• White House: North Korea nuclear test 'highly provocative'

    After Tuesday's nuclear test, questions arose as to whether or not North Korea has advanced to the point where they could reach the continental U.S. with a missile.

    By Kari Huus, Staff writer, NBC News

    An unapologetic North Korea declared Tuesday that it had conducted a test of a nuclear bomb after the detonation was detected by the U.S. Geological Survey.

    "On February 12th... we successfully conducted a third underground nuclear test in the northern underground nuclear test site," the Daily NK reported, in a translation of Pyongyang's announcement on the state-run news agency, KCNA.

    By conducting the test, the isolated authoritarian regime made good on a Jan. 24 pledge by North Korea's top military organ, the National Defense Commission, in further defiance of admonitions from the international community to cease and desist in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

    The test was met with condemnation from around the globe. The White House called it a "highly provocative act" that warrants "further swift and credible action from the international community." Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Beijing was "strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed" to the move by its neighbor and long-time Communist ally.

     

    South Korea and Japan convened emergency meetings of their top national security officials, while the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday, after which it promised to "begin work immediately" to draft a new resolution against the North.


    The explosion was registered as a 5.1-magnitude seismic event by the USGS at 9:57 p.m. ET Monday. The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence quickly judged that North Korea had "probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion" with a yield of "several kilotons."

    In a statement, President Barack Obama said the test "undermines regional stability, violates North Korea's obligations under numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions, contravenes its [international] commitments … and increases the risk of proliferation" in the wake of what he described as a "ballistic missile launch" by North Korea on Dec. 12.

    "North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs constitute a threat to U.S. national security and to international peace and security," Obama said. 

    U.S. officials have previously told NBC News that North Korea has up to a "few dozen" nuclear weapons that could be fitted on ballistic missiles, far more than had previously been believed.

    Obama on Tuesday said that "the danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community," adding that the U.S. would work with the international community to "pursue firm action."

    'Vile hostile acts'
    In a tit-for-tat that has characterized a diplomatic stalemate for decades, North Korea blamed the United States for forcing its hand.

    "This nuclear test was conducted as part of measures to safeguard the country’s security and independence in order to deal with the vile hostile acts of the United States, which violated our Republic’s legitimate right to peaceful satellite launches,” according to the KCNA report.

    The comment refers UN Security Council Resolution 2087, passed after to Pyongyang's Dec. 12 rocket launch, heaping sanctions on previous sanctions against North Korea, further deepening the regime's isolation.

    North Korean soldiers stand guard on the river bank of the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong on Tuesday.

    The resolution called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and any weapons and allow verification; to conduct no more launches using ballistic missile technology; and to conduct no more nuclear tests.

    U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the latest test was a "clear and grave violation."

    Later, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported that North Korea threatened, citing an unidentified foreign ministry spokesman, to conduct more nuclear tests if the U.S. moves to penalize it for Tuesday's test.

    At a disarmament forum in Geneva on Tuesday, a North Korean official said that his country would not change course in the current climate, Reuters reported.

    "The U.S. and their followers are sadly mistaken if they miscalculate the DPRK would respect the entirely unreasonable resolutions against it. The DPRK will never bow to any resolutions," Jon Yong Ryong, first secretary of North Korea's mission in Geneva, told the Conference on Disarmament, referring to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

    South Korea's government said in a statement that Tuesday's nuclear test, "poses a direct challenge to the whole international community as well as an unacceptable threat to the peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia."

    It said the government would stand firm in that it "will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea" and added that it will "also accelerate expanding its military capability, including deploying at an early stage its extended-range missiles, currently being developed, which cover all of North Korea."

    Major hostilities in the 1950-1953 Korean War ended with armistice, not a peace treaty. Today, North Korean forces and South Korean forces bolstered by about 28,000 U.S. troops remain faced off at the 38th parallel, where the Korean Peninsula was divided.

