SOUTH KOREA is increasingly concerned that North Korea’s latest threats about processing plutonium to expand its nuclear weapons arsenal is no longer a negotiating ploy to gain leverage with the US.
Policymakers in Seoul believe Pyongyang may have decided to pursue a non-negotiable strategy of trying to develop nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles by 2012, in an attempt to bolster the ailing regime with a fully-fledged nuclear deterrent and secure a domestic propaganda coup.
Washington and Seoul have usually interpreted bouts of belligerence from the communist dictatorship over recent years as attempts to bargain for food aid, fuel oil and security guarantees.
This has been particularly the case in the context of the stalled six-party talks, which are aimed at denuclearising the Korean peninsula.
“We hope they will return to negotiations, but we are also preparing for the second contingency, that they do not,” said a senior South Korean official.
“A few years ago, many people thought North Korea would give up its nuclear weapons in an exchange. Now, that is not the common view.”
Since April, North Korea has fired a long-range rocket over Japan, announced the resumption of plutonium work and threatened to test a second nuclear warhead.
In unusually strong language, Pyongyang has refused to rejoin the six-party talks, and has spurned suggestions that it might take part in bilateral talks with the “hostile” US.
South Korean officials initially saw the sabre-rattling as an effort to test inexperienced presidents in Seoul and Washington.
But now they suspect it is part of a propaganda campaign to become a “mighty nation” by 2012, the centenary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the nation’s founder.
Top diplomats said the hardline military was now steering nuclear arms policy, making economic bargains less probable.
Choi Choon-heum, an expert at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said possessing a nuclear missile would allow North Korea to consolidate the regime.
“The North’s military has greater sway than before because of internal weaknesses, such as Kim Jong-il’s health,” he said.
But while South Korea grows more alarmed about North Korea, some US experts say the Obama administration is less pessimistic. Dennis Wilder, the top White House Asia official until January, says the South Korean view was “a little bit out in front” of the other six-party members.
Mr Wilder said the Obama team believed it was “premature” to make that judgment, saying it saw the bellicosity in the context of preparations for the eventual succession of Kim Jong-il, the North Korean leader who suffered a stroke last year.
He added that harsh language appeared aimed at sending an internal message about the “indispensable nature of the [Kim] dynasty.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009