31 May 2014

Editorial: N. Korea Won’t Cause a Nuclear Domino in Asia (But China Might)


By Zachary Keck

If there is a nuclear arms race in Asia, China’s conventional military power will be to blame.

On Thursday the Wall Street Journal published excerpts from an interview it conducted with South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
One article from the interview discusses the dire consequences President Park foresees if North Korea goes through with a fourth nuclear weapons test.
“North Korea would effectively be crossing the Rubicon if they were to conduct another nuclear test,” WSJ quotes Park as saying. President Park has also suggested that the six-party talks over North Korea’s nuclear program could end for good if Pyongyang goes through with its threat to conduct a new kind of nuclear test.
The article goes on to say that President Park also claimed that a fourth nuclear test by North Korea could spark a nuclear arms race in the region, where non-nuclear weapon states decide to acquire a nuclear deterrent in response to Pyongyang’s growing atomic capabilities.
“It would be difficult for us to prevent a nuclear domino from occurring in this area,” were North Korea to conduct another test, Park is quoted as saying. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat