that it may be using its threat as a leverage to win U.S. concessions, including direct negotiations with Washington that the Bush administration has so far rejected.
The public announcement, which North Korea was broadcasting repeatedly to its citizens on Wednesday, also could mean that the regime will be left with no option but to carry out a test if Washington does not soften its position, analysts said.
That leaves the Bush administration with crucial questions. A successful test could trigger a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia, analysts say, while skepticism about Washington's North Korea policy will deepen in the region as well as at the U.S. Congress ahead of the November elections.
Washington's financial sanctions have hurt Kim Jong Il's regime by reducing his cash flows from illicit trading and counterfeiting. But
the U.S. options are limited , experts say.
Unrest to be spawned by a total economic blockade, not to mention military action, against North Korea is anathema to China and South Korea, which share their borders with the North.
"We hope that North Korea will exercise necessary calm and restraint over the nuclear test issue," Liu Jianchao, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Beijing, said Wednesday.
In China's first official reaction to Pyongyang's pronouncement, Liu also urged "all relevant parties," including the United States, to "address their concerns through dialogues and consultations instead of taking actions that may intensify the situation."
In Seoul, the rhetoric was sterner. President Roh Moo Hyun said: "We need to let North Korea know very clearly what situation its nuclear test would create."
But
officials were cautious not to specify what punishment the North could expect , especially whether Seoul would suspend its joint industrial complex and tourism project which provides the impoverished North with millions of dollars a month in worker wages and tourist fees.
"Our government will step up efforts to bring an early end to the North Korean nuclear problem through negotiation and dialogue. We think a more intensified diplomacy is necessary," said Song Min Soon, Roh's chief national security adviser.
The North Korean announcement intensified diplomacy among the United States, China, South Korea, Russia and Japan. Top diplomats exchanged phone consultations on how to address the spike in tensions. China, Japan and South Korea all announced separate bilateral summits among their leaders next week.
The five nations' talks with North Korea on its nuclear weapons programs have stalled since last September in a dispute over Washington's crackdown on offshore North Korean bank accounts. North Korea on Tuesday said that it would conduct a nuclear test in an unspecified time to complete its nuclear weapons development as "self-defense" against U.S. hostilities.
U.S. intelligence officials said they saw no signs that a test was imminent. But they cautioned that two weeks ago, U.S. officials who have reviewed recent intelligence reports said U.S . spy satellites had picked up evidence of activity around North Korea's main suspected test site. It was unclear to them whether that was part of preparations for a test or perhaps a provocation related to the visit at that time to Washington of South Korea's president, Roh Moo Hyun.
At that meeting, Bush and Roh discussed the possibility of a test, and Roh said the event would "change the nature" of South Korea's policy of economic engagement with the North, Roh was quoted as saying.
But Bush and Roh did not appear to have a coordinated strategy, and a senior Asian diplomat in Washington said Tuesday "no one is quite sure how to respond" if North Korea conducts a test in coming weeks or months.
Kim Keun Sik, a North Korea expert in Kyungnam University in Seoul, noted that
the North Korean threat came as Seoul and Washington were working on a so-called "common joint approach," a new set of initiatives that Seoul officials hope will break the impasse between Washington and Pyongyang.
"It's a bargaining card. North Korea is telling Washington, 'It's a good time for you to make a concession because I might test a bomb,'" Kim said. "But what makes this different from the other North Korean bluffing is that
if the United States doesn't react, North Korea will have no choice but to test a bomb.
"North Korea has chosen to burn the bridge behind it."
A nuclear test could give the Bush administration an opportunity to muster global support for a stronger United Nations Security Council resolution and tighter economic sanctions against the North.
U.S. officials, declining to be named because they are not authorized to speak about North Korean policy, have said in recent weeks that the administration assumed that sooner or later, North Korea would conduct a test.
"You could argue that it wouldn't be an all-bad thing," one administration hawk said recently, "because it would finally unify the Chinese, and the Russians and the South Koreans," all of whom have been reluctant to pressure North Korea.
"There is a high possibility that the United States will earnestly shift its policy toward a 'regime change' or 'regime toppling' in North Korea," said Paik Hak Soon at Sejong Institute in South Korea.
In comments that appeared primarily aimed at China and South Korea, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice prodded Asian nations on Tuesday to "reassess" their relationships with the North Koreans. But a nuclear test, experts say, can also highlight a blame game between the United States, which believes that the soft approach by Beijing and Seoul has emboldened North Korea, and the Asian countries, which have been displeased with Washington's campaign to use sanctions to bring North Korea to heel.
"Frankly, I think China will just accept it if North Korea tests a bomb," said Kim. "Beijing will side with North Korea with nuclear arms, rather than with the United States, because it wants to keep North Korea as a buffer between it and U.S. influence in South Korea and Japan."
Michael Green, who handled North Korea issues for the National Security Council until he left the White House last year, said, "I think that the evidence has grown, especially with the missile launch, that North Korea has its own escalation ladder, and they would agree to postpone a test only for the right price."
He thought it unlikely that price would be met, and said he thinks "the North has calculated that they can take the heat from China and Japan, and they are not losing much from South Korea anyway."
Shen Dingli, executive deputy director of the Institute of International Issues at Fudan University in Shanghai, said that
North Korea "is bound to hold that the advantages of conducting a nuclear test outweigh the disadvantages.
"Hence it will proceed with a nuclear test," Shen said in an article circulated by the California-based Nautilus Institute. He added that
China only needed to "symbolically take part in the sanctions" once North Korea conducts a test . "In the choice between limited sanctions that demonstrate our country is a responsible power and harsh sanctions that forces the DPRK to go to extremes or bring about 'regime change,' China can only afford to take the lesser evil approach," he said. DPRK is short for Democratic republic of Korea, North Korea's official name.
David Sanger of The New York Times contributed to this article from Washington