Discorsi di guerra, e visite a fabbriche/Uno scambio di fuoco di artiglieria aumenta le tensioni nella penisola coreana

Discorsi di guerra, e visite a fabbriche

+ Wsws, Uno scambio di fuoco di artiglieria aumenta le tensioni nella penisola coreana, Bill Van Auken

●    Wsws: Qualsiasi conflitto nella penisola coreana coinvolge direttamente le altri grandi potenze, in particolare Cina e Usa,

o   che stanno entrando in conflitto sui rispettivi interessi strategici in tutta l’Asia.

o   Obama ha risposto al recente scontro tra le due Coree impegnando il proprio governo a difendere il Sud Corea, alleato americano dalla guerra di Corea.

– Lo spettro della presenza di una potente forza navale americana nel Mar Giallo ha fatto salire il livello delle tensioni per la disputa territoriale nel Mar Giallo tra Nord (N-C) e Sud Corea (S-C),

o   che dalla definizione del confine nel 1953, mai accettata dal N-C, ha visto numerosi incidenti.

– La decisione Usa di includere la portaerei nucleare Uss George Washington nella flotta di 5 navi da guerra per le esercitazioni militari con il Sud Corea (5 giorni ad iniziare dalla prossima domenica)

– rappresenta una sfida verso il Nord Corea ma anche la Cina, che considera l’area delle esercitazioni come propria sfera di influenza – in particolare dopo lo scambio di colpi di artiglieria (sarebbero 170 i colpi sparati dai nordcoreani) sulla piccola isola sudcoreana di Yeonpyeong, 1200 abitanti per lo più da pescatori ed agricoltori, vicino a basi della marina.

o   Gli scontri sono avvenuti nel corso delle annuali esercitazioni militari sudcoreane, “Hoguk”, che impegnano circa 70 000 soldati per 9 giorni, e alle quali di solito partecipano gli Usa.[1] Il Nord Corea accusa il Sud di aver sparato contro le sue acque costiere durante le esercitazioni …

– Tesi (su Asia Times)di Donald Kirk: La vera questione è che Usa e Sud Corea non riescono a convincere la Cina a far pressione sul Nord Corea perché cambi strategia, come pre-requisito per la ripresa dei negoziati a sei (Nord Corea, Sud Corea, Usa, Russia, Cina, Giappone).

– Tesi (su Asia Times)di Sunny Lee: le rivelazioni nordcoreane sulle nuove strutture per l’arricchimento dell’uranio sono uno scossone alla strategia del bastone-carota Usa e sudcoreana (sanzioni e dialogo) per spingere il Nord Corea a rinunciare al proprio programma nucleare. Un sfida a Seoul e Washington che ora devono trovare una risposta coordinata.

– Con le iniziative attuali (dichiarazioni sul nucleare e scontro armato con il S-C) il N-C cerca di costringere alla ripresa dei negoziati per la quale ha lavorato anche la diplomazia cinese (e russa),

o   mentre Usa e S-C frenano cercando di strappare qualcosa di più; il S-C chiede anche come condizione per eventuali aiuti economici che il N-C dimostri di essere disposto ad avviare unilateralmente la denuclearizzazione.

o   La questione nordcoreana è prioritaria per il S-C, mentre per gli Usa di Obama viene dopo il MO e l’Afghanistan, e si appoggiano di conseguenza sul S-C, soprattutto dopo l’incidente di Cheonan dello scorso marzo, con la morte di 46 marinai sud coreani.

– Condividono questa tesi alcuni autorevoli analisti.

– La dimostrazione di forza del N-C avrebbe un uso politico interno: secondo i media sudcoreani, i tiri di artiglieria contro l’isola di Yongpyong[2] sarebbero stati ordinari dallo stesso presidente Kim Jong-il per rafforzare la posizione del figlio e probabile successore Kim Jong-eun (27 anni), tra i quadri militari, tesi condivisa dal ministro Difesa del S-C, Kim Tae-young.

– Secondo la think tank americana Stratfor, collegata ai servizi americani, l’iniziativa militare nord coreana riflette insoddisfazioni tra i militari o scontri all’interno della sua leadership.

