DPRK nuke tests threaten itself and others
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced on Wednesday that it had successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb. China Daily’s Zhang Zhouxiang interviewed three experts to bring readers their views:
China has long insisted that its cooperation with the DPRK be based on the latter not conducting nuclear tests. What the DPRK claims to have done on Wednesday violates that principle and will damage Beijing-Pyongyang relations.
Worse, it means more trouble for China because the US might strengthen its military presence in the ROK. The US has been trying to deploy anti-ballistic missile defense systems in the ROK, and China has been persuading the latter not to agree to it. By claiming to have tested an H-bomb, the DPRK has offered the best excuse to the US to get the ROK’s nod to do so.
Moreover, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has condemned the DPRK’s nuclear test and it is highly possible that his fellow right-wing politicians will devise their own nuclear program as a deterrence to the DPRK. If such a scenario becomes reality, it will undermine China’s strategic arrangements in the Asia-Pacific region.
To prevent this from happening, China needs to take more effective measures to prevent the US from exploiting the situation and quicken its pace to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems in the ROK. China also needs to coordinate its measures with Russia to exert more pressure on the DPRK to abandon its nuclear program.
Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Even though the DPRK claims to have successfully conducted an H-bomb test, its authenticity remains questionable. The 4.9 magnitude earthquake said to have caused by the test indicates Pyongyang might have made some breakthrough in nuclear fusion experiments.
However, the DPRK’s nuclear program will push it into a security dilemma, instead of making it more secure. International relations experts have been emphasizing that there is no such thing as “absolute security” for a state. If a state pursues armament that exceeds its needs, its neighbors and other states will feel threatened and also start pursuing arms for their national security, which could start a deadly arms race.
In particular, if the DPRK proves that it really possesses nuclear bombs, the US and the ROK could take stronger military actions against it. Therefore, the DPRK needs to use some other means to make itself secure. Actually, its biggest perceived threat comes from the military drills of the US and the ROK, but the two countries have been holding fewer such exercises in recent years.
If the DPRK promotes economic growth to improve the livelihoods of its people, instead of pursuing nuclear weapons, it will not face any serious threat in the coming future. But if it continues conducting nuclear tests defying international opposition, it will only make other countries feel threatened and force them to take severe countermeasures. Zheng Jiyong, an associate professor on Korean Peninsula studies at Fudan University
It is difficult to say whether the DPRK has indeed conducted an H-bomb test because, going by international standards, it lags far behind in nuclear technology. But it has some nuclear capability.
The DPRK may claim to have developed nuclear weapons because of the threat from the United States, but that is only an excuse, because essentially it is trying to exploit the differences between China and the US.
More importantly, China rather than the US will be the biggest and most direct victim of the DPRK’s nuclear program. The H-bomb test site, if indeed Pyongyang has conducted one, is just more than 100 km from the ChinaDPRK border along which on Wednesday many local residents felt tremors and some middle schools even suspended classes fearing an earthquake. And since Pyongyang conducted its previous nuclear tests also near the China-DPRK border, the threat to China is real.
In case of a nuclear leak, for instance, China’s Jilin province that borders the DPRK will suffer the greatest damage owing to radiation and nuclear contamination.
Before Wednesday, the DPRK had conducted three nuclear tests, and each time the Chinese government or people urged it to abandon its nuclear program in exchange for more economic aid. But it seems the DPRK has made the nuclear program an integral part of its national strategy, as opposed to using it as a bargaining chip. In such a case, economic aid will only help the DPRK develop nuclear weapons, thwarting China’s efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Zhang Lian’gui, a professor of international strategy studies at the Central Party School