Asia Sud Est, Nord Corea, Armamenti, Cina, Giappone, Usa Wsws 06-07-06
USA e Giappone approfittano il test missilistico per
stringere il cappio attorno al Nord Corea
Peter Symonds
Tesi WSWS:
– Gli
USA hanno utilizzato i preparativi per i test del Nord Corea come pretesto
o
per accelerare il controverso programma di
missili antibalistici ABM;
o
per creare un clima di paura e spostare
l’attenzione dalla palude irachena, e dall’opposizione alla politica interna;
o
per aumentare la pressione diplomatica sulla
Cina, e tentare di accerchiarla, con basi
e alleanze nei paesi vicini.
– USA
e Giappone si sono impegnati a cooperare per costruire un sistema di difesa
antimissili.
– L’adesione
ai negoziati a sei da parte degli USA ha come obiettivo quello di fare
pressione sugli altri paesi per sanzioni economiche e diplomatiche sul Nord
Corea, con l’obiettivo di un cambio di regime, come per l’Irak e l’Iran.
– Con
i test missilistici il regime nazionalistico-stalinista Nord Corea cerca di
alzare la posta nei negoziati con l’imperialismo USA.
Pechino ha promosso i negoziati a sei tra USA, N Corea,
Russia S Corea, Giappone e Cina (avviati nel 2003 e con ultimo incontro nel
settembre 2005) per evitare l’escalation dello scontro sul programma nucleare
del N Corea.
A settembre 2005, poco dopo il successo del round negoziale,
gli USA hanno iniziato una campagna per impedire al Nord Corea l’accesso ai finanziamenti
internazionali, accusando Banco Delta Asia, banca con base a Macao, di lavaggio
di denaro sporco e di appoggiare le attività criminali delle agenzie del governo
nordcoreano; Banco Delta ha obbedito alle ingiunzioni americane ed ha congelato
i suoi $24mn. di asset nordcoreani.
Con lo stesso metodo gli USA hanno spinto diverse banche e
istituzioni finanziarie d’Europa e Asia a terminare i rapporti con istituzioni
nordcoreane.
In aprile l’Amministrazione americana ha accusato 8 società
statali nordcoreane di proliferazione di armi di istruzioni di massa e ne hanno
congelato le proprietà negli USA.
Sud Corea e Cina hanno cercato di riprendere i negoziati a
sei, ma il Nord Corea si è rifiutato di riprenderle fino a che gli USA non
revocheranno le sanzioni finanziarie.
Il N-C risponde alla belligeranza americana (aumento delle
navi da guerra nelle acque vicine al N-C, richiesta sui media americani di
agire contro i test missilistici) con una serie di bravate spettacolari, che
aumentano solo il rischio di un attacco militare americano.
Sul Washington Post del 22 giugno, William Perry e Ashton Carter,
ex segretario alla Difesa e vice segretario con Clinton, si sono dichiarati
favorevoli ad attacchi aerei preventivi per distruggere sulla pista di lancio
il missile balistico nordcoreano Taepodong-2.
Wsws 06-07-06
US and
Japan seize on missile tests to tighten noose around North Korea
By Peter
Symonds
In a move that plays directly into the hands of the Bush
administration, the North Korean regime test-fired seven missiles yesterday—six
short-range rockets and its longer-range Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.
–
Washington and Tokyo
immediately condemned the tests and called for an emergency session of the UN
Security Council, due to meet today, to impose diplomatic and economic
sanctions on Pyongyang.
–
Without waiting for the outcome
of the UN debate, the Japanese
government has imposed sanctions on North Korea, banning ferry services
and charter flights between the two countries and barring visits by North
Korean officials. The US and
Japan will undoubtedly use the Security Council session to pressure North
Korea’s neighbours, China in particular, to take action against Pyongyang.
For the Bush administration, it is another means to push for tougher measures
against Iran, as well as North Korea, at next week’s G-8 meeting in St.
Petersburg.
–
The US has already exploited
preparations for the tests to place its controversial anti-ballistic missile
(ABM) system into “operational” mode. Playing up the potential for the
Taepodong-2 to reach the United States, White House officials hinted that the
Pentagon might attempt to shoot down the North Korean missile. In the event,
Pyongyang’s showpiece failed 40 seconds into its flight and fell into the Sea
of Japan—a fact that will not
stop the push in the US to accelerate the ABM program.
–
The US and Japan have vowed to step up joint efforts to
build a missile defence system.
The Bush administration has responded to
the missile tests with a
hypocritical call for North Korea to return to the stalled six party talks. Beijing sponsored the six-party
talks involving the US, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, Japan as well as
China, as a means of defusing the escalating confrontation over
Pyongyang’s nuclear programs. The
negotiations began in 2003 and the last round took place in September 2005.
For all its talk about a “diplomatic
solution”, however, the Bush
administration bears the chief responsibility for escalating tensions in
North East Asia. It joined the
six-party talks, not to reach a compromise deal, but rather as a means for pressuring
the other countries into taking tougher economic and diplomatic measures
against Pyongyang. Washington has barely disguised the fact that its objective
remains “regime change” in North Korea as it was in Iraq, and is in Iran.
While White House officials cynically criticise Pyongyang for refusing to
attend negotiations, the Bush administration has constantly sought to undermine
the talks.
–
Last September’s round of negotiations were widely applauded
in the international media as a “breakthrough”. North Korea “committed to
abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs” and to
returning “at an early date” to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In
return, Washington offered very little—a rather empty promise “not to attack or
invade the DPRK [North Korea]” and vague pledges of cooperation and to discuss
the provision of a light water power reactor “at an appropriate time”.
