The Guardian 19 July, 2006
For peace in Northeast Asia
Last week the UN Security Council voted on a resolution dealing with the so-called "Korean missile crisis".
The Chinese Government had indicated that it would veto the resolution submitted by Japan and supported by the United States. It calls for sanctions and other stringent measures against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
The resolution, finally adopted unanimously, called on the DPRK to cease its missile tests but did not impose sanctions or other penalties. Furthermore, the resolution is described as "non-binding". Its terms have been rejected by the DPRK indicating that it will not commit to the suspension of missile tests in the future.
Other countries are aware of the double standards involved in the complaint about Korean missile launches. At the same time as the US was stirring up a big campaign against North Korea it launched its own long-range Minuteman missile from the Vandenburg Airforce Base in California to the Kwajelien Atoll in the Pacific. US authorities described it as a "routine" launch — just as the DPRK announced its missile launches as part of "routine military exercises". India also launched a long-range missile in the same period about which nothing is being said.
Indicating a more aggressive stand in world affairs, a number of Japanese politicians have made threats of a "pre-emptive" strike against the DPRK.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that the Japanese remarks, made at a time when the international community is trying all efforts for peaceful diplomacy, are "extremely irresponsible".
A South Korean Presidential spokesman said that "the Japanese political leaders are making dangerous and reckless remarks involving a pre-emptive strike ... [it] is an attempt to further intensify a crisis on the Korean peninsula and to justify the militarisation of Japan".
A factor that is irking the Bush administration is the developing friendly exchanges between the people of both North and South Korea. These exchanges also involve high level politicians and government officials and are aimed at the step by step reunification of the divided Korea. A united Korea would remove any excuse for the presence of a United States occupation force.
Referring to the threats to the DPRK, Paul Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary to the Treasury during the Reagan administration, writes that: "The Bush regime thinks that it can have every country under its thumb. Neo-cons are fond of proclaiming that it is a unipolar world in which the US is supreme. This is a fantasy and it is rapidly becoming a nightmare. Our power is not what it once was…"