Evidence North Korea is about to pull the trigger on its fourth nuclear test underlines that the North is marching determinedly, one step at a time, toward the day when it can target any city in the Asian Pacific—and potentially large population centers in the U.S.—with nuclear attack.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se last month called the fourth test a potential "game-changer."
True, a fourth test would add pressure on the U.S. to bolster its missile defenses in the region—and it could bring South Korea and Japan closer to contemplating their own nuclear deterrents, separate from the U.S.
This is China's nightmare: a nuclear arms race on its doorstep, and one that adds muscle to its rival Japan as the two wrangle over a set of islets in the East China Sea.
But will China's leaders act? "They are looking at North Korea increasingly as a strategic liability rather than an asset," says a senior South Korean Foreign Ministry official.
Beijing, he says, is alarmed at North Korea's direction under Kim Jong Un, a novice dictator with a short-back-and-sides hairdo who has shown the world his ruthless side by executing his own uncle.
Yet it would be a huge leap for Beijing to actually abandon one of its few real friends in the world.
No other country has more influence on North Korean behavior: Without Chinese food and oil, the North Korean economy might collapse. But that's likely not an outcome Beijing desires, even though the execution in December of Jang Song Thaek robbed Beijing of one of its best friends in Pyongyang.
China still values North Korea as a buffer against U.S. forces stationed in South Korea, and it fears that a messy implosion of a nuclear-armed regime could spill chaos over its borders. In the end, the demise of a socialist ally may be too unnerving a prospect for the Chinese Communist Party, which frets about its own mortality.
And those calculations are what may embolden Pyongyang to keep going with its nuclear tests. "They know that China will not go beyond strong rhetoric," says Chun Yung-woo, a former national-security adviser to the South Korean president who was speaking at the recent Asan Plenum in Seoul that brings together some of the world's top strategic thinkers on Asia.
North Korea likely possesses a handful of crude nuclear bombs. A report from the think tank 38 North, affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, says North Korea conducted at least one engine test of what is likely a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile in late March or early April.
Once Pyongyang manages to miniaturize a nuclear device to sit on top of a rocket, half the planet's economy in the Asian Pacific and more than half of its people will be at the mercy of Mr. Kim. One comforting thought is that North Korea may be years away from acquiring that capability. And even if Mr. Kim is eventually able to deliver a nuclear bomb accurately, he likely won't because he knows that his recalcitrant nation instantly would be reduced to ashes. In other words, he'll choose regime survival over suicide.
Still, none of the carrot-and-stick tactics adopted so far to stop North Korea have worked. Over the years, North Korea and its immediate neighbors, along with the U.S., have huddled periodically in "six-party talks" to try to find a way around the impasse. Among other inducements to get Pyongyang to change course have been the prospect of security guarantees, support to develop a peaceful nuclear-energy program, and even the possibility of a U.S. presidential visit.
But those talks are now on ice. From Pyongyang's perspective, nuclear weapons are its ultimate protection against an attack aimed at regime change; it has taken to calling them a "treasured sword."
The U.N. has imposed stern sanctions on North Korea, and the U.S. applies additional unilateral ones.
Yet sanctions so far have had only limited impact on a country that operates on the outlaw margins of the international economy, relying for hard currency on the exports of arms, narcotics and fake bank notes. By comparison, Iran is more integrated into the global economy and feels the punishing effects of sanctions more keenly. Life in Pyongyang, in fact, may even be improving. Recent visitors report more taxis cruising the streets and well-stocked shops.
If North Korea goes ahead with a fourth test, as seems inevitable, more sanctions will follow, possibly targeting North Korean financial flows as well as Kim family money, if it can be identified. There's a chance that Mr. Kim might flinch if his lavish lifestyle were threatened, and he could no longer buy the loyalty of Pyongyang's elites, or fund his military fantasies.
Of course, it's always possible the regime may collapse. It has to be assumed that many senior officials fear for their lives after the execution of Mr. Jang, which has exposed cracks in a government that once appeared monolithic.
But don't count on an uprising against Mr. Kim, who has been surprisingly efficient at consolidating his control over the military since taking over as leader after his father, Kim Jong Il, died in December 2011.
"We'll have to live with him whether we like him or not," says Mr. Chun, the former national-security adviser, who calls Mr. Kim "more reckless, more ruthless and more dangerous than his father."
Source: Wall Street Journal
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