Defining an Effective Approach to Non-Proliferation in Northeast Asia

By Major General Pan Zhenqiang



Defining an Effective Approach to Non-Proliferation in Northeast Asia

By Major General Pan Zhenqiang

Adviser to CPAPD

As in Europe, the nuclear issues have been a central element in the security in Northeast Asia. The region assembles a group of non-nuclear weapon states that may potentially go nuclear. Today, despite the increasing fading away of the danger of a major nuclear exchange among major powers, nuclear proliferation is emerging as a new major source of insecurity in the region, and how to tackle this risk has become a daunting challenge for all the countries concerned.

Since the end of the Cold War, in the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the DPRK so far has ignited three nuclear weapon tests, been developing long-range missiles capability but the great regional efforts to induce Pyongyang to give up all these programs through Six-Party Talks are still being made. Pyongyang responds by declaring that it has now withdrawn from the NPT to the global demand for the DPRK to come back to the NPT obligations. As a result, the Six-Party Talks has been suspended since the end of 2008. Tensions continuously built up in the peninsula, and the confrontation between the North on the one hand and the South and the United States on the other has been fluctuated like a roller coaster.

Major obstacles abound. Among them, lack of the minimum mutual trust between the major parties involved destroys the necessary political basis for the resolution of all the critical issues. Each side wants the greatest insurance that it would not be cheated by the other side’s goodwill gesture. Thus, on the U.S. and South Korea’s side, while let the door of negotiation open, the two capitals continued to insist on seeing the concrete evidence of the sincerity of denuclearization by the North before they consider participating in the meaningful talks. Both countries are also greatly constrained by their domestic politics to reshape a North Korea policy. In either country, there seems no strong interest in tackling seriously the DPRK nuclear issue.

Another equally nagging problem is serious differences persisting in the international community. These differences mainly derive from two major conceptual disagreements among them.

The first is about the strategic intention of North Korea, that is, what the North is really up to for its nuclear and missile programs. The United States and South Korea have a theory, which is quite popular in the decision-making circles, arguing that all North Korea’s programs are but the tools for the regime in Pyongyang to consolidate its rule at home. As long as this depressive regime persists, it would never give up these capabilities. The theory is followed by the argument that it would therefore be naïve to expect the North to abandon the nuclear and missile capability through negotiation or promising to provide economic aid. Thus, according to this view, negotiation only wastes time, and achieving agreements with the North only plays into its hands, allowing it to cheat again and again. The conclusion: only regime change could be the viable way to solve the problem.

But this view has a fatal flaw in its failure to put the DPRK nuclear issue into a more broad and relevant context. No doubt, there must be a domestic element in the motives of the nuclear and missile programs of the North. By claims through these programs, Pyongyang certainly wishes to boost the national pride and strengthen the cohesion among the grass-roots. However, these considerations must be secondary, compared to the central concern of the North, that is, survival of the country as a sovereign state. And this concern has much to do with the fast changing international and regional situation as mentioned before.

In dealing with the Peninsula nuclear issue, people must bear in mind that the Peninsula is still in a state of war with only an armistice of the Korean War, meaning there has been only the suspension of the hostilities. As a result, rigid and hair-trigger confrontation between the warring sides across the 38th Parallel Line has continued till today. Under the circumstances, the nuclear issue is essentially imbedded in this war background, an extension between the DPRK on the one hand, and the U.S. and its allies on the other.

Furthermore, if one puts the issue in a larger post-Cold War context, understanding the background would naturally make it easy to grasp the fundamental fact that denuclearization of Korean Peninsula would have to go hand in hand with meeting the DPRK security concerns. They are just the two sides of one coin. To say it another way, responsibility for the resolution of this nuclear crisis lays as much on the other parties as on North Korea. Each should do its share to contribute to the eventual solution.

