Japan will likely go nuclear if a unified Korea decides to keep the nuclear arsenal developed by North Korea, setting the stage for a tense military competition between the two Northeast Asian rivals, Yonhap News Agency reported Monday, quoting a U.S. congressional report.
"Any eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula could further induce Japan to reconsider its nuclear stance," the report by the Congressional Research Service was quoted as saying.
"If the two Koreas unify while North Korea still holds nuclear weapons and the new state opts to keep a nuclear arsenal, Japan may face a different calculation," said the Jan. 19 report, titled "Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects and U.S. Interests." It cites some Japanese analysts as describing a nuclear-armed unified Korea as "more of a threat than a nuclear-armed North Korea."
Well, I know at least my students would like nothing more than to bomb Japan.
It's of course an understatement to say a nuclear Japan would be a disappointment and a sad indictment of our blood-hungry world. Koreans and others around the world are of course concerned about Japanese rearmament. But the thing about that is, you can't try and restrict Japan, hold them to the pacificsm imposed after the war, rail against Japan's past aggression, and worry about hypothetical aggressive ambitions when North Korea is already developing increasingly advanced weapons and has no qualms about firing them at its neighbors. The North Korean
1 comment:
Besides the overwhelming benefit of maintaining the Pax Americana, one key reason the US feels compelled to stay in both South Korea and Japan is that if the US leaves and those two countries (reasonably, I think) feel vulnerable, they are quite likely to go nuclear. The US asked both NOT to go nuclear, in exchange for keeping them under the US's own nuclear umbrella.
If North Korea has nukes and reunification occurs, Washington will put intense pressure on Seoul to give up the nukes that are recovered.
Post a Comment