An effigy of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il bound to a missile is burned by South Korean protesters during an anti-North Korea rally in front of the Government House in Seoul on Monday, October 9, 2006.
Photo: AP
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Domino Effect
// The North Korean Crisis Will Turn China into a Real Regional Superpower
A North Korean nuclear bomb is not only frightening in itself – the more important bomb could turn out to be a reshuffling of the geopolitical and military priorities of the countries of East Asia. Think tanks are already attempting to predict the evolution of events.
The introduction of economic sanctions against North Korea will inflict damage on the regime of Kim Jong-il, but they will not be the deciding influence, say experts from the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for International Economics (IIE). "Things cannot be worse for North Korea than they were in 1995, when the population was dying en masse from hunger," says Ruslan Pukhov, the director of the Center for Strategy and Technology Analysis. Experts believe that regime change in North Korea via military operations, a coup, or revolution is not likely. In general, as noted by analysts at Global Insight, "with all due respect to the international community, it cannot do anything about North Korea."
North Korea's exit from the regime of nonproliferation was the result of the collapse of the bipolar world. In the 1980s in South Africa, Argentina, and Brazil, the new leadership's desire not to confront the United States led to the end of programs for the development of nuclear weapons. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly-minted states of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan also renounced nuclear weapons, demonstrating openness and distancing themselves from the legacy of the Soviet empire. But the last relic of the socialist camp, North Korea, found itself without an "older brother" but did not go through a phase of transformation, and the country was thus obliged to look for individual forms of "absolute defense." In Asia there is currently no security system: every country can count only on itself, says Ivan Safranchuk, an expert at the Washington-based Center for Defense Information. "The level of distrust between countries is growing and may lead to a new arms race." In his opinion, the test carried out by North Korea may become the catalyst for such a scenario, and the domino effect may then touch many countries.
In the general opinion of experts, North Korea's neighbors, especially South Korea and Japan, are spending increasing amounts of money on their militaries. This is provoking similar measures in response from China, which is destroying the balance of power. The first country that may be seized by the impulse towards destabilization, in the opinion of analysts at Global Insight, is Japan, where the prime minister's seat has just been assumed by the "hawkish" Shinzo Abe. The former prime minister also took steps that were characterized by many as militaristic, such as his regular visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine. And the revenge mentality in Japan is growing. According to a poll carried out in September by Pew Research, the majority of Japanese approve of visits to the Yasukini Shrine, and since 2002 the number of respondents who consider Japanese culture superior to all others has grown to 83%.
The apotheosis of the arms race may be a "symmetric response" to North Korea by its neighbors. Dmitry Trenin, a representative of the scientific council of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, believes that the United States is in a position to keep South Korea from creating nuclear weapons. Japan, however, may pursue its suspended nuclear program to completion: the country needs no more than a year to become a nuclear superpower. It has not become one before now only thanks to America's guarantee of its security, but that guarantee now seems unconvincing. Experts from the IIE believe that other countries in the region possess the technology necessary to go nuclear. "In the end, China may turn out to be surrounded by nuclear powers," theorize the IIE experts, and that would drive it to flex its "nuclear muscles."
According to experts from the Heritage Foundation, the solution to this complex problem can only be found outside the framework of traditional diplomatic and economic means of engagement. The United States will need to go to work on building a military and political system that will be capable of reining in North Korea's ambitions. According to Mr. Trenin, such a system cannot be built without cooperation with China – cooperation at an unprecedented level of closeness.
"China is now aiming to become a full counteragent to the United States, analogous to the USSR," says Mr. Trenin. "China wants to play to role of the USSR in its region, on the one hand competing gently with the US, and on the other hand collaborating with the US on important questions, including economic cooperation and nonproliferation." According to some unwritten agreements sealed with China, the United States will also need to enter into such cooperation. Then, believes Mr. Trenin, the two superpowers can use the stick and carrot method to entice North Korea into renouncing nuclear weapons and curtailing the further spread of nuclear technology. This is the kind of security system – one that imitates the bipolar model of peace in a similarly troubled region, i.e., Europe after WWII – that can lead to the resolution of East Asia's problems.
All the Article in Russian as of Oct. 16, 2006
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