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The News International, September 29, 2004 Pressures for proliferation by M B Naqvi Korean peninsula is another flashpoint today with relentless US pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons' programme. The US had named North Korea as a member of the Axis of Evil early in 2002. Although North Korea plays a fiercely independent, almost truculent, role, the initiative in causing a grave international Crisis lies with the sole superpower that has held the initiative in the matter all along. Although, South Korea too has been found with pants down: its scientists have admitted that they had enriched the uranium in the past without authorisation. But they claim they later destroyed it in a scientific manner. There were also reports with its scientists' fiddling with plutonium. This destruction bit of enriched uranium in South Korea, as well as 'unauthorised experiment' cannot fail to generate doubt. Enrichment of uranium or extraction of plutonium from spent reactor fuel would require an unusually big scientific, if not industrial, infrastructure, necessitating time, funds and bureaucratic facilitation. And all that could take place without 'authorisation' strains credulity. As for destruction, even if it happened safely, or completely, what about the acquisition of the know how. That is the critical factor. But this knowledge and skill cannot hang in the air. The infrastructure that was used or what enabled the so-called destruction of enriched uranium, because of its several possible functions - like fabricating reactor fuel - is likely to survive, to be used again. The point is the South Koreans too have announced their acquisition of the know how to enrich uranium. In other words, they say: 'don't ignore us; we too can go nuclear when we so decide'. It is a stunning development. The question is: did US know of this with its omnipresent spook agencies? Did it sound any alarm? This possible inability to find out can actually hide US approval. The region has become some more dangerous and complex. Indeed the US bears responsibility for actually provoking the current Crisis in the region in two ways. First, there was the cancellation of 1994 agreement with North Korea by Bush Administration, which must have been briefed by CIA that the secretive state was involved in proliferation activities, what with US secret services' view of Pak-North Korean dealings and the nuclear bazaar created by Dr A Q Khan. Whether or not there was truth in these part-rumour and part-fact stories, the US must have concluded the worst and walked out of 1994 agreement that Clinton Administration had concluded with North Korea. This accord was working reasonably well and Korea's nuclear programme had remained frozen to the satisfaction of IAEA. Bush Administration tore up the agreement in order to insist upon its totally abjuring all America-suspected nuclear activities as a condition for qualifying for US approval and possible aid. All American aid remains suspended. The N Korea's proud communist regime is gravely apprehensive of American intentions. It also acts on a worst case scenario that the US may be planning the mischief of regime change; for the rest, it is its effort to demonise the regime may be to mount another preemptive and largely unilateral invasion. Its reaction was nationalistic and truculent. It withdrew from the NPT and announced it is embarking on a programme to produce atomic weapons again. That infuriated the US further. The world speculates whether the US will actually take military action. And that is the heart of the Crisis. This writer is among the people who do not think that Americans will again fight a major war in the Korean Peninsula; the late 1940s and 1950s experience of such a war was too painful for the US decision-makers. North Korea's army is by no means a pushover, even for the mighty US war machine. But by creating this Crisis, the US may have ensured there will be a nuclear-armed North Korea, which in turn, will send South Koreans to their drawing boards. A far bigger part of the Crisis, therefore, lies in the reactions to this development throughout the Far East of Asia. Although China and Russia, both closely associated with N Korea throughout the cold war years, will not welcome this proliferation, they look like being resigned to live with the new reality. The question is about how Japan and S Korea will react. Up to a point, the reactions of Taiwan and Australia will also matter. These are likely to be negative. Most negative will be Japan's. For, Korean nationalism, whether of North or South Korea, is instinct with painful memories of Japanese occupation and its brutalities. Japanese are only too aware of anti-Japanese feelings throughout the Korean Peninsula - indeed the barely-suppressed anti-Japanese feelings throughout S E Asia, especially the countries that were a part of Japanese-sponsored Co-Prosperity Region. The fact of the matter is that Japan is virtually being urged by the US to go nuclear. It will be child's play for it to fabricate any number of atomic weapons; it has mountains of fissile material. After all full 30 per cent of power in Japan comes from atomic reactors, all yielding high value plutonium, fit for being the core of atomic bombs. It is true that public opinion in Japan, except for the Rightwing of the political spectrum, is solidly against taking to the military path again, much less become a nuclear power. But then the Rightwing always wins elections and the present Koizumi government is an authentic rightist government and its