– Il Nord Corea ha promesso nuovi attacchi in caso di minimi sconfinamenti; non si prevede però che risponda con le armi alla dimostrazione di forza delle manovre congiunte americane-sudcoreane, al largo della costa occidentale.

Obiettivo delle manovre, secondo dichiarazioni del comando Usa, «migliorare l’interoperabilità militare (il coordinamento militare con i sudcoreani) dimostrando al contempo la forza dell’alleanza tra i due paesi e l’impegno americano alla stabilità regionale con la deterrenza».

War talk, and factory visits

–   SEOUL – The specter of a powerful American naval force steaming into the Yellow Sea escalates the drama of conflict off the Korean Peninsula to a new level of intensity.

–   The decision to include the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington in a strike force of five vessels defies not only North Korean threats but also the objections of China into what the Chinese have come to regard as their own sphere of influence.

–   The USS George Washington, with a combat-ready air wing on board, arrives Sunday, joining the South Koreans in an exercise that’s sure to keep the waters boiling for five days of war games in the aftermath of North Korea’s artillery barrage on a small South Korean island on Tuesday.

–   The show of force will be dramatic, but North Korea is not expected to respond with gunfire as long as the Americans are operating off South Korea’s west coast. They would not, in any case, be able to do much harm to the Americans, whose forces will remain well below the Northern Limit Line below which the US and South Koreans say North Korean ships are banned.

–   North Korea has breathed fresh outrage, promising to launch attacks against hostile forces intruding so much as one millimeter into their own waters. It was on that pretext that North Korea on Tuesday fired 170 shells into an island populated mainly by fishermen and farmers living near bases where South Korean marines were operating.

–   Hours after the barrage, North Korea was boasting of its success in defeating the South, and the sense now is that the North has made its point. North Korean forces may strike again anywhere, on sea and along the 160-mile land border between the two Koreas, taking South Korea and the US by surprise.

Given that strategy, the appearance of USS George Washington in the Yellow Sea is clearly another act in the drama but not a sign of mounting hostilities. The US command covered the announcement in a veneer of verbiage intended to show that the operation was not only "defensive in nature" but "well planned before yesterday’s unprovoked attack".

–   The purpose, said the command, was "to improve our military interoperability " – meaning coordination with South Koreans – while demonstrating "the strength of the Republic of Korea-US alliance and our commitment to regional stability through deterrence."

–   The real problem, however, is that the US and South Korea seem incapable of persuading China to bring enough pressure on North Korea to persuade the North to pull back from a strategy of intermittent violence and intimidation.

–   The United States has been pleading with China to bring North Korea into line as a prerequisite for any consideration of returning to negotiations.

President Barack Obama buttressed American diplomatic gestures during a half-hour telephone conversation with South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak. Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, passing on the word from Lee’s staff at the Blue House, said that Obama had told Lee that China needed to take a firm stand against the North. A Blue House spokesman said the two leaders "agreed that the indiscriminate attack against the territory of the Republic of Korea and its civilians was a premeditated provocation".

Neither Obama nor Lee, however, seems willing to go beyond joint exercises.

–   They apparently did not discuss the critical question of at what stage the United States would send troops to South Korea’s defense with orders to fire back if North Korean forces fired on South Koreans. Nor have any elements of the 28,500 Americans in uniform here been ordered to join the South Koreans in the Yellow Sea on anything other than training exercises.

–   All that, however, hardly diminishes the medium and long-range problems posed by a regime in the midst of a leadership transition that one can only guess at.

–   The current speculation in Seoul is that again Kim Jong-il’s son and heir presumptive, Kim Jong-eun, has spurred on the aggressive policy to show his own toughness and win support among hard-line generals. The kid, in his late 20s, would not be giving orders to grizzled generals who got their first taste of combat in the Korean War, but he could well see his advocacy of unremitting toughness as a means to show the generals he’s ready to take over power whenever his ailing father leaves the scene.

–   In a curious footnote to a day of feverish alarm, father and son were reported yesterday to have been visiting a soybean factory. They also, however, have been visiting military units in recent months, getting the image of the son before people who had never heard of him until he appeared at a Workers’ Party Conference and then a parade on October 20 that marked the party’s 65th anniversary.

–   South Korea’s Defense Minister Kim Tae-young supported that theory in light of North Korea’s revelation of a new uranium enrichment plant nearing completion at its main nuclear complex at Yongbyon. The North’s aging five-megawatt reactor has already fabricated enough material with plutonium at its core for up to a dozen warheads, according to intelligence estimates.

–   Kim said he believed North Korea had staged Tuesday’s barrage "to give Kim Jong-eun the status of a strong leader" while US experts, back in Washington, reported on their visit to the uranium-enrichment facility on November 12.

As emotions engendered by the attack settled down, South Korea’s financial gurus got down to business as usual. The Bank of Korea said it would inject funds into the market to combat "excessive herd behavior" – that is, an instinct to sell off stock in a hurry in response to the attack. The Finance Ministry put out a statement promising "timely action" in cooperation with the central bank.

–   The financial chieftains held what was described as an "emergency meeting." Their statements suggested fears over the economic fallout may be greater than those of a wider conflict that many believe is not going to happen while US and South Korean forces are playing war games off the west coast.

Donald Kirk, a long-time journalist in Asia, is author of the newly published Korea Betrayed: Kim Dae Jung and Sunshine.

Bang! Now let’s talk

–   BEIJING – North Korea’s surprising disclosure of uranium-enrichment facilities comes as a powerful jolt to the United States and South Korea, which have adopted a dual strategy of stick and carrot in getting Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

The challenge for Seoul and Washington is to find a coordinated response, analysts said.

–   The North continued to up the ante on Tuesday when it fired dozens of artillery shells at the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula near a disputed maritime border.

A spokesman for South Korea’s joint chief of staff confirmed the incident but only said "scores of rounds" were fired. The fire apparently came from positions south of the North Korean city of Haeju, and the South returned fire.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said one South Korean soldier had been killed and dozens wounded in the shelling. About 1,200 people live on the island.

–   The latest concern over Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions follows remarks over the weekend by Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear scientist at Stanford University in the United States who claimed to have been shown a new uranium-enrichment facility during a visit to North Korea in early November.

Hecker, a former director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, posted a detailed report about his visit to North Korea on Stanford’s web site, and said he had been shown more than 2,000 centrifuges during a tour of the Yongbyon nuclear complex, which he characterized as "stunning" and said the control room was "astonishingly modern".

Enriching natural uranium to 3-5% produces fuel for light-water reactors. But enriching it to more than 90% yields the ingredients for a nuclear bomb.

–   Many observers have urged the US and its allies to engage North Korea, saying the proliferation challenge from the country will continue to grow if it is not dealt with. North Korea has recently expressed its willingness to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear program that have been stalled for more than a year and follow through on a September 2005 agreement to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

"It’s a provocation [disclosure of the centrifuges] from the US perspective. But from the North Korean perspective, it’s a reasonable response," said John Delury, a security expert at the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies in Seoul. In recent weeks North Korea has been sending signals that it is willing to go back to the six-party talks that include North and South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia.

–   China has been campaigning for the resumption of the talks in brisk shuttle diplomacy on behalf of North Korea and there have been a number of statements, public and through other channels, that Pyongyang is ready to go back to the negotiation table.

–   But the US and South Korea have been holding back, waiting for something more, expecting a clear step on the North’s side to demonstrate it is ready to start denuclearization unilaterally, said Delury, who recently visited North Korea. "Personally, I don’t think that was going to ever come about. They’ve probably realized so. This is North Korea’s stick now [to get them to talk]."

–   Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korea studies at Seoul’s Dongguk University, who is currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University, said North Korea’s pre-existing plutonium programs that can produce nuclear weapons had been de facto recognized as Washington and Seoul had been taking their time in not engaging North Korea. "As a result, things are now more complicated than before. Now, North Korea has another card, called uranium," said Koh.

–   Analysts said Pyongyang’s expose of its uranium program was a signal that it be taken seriously as a dialogue partner by the US, which has been officially using a South Korea-initiated dual strategy combining sanctions with dialogue, but this has de facto resulted in it avoiding dialogue with North Korea.

–   Cui Zhiying, director of the Korean Peninsula Research Office under the Asia-Pacific Research Center of Tongji University in Shanghai, said the North’s latest provocation shouldn’t be seen as seeking confrontation, but rather its own way of signaling to the US that it wants dialogue. "North Korea has repeatedly expressed that it wants dialogue with the US and it wants the six-party talks to resume. But the US and South Korea have not been forthcoming. So, North Korea is pressuring them to come to the talks," Cui said.

–   North Korea’s antics come amid an ongoing power transition from Dear Leader Kim Jong-il to his third and youngest son, Kim Jong-eun, who is believed to be 27. The rapidly unfolding succession process, sparked by Kim Jong-il’s stroke in the summer of 2008, led to the North Korean leader visiting China twice this year, which is seen as paving the way for earning China’s endorsement for the successor and seeking China’s economic support for the economically hobbled country.

"Kim Jong-il is sculpting his son with a strong leader’s image with the latest nuclear move," said Tetsuo Kotani, a research fellow at the Okazaki Institute, a think-tank in Tokyo.

–   With the successor in place, South Korean analysts see North Korea as being more stable. "Some view the North’s brinkmanship as a way to seek outside help to improve its internal dire situation. Yet I am inclined to see it as a sign of the North’s confidence that it can pull through both the succession and on the nuclear front," said Koh at Stanford University.

–   Analysts see Pyongyang’s overture as putting Seoul and Washington in a dilemma. The allies have different priorities in dealing with North Korea. Since the hardline Lee Myung-bak administration took power in 2008, Seoul has cold-shouldered North Korea, demanding that it first show a sincere willingness for denuclearization as a condition for engagement, including provision of economic aid.

–   For the Barack Obama administration, North Korea has been a lower-tier international affairs priority, behind the Middle East and Afghanistan. Washington’s lack of enthusiasm to engage North Korea, while it has also been preoccupied with its domestic economic woes, is manifest in its reliance on the lead of its Asian ally, South Korea. This is especially the case since the Cheonan incident in March, in which 46 South Korean sailors on the corvette died in the volatile West Sea, near the disputed inter-Korean border.

Seoul blames the torpedo attack on the North, which denies any involvement, and the US decided to stand firmly by Seoul in its call for a punitive stance on North Korea.

–   How long the US goes along with its ally is debatable. Seoul is not in a position to do an about-face and engage Pyongyang, especially after the centrifuge revelations. The Lee administration has all along maintained that the North’s denuclearization is a precondition for engagement. Thus, it would be impossible for Seoul to engage North Korea at a time the North is apparently ramping up its nuclear arsenal.

–   "Seoul may opt for more sanctions. But I don’t think the sanctions approach has proved to be very effective. You’ve got to sit down at the negotiation table," said Delury in Seoul. "What’s important now is for the US to start a dialogue with North Korea," said Cui in Shanghai. Kotani in Tokyo expects the US will enter into a brisk round of talks with the other powers involved in the North’s denuclearization talks, including China, before deciding its stance.

–   For Washington – with non-proliferation in mind – the issue is how to engage North Korea without hurting Seoul’s feelings; sophisticated diplomatic communication will be required, observers said.

–   This is not happening at present. Stephen Bosworth, the US’s special representative for North Korean policy, characterized the North’s revelation of a uranium-enrichment program as "provocative", while speaking in Seoul on Monday. Some analysts believe the apparent harsh response might be lip-service to Seoul decision-makers as it belies the very purpose of his Asian swing, which is to restart the six-party talks.

United States State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said the Obama administration would take its time to assess the available information, adding that Pyongyang’s move may be a "publicity stunt".

All the same, the US might have to act sooner rather than later. "While the US has been waiting, North Korea has developed plutonium programs. The US cannot afford to neglect the uranium facilities as well," said Koh at Stanford University.

Sunny Lee (sleethenational@gmail.com) is a Seoul-born columnist and journalist; he has degrees from the US and China.

