2.1 Causes of the Nuclear Crisis: Political and Economic Issues

2.1.1 North Korea's nuclear drive

North Korea's nuclear ambition is one of the most concerning military developments in Northeast Asia and beyond. North Korea is not the only country that has developed nuclear weapons outside the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons)—India, Pakistan, and Israel have not accepted the NPT and have developed their own nuclear weapons. Regardless, the continuing hostility between North Korea and the West renders North Korea's nuclear development particularly alarming. On October 9, 2006, North Korea announced its first nuclear test. North Korea has since developed and tested intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the continental United States. While other countries—India, Pakistan, and Israel—have secured nuclear capabilities rather quietly, North Korea has openly threatened to use its nuclear weapons against the United States and South Korea. Analysts have estimated that North Korea has more than 60 nuclear weapons and could develop around 200 nuclear weapons and stockpile hundreds of ballistic missiles by 2027. North Korea's nuclear ambitions have altered the balance of military power in Northeast Asia and the security landscape of the region, creating substantial political and economic ramifications.

North Korea's nuclear development traces back to the mid-1950s, shortly after the Korean War. North Korea had the uranium deposits to develop nuclear weapons, but it lacked the technology. In 1956, North Korea signed an agreement on nuclear research with the Soviet Union, and North Korean scientists received training in nuclear technologies in Russia. In September 1959, the Soviet Union also agreed to help North Korea establish a nuclear research center. That same year, North Korea also signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with China. In 1965, the Soviet Union sold North Korea a small two- to four-megawatt research reactor, which North Korea began operating near Yongbyon in 1967. In the 1970s, however, conciliatory international developments such as the non-proliferation treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union made it more difficult for North Korea to obtain foreign assistance to build nuclear weapons. North Korea felt little urgency to develop its nuclear capabilities, though, because it perceived little or no threat from South Korea, which was then focusing on economic development. Interestingly, North Korea proposed a joint nuclear program to South Korea in the 1970s, although South Korea did not accept.

Northeast Asia, a major region in Asia covering China, Korea (South and North Korea), Japan, Mongolia, and the Southeast corner of Russia, is economically one of the most vibrant areas in the world, with a rich array of economic opportunities. Yet, it is simultaneously one of the world's most politically and militarily unstable regions, creating a global security risk. This risk was made apparent by North Korea's nuclear crisis, which was followed by a series of its nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches from 2016 to 2017. Although the worst-case scenario may have been avoided by a summit meeting between the heads of South and North Korea on April 27, 2018, and another summit between the United States and North Korea on June 12, 2018, substantial uncertainty and the risk of a major military conflict remains.

Although less dramatic and visible to the outside world, other political and military tensions among constituent countries in Northeast Asia, with their deep historical origins dating back centuries, are also significant. These tensions have been demonstrated by persistent territorial disputes, lack of reconciliation on the question of war crimes during World War II, increasing disparities in political influence and military power among Northeast Asian countries as a result of China's ascension, and deepening uncertainty in the region due to the potential instability of North Korea (caused by its confrontations with South Korea and its allies, internal political issues, and economic problems). These problems carry with them the potential to destabilize Northeast Asia, the effects of which would have a substantial global impact.

This book examines the causes of these complex tensions in Northeast Asia and their underlying political, historic, military, and economic developments. It further discusses their political-economic implications for the world and explores possible solutions to build lasting peace in the region. This book offers a unique approach to these important issues by examining the perspectives of each constituent country in Northeast Asia: China, South and North Korea, Japan, and Mongolia, and their respective roles in the region. Major global powers, such as the United States and Russia, have also closely engaged in the political and economic affairs of the region through a network of alliances, diplomacy, trade, and investment. The book will discuss the influence of these external powers, their political and economic objectives in the region, their strategies, and the dynamics that their engagement has brought to the region.

The strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific region has devolved into a fraught set of conflict points, now stretching from the India-China border, through the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait to the East China Sea. Yet no part of that arc is as complex as the Northeast Asian theatre, where the interests of six parties collide: the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the United States. As U.S.-China relations have deteriorated, the Cold War divides that have been in place since the end of the Pacific War have hardened, with declining prospects of a negotiated settlement. China's struggle to define its global status and the war in Ukraine are now central drivers in this drama. But in the end, the Korean peninsula remains at its heart, precisely because it increasingly surfaces as a focal point for a broader array of competing interests. Those now include China's decision to cast its fate with Russia and the corresponding logic of tighter political, military and economic cooperation among the democracies: the United States, Japan and South Korea.

