Unprepared to Collaborate?
On January 6, North Korea announced that it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. American and South Korean nuclear weapons experts highly doubt that the claim is credible because the tremors detected after the test were smaller than those of a typical hydrogen bomb explosion. Some experts suggest that the North Korean government might have tested a “boosted-fission weapon,” a stronger version of an atomic bomb, rather than an actual hydrogen bomb. Just after North Korea’s announcement, President Park Geun-Hye of South Korea called for a National Security Council meeting to discuss further action with her officials. In immediate response, the South Korean government resumed propaganda broadcasts to “retaliate for the test.” Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, has said that it is difficult to accept the claim as true and that there has to be further analysis of other possibilities, such as the use of a smaller hydrogen bomb.
North Korea’s development of a hydrogen bomb, if successful, greatly disturbs the current balance of power in the East Asian region. With Seoul only 105 miles from Pyongyang, the bomb would pose the greatest security threat to South Korea. Seoul fears that if North Korea successfully acquires stronger nuclear capabilities, its northern neighbor will consider them to be irrelevant and explicitly ignore them geopolitically. South Korea does not have nuclear weapons of its own.
On February 2, Pyongyang further elevated the military tensions in the Korean peninsula by demanding navigation safety from the United Nations for its plan to launch long-range rockets. Pyongyang has announced that the exact date for the launch has not yet been determined but that it will take place sometime between February 8 and 25. North Korea claims that this scheduled launch is for an observation satellite as a part of its national space development program. Military experts, however, assert that the purpose of this launch is to test intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), not to place a satellite into orbit. U.N. Security Council resolutions ban Pyongyang from such activity.
Recent images taken this Friday, February 5, by U.S. satellites revealed the arrival of fuel trucks at North Korea’s rocket launch site. While Pyongyang boasts about its preparations for the scheduled launch, the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China seem unprepared to act together. On the same day, South Korean President Park, on a direct phone call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, asked for Beijing’s active participation in imposing U.N. sanctions effective enough to change North Korea’s course of action. Xi fell short of President Park’s expectation and reaffirmed China’s unwillingness to take such actions. The United States has taken the initiative and placed the newest radar ship equipped with missile tracking ability in a Japanese port.