Czar Putin must be really worried about the US missile defense program given how often he and his underlings have been lambasting the expansion of the program to include US allies in Europe and Asia.  I can't but help to wonder if their nuclear forces are less capable than we currently believe if they are this worked up over a system that is currently aimed at small scale threats ike Iran and North Korea.  More likely they see it as a counter to any potential nuclear blackmail they may need to try in the future given the rather pathetic state of Russia's conventional forces.  If you can defend against a limited attack you can only threaten a general attack that will result in your destruction as well, so they want to impede any missile defense efforts that will limit their options.  Nations act in self interest first and foremost, and Russia is no exception, but she should recogonize that she has very limited weight on the international scene in this day and age.

From the Japan Times: Russia opposes Japan missile defense.

     MOSCOW (Kyodo) Russia is concerned about the Japan-U.S. project to develop a missile defense system, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in a recent interview.

     The project is "a subject of concern from our side," Lavrov said Friday in a written response to questions prior to his visit to Japan later this month.

     "We are opposed to the construction of a missile defense system aimed at securing military superiority," he said in Russian, arguing the system could be directed at Russian and Chinese strategic arms.

     It is believed to be the first time Lavrov has publicly expressed strong concern over the U.S.-Japan defense system.

     Of course left unsaid in all this is that moscow has maintained a missile defense system since the 1960's and updates it regularly to deal with new threats.  It is ok for them to defend themselves but not for anyone else.  That is typical Russian chauvanism, one that clouds their view of the world and creates a lot of problems for them internationally on issues like this.  Putin needs to realize that Russia will never be a superpower and that no matter how much wealth he is able to bring into the country by selling off its natural resources he will never be able to match the west in terms of economic, military and political might.  Then maybe we could be free of all the hypocritical blather eminating from Moscow these days.

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From the Voice of America via the Chosin Ilbo: Taipei Rejects Chinese President's Offer of Peace Talks.

     The Taiwan government has rejected China's offer of peace talks. Beijing's offer came Monday during the opening of the Communist Party's 17th Congress. Chinese President Hu Jintao called for negotiations with Taiwan to reach a peace agreement. But authorities in Taipei objected to Beijing's precondition that Taiwan accept the "one-China" principle.

     But in Taipei, government spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey rejected the offer of negotiations.  Shieh says Taiwan will not discuss peace, unification or anything else with a country that, in his words, oppresses Tibet, kills its own citizens, and supports the military government of Burma.

     Nor should they accept a one China position, because nothing could be farther from the truth, Taiwan is an independant and democratic nation.  It is right of them to reject a settlement that would infringe upon their sovergienty.  Mr. Jhy-wey was absolutely on point with his governments asessment of the Chicoms and their refusal to negotiate with them.  And to his list of crimes the PRC has committed may I add that they support North Korea, kill unborn babies against their parents will, imprison religous followers and opress anyone who speaks out against them, and I may add that is the short, short list.

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     The recent huffing and puffing from China over the President's meeting with the Dali Lama makes me aask once again why we bother to give the murdering bastards in Beijing the legitimacy of full diplomatic recognition and not do the same to Taipei?  If we adopt a two China policy the PRC would have to accept it or accept the risk  of all the business they do with the US dissapears and their economy hits the wall and the social upheavals that would bring with it.  We need to stop dicking around and face up to the facts with the PRC, thery are our enemies, and we should do everything we can to support our friends rather than offering deference to our enemies.

A quick comparison between the two.

From the Yomuiri Shimbun: China still curbing freedom of speech.

     "The Chinese government still strictly controls free speech, but don't you think freedom [in society] has been gradually spreading thanks to social changes in the past 20 to 30 years?"

     I asked Chinese author Zhou Qing this question after he delivered a speech in Tokyo earlier this month.

     He replied: "[Government] control of free speech remains unchanged. [What appears to be freedom] is merely superficial. What made you think such a thing?"

     The Beijing-based author was promoting his book on the danger of Chinese food, titled "What Kind of God: A Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food."