The second misgiving is about the effect of sanctions. Again, a view quite popular in the United States and South Korea seems to believe that if military strike entails too high a risk, economic and political sanctions would “bite and bite hard” to cripple Pyongyang’s already fragile economy, cause the society to change. Thus, sanctions have become the primary path for the U.S. and its allies to mount greatest possible pressure on those countries with nuclear ambition. But the question is if the sanctions really work. The sanctions should be moderate, prudent, proportionate to the threat, and leave the room for further contact and necessary compromise for a peaceful solution in the future. Abuse of sanctions could only backfire, creating even more problems than those intended to solve.

Both Iran and North Korea are cases in point. Sanctions could cripple Iran’s economy, but seemed only ended up in accelerating Teheran’s nuclear programs alleged for peaceful purpose, and the West seem more and more come to conclude that sanction could only have limited role in achieving their policy goal. In North Korea’s case, being a more closed economy than Iran’s, Pyongyang has been in a way more efficient to be resistant to the economic pressure from the outside. Thus if sanctions could not affect Iran’s nuclear programs, it would be more futile to expect that North Korea would change its course only because of the sanctions. Politically, sanctions have helped reinforce in the North the image of America as an arch enemy for all the sufferings they have endured, so sanctions may most probably help the people in the North support their leadership and their national solidarity.

In China’s perspective, therefore, if history is any guide, the nuclear dispute should be defused only through dialogue and consultation; all parties' concerns should be addressed in a comprehensive and balanced manner; and issues concerning the Korean Peninsula should be peacefully resolved so as to denuclearize the Peninsula and realize lasting peace and stability of the Peninsula and Northeast Asia.1

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has recently further reiterated Beijing’s basic position on the solution of the issue. He stressed that to achieve the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is the common responsibility of all parties. This is essential to uphold the international nuclear non-proliferation regime, to maintain peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia, and to keep an environment that is conducive to prosperity and development of countries in this region. Furthermore, to uphold peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula is an inherent part of the efforts to pursue its denuclearization. Any attempt to bring chaos to this region or pursue selfish interests will get nowhere. The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the maintenance of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula are inter-connected and mutually-reinforcing. Without denuclearization, it is hard for the Korean Peninsula to have lasting peace and stability. And denuclearization will be meaningful only when it is based on peace and stability upheld on the Korean Peninsula. To ensure peace and tranquility in its neighborhood is the firm strategic goal of China, and maintaining peace and stability in this region is the unshirkable common responsibility of all parties.

In order to move the current situation forward, Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed the following:

“First, the parties should work in the same direction and keep the momentum of relaxation on the Peninsula. The situation on the Peninsula is still fragile and has uncertainties. The words and actions of the parties concerned would have an impact on each other. The parties should approach the situation with caution, exercise restraint, and avoid provocative measures against each other in order to maintain and lock in the current momentum of relaxation.

“Second, the parties should jointly shoulder responsibilities and create conditions for the restart of the Six-Party Talks. All the six parties should recommit themselves to the September 19 Joint Statement. Under the premise of reaffirming denuclearization as the goal, the parties should demonstrate sincerity to solve problems, take constructive actions and set reasonable threshold for dialogue.

“Third, the parties should adopt integrated measures and address the concerns of the parties in a balanced manner. At the heart of the Korean nuclear issue are the security concerns of relevant parties. They also involve political and economic factors. Therefore, a holistic approach should be adopted to address both the symptoms and root causes. We should advance in parallel the goals outlined in the Joint Statement, accommodate the legitimate concerns of all parties, gradually implement the consensus in a phased manner, and strive for solid progress.

“Fourth, the parties should move ahead with the times and enhance institution-building for the Six-Party Talks. The parties should step up study into the Six-Party Talks itself and explore the possibility of institutionalizing the heads of delegation meetings and endorsing meeting outcomes by leaders' meeting so as to make the Six-Party Talks more binding and effective. This will enable the Six-Party Talks to better play its role and serve as a realistic and viable multilateral security mechanism safeguarding peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”2

Evidently, having summarized the lessons and experience from the regional long-term efforts for the solution of the nuclear crisis, Wang Yi’s remarks have provided a most practical and balanced approach to the nuclear non-proliferation in Northeast Asia.