    Between 2003 and 2007, North Korean took party in several rounds of the so-called "Six Party Talks" with South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan, in an attempt to reverse Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development in return for fuel and progress towards normalization of relations. The talks went on hold and then fell apart for good in April 2009 and Pyongyang expelled UN inspectors from the country.

    China 'humiliated'
    A key unanswered question is what Beijing will do after North Korea's latest move. The long-time Communist ally and neighbor, which has strategic reasons to continue supporting the regime in Pyongyang, nonetheless expressed its strong opposition to the test.

    "China has been humiliated," according to Andrei Lankov, a veteran analyst of North Korea based in Seoul's Kookmin Unversity. That could prompt a change in Beijing's approach, he said.

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    A North Korean flag flies above the North Korean embassy in Beijing on Feb. 12.

    "This time, China explicitly warned North Korea against conducting the test, but they were ignored," Landov added. "A Chinese government newspaper said two weeks ago that in the case of a nuclear test, China might significantly reduce its aid to North Korea."

    China is a major source of aid to North Korea and key to keeping its decrepit economy afloat. China is also one of five permanent members of the UN Security Council with the power to veto sanctions.

    The United States and other countries have urged China to put pressure on Pyongyang, but it remained to be seen how far Beijing would go to confront its old comrade.

    "They are not happy about nuclear adventurism. At the same time though, a collapsing non-nuclear North Korea is far worse than a nuclear but stable North Korea," Lankov said.

    North wants U.S. recognition
    Professor Yan Xuetong, a top international security analyst at China's Tsinghua University, said "the key to the North Korean nuclear challenge is in the hands of the United States, not China."

    "China is certainly opposed to North Korea's latest nuclear test and opposed to North Korea becoming a nuclear power, but the test was aimed at the Unite States with the aim of forcing the U.S. to normalize relations with North Korea, but if the U.S. doesn't want to play the  game of trade-off, then there is not much that China can do," he said.

    Yan, who closely follows government policy thinking on the issue, argued that "the role of economic sanctions is limited," suggesting China will not stop economic assistance to North Korea because of the latest test.

    "What China should do is to act as bridge between North Korea and the United States so that they will agree to a trade-off, with the U.S. granting recognition to the North Korean government in exchange for it giving up its nuclear program," he said.

    "If the U.S. views North Korea's nuclear threat with the same seriousness as it views Iran's nuclear threat, then there will be hope for solving the North Korea's nuclear problem," he said.

    NBC News staff writers Ian Johnston, Eric Baculinao, John Newland and Arata Yamamoto contributed to this report.

    Related:

    Analysis: China fears alienating nuclear-armed Kim

    N. Korea propaganda video shows US city in flames 

    Show of force: US, South Korea hold naval drills

    This story was originally published on Tue Feb 12, 2013 12:11 PM EST

  • North Korea pledges to boost nuclear capability after UN rebuke

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    North Korea vowed to boost its nuclear capabilities on Wednesday after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning its controversial rocket launch last December.

    “The present situation clearly proves that (North Korea) should counter the U.S. hostile policy with strength, not with words,” the country’s foreign ministry warned in a statement.

    North Korea pledged in the statement to bolster its military capabilities and to build up what it called a “nuclear deterrence." 

    It also defended its “independent and legitimate right” to launch satellites and condemned the U.N. resolution as a “wanton violation of the inviolable sovereignty of (North Korea).”

    The U.N. resolution passed on Tuesday called on North Korea to abandon its nuclear program and cease rocket launches, and came a month after the country, officially known as Democratic People's Republic of Korea, successfully conducted a rocket launch that put a satellite into orbit.

    Pyongyang maintains that the test was purely “for peaceful purposes.”

    U.S. officials disagree, saying the test was the latest attempt to develop multistage ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

    Washington hopes the newest U.N. resolution will help bind world opinion against North Korea’s opaque nuclear program.

    "This resolution demonstrates to North Korea that there are unanimous and significant consequences for its flagrant violation of its obligations under previous resolutions," American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told reporters after the vote.

