NEWS & LETTERS, December 2006 - January 2007

Editorial

Behind North Korea's nuclear test

The North Korean nuclear test in October was a most serious event, one that should not be passed over amid Iraq and the U.S. elections.  Above all, the nuclear explosion announced by the totalitarian state-capitalist regime points to the utter unviability of this capitalist/nuclear world.

As with the 1998 nuclear weapons tests by India and Pakistan, or the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power disaster, the North Korean test illustrates the sober fact that the end of the Cold War has not ended the nuclear nightmare first unleashed by the U.S. at Hiroshima in 1945.  The world capitalist "order" in the nuclear age is an illusion, one that could go up in radioactive smoke at any moment. 

The most immediate danger at this moment lies in Japan's response to North Korea. Because of their history, the Japanese people are particularly sensitive to nuclear threats of any kind.  The Japanese ruling class plays upon these fears, not letting them forget the fact that North Korea has also tested missiles that could reach Japan, although putting nuclear warheads on them is years away.

This danger has helped Japan's political establishment to move politics sharply to the Right in the past decade, crushing labor and adopting a belligerent nationalist tone toward the country's Asian neighbors that is almost as strident as that of the U.S. under Bush.  This turn to nationalism has allowed a nearly zero-growth capitalist system led by a corrupt Liberal Democratic Party to don the mask of "reform," as it stirs up nationalism and guts the public sector. 

Japan's rulers indicate that they have no plans to respond to the North Korean tests with a nuclear program of their own.  Nonetheless, it is clear that the world's second largest capitalist economy could do so in a matter of months, should it choose to embark on such a path.  Were Japan even to hint at nuclear weapons development, there is no telling how China or South Korea, countries with searing memories of Japanese militarism, might react. 

U.S. SCRAMBLES

The biggest implications of the North Korean test are not limited to the region, however.  The test illustrates again how the Bush administration's reckless militarism has weakened rather than strengthened U.S. imperialism's global reach.  In the weeks following the test, the U.S. tried in vain to get backing from the United Nations Security Council for a set of strong sanctions but was stymied by Russia and China.  It had even less success in mobilizing its "ally," South Korea, against the other Korean state.

China and South Korea are afraid that any serious pressure on North Korea could destabilize the region.  Even without nuclear weapons, the North Korean regime could shell Seoul, which sits within easy range of artillery weapons, turning the South Korean capital into a fiery inferno.

Even without a military confrontation, the collapse of the regime from internal unrest could send millions of refugees into South Korea, which could be bankrupted from the expense of caring for them and aiding the North.  They are well aware of the price that a far more prosperous Germany has had to pay for its peaceful unification with the East.

BEIJING ANXIOUS

For its part, China fears instability of any kind in the region.  A military confrontation could spin out of control.  An internal rebellion in a neighboring one-party state could call into question the iron grip the Chinese Communist Party retains on political life.  This threat looms at a time when the Party is losing legitimacy amid corruption scandals and a rising economic gap between the new magnates of capital and a restive working class. 

China hopes that the market reforms it and South Korea are encouraging will gradually soften the stance of the North Korean regime toward the outside, while also raising the standard of living.  This is unrealistic, if not illusory, for the North Korean regime has such a narrow base of support--it is not the product of a national revolution, as is the Chinese regime, but of a leadership installed by Russian occupation forces--that even small reforms could destabilize the system.

Another factor in the relatively mild U.S. response is that after Iraq, the people of the U.S., as well as large sectors of the dominant classes, stand opposed to any new U.S. military intervention.

In fact, the lead-up to the Iraq war contributed in no small way to North Korea's nuclear test.  Having singled out Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the "Axis of Evil" in 2002, Bush followed that up with the invasion of Iraq the following year.  This undoubtedly pushed both Iran and North Korea to speed up their nuclear programs.

In this sense, the sheer recklessness of U.S. militarism and the confrontational actions by its declared enemies, Iran and North Korea, feed on each other.  The U.S. is so unpopular today that global public opinion, including that in other developed capitalist lands, has tended to give the totalitarian systems in Tehran and Pyongyang a pass, while concentrating their criticism on the U.S. 

We firmly oppose any U.S. intervention into the Korean peninsula.  At the same time, we continue to point to the oppressive nature of the state-capitalist regime in North Korea, one that has not hesitated to starve its own people while directing all available resources toward the military and the narrow caste of military officers and party bureaucrats who exploit the working people of that country.