Other potential candidates for nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia

In Northeast Asia, it is also clear that even if a denuclearization of North Korea is realized, risks of proliferation in the region would still be great because there exist other non-nuclear states who may also choose to develop nuclear weapons under certain circumstances. These countries mainly include Japan and South Korea.

Japan

Japan’s nuclear option has never closed. Even during WWII, the Japanese imperialist government was desperate to try to develop the atomic bombs in its competition with the allies for the victory of the war. Only because of lack of technology and fissile material, it lost the competition. Ironically, Japan even became the target of the two nuclear strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then the Japanese Government policy on nuclear matters has always incorporated some degree of ambiguity. Being the only victim of the nuclear attacks, the Japanese society understandably has a strong aversion to nuclear weapons. Japan’s peace constitution is also a big obstacle for Japan to develop its own nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, the Japanese government has all along emphasized that being the only victim of a nuclear attack, Japan has a strong interest in nuclear disarmament. Tokyo has in fact proposed a resolution for the total elimination of nuclear weapons to the United Nations General Assembly every year for the past 15 years. As early as in 1967, Japan had also announced the three non-nuclear principles, namely, no manufacturing, deploying or allowing passage through its territory of nuclear weapons.

But Japan has another face to the nuclear issue. While playing the only victim of the atom bombs on its soil, the Japanese Government strongly supports the U.S. nuclear deterrence policy, which means that it does not oppose the use of nuclear weapons on the soil of any other countries under certain circumstances. This double-standard policy has persisted, and Japan has become one of the few countries in the world today that supports the U.S. nuclear extended deterrence doctrine. While stressing that it has always adhered to the three non-nuclear principles policy, Japan had reportedly tacitly consented to the stationing of American nuclear weapons on its territory, and had even been involved in the U.S. nuclear war planning activities in the Cold War according to recently declassified U.S. official documents.3Moreover, it was almost an open secret that the government seemed never reconciled to a permanent non-nuclear status itself. The end of the Cold War has witnessed Japan’s downward development over the past two decades, experiencing the persistent economic downturn and political and social chaos at home. As a result, Japan’s status and influence have dramatically eroded in the Asia-Pacific, whereas China seems all the way arising. In the face of this great power restructuring, Japan now seems increasingly losing its mental bearings on its policy orientation. The domestic disorder and chaos also provided great impetus to resurgence of nationalistic sentiments, which was in turn successfully manipulated by the rightist force in Japan, who vowed to restore Japan’s “glorious” past, rewrite Japan’s history, and strengthen its competition with China. Amidst this domestic poisonous atmosphere, Japan is fast turning right.

The trend has become even more apparent when Shinzo Abe, the new leader of LDP, became the Prime Minister again in Japan in December 2012. He stressed that his government would seek to revise its peace constitution (meaning Japan would have the right to use military force abroad), and is more blatant than any other Japanese politician in downplaying Japan’s past militarism and offering his own reinterpretation of Japan’s wartime history.

Against this backdrop, talks about the possibility of Japan becoming a nuclear weapons power are no longer a taboo at home. More and more dignitaries from the Japanese ruling circle have claimed that Japan should strengthen its military power, and even consider developing nuclear weapons. Most of these people are invariably conservative die-hards, who also shamelessly refuse to acknowledge Japan’s responsibility for its atrocities and whitewash its aggressions against other countries in WWII. On June 22, 2012, Japan announced the modification of its National Atomic Energy Act, which included the insertion of “national security” as an aim of the law. This change of the wording could be used as a legal basis for Japan to create a nuclear weapons program in the future.4Prime Minister Abe ordered Japan refuse to sign a declaration calling for the non-use of nuclear weapons drafted by a group of major non-nuclear states at the second preparatory meeting of the NPT Ninth ReviewingConference at Geneva in April 2013. Japan’s move met with stern criticism internationally, and even strong protest at home.5So, the strange logic of many Japanese élites is that possession of nuclear weapons by the DPRK is absolutely unacceptable while they themselves seem entitled to the nuclear option if needed to be.