     Though I intended to ask for his opinion on freedom of speech in China, Zhou apparently thought I lacked a proper understanding of the situation in the country.

     "I find your [question] absurd. [So-called liberalization] is not the result of changes made by the Chinese government. It's a result of pressure from the international community," he said. "Dictators will never change."

     Zhou, who took part in the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square in 1989, was later arrested and imprisoned for nearly three years.

     After his release, he was labeled a traitor by the government, which restricted his activities as a writer. But he refused to give up his career, despite such pressures.

     By far the most pongiant remark is at the end of the interview, and sums up the innate desire of the people of China to be free of the shackles of their repressive regieme.

     "I hid in mountains in the Ningxia autonomous region [of north central China], where I was given refuge by local residents. They fed me eggs every day, a valuable item for them. I was very impressed and believed China would become democratized one day," he said.

     For comparison this took place recently in Taipei, I wonder how the goverment of the PRC would have reacted if this had taken place in Beijing.

From the China Post: Thousands march in Taipei for gay rights.

     TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Thousands of homosexuals staged a Gay Pride march in Taipei yesterday to demand equal rights and the legalization of gay marriage.

     The parade took a carnival-like mood with marchers waving rainbow flags, colorful balloons and signs. Some were dressed in flamboyant period costumes, with brides and grooms, nurses and sailors while others only wore swim trunks despite the cool weather.

      I want some one, anyone in theis administartion or the next one to finally stand up to the Chicoms and tell them that they can either learn to live with the fact that there are two Chinas, or that their is only one, and it is not theirs.  But sadly I know that business will override principles once again in our dealings with the thugs of Beijing.

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From the New york Times of all places: China opens 17^th Party Congress.

      President Hu Jintao promised to address social fissures, a degraded environment and rampant corruption during his second term as China’s top leader, but he all but ruled out more than cosmetic political reform in his opening address on Monday at the 17th National Congress of the governing Communist Party.
 
     Mr. Hu spoke extensively about his “scientific view of development,” a set of lofty, vague principles supporting harmonious economic, social and political development.

      The congress will enshrine the phrase “scientific view of development” into the party’s constitution alongside the political slogans of Mao, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, elevating Mr. Hu into the pantheon of leaders as he begins his second and final term as party general secretary, head of state and military chief.

     The Chinese won't cahnge because the people at the top benefit from keeping the sytem as it currently is.  And to do so would be to admit that all of China's problems are in fact of the state's and therefore, Party's making.  Here is a fine example of that, form the Tai Pei Times: Millions more relocated for PRC's Three Gorges Dam.

     Four million more people are to be relocated away from China's Three Gorges Dam area, state media reported yesterday, weeks after officials warned of a potential "environmental catastrophe" there.

     Already 1.4 million people have been forced to leave their homes to make way for the world's largest hydropower project, which started operations last year, but the new announcement has radically expanded the resettlement project.

     The 4 million residents who will be "encouraged" to leave their homes live near the dam's reservoir, which extends for 600km, the China Daily reported, citing local officials.

     So many people saw this coming, and gave repeated and vocal warnings makes this all the more tragic for the simple peasants who are being forced from their homes.  Hubris drove this project, and now it is rearing its ugly head and turning on its creators.  The Chinese are having to spend more and more of their time holding their fragile and restive nation together as these two pieces from the City Journal demonstrate.

Breaking the Chinese Code

     Welcome to the People’s Republic, land of “harmony” and “community.”

     First: “harmony.” For the Chinese government, it means “suppression of individualism.” Errant thoughts threaten central control of the masses. Dissent is bad and punishable. John Stuart Mill correctly wondered whether, under an autocratic regime, “there would be any asylum left for individuality of character; whether public opinion would not be a tyrannical yoke; whether the absolute dependence of each on all, and the surveillance of each by all, would not grind all down into a tame uniformity of thoughts, feelings, and actions.” In China, the reigning belief is that nonconforming ideas will fracture the enforced consensus and produce factionalism. There seems to be no James Madison in power who can raise his head and point out that having numerous factions enables governance of a large country.