    China’s unusual support for the resolution, the first in four years to expand sanctions against North Korea, suggests Beijing’s patience with its troublesome neighbor may be fraying. 

    But in comments made after the vote, Li Baodong, China's ambassador to the U.N., warned sanctions alone would not resolve the impasse.

    “The policy of the sanction does not work,” he said. “The resolution must be accompanied, supplemented by diplomatic efforts.”

    The new sanctions were categorized under the scope of existing ones, which were expanded to include North Korean government agencies -- most notably the North Korean Space Agency -- and companies.

    In addition, a list of nuclear and ballistic missile technology banned for export to North Korea has been updated.

    Despite the resolution and international concerns about North Korea’s nuclear program, leading North Korea expert Wang Junsheng said it was unlikely that Pyongyang would conduct a nuclear test anytime soon.

    “(North Korea) uses nuclear tests to negotiate with foreign countries but mainly to establish the Kim family's stature within the country,” he said, referring to the country’s ruling family.

    “By successfully launching the satellite last month, there is no need for Kim Jong Un to conduct a nuclear test at this time,” he said. 

    Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s supreme leader, is the son of Kim Jong Il and grandson of Kim Il Sung, who founded the communist state.

    NBC News' Li Le contributed to this report.

    Related:

    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un offers olive branch to South in rare address

    North Korea missiles could reach US, says South

    Video: South Korea finds debris from North's rocket 

  • Westinghouse sells nuclear technology (and its future?) to China

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Lost in all the drama along the Korean peninsula was the news earlier this week that American nuclear power company, Westinghouse, had handed to China more than 75,000 documents related to the construction of their third generation AP1000 nuclear power reactors.
     
    The move is a prelude to the planned sale of four nuclear reactors to an energy-hungry China that in recent weeks has shown increasing strains in its energy producing capacity. When completed, the Westinghouse reactors sale will represent over 30 per cent of Beijing’s planned nuclear power plant construction for the near future.
     
    China currently has 23 reactors under construction and a further 120 proposed.
     
    The move is a curious one, however, as it comes at a time when western companies from energy to biotech have been complaining about the technology transfers demanded by China in exchange for successful contract bids.
     
    Chief amongst the western companies’ concerns are intellectual property protection and a recent trend which sees China attempting to nurture “National Champions” in key industries, often at the cost of foreign business interests.
     
    Jack Allen, president of Westinghouse for Asia, did not seem overly concerned about being pushed out of China’s nuclear market in the near future, telling the Financial Times, “We don’t expect that we will walk away at the completion of these units and not participate in the [nuclear] program, but there are no guarantees.”
     
    Those sentiments were echoed by Rajesh Panjwani, a Hong Kong-based analyst who said, “In a lot of other industries we have seen this strategy not work very well because China has emerged as a competitor. But for nuclear we don’t know how much time China will take to master the technology and emerge as a competitor.”
     
    Indeed, this strategy of allowing transfer of critical technology to China and banking on its companies’ inability to master the skills and adapt the equipment to their needs has failed miserably, most notably in the railway industry.
     
    Just this past week, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. put out a statement noting that years of unabated technology transfers to China by a host of major western train manufacturers including Bombardier Inc. and Siemans AG had helped create Chinese rail companies that could now compete abroad using their technology at a much lower cost base.
     
    China argues that while the trains they are now attempting to export worldwide, including California, are based on technology acquired from abroad, their trains have simply been “re-innovated” and stand on the “shoulders of past pioneers.”
     
    Foreign railway executives will almost certainly attempt to protect their intellectual property from being re-exported abroad under the name of a domestic Chinese rail company, but they will face an uphill court battle and will need to tread a very fine line, lest they also anger the Chinese government and jeopardize their own future sales on the mainland.
     
    Westinghouse’s gambit that the Chinese will be slow to adapt to the technology and safety requirements of their plants might prove correct in the foreseeable future. However, if recent history has shown us anything, it’s that the company may very well have sold off decades of research and development and its future in the China market in exchange for a couple years of excellent profit.
     
    Just call it the real “China Price.”