What has made the international community more alert is not only Japanese dubious intention, but also Japan’s accumulation of a huge stockpile of fissile material through the extensive use of nuclear energy allegedly for generating electricity. The nuclear material could be the potential source to manufacture nuclear bombs. In fact, Japan is the only non-nuclear state in the world today which has such a commercial nuclear fuel reprocessing facility. Around the year 2010, according to current plans, Japan will have three breeder reactors in operation. They will have generated 50-60 tons of plutonium domestically. Together with roughly 30 tons that Japan expects to import from abroad before its own breeder reactors and reprocessing plants are fully in operation, it will have amassed in all close to 100 tons of plutonium. This is more than the amount currently contained in all the nuclear warheads of both the United States and Russia. Shigeru Ishiba, a Japanese former defense minister, said in a recent interview, which appeared in the Sapio, that he does not think Japan needs to possess nuclear weapons, but he insists that “it's important to maintain our commercial reactors because it would allow us to produce a nuclear warhead in a short amount of time.”6

South Korea

South Korea began a nuclear weapon program in 1970 in response to the dramatic changes in the strategic situation in and around the Korean Peninsula at the time, which included the U.S.-China sudden reconciliation, the U.S. decision to withdraw 26,000 American troops from the South Korea, and the announcement of the Nixon Doctrine, emphasizing self-reliance of its Asian allies for security without the U.S. direct involvement from then on. Seoul decided to establish a Weapons Exploitation Committee to pursue nuclear weapons. The move caused great concerns in the U.S. By 1975, under heavy pressure from Washington, South Korea ratified the NPT, and announced that it would end all nuclear weapons programs. But it was not until 1980s that the clandestine program was believed to be finally dropped, although unconfirmed rumors continue to be heard that Seoul may still be engaged in some illegal activities.

The international community is concerned over South Korea’s nuclear activities partly because South Korea may see enough incentives to go nuclear facing the uncertain situation in the Korean Peninsula. Another reason is that the country, like Japan, has a very robust nuclear power

industry, which supplies 45 per cent of its total electrical consumption. And there are plans for further expansion to keep pace with the increasing demand for electricity.

The South Korean Government has introduced a national inspection system to put all nuclear material and facilities under strict control. It has also maintained cooperation with the IAEA to respond to all international obligations and to ensure international transparency and credibility of its nuclear activities. So far, all facilities are now under IAEA safeguards. But still incidents occasionally occurred that often drew world’s attention to South Korea’s motivation.

After the North Korea third nuclear weapon test, “two-thirds of South Koreans supported a domestic nuclear weapons program”. In the meantime, quite a few political figures came up with suggestions that South Korea needs a nuclear option. The most frequently-cited politician is Chung Moon Joon, who for several years has urged that the United States redeploy theater nuclear weapons on South Korean territory. All these sentiments and views so far are by no means a mainstream perspective in South Korea, but it may be fair to say that voice in Seoul calling for going nuclear has become open and loud.7

But South Korea will have quite a few constraints if it really wishes to move onto the nuclear road. The fear in the public of inviting a nuclear arms race in the peninsula would still be an inhibiting factor to the government’s decision. The U.S. opposition is another, and perhaps more strong, obstacle in its way of developing nuclear and missile capability. As mentioned above, it is the U.S. who played a decisive role in inducing South Korea to be a member of the NPT, and to be committed in a binding bilateral agreement with the U.S. to refrain from developing the fast-breed reactor. Being a member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), initiated by the U.S., and also under a 2001 agreement with the United States, South Korea was limited to developing ballistic missiles with ranges of no more than 300 kilometers and with a 500-kilogram payload.