disavowal of nuclear ambitions is rich in ambiguity and vagueness and rather weak in being emphatic or precise. But the US attitude counts much in Japan and it clearly leans towards encouraging the Japanese to take the plunge; at least the serious American media gives this message, loud and clear. But if Japan went nuclear to counter and eventually confront the N Koreans, all bets regarding Asia should be off. A remilitarised Japan will frighten all SE and FE Asians. The US may, even then, hope to remain supreme in Asia's various regions by virtue of its hard military power. But various equations and expectations (not to forget panic) will create altogether new possibilities, much more unpredictable and dangerous. The Chinese reaction to Japan's emerging as a big military power, with big nuclear capability, can be predicted: it will be highly adverse. A fierce arms race is sure to follow. New tensions and new crises can safely be expected. The question is what is the American game plan in encouraging Japan to become a nuclear power - which will also mean building a bigger conventional component of military power. Would the US want the Asians to use nuclear weapons in the Far East for itself to re-emerge as the world's supreme power after ensuring the mutual destruction of Asians powers (mainly China and Japan)? The second pressure for proliferation arises from hard American conduct. It not only retains the near monopoly of nuclear arms but goes on adding to their destructiveness by constant up-gradation and invention of new types of weapons, some miniaturised and some related to what it calls Missile Defense. This is vertical proliferation. For most of nuclear have nots - mostly in the third world - the American ukase is: "don't"; further proliferation is bad while its own atomic stockpiles are good for humanity. Every self-respecting people are apt to point out America's double standards, as one noted earlier in this space. It is a provocative position: 'I am entitled to have atomic weapons because I am who I am; but you cannot aspire to this status; you are not responsible enough'. There is enough indication that North Korea has been willing to compromise. It needs one. It is an economy in transition from rigid command economy to letting the market determine prices. It is reducing state's role. But it is passing through a bad patch. There is wide-scale unemployment and many industrial units of this essentially industrial economy are closing down thanks to the competition from cheap foreign foods. A few years ago natural disasters caused a famine, made worse by American sanctions. The unemployed are heading toward villages, where too employment is scarce. N Koreans would, there are all the indicators, give up their nuclear option if only enough food, fuel and a few other necessities are reliably made available to them after credibly withdrawing the implicit war threats by the US. The Chinese remain the best mediators. They have Russians' support and both of them have residual affinity with N Korea. The Chinese think they can broker a deal if the US does not act too high-handedly. So far the Japanese too, despite their understandable apprehensions, would much prefer a deal with N Korea, obviating furious arms races in the region in the nuclear sphere. It all depends on the US whether there will be a peace-promoting settlement of this Crisis; it only requires some political restraint and some economic aid from America. Trouble with the US is it uses its political clout to ensure economic benefits for itself. Iraq is an example. All the lucrative contracts have gone to big American companies, often connected with political leaders. It has riled the Europeans. German and French contractors were left out in the cold because their governments had opposed America's War on Iraq. Americans were insisting until very recently that the six powers - the two Koreas, China, Russia, US and Japan - meet in September in Beijing; they were against further delays; their eyes were on November's Presidential elections. Even N Korea is keenly interested in US polls. While the US wants a N Koran promise of abjuring the nuclear option now, the N Koreans want to show their cards when it is sure whether Kerry is the new US President or Bush continues. What is wrong with a February 2005 conference in Beijing? _________________________________ SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists and scholars concerned about Nuclearisation in South Asia South Asians Against Nukes Mailing List: archives are available @ two locations May 1998 - March 2002: <groups.yahoo.com/group/sap/messages/1> Feb. 2001 - to date: <groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/messages/1> To subscribe send a blank message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> South Asians Against Nukes Website: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org -- SOUTH ASIANS AGAINST NUKES (SAAN): An informal information platform for activists &amp; scholars concerned about the dangers of Nuclearisation in South Asia SAAN Mailing List: To subscribe send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] SAAN Website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/sacw/saan [OLD URL: http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/NoNukes.html ] SAAN Mailing List Archive : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SAAN_/ ________________________________ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. aterials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SAAN compilers. 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