South Korean Media Perspective on NK Nukes

[onedomino]

South Koreans seem confused as to what to do next:

South Korea Stripped of Defenses

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200610/200610170024.html

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney has put pressure on China to become more active in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, warning if the North has nuclear weapons, Japan may start developing its own, Newsweek reports. The U.S. seems bent on using the threat of Japan’s nuclear armament as leverage in the standoff.

Japan, meanwhile, is taking advantage of the North’s nuclear test to rearm. The policy chief of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party said in Sunday that Japan needs to discuss acquiring nuclear weapons.

China has set up 2.5 m-high barbed-wire fences along the Yalu River, where many North Koreans wade across the border. It also halted remittances to North Korea from banks in Dandong, where cross-border trade is concentrated, without prior notice. In short, it seems Beijing is pressuring North Korea to prevent the U.S. and Japan from zeroing in on China using North Korea’s nuclear test as a pretext.

We are indeed living in a totally different Northeast Asia after Pyongyang’s nuclear test on Oct. 9. Countries in the region are looking at the world with different eyes. But the most dramatic change happened right here in South Korea. We said our top priority was independent defense, President Roh Moo-hyun leading the way, but suddenly find ourselves totally defenseless before a nuclear armed North Korea. Nonetheless, the government seems to think that package tours to Mt. Kumgang and the Kaesong Industrial Complex have nothing to do with the UN Security Council resolution, and we don’t need to join the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative because North Korean vessels can already be searched under an Inter-Korean Maritime Agreement. So even though the international community agreed the UNSC sanctions, Seoul is refusing to change its North Korea policy.

Unlike other countries in the region, our government has nothing else up its sleeve to respond to a nuclear North Korea. When the U.S. and Japan said on Oct. 6 that a North Korean nuclear test was imminent, our intelligence authorities said the preparations were just a bargaining chip and any test would not happen for another four to six weeks. The head of the National Intelligence Service told the National Assembly there were “no signs” that the North will conduct a nuclear test about half an hour before it did. Announcements about where the test happened changed four times: the morning and afternoon of the day of the test, and again on Friday and Sunday. A full week passed after the nuclear test, but the government detected no radioactivity and had to admit it only heard that the U.S. detected some.

The government is deaf and blind to the nuclear threat, has no way of assessing it and is incapable of correctly grasping the situation, let alone responding to it effectively. Forty-eight million South Koreans have no one else to depend on for their safety.