Nuclear clouds over the Korean peninsula and Japan

Monthly Review, April, 1997 by Toshimaru Ogura, Ingyu Oh

Our attempt here is to present an alternative perspective on the current Northeast Asian nuclear crisis by explaining the governmental efforts in South Korea and Japan toward nuclear armament. It is our belief that the real causes of the current nuclear crisis are the triangular alliance of the United States-Japan-South Korea and the spread of market capitalism in this region, particularly in North Korea. But, what makes the current nuclear crisis more complex than the traditional East-West nuclear stalemate is the evolving division within the triangular alliance itself. Capitalist and nationalist competition among the United States, Japan, and South Korea may emerge as a serious threat to future stability in Northeast Asia.

In the following we offer an analysis of the current nuclear crisis in Northeast Asia, emphasizing traditional cold war ideology and the rise of nationalist competition.

Nuclear Politics on the Korean Peninsula

Nuclear bombs do (or did) exist both in South Korea and Japan, although international legal provisions prohibit these countries from developing nuclear arms as a condition of their membership in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The U.S. forces stationed in these two countries have secretly maintained nuclear missile bases. Because of this, North Korea now wants to develop nuclear missiles in addition to its midrange non-nuclear missiles. The rationale for North Korea's nuclear armament is the increased threat to its own regime due to the fall of the communist bloc in the East. North Korea's move to develop nuclear arms thus constitutes what the United States, Japan, and South Korea perceive as the Northeast Asian nuclear crisis.

The result of the Northeast Asian nuclear crisis is what we call quasi- or virtual nuclear armament by all concerned countries - North Korea, South Korea, and Japan. By quasi-nuclear armament, we mean a national defense capacity which can produce a nuclear bomb in a relatively short period.

The Hidden History of Nuclear Development in Korea

Nuclear crisis on the Korean peninsula is not a novel issue. The United States ignited the first nuclear threat in a country that had just experienced one of the most fratricidal civil wars in human history. In 1958 the U.S. Forces in Korea (USFK) stored nuclear arms in its military bases, including those near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The threat of using nuclear arms by the U.S. forces against North Korea and/or China, however, has always been present since the division of Korea in 1945. Several declassified internal Defense Department documents testify that the U.S. forces would have used atomic bombs during the Korean War if the Soviet army had entered the war, or if the entire USFK had been evacuated from Korea.(1)

The 1958 decision by the United States to store nuclear weapons in South Korea escalated the fear of the North Korean government. The North immediately sought ways to expedite transfers of nuclear technologies from the Soviet Union. It acquired its first nuclear institute and imported a 1,000 Kw reactor from the Soviet Union during the 1964-1965 period. Since then the North Korean government has built thirteen other reactors and related facilities, mainly in the much suspected Youngbyun area. Developments of heavy-water reactor systems in Youngbyun heightened western suspicion that North Korea was developing nuclear weapons.

In addition to the U.S. nuclear missiles stored in South Korea, this East Asian country started developing independent nuclear technologies. The decline of the U.S. military presence in East Asia, especially after the U.S. disengagement from Vietnam and the election of Jimmy Carter, led the South Korean military dictator, Park Chung Hee (1962-1978), to believe that he could no longer rely solely on the United States as a bulwark against the communist aggression from the North. Much of the latter half of the 1970s witnessed South Korean flagrant efforts to procure plutonium and acquire necessary nuclear technologies. Although Park cited the threats from the North to justify his secret nuclear program, the real motivation was to strengthen his dictatorial power from opposition politicians, student movement leaders, and worker strikes.

South Korea finally completed the Kori plant in 1970. The country subsequently mastered the technology of building reactors in the late 1970s, and it now possesses eight light-water and one heavy-water reactors, promising to build forty-one more by 2025. South Korea, however, does not have domestic uranium mines, nor does it possess uranium processing technologies. The United States has processed fifty-five percent of all South Korea's uranium needs and France the rest. What makes South Korea equally suspect along with North Korea is its recent decision to develop uranium processing technologies in cooperation with Russia. In November 1990, for instance, forty tons of Russian uranium and a handful of technicians arrived in Pusan.

However, a more important technological issue is whether both Koreas have acquired plutonium reprocessing technologies. U.S. intelligence sources maintain that North Korea has already acquired core technologies sufficient to reprocess plutonium. A defector from the North, Kim Chung Min, also confirmed recently that in 1987 North Korea had successfully extracted and reprocessed fifteen kg of plutonium from the used fuel. Strangely, these allegations were not confirmed by any IAEA inspection carried out in 1994.