     Chinese leaders fear the huge and growing gaps between urban and rural, rich and poor, coastal and interior residents, and those with and without “guanxi” (connections). Inharmoniousness is rife. Preaching harmony is a desperate measure, and it is not enough. The hopeful view: this is stop-gap rhetoric while national policy shifts from economic development to the more intractable issue of societal development in an authoritarian state. But the hopeful view may not reflect reality.

     The desperation of the Chinese is beginning to become apparent, despite their best efforts the lid is nearly constantly threating to come off.  For now the pot simmers, but the risk of a massive boil over is always right there.

     But the “community” is not quite what it seems. All residents in the harmonious community are equal, but some are (much) more equal than others—in Orwell’s trenchant phrase. Three distinct populations exist in a community—residents, visitors, and migrants—and they have very different rights. China has some 200 million migrants, well more than 10 percent of the workforce, and they constitute up to 28 percent of a city’s population. Migrant workers are akin to illegal aliens in the United States. Their labor helps staff the factories, but their families, who would strain the capacities of community services, are unwelcome. Therefore migrants aren’t officially members of the “communities” where they live. This may help explain why officials assert that the community, not the family, is the “basic unit of society.” If the families of migrants are excluded, how could the family possibly be that basic unit?

The only real change to China will come only when the people force the corrupt and illegitimate Communists from power and take back what is rightfully theirs.

The Empire of Lies.

     Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. The Communist Party regulated every aspect of private life. In the sixties, it even sought to anesthetize all feeling, commanding hundreds of millions of Chinese to repeat mindlessly the slogan of the day; one of Mao’s sayings would have to preface any “personal conversation.” A few second-rate books were the only permissible reading material, and eight revolutionary operas provided the sole entertainment. Placed everywhere—city squares, railway stations, factories, and offices—Party loudspeakers blared martial music from dawn to dusk, making it physically impossible for people to speak or think. The state imprisoned and killed untold numbers of its subjects.

     Things have obviously changed, much for the better. China is no longer totalitarian. Yet the 60-million-member Communist Party, if subtler, remains cruel and omnipresent. When I met Madam Ding Zilin at the Golden Carp Café, I had to lean in close to listen. In Beijing, true privacy is only possible in such a public place. Ding Zilin felt that the security agents who shadow her every movement wouldn’t be able to record her confidences above the noisy laughter and the clamor of the waitresses moving to and fro.

     Another sign of the desire for freedom, particularly worrisome to the authorities, is the explosion of peasant revolts in the Chinese countryside. The countryside is an immense universe, immutable and mysterious even for Chinese city dwellers, who go there only to honor the tombs of ancestors. Traveling to a village is like taking a journey in time; old China emerges, and modernity seemingly slips away. It also is to encounter China’s communication problem: peasants, unfamiliar with the national language, speak only in regional dialects—though television, the great linguistic and cultural leveler, is making the country more homogeneous by the day.

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     The Noble Peace Prize went to Al Gore and his buddies at the IGPCC.  This merely adds more weight to what we have known for a long time, outside of the awards for the sciences and other measurable fields the Noble Prize is all about treanzie politics than rewarding the good work of people who are actually trying to bring peace and democracy to their part of the world.

A suitably indignant piece from the Wall Street Journal: Not Nobel Winners.

     In Olso Friday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

     The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

     Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

     Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

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From the China Post: Taiwan demonstrates military prowess at National Day parade for the first time in 16 years.

(itallics mine)

     TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's president decried China's government as totalitarian Wednesday as residents gathered for the island's first National Day parade of military hardware since halting such displays in 1991 to ease tensions with Beijing.

     In an address to officials before the parade, President Chen Shui-bian renewed a pledge to continue seeking membership in the United Nations, saying the self-ruled island has the right to rejoin the world body despite objections of rival China.

     "Taiwan and China are two separate states that don't belong to each other, and this is a historical fact as well as the reality," Chen said in front of the ornate presidential office.

