|
Northeast Asia Peace and Security Network DAILY REPORT For Tuesday, June 16, 1998, from Berkeley, California, USA |
1. DPRK Missile Exports
The Associated Press (Sang-Hun Choe, "NORTH KOREA ADMITS SELLING
MISSILES," Seoul, 06/16/98) and Reuters (Teruaki Ueno, "N.KOREA REVEALS
MISSILE EXPORTS," Tokyo, 06/16/98) reported that a statement carried by
the DPRK's official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday said that the
DPRK will continue developing, testing, and selling missiles. The
statement said, "Our missile export is aimed at obtaining foreign money
we need at present. If the United States really wants to prevent our
missile export, it should lift the economic embargo as early as possible
and make a compensation for the losses to be caused by discontinued
missile export." It added, "As long as it remains subjected to military
threat from outside, the DPRK should produce by itself and deploy
military equipment to safeguard the security of the country and the
people.... As the United States has pursued economic isolation of the
DPRK for more than half a century, our resources of foreign money have
been circumscribed. So, missile export is the option we could not but
take." The statement argued, "With missiles of the United States, which
is at war with the DPRK technically, aiming at our territory, we find no
reason to refrain from developing and deploying missiles to counter
them." Kim Koo-sup, a senior researcher at the ROK's government-funded
Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, stated, "By declaring for the first
time that it is actually exporting missiles, North Korea is upping the
ante in its talks with Washington." Similarly, Shinya Kato, an analyst
at Tokyo-based Radiopress news agency, stated, "North Korea is playing
the missile card as part of its effort to secure agreement from the U.S.
to lift economic sanctions and win political concessions."
2. Russian Military Sales to ROK
United Press International ("N. KOREA BLASTS SOUTH-RUSSIAN ARMS DEAL,"
Tokyo, 06/16/98) reported that the DPRK official Korean Central News
Agency on Tuesday denounced a recent arms cooperation deal between Russia
and the ROK. The broadcast stated, "Recently, the South Korean puppets
reportedly invited a high-ranking official of the Defense Ministry of
Russia to South Korea and discussed with him introduction ... of
technologies concerning production and operation of sophisticated attack
weapons and other up-to-the-minute weapons." It added, "The arms deal
with Russia fully reveals how frantic the South Korean rulers are in war
preparations." The agency said, "the tension on the Korean peninsula has
become all the more strained with the puppets purchasing missiles and
other weapons from the United States. We have warned more than once that
arms introduction from abroad is not merely a commercial dealing but a
grave hostile act in view of the acute political and military situation
of the Korean peninsula."
3. DPRK Political Situation
The Associated Press ("OPPOSITION SAID TO EXIST IN NKOREA," Seoul,
06/15/98) reported that DPRK defector Hwang Jang-yop said Monday that an
anti-government resistance force exists in the DPRK which distribute
leaflets with anti-government slogans. He added, however, that the
government has been executing all people found to be involved with
opposition groups. Hwang predicted that the DPRK government would change
eventually, but that the government would try to keep any reforms within
the framework of Kim Jong-il's one-man dictatorship. He argued that
promoting communication from the top and economic and culture exchanges
from the bottom between the two Koreas, as well as humanitarian food aid,
is most important to achieve reforms.
4. ROK Food Aid to DPRK
United Press International ("HYUNDAI FOUNDER TAKES CATTLE TO N.KOREA,"
Seoul, 06/15/98), Reuters (Jean Yoon, "S.KOREA TYCOON HERDS CATTLE TO
STARVED NORTH," Seoul, 06/16/98), and the Associated Press (Reid G.
Miller, "500 CATTLE DONATED TO NORTH KOREA," Panmunjom, 06/16/98)
reported that Hyundai Group founder Chung Ju-young and seven family
members and business associates on Tuesday became the first civilians to
cross the intra-Korean border by driving 500 cows through the truce
village of Panmunjom. Chung stated, "I'm delighted to return to my
hometown through Panmunjom, the same passage I took when I left for
Seoul." He said he had left home with the money his father had earned by
selling a bull and added, "Now I am returning home to pay back the debt
owed to my father." The ROK Unification Ministry said it hoped the visit
would provide an opportunity to improve relations between the two Koreas,
but added that "a substantial change" in the DPRK position was required
to make Panmunjom a regular channel for business visits and
transportation. ROK chief presidential spokesman Park Ji-won stated, "We
hope that an era of peace and mutual cooperation will come as early as
possible, allowing millions of separated family members in the two sides
to go and come through Panmunjom."
5. US, PRC Missile Targeting
The Washington Post (Walter Pincus, "U.S., CHINA MAY RETARGET NUCLEAR
WEAPONS," 06/16/98, A10) reported that unnamed US administration
officials said that a US-PRC missile detargeting agreement is being held
up by PRC insistence that it be linked to an agreement on no-first use of
nuclear weapons. One official said that the PRC sees a no-first use pact
as a means of combating "the overwhelming U.S. strategic nuclear
advantage." One unnamed official familiar with the negotiations said
Monday that retargeting "will not have a lot of military significance,
but we would like to do it as a political, confidence-building symbol."
According to Pentagon and intelligence sources, the PRC's roughly 18
liquid-fueled nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)
targeted on the U.S. are not kept on a ready-to-fire status, as opposed
to the hundreds of US and Russian solid-fueled systems, which are kept on
24-hour alert. The PRC ICBMs normally sit in their silos without their
warheads and lack their volatile propellant, which becomes unstable if
kept in the missile for long periods, the sources said. Dr. Alfred D.
