Fears over new nuke arms race

2006-10-09 15:25

Seoul - Concern about a new nuclear arms race rippled across Asia on Monday after North Korea announced it had successfully carried out its first test of an atomic bomb despite international warnings.

With the press of a button, Pyongyang's secretive leadership may have altered the balance of power in a region where China has been the lone nuclear-armed country, and pushed nations to re-assess their defence needs.

Taiwan "fears the nuclear test might trigger an arms race and proliferation of nuclear weapons, thus undermining the security and welfare of people in the Northeast Asian region," foreign ministry spokesperson Michael Lu said.

"It has been Taiwan's established policy to settle the disputes in the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Strait in a peaceful manner," he said.

Japan to work on missile defence

There was immediate speculation that Japan, officially pacifist under the terms of the national constitution imposed by the United States after it lost World War II, might look to change its long-standing military policy.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe quickly announced that Japan, which is under the US strategic defence umbrella, would step up work with the United States on missile defence.

"To maintain the safety of the Japanese country and people and to increase the relationship of trust based on the Japan-US alliance, Japan will step up co-operation with the United States, such as on Japan-US missile defence," Abe told reporters.

Japan and the United States started working in earnest on a missile shield after North Korea in 1998 fired a missile over Japan's main island.

The United States stationed its first surface-to-air Patriot missiles in Japan after North Korea in July test-fired seven missiles in Japan's direction.

'Betrayal'

South Korea angrily described the North's test as a betrayal and said its policy of engagement - a lifeline for the impoverished Stalinist state - was under threat.

"This is a grave threat to peace, not only on the Korean peninsula but in the region," President Roh Moo-Hyun said. "This is also a betrayal of the hopes of the Korean people for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula."

A sombre-looking Roh said that under present circumstances, "the government will find it difficult to stick to its engagement policy towards North Korea".

India, Pakistan object to test

Slightly further afield in South Asia, nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan both objected to the test - and analysts said Pyongyang's move was far more alarming than their tit-for-tat testing in 1998.

- AFP