     "The problem in the Taiwan Strait today does not rest with Taiwan .... but with China's totalitarianism, authoritarianism and dictatorship," he said.

    I can now offically confirm that President Chen Shui-ban has a pair of giant brass ones between his legs.  Not only did he blatantly state that Taiwan is an independent nation, he also called out the mainland commies for the murdering totalitarian bastard they are.  Bravo sir, bravo indeed.  Those last words will sting for the same reasons Reagan's words about the USSR being the focus of evil in the modern world stung, because they are true, and the people on the receiving end know that to be the case.

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     Prime Minister Fukuda's honeymoon continues, as the newest numbers show that his cabinet's approval ratings went up slightly since he first took over form Abe.  But then again he has had a pretty easy couple of weeks hus far, character after all is defined by how we handle adversity, not by how we handle normality.  Fukuda can tkae comfort in the fact that the public is generally supportive of his position on the major issues facing Japan at the moment, now we get to see if he can turn that support and goodwill into results.

From the Yomuiri Shimbun: Fukuda Cabinet's approval rating at 59%

     The Cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has achieved the fourth-highest approval rating for a cabinet since surveys of new cabinets began in 1978, polling 59.1 percent approval and 26.7 percent disapproval, according to the findings of a nationwide Yomiuri Shimbun conducted Friday and Saturday.

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     Talking about military issues in Japanese politics is like trying to have a frank discussion about social security in the US, everyone knows the issue needs to be adressed yet no one really wants to risk the political backlash of changing the status quo.  Largely this is the result of years of smeantic footwork to avoid and conceal the fact the Japanese government has long been in violation of Article nine of the Japanese constitution.  See my previous thoughts on that issue here.

Exhibit 1: PM treads softly on collective self-defense issue.

From the Yomuiri Shimbun:

     Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda said Tuesday at the House of Representatives Budget Committee that the issue of the right to collective self-defense has to be handled "carefully," a departure from former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's tendency to lean toward approving the use of the right.

     "Sufficient discussions are necessary on what kind of international activities the Self-Defense Forces may exercise the right to collective self-defense in terms of the constitutional interpretation," he said.

      Under the government's interpretation of the Constitution, Japan has the right of collective self-defense under international law, but may not exercise the right.

     So we can have a military but we can not use it.  If that is the case then why maintain a military at all?  Everyone knows that this is utter bullshit but no mone has the stones enough to stand up and say so.  If Japan is ever going to become a normal nation the continual self deluding, feel good semantic trickery needs to come to an end.  Just as when the SDF was formed no one bought into the concept of a military witout military potential as it was described, I do not think anyone really believes the position that has been continuously put forward by the Japanese government, even by the current PM.  For him it is simply an excuse to shoot down a proposal by the DPJ, one that he probably should have siezed and run with because, A) it would help to further normalize Japan militarily and B) because Ozawa probably figured that Fukuda would reject his offer.  If he had agreed he could have shifted the playing field further toward normal than by only pursuing the current path, which is important and helpful, but why have just one piece of cake when the offer of two is on the table?

Exhibit 2:

From the Japan Times: Ozawa's Afghan gambit rejected.

     Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura on Tuesday rejected Democratic Party of Japan President Ichiro Ozawa's suggestion that Japan participate in NATO's International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.

     Afghanistan is "a very dangerous area and can be called a combat zone," Machimura said during a session of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

     "Based on the Constitution (which prohibits the use of force), we cannot support" Ozawa's opinion that Japan should participate in ISAF activities, he said.

     The semantic confusion surrounding the SDF creates another problem, namely that it isn't entirely clear who has the final say regarding the conduct and scope of ongoing SDF missions.  This lack of a readily identifiable civilian commander and chief is something that I have noted before, here.  The editors at the Japan Times seem to think that the Diet needs to approve evry detail of the operations as the continue, at least that is how I read what their syaing.  You have to give someone a final say, because if you let the whole of the diet run things nothing will ever get done as any slightly contentious issue gets bogged down in days or weeks of debate when an important decision might need to be made in hours or even minutes.

Exhibit 3:

From the Japan Times: Refueling bill undercuts Diet.

     The ruling coalition has presented the opposition bloc with an outline of a new law to continue the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling mission in the Indian Ocean. The new law, if enacted, will replace the current special law, which expires Nov. 1. Although similar to the current law, the new law would undermine civilian control of the Self-Defense Forces because it would not require Diet approval for starting a new operation.

     Under the current law, the MSDF is refueling naval ships of the United States and other countries to support antiterrorism operations in and around Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. The law, which was enacted in late October 2001 and remains in effect for two years, has been renewed three times.

     At some level a degree of autonomy must be given, because the person on the scene is typically much better equipped to make a decision than some one commanding a desk in Tokyo.  The smeantic maze that Japanese defense issues are trapped in can only be escaped from by a prime minister saying what should have been said long ago.   That Japan will take any actions she deems necessary to maintain her security, up to and including pre-emptive unilateral military action.  Every other country in the world takes this position, so why should Japan be any different?  She shouldn't be, and it is time to accept that break with the past.  Idealism is all well and good, but the world today calls for hard and cold pragmatism.  Until then the endless semantic maze will keep Japan's full potential on the international scene trapped inside.

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From the Yomuiri Shimbun: U.S. texts 'prove secret deal' Show Japan-U.S. agreement on Okinawa reversion, N-weapons.

     Japan and the United States reached a secret agreement to allow the United States to bring nuclear arms into Japanese territory in exchange for the return of the U.S.-occupied Okinawa islands in 1972, according to declassified U.S. government documents.

     The memorandums, bearing the dates of Nov. 12 and 13 in 1969, were discovered at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. The documents were declassified in 2005 and recently discovered by Nihon University Prof. Takashi Shinobu.

     In his book, Kei Wakaizumi, an aide to former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato who was involved in secret talks with the United States on the return of Okinawa, mentioned the secret agreement between Sato and then U.S. President Richard Nixon to allow U.S. nuclear weapons into Japan. However, the recently discovered documents are the first U.S. official documents that prove the existence of the agreement.

     There is nothing surprising about this, after all if Japan wants to be shieled by America's nuclear umbrella then they have to be prepared to allow for the tools of that protection to be available to do so.  Really this is merely confirmation of something that everyone has known for a long time but this is the first written irrefutable proof that such an agreement was reached back in seventy two.

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     Despite all of the progress that China has made in the last two decades the country remains deeply troubled.  I once described, and accurately I believe, China as a feudal society to which had been applied a veneer of modernity.  The greivences of the people are the same as they have been for the past hundred plus years and they show no sign of abaiting.

From the Yomuiri Shimbun: Chinese villagers seize city hall / Frustration at corruption spills over in southern village of Xiantang.

     Residents of a small village in southern China infuriated by corrupt municipal government officials have illegally occupied a municipal office building for three months.

     While Chinese President Hu Jintao continues to repeat his pledge to build a harmonious society, people around the nation have been unleashing pent-up frustrations, of which the building occupation is just one example. The timing of these protests has worried authorities who are nervous about any social unrest that might cause problems in the run-up to the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress on Oct. 15.

     The village of Xiantang is located in the west of Shunde district in Foshan, Guangdong Province. The district is home to many Japanese-affiliated automobile parts makers.

     With farming being the main source of income in the village, most of the 3,500 residents there are poor. In the impoverished surroundings of the village, the sight of the grand five-story government building in the center of Xiantang is incongruous to say the least.

     The illegal occupation of the building was triggered by the municipal government's refusal to disclose its accounting records. Villagers suspect the mayor and government officials misappropriated public funds for the construction of the government building.

     China is a massive explosion of public outrage and discontent waiting to happen yet again as it did in 1989.  If that happens again can the Chinese government afford to act as ruthlessly as it has in the past?  I do not believe so, to do so today would to be invite economic and political repercussions that would destroy the one thing that currently holds China together, economic prosperity in the cities, without which the Communist regieme would be doomed.