—————–

World Socialist Web Site

Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)

By Bill Van Auken

–   An exchange of artillery fire between North and South Korea on Tuesday provoked angry denunciations from Washington and warnings from Beijing and Moscow that mounting military tensions could provoke a disaster.

–   Each side blamed the other in the confrontation, which erupted near the Northern Limit Line, the disputed border in the Yellow Sea. Unilaterally declared by the US military at the end of the Korean War in 1953 and never accepted by North Korea, the border has been the scene of repeated clashes.

–   Scores of North Korean artillery shells struck the island of Yeonpyeong, which lies just two miles from the disputed border and eight miles from the North Korean coast (and 50 miles from the South). The barrage, most of which struck a military base on the island, left two South Korean marines dead and wounded 17 along with three civilians. Hundreds of homes were left in flames, and smoke could be seen billowing over the island.

In the wake of the bombardment, South Korea evacuated some 5,000 civilians from Yeonpyeong and neighboring islands.

–   Following the barrage, the South fired some 80 shells into North Korea and scrambled fighter planes over the island. There were no immediate reports on casualties from the South Korean attack, but the South Korean military command said that it had inflicted “considerable damage” on coastal bases in the towns of Gaemeori and Mudo in the North.

–   While the government in Seoul charged that the North Korean military fired first in an unprovoked attack, the government in Pyongyang accused the South of initiating the confrontation by firing into its waters.

“The South Korean enemy, despite our repeated warnings, committed reckless military provocations of firing artillery shells into our maritime territory,” North Korea’s supreme military command said in a statement quoted by the state-run KCNA news agency.

–   Any conflict on the Korean peninsula directly involves other major powers, above all the United States and China. US president Barack Obama responded Tuesday by committing his government to the defense of South Korea. "South Korea is our ally. It has been since the Korean war," he said. "And we strongly affirm our commitment to defend South Korea as part of that alliance."

–   The latest confrontation erupted in the midst of the annual “Hoguk” military exercises involving some 70,000 South Korean troops. The nine-day exercises, which are to conclude on November 30, were to include simulated landings by South Korean troops, which Pyongyang charged were a rehearsal for an invasion of the North. The United States usually participates with the South Koreans, though it withdrew from the exercises earlier this month.

–   North Korea charged that the Southern military had fired shells into its coastal waters in the course of the maneuvers. The South, however, insisted that it had directed its fire to the West, away from the mainland and the disputed border. The South Korean military acknowledged receiving a telephone message from the North on the morning of the artillery duel warning, “The North would not just sit back if the South fired shots into the North Korean territorial waters.”

–   The Pentagon announced Tuesday that the USS Washington had set sail from its base in Japan for the Yellow Sea in what will be seen as a show of force against North Korea.

–   The latest exercise is one of a series of joint actions by the US and South Korean military staged in the area in the wake of the sinking last March of the South Korean warship Cheonan, in which 46 sailors lost their lives. The sinking also took place near the Northern Limit Line. While a South Korean investigation concluded that a North Korean torpedo was responsible, Pyongyang has denied any responsibility.

–   Previous exercises, conducted in July and September, have provoked protests from Beijing, whose territory also borders the Yellow Sea and whose forces fought in the Korean War nearly six decades ago. That war ended in a truce, rather than a peace treaty, meaning that formally a state of war still exists on the Korean peninsula.

–   South Korea’s President Lee Myung-bak convened an emergency meeting of his cabinet and met with his military commanders following the clash. While warning against any escalation of the tensions, Lee threatened to retaliate with missile strikes against North Korea in the event of any “further provocations.” He said that the North Korean shelling of Yeonpyeong “could be regarded as an invasion of South Korean territory.”

–   Since taking office in 2008, Lee, a member of the right-wing Grand National Party (GNP), has adopted a hard line against Pyongyang, reversing the so-called Sunshine Policy pursued by his predecessors, which focused on using aid and diplomacy to reduce tensions and open up the North to foreign capitalist investment. Under Lee, new investments have largely ceased and aid has been all but cut off.