South Korea demands that it should be allowed to develop pyroprocessing, a technology that may produce fissile material for nuclear weapons through uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing. South Korea argued that this technology would help the country’s problems in storing spent fuel. The United States has objected because of regional and global nonproliferation concerns. Regionally, Washington is not sure of the intention of South as the technology could provide fissile material for Seoul’s possible nuclear weapons program. The U.S. also fears that a South Korean pyroprocessing program could undermine efforts at the denuclearization of the Peninsula. Anyway reprocessing technology is the core of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons program. Globally, the United States is concerned that South Korean acquisition of this sensitive fuel-cycle technology runs counter to U.S. efforts to limit the spread of such technologies.8

On the missile front, South Korea wanted particularly to extend the range of its missiles as the North consistently developed its long-range missiles. The U.S. resistance is from the same concerns about the negative regional as well as global implications. However, given the development of the situation, Washington relented, and the two countries reached an agreement on October 7, 2012, allowing Seoul to extend the range of its ballistic missiles to 800 kilometers with a 500-kilogram payload. Under the new guidelines, South Korea will be able to target any site in North Korea from anywhere in its own territory. Both the U.S. and South Korea stressed that the changes are necessary to improve South Korea’s “ability to respond” to North Korea’s ballistic missiles. But according to many the ROK experts, the increased range is “exceedingly dangerous given the state of the military balance” on the Korean Peninsula.9

A new aspect of nuclear non-proliferation efforts in Northeast Asia--insuring the safety, security and safeguards of nuclear energy

The traditional international non-proliferation efforts used to focus on the prevention of spread of nuclear weapons capability including the nuclear material to the nonnuclear weapons states. Thanks to the concerted efforts of the international community, a set of multilateral cooperative mechanisms for nuclear nonproliferation is now in place, including the multilateral treaties like NPT, CTBT as well as intergovernmental control arrangements like NSG, AG, MTCR, etc. These mechanisms each played its role in the nuclear and missile proliferation. However, a fatal loophole has existed despite the functioning of these international non-proliferation regimes, that is, the legitimate use of nuclear energy for peaceful purpose could also be a way to illegally acquire fissile material for the weapon purpose. In fact all those previously non-nuclear countries who have now become de-factor nuclear armed states were achieving the nuclear weapons capability under the cover of nuclear reactors. Thus the fact is since there is no line of demarcation between the peaceful use of nuclear energy and the use of nuclear energy for weapons purpose, nuclear reactors would always provide soil for nuclear proliferation. The Iran’s nuclear crisis with the West has amply demonstrated that the international community has yet to find out a way as how to prevent the abuse of nuclear reactors for the weapons purpose.

Another new challenge in the use of nuclear energy for the peaceful purpose is that the inadequate nuclear safety and security may lead to the loss of nuclear material into the non-state actors-groups of international terrorists or even organized crimes. Although it may now only be a hypothetical possibility that terrorists could obtain and use radioactive materials for destructive purposes, many leading analysts believed that it could only be a matter of time before a “dirty bomb” is rigged up by the non-state actors (radiological weapon) to detonate over a wide area. Such a dirty bomb is not the same thing as a nuclear bomb, and its impact may only be psychological to cause the mass panic. The consequence for the society would still be incredibly destructive. On the other hand, the explosion of even a crude nuclear weapon would be something different as it could kill anywhere between a few hundred and over a million people, depending on its yield and where it is detonated. The international community has already expressed great concerns over such an alarming prospect. The most recent effort on the nuclear security is the gathering by official representatives from over 120 states at Vienna on July 1, 2013, to call on more action to be taken to prevent militants acquiring plutonium or highly-enriched uranium that could be used in bombs. Regrettably, no decision was taken on any concrete steps.10

Furthermore, the excessive development of nuclear reactors could also bring disaster and jeopardize peace and stability of the region not necessarily involving weapons purpose. Poor nuclear governance, i.e. the inadequate institutional arrangements for regulating the use of nuclear energy could bring about a catastrophe as terrible as the detonation of a nuclear bomb or a terrorist nuclear attack. Although strict technical measures have been adopted to prevent those accidents, and to minimize the amount of radioactivity released to the environment even if any incidents occur, still there have been many accident with varying impacts as well near misses and incidents in history.

One of the worst nuclear accidents to date was the Chernobyl disaster which occurred in 1986 in Ukraine. In Northeast Asia, an accident of similar catastrophic nature also occurred in Japan on March 11, 2011 despite the country’s good reputation of the use of most sophisticated technology and strict nuclear governess. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was so damaged that saw nuclear meltdown and releases of radioactive materials. As of 2013, the Fukushima site remains highly radioactive, with some 160,000 evacuees still living in temporary housing, and some land will be abandoned for centuries. The difficult cleanup job will take 40 or more years, and cost tens of billions of dollars.