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     I have advanced this same line myself here, but a realistic assesment of the situation and China's past actions lead me to believe that they will continue to run interference for their loyal vassal.  I would not be surprised to learn that the orders to put down these demonstartions came from Beijing rather than Yangon.  From the Japan Times: The road to Myanmar passes through Beijing

     NEW YORK — Three hard facts set the boundaries for the talks that United Nations negotiator Ibrahim Gambari is undertaking as he shuttles between Myanmar's ruling generals and the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

     First, despite the heroic leadership of the Buddhist clergy and the prodemocracy community, almost 50 years of military misrule and terror tactics have worn down Myanmar's people, who will likely find it hard to maintain their defiance unless there are obvious splits among the ruling generals or widespread desertions among ordinary soldiers.

     Second, Myanmar's generals know that they face a stark choice: Either maintain power or risk imprisonment, exile, and possible death. In their eyes, this leaves them with virtually no choice but to hold on to power at all costs.

     Finally, as long as China provides political, financial and military support for Myanmar's rulers, it will be all but impossible for any meaningful change to occur. Until China decides that it has more to gain from a more legitimate government in Myanmar than it does from the current incompetent military regime, little can happen.

     China's decision to block the U.N. Security Council from condemning the Myanmar regime's assault on the Buddhist monks and other peaceful protesters last week underscores its long-standing political support for the junta.

     Another side effect of the crack down in Burma has been a total dearth of news that I have to believe is being managed by someone with way more political skill and savy than is to be found in the Burmese government.  China will only reign in Burma if it is their best interests to do so.  Unless the west severely punishes China and the Chinese economy they will continue to sit in their hands locally and globally continue to protect the Burmese from international meddling, as they see it, in an internal matter.

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From the China Post: Missiles against the mainland?

     Last Friday, both the New York Times and the International Herald Tribute reported that Taiwan, led by a pro-independence government, was deploying long-range missiles against the mainland. It was a follow-up to an AP dispatch from Taipei two weeks earlier. According to these reports, Taiwan has in recent months tested a land-attack cruise missile with a range of 1,000 kilometers, or 621 miles, that could carry a 400-kilogram warhead to targets as distant as Shanghai.

     Offensive missile strikes are now part of Taiwan's planned response to an attack from the mainland. Taiwan's military currently has no long-range missiles that could attack distant targets on the mainland. Senior military officials and lawmakers in the ruling Democratic Progressive Party have confirmed that the land-attack cruise missiles are under development.

     You know I have long wondered if the Taiwanese may have secretly developed a nuclear deterrent force?  The Reasons for doing so are readily apparent, and with this sort of delivery system would provide a strategic check to the PRC's continual threats of invasion for what ever it deems to be politically unacceptable.  Now there are a lot of reasons to believe that they do not posess nuclear weapons, but there also things that point to the possibility as well.  In the against column are the cost to develop such weapons and the specialized infastructure needed to support them, which appears to be lacking on Taiwan.  On the rather heavier for column are the Taiwanese involvement in the development of the block 60 F-16C, which has unrefueled range enough to one way a bomb to Beijing, and you don't do that to drop one 2,000lb GBU.  The development of alternative delivery systems such as cruise missiles and finally the close military relationship between Taiwan, Israel, and South Africa, one de-facto nuclear state and one former nuclear state, and memebers all of the international parriah club.  Makes you wonder doesn't it?  And the Taiwanesse hope that it will make Beijing think too.  If ten or twenty major cities in the PRC get vaporized for military action against the ROC the ability of the Chinese to continue military operations and conduct relief and recovery operations would be strecthed well beyond the breaking point.  So if they're smart the will give that posibility some serious thought.

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From the Chosun Ilbo: N.Korea Won't Declare Nuclear Weapons This Year.

     North Korea has made it clear in six-nation talks that it will report its nuclear programs but not its nuclear weapons by year's end.

     After the six-party talks came to an end Sunday, the chief North Korean negotiator Kim Kye-gwan reportedly said, "We can't declare nuclear weapons this year, because if we do it at this stage, our nuclear weapons technology level will be revealed." He hinted North Korea wants to keep its nuclear weapons as the last bargaining chip for the negotiations.

