AFTER A week in which North Korea shocked the world with a nuclear weapon test, the secretive state has ratcheted up tensions in Asia yet again by restarting a weapons-grade nuclear plant and firing five short-range missiles in two days.
The missile launches and Monday’s nuclear test have deepened the North’s rift with world powers and angered its allies, leading to a major re-examination of China’s links to its “little brother” in North Korea.
The launches came as the UN Security Council was debating possible new sanctions against the communist nation for its nuclear test. There is little the UN can do in terms of retaliation, and military intervention does not seem to be an option for now.
In the North Korean capital Pyongyang, thousands gathered to celebrate the successful test, and the official North Korean news agency quoted a senior leader describing the test as a “grand undertaking” against the nuclear threat from US imperialists.
There has been no sign of military rhetoric abating. North Korea said it would no longer be bound by the armistice ending the Korean War (1950-1953) in response to Seoul’s decision to become a full-time member of the Proliferation Security Initiative.
“Our revolutionary forces will consider the full participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative as a declaration of war against us and will immediately and effectively respond with military strikes against any attempts – including inspections and crackdowns – to inspect our ships,” said the North’s permanent military mission to the joint security area of the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjeom.
US spy satellites detected steam coming from a nuclear facility at North Korea’s main Yongbyon plant, a sign that the North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.
While defence experts do not believe North Korea has the capability of miniaturising its nuclear weapons to fit on to a missile warhead, the country has enough plutonium to make its neighbours seriously worried. North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs.
It has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow the country to harvest enough plutonium for one nuclear bomb.
The nuclear test is a slap in the face to China, whose aid is keeping the regime afloat, even if the public reaction in Beijing has been muted, with the government constantly reiterating its “resolute opposition” to the nuclear test.
Chinese analysts are writing in state-run media that it is high time for China to reconsider its policy toward North Korea.
“There is no need for China to maintain its past policy toward its troublemaking neighbour any longer,” Sun Zhe, director of the Sino-US Relations Institute of Tsinghua University, wrote on the front page of the English-language version of the People’s Daily, adding that the Chinese government should teach North Korea a lesson.
China does not want instability in a neighbouring country, or a stream of North Korean refugees crossing the Yalu river.
Meanwhile, in New York, ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members – the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France – as well as Japan and South Korea were expected to meet again soon.
They are trying to formulate a new resolution on the nuclear test, and all eyes are on China and Russia, both close allies of North Korea, to see how far they are prepared to introduce sanctions against North Korea.
Reuters adds: Russia is taking security measures as a precaution against the possibility that tension over North Korea could escalate into nuclear war, news agencies quoted officials as saying yesterday.
Interfax quoted an unnamed security source as saying “the need has emerged for an appropriate package of precautionary measures”, the source said.
Russia is a veto-wielding permanent member of the UN Security Council. In the past, Moscow has been reluctant to support western calls for sanctions.
However, Russian officials in the UN have said that this time the authority of the international body is at stake.
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev told South Korean president Lee Myung-bak, who called him yesterday, that Russia was prepared to work with Seoul on a new UN Security Council resolution and to revive international talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.