Many lessons could be learned from the nuclear power accidents, the Fukushima in particular. As Dr. John Carlson, one of the world prominent experts on nuclear energy, summarized, one perhaps has to realize:

“The principal lesson of Fukushima is that nuclear activities cannot be regarded as the exclusive province of individual states—nuclear activities have potential consequences well beyond the borders of any one state. Even if an incident does not result in significant trans-boundary contamination, there will be an impact on confidence in and support for nuclear energy. Likewise, a nuclear detonation or major nuclear sabotage by terrorists will have global repercussions. Fukushima has also demonstrated that neither individual states nor the international community as a whole are well served by relying exclusively on national oversight of nuclear activities.”11

Thus, Carlson stressed that the key international interests should include the use of nuclear energy without leading to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and endangering human and environmental health and safety, whether by accident or terrorist action. In addition, nuclear energy should be able to realize its potential to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Carlson argued that all of them are very much dependent on public and political confidence in nuclear energy, which in turn depends on how well nuclear safeguards, safety and security (3S) are implemented. The international interest in non-proliferation is long-recognised, through a number of treaties and the international safeguards system. The international interest in nuclear safety and security is also of fundamental importance, but unfortunately less well reflected in governance arrangements, too much of which are voluntary. Many countries regard nuclear security as a sensitive political issue that should be handled primarily by national authorities. But Fukushima shows the need to find a more appropriate balance between national and international interests in the conduct of nuclear energy.12

Concluding remarks

Building on the above discussion, the following words may conclude the deliberation on the sustained and effective approach towards nuclear non-proliferation in Northeast Asia:

1)Working together to create a more favorable political basis for the progress of nuclear non-proliferation. As is seen in the long course of the international and regional efforts for non-proliferation, countries, particularly the major powers must work together to promote their common good, and resolve disputes with adequate mutual trust. Without such minimum mutual trust, it is almost impossible for a sustained solution of a crisis like the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, let alone consolidating a sustained and effective regional non-proliferation regime.

2)A need of a new vision on the role of nuclear weapons by the major nuclear weapon powers. Only by realizing and reaffirming that there is no value for the role of nuclear weapons in their security strategy by these states, can there be true incentives for nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. In this respect, the U.S. must rethink the value of its nuclear extended deterrence, and translate its desire for a nuclear free world into concrete action.

3)Undertaking of balanced obligations by both nuclear and non-nuclear members of the NPT. For all its shortcomings, the treaty has reflected the common determination of the overwhelming members of the international community, and the balanced obligation undertaken by nuclear and non-nuclear states. It, therefore, continues to be the cornerstone of the global and regional non-proliferation regime. It has no doubt provided a legal basis for the nuclear security and safety in Northeast Asia as well. It thus essential that to promote progress of nuclear non-proliferation in the region, nuclear weapon powers must do their share to make progress for nuclear disarmament. At least they should refrain from engaging in a new round of nuclear competition.

4)Exploration of the creation of a nuclear free zone in Northeast Asia. Even if the DPRK nuclear issue reaches a satisfactory solution, the perils of nuclear proliferation will continue to linger in Northeast Asia as discussed above. To promote a more enduring means to strengthen international nonproliferation mechanism in the region, turning Northeast Asia into a nuclear free zone is perhaps the best solution. A most practical and feasible mode of such a zone may include the Korean Peninsula and Japan with their territorial seas and other adjacent international maritime areas as far as the geographical scope is concerned.