Wilhelm Jr., executive vice president of the Atlantic Council and a
former U.S. military attache in the PRC, said that the PRC decided years
ago that the limited number of nuclear ICBMs they have are "all that are
necessary to have a deterrent." He added that they also believe that
there would be a period in which antagonisms between countries would
build up, giving them time to arm and fuel their nuclear force. Wilhelm
said that, unlike the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the
PRC believes "in the irrationality of first strike," since the US nuclear
force so outnumbers the PRC arsenal that a first strike would be
suicidal. An April 1997 report to Congress by the US Defense Department
stated that the PRC was continuing a policy of "modest levels of
strategic nuclear forces to maintain a viable deterrent against other
nuclear powers." The report added that the PRC was looking to shift from
liquid to a solid-fuel, mobile force. Paul Godwin, a PRC military
specialist at the National Defense University, said that the US
retargeting effort makes the limited PRC nuclear force seem more
important than it really is. He added that the PRC and Soviets had a "no
first use" agreement for years but that the Russian government recently
rescinded the accord to reflect the lowered state of Russia's
conventional forces.
6. South Asian Nuclear Tests
Dow Jones Newswires ("W. JAPAN GOVS URGE INDIA,PAKISTAN TO END NUCLEAR
TESTS-KYODO," Hiroshima, 06/16/98) reported that Japan's Kyodo News said
that governors in the western Japan region adopted an urgent resolution
Tuesday calling on India and Pakistan to immediately suspend nuclear
testing and abolish nuclear weapons. The council of governors of the
western Japan region will submit the resolution to the Foreign Ministry
on Friday.
The United States Information Agency (Jacquelyn S. Porth, "HOLUM: INDIAN,
PAKISTANI NUCLEAR TESTS THREATEN GLOBAL SECURITY," Washington, 06/15/98)
reported that US Acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Security Affairs John Holum on June 10 told a gathering of
international arms control experts in Philadelphia that India and
Pakistan have made themselves "demonstrably less secure" by conducting
nuclear weapons tests. Holum called on global leaders to be careful to
do nothing that would drive India and Pakistan out of existing arms
control regimes, and stressed the importance of maintaining current lines
of communication with them. Holum said that the message to both
governments should be "to cease their inflammatory rhetoric, adopt a
cooling-off period, restore bilateral dialogue, avoid provocative actions
in Kashmir, and address the root causes of their tensions." He said that
the ultimate objective of international reaction must be for India and
Pakistan to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as non-
nuclear weapon states, adding that the NPT will not be modified "to
accommodate their self-declared nuclear status. At the same meeting, Dr.
Anatoliy Grytsenko of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council
said that the recent nuclear tests represented a failure of world arms
control policy. He added that the way the international community
survives this important test in the coming months will determine the
future of international security structures and military alliances.
Grytsenko predicted that Iran might next run its own tests, possibly
inducing Israel and the DPRK to follow. He warned that not all fledgling
nuclear states have good civilian control of their militaries, and urged
the US to increase military-to-military contacts as a way to change
thinking about the role of nuclear power. Former US Senator Sam Nunn
suggested offering India and Pakistan a jointly-manned center for early
warning of missile launches using US detection satellites on Aegis radar-
equipped ships in the Indian Ocean. He asked whether such an offer
should be conditioned on "both countries pledging to take verifiable
steps to assure the world that nuclear weapons are not being deployed."
He added, "Should we ask Russia to join in this proposal with Russia's
own missile warning radar providing partial coverage of both India and
Pakistan? Should we design this concept so that it could include China
in the future?" Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman John Shalikashvili
stated, "it is important for the administration and ... Congress to be
clear that despite India's and Pakistan's regrettable actions, the
(Comprehensive Test Ban) Treaty remains in the best security interest of
everyone."
The NAPSNet Daily Report aims to serve as a forum for dialogue
and exchange among peace and security specialists.
Conventions for readers and a list of acronyms and
abbreviations are available to all recipients.
For descriptions of the world wide web sites used to gather
information for this report, or for more information on web
sites with related information, see the collection of
other NAPSNet resources.
Produced by the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development in partnership with:
Wade L. Huntley: napsnet@nautilus.org
Timothy L. Savage: napsnet@nautilus.org
Shin Dong-bom: dongbom_shin@wisenet.co.kr
Choi Chung-moon: cily@star.elim.co.kr
Hiroyasu Akutsu: akutsu@glocomnet.or.jp
Peter Razvin: icipu@glas.apc.org
Chunsi Wu: dlshen@fudan.ac.cn
Dingli Shen: dlshen@fudan.ac.cn
Return to the Top of this Daily Report
[Next Item][Contents]
[Prev. Item][Next Item][Contents]
[Prev. Item][Next Item][Contents]
[Prev. Item][Next Item][Contents]
[Prev. Item][Next Item][Contents]
[Prev. Item][Contents][Credits]
We invite you to reply to today's report, and we welcome
commentary or papers for distribution to the network.
The Center for International Studies,
Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
The Center for Global Communications, Tokyo, Japan
Center for American Studies,
Fudan University, Shanghai, People's Republic of China
Berkeley, California, United States
Berkeley, California, United States
Seoul, Republic of Korea
Seoul, Republic of Korea
Tokyo, Japan
Moscow, Russian Federation
Shanghai, People's Republic of China
Shanghai, People's Republic of China