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Subject:
Korea under US Nuclear Umbrella?
RaptorZ
10/20/2006 9:47:59 AM
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Someone posted somewhere if we should add South Korea to the Umbrella of protection....I didn't know when the question was posed what my answer would be, now it'd be a definite NO. The South Koreans need to fend for themselves in my opinion.....let us just worry about true allies like Japan.....Below is an article that helped me come to that conclusion.....
Seoul joins Beijing in refusing to cooperate with U.S. Proliferation Security Initiative
By Donald Kirk
East-Asia-Intel.com, October 18, 2006
SEOUL ? South Korea is battling to avoid committing to the U.S.-backed Proliferation Security Initiative that the U.S. is promoting in the wake of a UN resolution imposing sanctions on North Korea.
Participating in PSI would mean blocking shipments of suspicious cargoes in and out of North Korea to other countries eager to develop their own weapons of mass destruction.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice speaks to South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon in Seoul on Oct. 19. AFP/Pool/File/Kim Kyung-Hoon
Although the South has sent observers to PSI exercises, South Korean officials warily fended off suggestions that they join some 70 other nations as full-fledged participants in PSI.
National Security Adviser Song Min Soon signaled South Korea?s position in meetings with Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific and advance man for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice?s visit here on Thursday.
In briefings with Hill and others, Song diplomatically dissed PSI, the pet project of John Bolton when he was undersecretary of state for disarmament.
?We are not simply swayed by other countries? opinions,? he said. ?We'll have to maintain balance and direction in circumstances to play an important role in the international society.?
While making clear that South Korea has no desire to join in the project, Song also sided with Beijing, noting that ?participation of South Korea and China in the PSI will have different meaning for the non-proliferation initiative.?
By that remark, he meant that South Korea was not about to join in any program for boarding and interdicting vessels suspected of carrying the components for weapons of mass destruction. Still, not wanting to offend the visitors from Washington, Song said his government would consider expanding its role in PSI to ?an appropriate and necessary level,? all in accord with the UN sanctions.
South Korea, he said carefully, would ?closely examine the contents of the PSI and inter-Korean maritime accords before finalizing our stance.?
Meqnwhile, the U.S. and South Korea clashed over two showcase projects just over the line with North Korea that South Korea has no desire to relinquish regardless of North Korean nuclear or missile tests or U.S. pressure.
The unification ministry, bracing for Rice?s visit, said it would stop paying subsidies for students, veterans and people with disabilities taking Mount Kumkang tours, but that decision was strictly symbolic. The subsidies in 2004 were only $3 million, down from $22.5 million in 2002, and a spokesman said the government could not do much else since the tours were run ?by a private business? ? Hyundai Asan.
That disingenuous comment, though, overlooked the hundreds of millions of dollars poured by Hyundai Asan into the Kumkang tours as well as millions more for the company?s exclusive contract for developing the Kaesong zone, in which 15 small South Korean factories are investing still more, producing goods with cheap North Korean labor.
The government here refuses to accept the argument that money poured into industrial investment in the Kaesong special economic zone, next to the truce village of Panmunjom, about 40 miles of here, or the Mount Kumkang tourist zone above the eastern end of the demilitarized zone is all in support of North Korean military or nuclear adventurism.
Yes, said Song, addressing a security forum after having come out with much the same line at a background briefing, ?We will heed the demands from the international community in seeking to change operational methods for the Mount Kumkang and Kaesong industrial complex projects.?
In the next breath, though, he stated flatly the government?s position, namely that it had ?never expressed an intention to shut down the Kaesong and Kumkang projects.?
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