There is extensive speculation in the Western media and think tanks as to North Korea’s motives. The clash in the Yellow Sea follows close on the heels of Pyongyang’s revelation to an American scientist that it has developed a 2,000-centrifuge plant for the enrichment of uranium. While it insists that it is for peaceful purposes, the facility opens up a possible new means of producing nuclear weapons.

–   Many see these actions as an attempt by the North Korean state to pressure both Seoul and the other major powers to resume the so-called six-party talks on nuclear disarmament that began two years ago and to resume aid and lift sanctions that are strangling the impoverished country’s economy.

–   It is also suggested that the military actions are aimed at solidifying support within the North Korean military for Kim Jong-Eun, who, in his mid-20s, has been tapped to succeed his father, North Korea’s ailing leader Kim Jong-Il. Rumors circulated this week that Kim Jong-Il may have died. “I can neither confirm nor deny his alive status,” Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan said Tuesday.

–   The US think tank Stratfor, which has close ties to American intelligence, suggested another possibility; that the North Korean military is acting on its own. “With the ongoing leadership transition in North Korea, there have been rumors of discontent within the military, and the current actions may reflect miscommunications or worse within the North’s command-and-control structure, or disagreements within the North Korean leadership,” Stratfor said.

–   Former US Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, who led the US delegation to the six-party talks, sounded a similar warning. “North Korea is going through a very difficult internal transition,” he said. “It’s very clear the North Korean military is unenthused about the proposed succession from Kim Jong-Il to his son. There are a lot of problems there and I think we are seeing that manifest in the way they behave to the outside.”

Washington responded to the clash with a strong condemnation of Pyongyang and unconditional support for South Korea.

President Barack Obama called the North Korean shelling an “outrageous and provocative act.” A statement issued by the White House demanded that Pyongyang “halt its belligerent action” and declared Washington “firmly committed to the defense of our ally, the Republic of Korea, and to the maintenance of regional peace and stability.”

–   Pentagon officials, however, said that there was no intention to move additional military forces into the region, and the 29,000 US troops deployed in South Korea have not been placed on a heightened state of alert.

–   Top US military commanders insisted that the US has sufficient forces in the region to attack North Korea. “There is no question that there is a very substantial airpower and joint team capability in the western Pacific, and that has deterrent qualities the North Koreans must respect,” Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force Chief of Staff, told reporters in Washington.

–   Washington ruled out a resumption of the six-party talks—which included the two Koreas, the US, China, Russia and Japan—in response to the latest confrontation.

–   Japan also adopted a hard-line response. Japan’s Prime Minister Naoto Kan said he had ordered his ministers “to make preparations so that we can react firmly, should any unexpected event occur. We will make preparations so that whatever happens, we will be able to deal with it.”

–   China and Russia, however, both insisted that the clash showed the necessity to immediately restart the talks.

“What’s imperative now is to restart six-party talks as soon as possible,” Chinese foreign ministry Hong Lei told reporters in Beijing.

–   The statement from China did not take sides in the conflict. “We hope the relevant parties do more to contribute to peace and stability on the Korean peninsula,” said the ministry spokesman. He added that China is still seeking to clarify the events leading up to clash. “The situation needs to be verified,” he said.

–   Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, on a visit to the Belarusian capital Minsk, called for both sides “to immediately end all strikes.” He told reporters, “There is a colossal danger which must be avoided. Tensions in the region are growing.”

–   Washington is utilizing the latest incident to escalate pressure against China. ABC News Tuesday night quoted an unnamed US official as saying that Obama administration was sending “a strong signal to the Chinese that they need to stand up to North Korea.”

China, North Korea’s principal trading partner and political ally, has no interest in facilitating a US military buildup in the region on the pretext of combating North Korean provocations. It is also fearful that turning the screws on Pyongyang will produce a political and economic meltdown that could end in North Korea’s dissolution, sending waves of refugees across its border.

–   Overshadowing the artillery exchange between North and South Korea is the emerging conflict between the US and China over strategic interests throughout Asia. It is this conflict that lends the clashes across the border drawn at the end of the Korean War nearly six decades ago the potential for escalating into a far larger conflagration.

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