Actions, as the saying goes, speak
louder than words. No sooner had the joint statement been signed than the Bush
administration set about undercutting it. In the same month, Washington took the first step in an
aggressive campaign to choke off North Korea’s access to the international
financial system. Alleging that Pyongyang was involved in widespread
illicit activities, US Treasury designated the Macau-based bank, Banco Delta
Asia, as a primary money laundering concern, accusing it of facilitating “the
criminal activities of North Korean government agencies and front companies”.
The US has maintained harsh economic sanctions against North Korea since
the end of the Korean War in 1953, but the latest measures
are aimed at financially crippling the country by closing off its few sources
of foreign exchange.
–
Faced with the threat of US blacklisting, Banco Delta Asia
fell into line and in February froze $24 million in North Korean assets.
–
Using the same method,
Washington has succeeded in bullying a number of banks and financial
institutions in Europe and Asia to end relations with North Korean entities. In
April, the Bush administration accused eight state-owned North Korean firms of
proliferating weapons of mass destruction and froze their assets in the US.
A Knight Ridder article in May made
clear that the US was not concerned whether the targetted financial activities
were illicit or not. “It’s been a scattershot approach, not a pinpoint attack,
and the collateral victims include a group of British bankers who set up a
small private bank in North Korea 11 years ago to cater to merchants and
importers,” the article stated. The bank’s managing director Nigel Cowie told
the reporter: “They are tarring everyone with the same brush, whether they’re
legal or illegal.” He added that humanitarian and UN agencies operating in
North Korea were also being hit by the US financial sanctions.
International Crisis Group director for
North East Asia, Peter Beck, explained: “The Bush administration has been
pleasantly surprised by the effect of the financial sanctions… They will be
in place as long as the Bush administration is in office.” According to Beck,
the South Korean government felt that the US was showing it had “no appetite
for further negotiations”. South
Korea and China have been attempting to restart the six-party talks, which were
due to recommence soon after September 2005.
Not surprisingly, North Korea has denounced Washington’s financial
sanctions as a sign of bad faith and refused to return to the negotiating
table until they are lifted. In a rare meeting between US and North
Korean officials in March, North Korea’s top delegate Li Gun appealed to his
counterparts to end the sanctions and offered to take joint measures to address
US concerns about counterfeiting and other illicit activities. “We cannot go
into the six-party talks with this hat over our head,” he reportedly declared.
The US rejected the offer.
The Bush administration is not
interested in a peaceful resolution to the issue of North Korea’s nuclear or
missile programs. Its perspective is to crash the North Korean economy,
regardless of its impact on the country’s population, and precipitate a
political crisis that can be exploited to bring about “regime change”. Even if
North Korea were to finally agree to all US demands on its nuclear programs,
Washington would find a new pretext to continue its relentless campaign. Increasingly
boxed into a corner, Pyongyang has predictably lashed out by conducting
yesterday’s missile tests.
While the US is chiefly responsible for
the present crisis, the actions of Pyongyang are completely reckless and only
invite an aggressive military response from Washington. The autarkic regime headed by Kim Jong-il is not
“socialist” or “communist” but rather is based on a mixture of extreme
nationalism, Stalinism and Maoism, which has proved to be a complete
economic and social disaster for the North Korean people.
Kim’s response to Washington’s
belligerence is invariably the issuing of bloodcurdling threats and a display
of bravado. Following a US
build-up of warships in waters near North Korea and calls in the US media for
action against the pending missile tests, the state-run Korean Central News
Agency declared on Monday: “The army and the people of the DPRK are now
in full preparedness to answer a pre-emptive attack with a relentless
annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent.”
The suggestion that North Korea armed
with a handful of nuclear weapons, which have never been tested and may not
even exist, and a long-range ballistic missile is any match for the US military
is simply absurd. In fact, far
from defending North Korea, the successful demonstration of a nuclear-armed
missile would only heighten the danger of a devastating US military strike,
to which Pyongyang would have no response.
–
In an article in the Washington
Post on June 22, William Perry and Ashton Carter, former defence secretary and
assistant defence secretary under US President Clinton, openly advocated
pre-emptive air strikes to destroy the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile on its
launch pad.
Pyongyang’s empty bluster is a
demonstration of the regime’s political bankruptcy. Organically incapable of
making any appeal to the international working class, its rhetoric only
heightens fear and uncertainty, divides the working people and provides grist
to the mill of the most right-wing, nationalist politicians in Japan and South
Korea as well as in the US. No one should be under any illusion that North
Korea’s posturing has anything to do with waging a genuine struggle against imperialism.
–
As the Bush administration is well aware, the missile tests
amount to a rather desperate attempt by Pyongyang to normalise its relations
with the US—in other words, for a more advantageous relationship with
imperialism.
For the US administration, North Korea’s actions come as a
political godsend, enabling it to whip up a climate of fear and deflect public
attention from the deepening quagmire in Iraq and opposition to its domestic
policies. As well as pressing for further punitive measures against
North Korea, the Bush
administration will undoubtedly use the opportunity to ratchet up the
diplomatic pressure on China. Washington’s objectives in the North Korea
are not so much economic, but strategic—to add another link in US plans to
encircle rival China by establishing bases in and alliances with neighbours. In
doing so, it is laying the basis for a far broader conflict.