TOKYO – North Korea may have gained bragging rights on Monday as the world’s newest nuclear power, but the pivotal question now is whether the secretive communist government can survive the political fallout.
While the United States and Japan have long pushed for a hard line against North Korea, there were early indications Monday that South Korea and China, the North’s chief benefactors, might be reconsidering their support for the government of Kim Jong Il. There were also concerns that Pyongyang’s claims of a nuclear test could touch off an arms race in northeast Asia.
Analysts said any major development would threaten stability in the strategically vital region, in which the United States has long maneuvered diplomatically among friend and foe.
China and South Korea have poured billions of dollars in aid and investment into the North, effectively propping up Kim’s government under the assumption that a collapse there would send millions of desperate refugees pouring across the country’s borders. The risk of such an economic calamity, they have gambled, has outweighed the risk of a nuclear-armed North Korea.
But the announcement of a test, analysts said, might have represented a tipping point. In a telephone call with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, China’s foreign minister condemned North Korea for having “ignored universal opposition of the international community,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The minister, Li Zhaoxing, also stressed that the Chinese government was “resolutely opposed” to the nuclear test.
South Korea immediately halted delivery of an emergency assistance package to help the North deal with recent floods. President Roh Moo-hyun suggested his country’s “sunshine policy” of engagement – of which he was a vocal supporter – had failed.
“The South Korean government at this point cannot continue to say that this engagement policy is effective,” Roh said in a nationally televised speech. “Being patient and accepting whatever North Korea does is no longer acceptable.”
Any shift in policy by China or South Korea would be at least partly based on the anticipated reaction of Japan, the nation that feels most threatened by North Korea’s ballistic missiles. Analysts have assumed that a nuclear-armed North Korea would lead Tokyo to accelerate plans to redraft its pacifist constitution and rearm itself with a more aggressive military.
Last week, a U.S. congressional report went as far as to suggest that a test by the North could set in motion a domino effect in which Japan, South Korea and perhaps Taiwan pursue nuclear weapons, touching off an arms race that would dramatically escalate the consequences of regional disputes.
Although some observers were quick to caution that China’s criticism of North Korea might not necessarily translate into action, there was little question that the reported test had deeply embarrassed China.
“It’s a big slap to China,” Zhu Feng, a professor of international studies at Peking University, said of the North’s test. “It’s time for a new approach, because we just got humiliated. China’s goodwill has been relentlessly wasted.”
Analysts said China will be faced with heightened international pressure to accept tougher economic sanctions and reduce or even cut its aid – including oil shipments – to coerce Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.
In effect, Beijing will have to make a difficult decision.
“If China votes for sanctions at the U.N., the China and North Korea relationship will break up,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at People’s University in Beijing. “And if the United Nations really passes financial sanctions toward North Korea, the risk of a society collapse of North Korea is high.”
Japan is likely to take an even harder line than before. The country’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, on Monday vowed a tough response, saying he would “immediately consider taking stern measures.”
But even coupled with sharper sanctions from the U.S., analysts say, the pressure brought to bear on North Korea is unlikely to be enough without the full support of Beijing and Seoul.
“North Korea’s message is that no matter how hard South Korea, Japan, the United States gang up on them, they won’t budge,” said Seung Joo-baek of the Seoul-based Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. “They want to be recognized as a nuclear power. They are assuming that it is the only thing that will keep them safe. We will have to wait and see if they are right.”
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