5)Regulating the peaceful use of nuclear energy though regional cooperation. The nuclear tragedy in Japan has triggered a heated debate as to the validity of the use of nuclear energy, which has led to the rethinking of the value of nuclear energy, and even the termination of the development of nuclear reactors in quite a few European countries. Japan has also announced a long-term phased out planning of the nuclear energy in the future. But given the current energy situation in Northeast Asia, it is difficult to envisage countries like China, South Korea, or even Japan could give up the use of nuclear energy as one of the major energy sources in the future. In China, there is a saying that you do not give up eating for fear of choking. It can be predicted, therefore, that in the countries like China, development of nuclear energy would continue albeit in a more cautious way, stressing security and safety as the top priority. To that end, a more scientific planning and strict regulatory mechanism should be worked out to provide better insurance. Further advance of science and technology may, hopefully, also provide a more secure technical basis for the use of the nuclear energy in the future. But for all these potential promises, international and regional cooperation is perhaps the most practical way of strengthening nuclear safety and security. No doubt, there has been progress in the strengthening of such multilateral cooperation particularly in the aftermath of Fukushima in 2011. So far two Nuclear Security Summits were held in 2010 and in 2012 respectively, and preparations are under way for a further summit in the Netherlands in 2014. On the other hand, the relevant mechanisms are still weak as they are far from universal. There are no binding international standards, no international inspections, and no international reporting and accountability mechanisms. The challenges are therefore quite compelling in whether a new international framework for the nuclear fuel cycle could be consolidated and ensure the world can benefit from nuclear energy free of the risk of proliferation. The task would have many vital aspects, including, for example, strengthening the role of safeguards, and development of multilateral approaches to the nuclear fuel cycle- meeting the legitimate concerns of states for energy security, spent fuel management and equity without the need for national enrichment and reprocessing programs. Given that Northeast Asia is the largest growth area for nuclear power, the region should be considered a priority area for efforts to develop regional arrangements of this kind.

End Notes：

1. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang's Remarks on the Security Council's Adoption of Resolution on the DPRK's Satellite Launch, Beijing, January 23, 2013.

http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/xwfw/s2510/2535/t1007742.shtml.

2. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi, “Stay Committed to the Six-Party Talks for Lasting Peace”, address at the Commemorative Seminar: “Retrospect & Outlook: A Decade of the Six-Party Talks”, Beijing, September 18, 2013. http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt/zyjh/t1078892.shtml

3. Hans Kristensen, “Japan Under the US Nuclear Umbrella”, April 24, 2009. http://www.nautilus.org/archives/library/security/papers/nuclear -Umbrella-1.html.

4. See news report“‘National Security’ Amendment to Nuclear Law Raises Fears of Military Use,” Asahi Shimbun, June 21, 2012.

5. See news report “日本拒签不使用核武声明引发民众强烈抗议(Japan’s Refusing to Sign the Declaration of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Has Given Rise to Strong Protests from the Public”, Beijing, 环球时报(Global Times), April 26, 2013. http://news.sina.com.cn/w/2013-04-26/162726961140.shtml. Also News report “Japan Refuses to Back Statement against A-bombs,” Japan Times, April 26, 2013.

6. Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203658804576638392537430156.html

7. See Mark Hibbs, “Will South Korea go nuclear?”, March 15, 2013.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/15/will_south_korea_go_nuclear?page=0,1

Barbara Demick, “More South Koreans support developing nuclear weapons”, Los Angeles Times, May 18, 2013

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/may/18/world/la-fg-south-korea-nuclear-20130519

8. For the discussion of the topic, see Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress and Miles A. Pomper, “Dealing With South Korea’s Spent Fuel Challenges Without Pyroprocessing”, Arms Control Today, Washington, July 8, 2013. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2013_0708/Dealing-With-South-Koreas-Spent-Fuel-Challenges-Without-Pyroprocessing%20

9.For the discussion of the topic, see Kelsey Davenport “South Korea Extends Missile Range”, Arms Control Today, Washington, November, 2011. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2012_11/South-Korea-Extends-Missile-Range

10. Fredrik Dahl, “Governments warn about nuclear terrorism threat”, Reuters, July 1, 2013.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/01/us-nuclear-security-idUSBRE96010E2013

11. John Carlson, “After Fukushima: Implications for Nuclear 3S (Safeguards, Safety and Security), a paper presented to the Asan Institute’s conference on Nuclear Crisis in Northeast Asia”, Seoul, November 1, 2011.12. Ibid.