Radio Australia Today Editorial

North Korea tests a bomb and the world shudders

26 May 2009

Literally. Yesterday’s underground test caused an earthquake that registered 4.7 on the Richter Scale.

It also caused a diplomatic earthquake. Japan was one of the first out of the blocks to condemn Kim Jong-Il (which was no surprise since there has been no love at all between Noth Korea and Japan for a long long time). Then followed the U.S., with Barack Obama condemning the  test. Russia, which shares a border with North Korea, followed. And then came an almost surprising word from a Kim Jong-Il ally, China. China shares a border with North Korea (1416 kilometres), and so has every reason to be concerned about its ally’s decision to set off a home-made bomb.

And I mean it when I say it’s home-made. North Korea expert Andrew O’Neil from Flinders University told us this morning that North Korea produces its own fissible material and is capable of independently carrying out every step in the production of a nuclear weapon. No international sanction or imbargo will impede this process since North Korea is not reliant on imports to do it.

O’Neil has gone as far as to predict that North Korea will produce more weapons no matter what kind of heavy words come from the UN Security Council. He also says that he thinks the stand-off could only be stopped by an invasion, and that will not happen anytime soon. China and Russia would simply not allow the U.S. that close to their borders.

So the world remains in a state of nuclear flux. North Korea is a nation that has made questionable domestic decisions and has a population that is, according to some, suffering terribly from privations inflicted by a government that continues to thumb its nose at the world. Undoubtedly military hierarchies in the U.S. and elsewhere are making angry gesticulations towards North Korea, while at the same time knowing that North Korea, with the detonation of this Hiroshima-sized blast, is now a world player in the unfortunate nuclear game of ‘mine is bigger than yours’. 

                                                 – Phil