The Situation

There's not a lot about living in China that worries me. The situation in North Korea worries me a little bit. As I'm sure most of you are aware, the People's Democratic [Super Free and Happy] Republic of Korea has announced its intentions to conduct a nuclear test. Some are speculating that it might come as soon as this weekend.

So what is it about this affair, besides nuclear weapons exploding next door, that worries me?

Statements like this [Washington Post]:

"[North Korea] can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both."

"We are not going to live with a nuclear North Korea, we are not going to accept it."

- Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill

Woah, slowwwww down cowboy. Gettin' a bit existential, are we? North Korea can either test a weapon or it can have a future? It will cease to exist if it tests a weapon ... this is our response? [pssst, we've tested over 1,030 nukes - the last time less than 15 years ago]

That's an open declaration of war if I've ever heard one. Test it and die. Perhaps we can ponder whether Mr. Hill meant something different saying that America annot live with a proven nuclear armed N. Korea. Perhaps he meant something more polite when he said that N. Korea will not have a future if it proceeds, but this administration isn't known for it's subtleties is it?

So what happens when N. Korea tests? Are we going to sanction them [more]? Perhaps we could punish monks by depriving them of sex. Either Bush is blowing a lot of hot air or he plans a military response. A military response would be, in a word, horrific. We can run down a million scenarios for how it could be carried out, none of which involve open-heart surgery precision and the world cheering on our daring raids that didn't involve Seoul being pounded for weeks by 155mm artillery buried in the mountains along the DMZ.

China's relations and involvement with these issues are complex to say the least. I don't even fully understand them. I won't pretend to fully understand them. China has strongly rebuked N. Korea over this. It was front-page news in the state-sponsered media yesterday. Something is about to happen and China doesn't want it to happen. I hope China's response is something along the lines of what the Ralph A. Cossa recommends:

"Beijing should also note that economic sanctions imposed as a result of a nuclear test will be accompanied by an "open border" policy and the establishment of UN-sponsored refugee camps on the Chinese side of the Yalu River. China, at North Korea's insistence, presently forces most refugees to return, where they meet a most unpleasant fate. This policy must change."

and

"Beijing should also set a certain date for the next round of six-party talks, while making it clear that a "six-minus- one" session will occur if the North refuses to come."

My fear is that an American military response could send my coworkers and I home. China is a country where politics and popular thought can change on a dime, having gone from fuedalism to collectivism to free market economy in a single generation. The Chinese still haven't forgiven the Japanese for World War II and in fact openly hate them today. I wouldn't want to be around here when the public reacts to an unpopular American military campaign against a neighboring country. I also wonder how the Chinese Communist Party would respond and whether or not work visas would be a front in diplomatic warfare.

My own take on nuclear proliferation is simple: every nation deserves the right to self-defense in accordance with international norms and it's threat situation. Every permanent member on the UN Security Council including the "leader of the free world" is armed to the teeth with nuclear warheads with no intention of getting rid of them. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NNPT] cuts both ways - that current non-nuclear nations withhold from going nuclear and that current nuclear nations make serious efforts to create a future free of nuclear weapons. No such effort has been made by the current nuclear armed countries, so why should we expect follow-through from the non-nuclear signatories? It's a mute point now with N. Korea, because it legally removed itself from the treaty.

If the White House wants a nuclear-free Third World, it needs to make serious overtures for liquidating existing stockpiles in the developed world.

Like any sane man, I think it's obscene that the DPRNK spends so much money on it's arms industry while it's citizens starve. I have no desire to see men like Kim Jung-Il possess such power. The fact of the matter is that he's daily threatened by a nuclear power with troops massed on his border and having a nuclear weapon is his only viable insurance policy to prevent an Iraq-style "regime change."