Korean crisis could weaken US-China ties

HONG KONG: As North Korea practises brinkmanship with vigor, it has stimulated a flurry of diplomatic activity. Yet it remains exceedingly doubtful that the diplomacy will halt Pyongyang''s current efforts to become the world''s ninth nuclear nation.
This reality is surprising given the grave consequences which would follow from a failure to curtail North Korea''s nuclear ambitions.
Once the North adds nuclear bombs to its proven capacity to manufacture missiles, Japan''s past insistence on a strictly non-nuclear posture would inevitably fall by the wayside. It is almost inconceivable that Japan would sit idly under the potential threat of Pyongyang''s nuclear-tipped Taepodong missiles, capable of hitting any corner of their country.
A nuclearised Japan would alarm China much more than a nuclear North Korea appears to be doing. A nuclearised Japan would almost certainly stimulate South Korea into going nuclear, too, even though the threat of a nuclearised North does not seem to create much Southern alarm.
The fact that an East Asian nuclear arms race is no idle dream came home to me when I interviewed a Korean academic who specialised in such matters during a visit to Seoul.
In answer to my questions, he seriously estimated that Japan had the technological and industrial capability to acquire nuclear weapons in as little as three months while South Korea would take around six months.
That interview took place in the late 1970s, less than a decade after the United States had brought intense pressure to bear on South Korean President Park Chung Hee, forcing him to abandon an incipient nuclear weapons programme. Undoubtedly, both Japan and South Korea have improved their capabilities since then.
Given this potential threat to the region, a degree of urgency in settling the present Korean crisis would seem imperative. So far, it has not been observable. The United States, immersed in confronting Iraq, has even gone to great verbal lengths to insist that there is no crisis.
Early next week, senior Japanese, South Korean and American officials will finally meet in Washington DC to consult on their strategy to meet the situation created by North Korea''s actions. Whether they will be able to fully harmonise their approach remains in doubt since South Korea has already rejected American suggestions at a fresh policy of containment and sanctions against the North.
Another senior South Korean diplomat has been visiting Beijing and Moscow in the last two days. In Beijing, the only visible result of their meeting was that the North Korean Ambassador to China took the opportunity to lecture the foreign press for an hour on his country''s hardline approach.
When Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited President George W Bush''s Texas ranch last October and stressed that China favoured a non-nuclear Korean peninsula, Bush took this to mean that Beijing would soon bring pressure to bear on Pyongyang in an effort to further improve Sino-American relations.
Alone of all the major powers, China has the ability to influence North Korea. It supplies the North with much of its fuel and food, often for free. Though Beijing sometimes claims ignorance -- as it has done over North Korea''s pursuit of nuclear weapons -- it is almost certainly has the best intelligence on, and contacts with, that secretive state, even if it does not share such knowledge with the outside world.
But as far as can be seen, Beijing has not bestirred itself to restrain North Korea''s brinkmanship. To the contrary the official "China Daily" yesterday editorially castigated the United States for its hardline policy towards North Korea, saying it was Washington which had done nothing but raise tensions.
Far from strengthening Sino-American relations, the present Korean crisis might well end up further weakening them.