Y.S. Lee weaves an introduction to the current state of play. A distinctive feature of the approach is to work through the perspectives of each of the relevant players, with a particular bonus in considering Mongolia's contributions as well. Prof. Lee sees a long-term solution as requiring an institutional component—some kind of regional integration effort that would pull North Korea into the Asia-Pacific success story. He recognizes that building a rules-based order will hinge on where China's domestic politics is headed, but the U.S. must also take diplomatic risks and lead on the economic issues.

Prof. Lee's approach is anchored in realist fundamentals. China is clearly central to sustainable peace in Northeast Asia, and nothing will move unless Beijing comes to see it in its interest to make them move. Given China's massive political, economic, and military influence in the region, a more balanced, reconciliatory, and constructive engagement with the other Northeast Asian countries around the Korean peninsula is imperative to achieve a meaningful settlement. However, Lee's account acknowledges that the nature of China's foreign engagement is inseparable from its internal governance style. He outlines a classic liberal argument (and one with which I strongly agree): China's authoritarian turn is intimately connected with its more confrontational, aggressive, and coercive foreign policy, with Xi Jinping sitting as the architect of that approach.

In the Phaedrus, Socrates outlines two essential procedures of classification. One is to bring a plurality under the appropriate form.

The aim of our science, it is often said, is to “cut nature at its joints” (Campbell, O’Rourke, and Slater 2011). But does nature have joints? And what determines where those joints are?

Particular categories exfoliate from others via principles of division which both separate (from taxonomic predecessors) and unite (among their taxonomic successors). So in the end we have a unified grouping united by specification commonalities. And just herein lies the difficulty. For in committing ourselves to a claim of the format “All items of category C are united in possessing feature F” we undertake risky factual commitments when definitions are not at issue. “Swans are white” – but unfortunately there are those antipodean exceptions. “Species breed true by type” – but if they did so invariably then there could be no evolution. The history of science is a litany of unraveled taxonomies as new phenomena fail to conform to established patterns (Oppenheim 1936, Hempel and Oppenheim 1936).

Scientific Categorization

Categorization is crucial to all cognition: without categories, we have the possibility of neither generalization nor individuation: an appreciation for kinds of things and for identification of things, essentially as of a kind. Navigation in our world, or any world, requires its conceptualization in terms of categories. The task of science is of a piece: an extended cultural tradition of attempting to navigate our world in terms of understanding and prediction. The goal is to represent a world well enough to accommodate ourselves to it and, where possible, to accommodate the world to us. As in all conceptual navigation, as in all cognition, categorization is crucial.

It is possible to write the history of science as the history of an attempt to get the right representation of the structure and mechanisms of the world around us. That representation is inevitably in terms of categories – categories of both things and mechanisms. In that sense, the history of science is the history of an attempt to conceptualize the world in terms of the right categories.

What makes them the right categories? Here there are two answers.

IT has been already related that the Calypso separated from us on the night between the 16th and 17th of April, and had arrived at Santa Cruz, the place of rendezvous, on the 4th day of May, from which latter place Mr. Dalrymple immediately sailed, on account of the small-pox being on board, without leaving for us any intimation of a second rendezvous, or his future intentions. At this time they had buried one man, David Cook, a labourer, who died of a consumption, and one child, Mary Williams, who died in convulsions.

Instead of proceeding to Port Praya, in St. Jago, and there waiting several days for the other vessels, as ought to have been done, the Calypso sailed directly for Goree, where they arrived on the evening of the 12th, a place ill calculated to supply the necessities of the colonists, Mr. Dalrymple had been induced to make this choice from an idea that he should there be able to pro-cure a pilot for the Bijuga channel.

Having been able to procure but little water, and less refreshments for the people, the Calypso sailed from Goree on the 19th, and on the 21st anchored in the Bijuga channel. On the 24th she got sight of the island of Bulama, and sent all the boats armed on shore. The next day one of the boats having returned, the ship got under weigh, and proceeded towards that island, where she anchored in the evening.

On the 26th a party of men was missing in the woods, and the next day another party was sent in search of them; some of the missing returned from the woods on the 28th, and the day following the remainder of them much fatigued. Some of them had, whether wantonly or not I am ignorant, set fire to the long dry grass, which spread with much rapidity to a great extent, and continued burning for many hours; in the mean time several of the colonists had erected small huts and tents on shore; parties wandered wherever they pleased in the day, and returned to the ship or not as they thought proper in the evening: in short, nothing could be more irregular or improper than their conduct.