     The higher the technology level, the easier it is to produce nuclear weapons even with a small amount of plutonium, an official involved in the six-party talks said. That makes it possible to guess the technology level a country has achieved by looking at the number of nuclear weapons it possesses.

      In recent days I have come to believe that the six party talks and even potential direct US-North Korea negotiations are only a delaying tactic that gives Kim Jong-Il more time to further refine his nuclear arsenal and to spread the nuclear know how he now posseses to Syria and Iran.  Nothing that the Norks do gives one any reason to believe that they will hold up their end of any potential deal.  Their past history tells us that they wil do all that they can to decieve and deny while carrying out the tasks the Dear Leader has set them.  Negotiations and summits at this point only prolong the time until the inevitable colapse of  North Korea.  The US and South Korea would be better served by the confrotational and agressive approach that brought down the Soviet empire that had imeasurably greater economic and human potential compared to the hermits of the north.  By doing so the South can guarantee its continued prosperity and security rather than trying to both appease their beligerent nieghbor while at the sam time providing them with economic and material assistence that weakens the South Korean economy.   We should only negotiate after  Kim Jong-Il and his decrepit empire have fully and truthfully disclosed their nuclear facilities, capabilities and inventory to an impartial third party that has verified the report through unannounced on site inspections.  But I expect that to happen right about the time hell freezes over.

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From the Yomuiri Shimbun: Seoul's Pyongyang policy at crossroads / Visit puts Roh's conciliatory approach toward North Korea under the microscope.

     Can the summit talks between North and South Korean leaders, which started Tuesday in Pyongyang, lay the foundation for real progress on alleviating international concern about North Korea's nuclear programs? Can the three-day summit meeting ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula?

     South Korea's diplomacy vis-a-vis Pyongyang switched abruptly from the conventional confrontational approach to that of reconciliation or cooperation under the administration of former President Kim Dae Jung, who pursued the "sunshine" or "engagement" policy.

     Kim's successor, Roh Moo-hyun, championed the "policy for peace and prosperity" to further develop Kim's reconciliation strategy. Roh's initiative calls for the resolution of problems through dialogue, and seeks a spirit of mutual trust and reciprocity. In concrete terms, Roh has sought to find a peaceful solution to the dispute over denuclearization of North Korea through large-scale economic cooperation and assistance, thereby trying to foster the prosperity of both Koreas.

     With the inter-Korean summit now underway all anyone can now do is to wait and see what is anounced as each day of the meeting ends.  The powerlessness is frustrating in the extreme.  Whatever president Roh has decided is now effectively set in stone and immune to the criticism of the South Korean Media and public.  And of that there continues to be plenty of.

From the Chosun Ilbo: A Message to President Roh.

     President Roh Moo-hyun walked across the Military Demarcation Lline at around 9 a.m. this morning. Roh is scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and announce a joint statement tomorrow.

     This summit is a peculiar and special meeting. The president has set out to hold a summit whose consequences will have a decisive effect on the future of his country, at a time when he has just two months left in office and when his approval rating hovers in the 20 percent range. This is unheard of even between the United States and the Soviet Union and between East and West Germany during the Cold War.

     The only condition under which the U.S. and West Germany were willing to hold such meetings was if the president who was to attend that meeting had ample time left in his term and the solid support of his people. That’s the only way the president would not be pushed around in negotiations and was able to protect the long-term interests of his people.

     Perhaps it is due to these concerns that the majority of South Koreans would prefer the summit to pass without any problems than talks to lead to a breakthrough in inter-Korean relations. As he goes to North Korea, the president should contemplate the wishes of his people deeply.

My previous thoughts on this issue here and here.

Additional Links to Comentary and News Stories about the summit:

7 Thorny Issues for the Inter-Korean Summit.

The Inter-Korean Summit and Our Choices.

A Declaration Alone Cannot Guarantee Peace.

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 12:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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