The foreign ministers of the U.S. and China failed to reach agreement
on Wednesday on how to deal with North Korea after its recent nuclear
test.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington and
Beijing agreed on the "need for a UN resolution" to impose sanctions but
failed to provide details. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi claimed
that sanctions against the North should not be the final goal and
insisted China continues to stand behind the policy of engaging
Pyongyang in dialogue.
This makes it quite clear that China will
not tighten the noose around North Korea's neck by limiting trade to
the point where it really hurts.
North Korea has responded to each and every UN sanction by
conducting a nuclear or missile test. It has vowed never to give up its
nuclear ambitions, and there is no chance that it will buckle under
further sanctions. Now that China has more or less promised to sit on
its hands, Pyongyang will push ahead full steam in developing a nuclear
warhead small enough to mount on a missile and submarine-launched
ballistic missiles.
Once it develops these weapons, the military
balance on the Peninsula will tilt dangerously. Even if the South
bolsters its missile defenses with the aid of the U.S., such defense
systems will only offer us brief psychological solace while the country
remains in the crosshairs of the North's weapons of mass destruction.
Using conventional weapons to counter such a threat is ludicrous.
The U.S. has passed the buck for taming North Korea to China,
and China is doing nothing. Seoul now faces a real need for public
discussion of the development of its own nuclear weapons.
If the
public wants the country to arm itself with nuclear weapons, the
government will simply have to scrap a joint declaration from 1991 to
denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and initiate talks with the U.S. to
obtain the right to enrich uranium and reprocess its own spent nuclear
fuel rods.
It will require delicate handling. If Seoul is too aggressive
in pushing ahead with its own nuclear program, it could alienate the
U.S. and face international sanctions. This would be devastating for an
export-dependent country. And if it tries to obtain the technology on
its own, its efforts could be thwarted by the superpowers, which will
monitor every move.
But Seoul can no longer sit idly by as the
six-party talks lead to no results and Washington and Beijing are busy
blaming each other for their diplomatic failures.
North Korea has invaded this country in the past and has not
hesitated to provoke Seoul repeatedly since the ceasefire agreement was
signed in 1953. If it obtains nuclear weapons, the South faces a bleak
fate.
Would China come to the rescue if the North launched a
nuclear attack against South Korea? Would the U.S. step in to protect
Seoul? Judging by Washington's inaction in the military crises in the
Ukraine and Syria, it would probably respond only after Seoul has been
turned into a pile of smoldering ashes.
The biggest victim of North Korea's nuclear weapons program is
not China, Japan or the U.S., but the people of South Korea. They can no
longer sit idly by and continue to ignore the options they have to deal
with this threat.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2016/01/28/2016012801950.html
