Japan to go nuclear if faced with nuclear-armed unified Korea: report

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, March 16 (Yonhap) -- Japan will likely go nuclear if a unified Korea
decides to keep the nuclear arsenal developed by North Korea, setting the stage
for a tense military competition between the two Northeast Asian rivals, a U.S.
congressional report said Monday.

"Any eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula could further induce Japan to
reconsider its nuclear stance," said the report by the Congressional Research
Service.
"If the two Koreas unify while North Korea still holds nuclear weapons and the
new state opts to keep a nuclear arsenal, Japan may face a different
calculation," said the Jan. 19 report, titled "Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy
Debate, Prospects and U.S. Interests." It cites some Japanese analysts as
describing a nuclear-armed unified Korea as "more of a threat than a
nuclear-armed North Korea."
Many Koreans still harbor resentment of Japan over its colonization of the Korean
Peninsula for nearly four decades from 1910. Hundreds of thousands of Korean
women were forced to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers and millions of
Koreans were taken to forced labor camps.
"If the closely neighboring Koreans exhibited hostility toward Japan, it may feel
more compelled to develop a nuclear weapons capability," the report said,
stressing the need for the U.S. to take into account Japan's possible nuclear
armament in drawing up "U.S. contingency planning for future scenarios on the
Korean Peninsula."
Japan is said to be a quasi-nuclear weapons state with ample plutonium for the
production of warheads and advanced technology in the field.
"Japan's technological advancement in the nuclear field, combined with its stocks
of separated plutonium, have contributed to the conventional wisdom that Japan
could produce nuclear weapons in a short period of time," the CRS report said.
The report cited the remarks by a Japanese prime minister in 1994 that "it's
certainly the case that Japan has the capability to possess nuclear weapons but
has not made them."
"Indeed, few dispute that Japan could make nuclear weapons if Tokyo were to
invest the necessary financial and other resources," the report said.
The report noted that Japan "possesses 6.7 metric tons of civilian stocks of
separated plutonium stored in Japan and 38 metric tons of separated plutonium
stored outside the country."
"This material has the potential to make over 1,000 nuclear weapons," the report
said, predicting that Japan's civilian stockpile will grow to 70 tons by 2020.
The huge stockpile is attributed to U.S. recognition of Japan's fully independent
fuel cycle in the operation of its nuclear reactors that includes reprocessing of
plutonium, a process banned in any country other than the five recognized nuclear
powers -- the U.S., China, Russia, Britain and France.
North Korea has long denounced Japan for stockpiling a huge amount of
weapons-grade plutonium, saying its own inventory is almost nothing compared with
Japan's.
North Korea is said to have produced 30 kilograms or so of plutonium -- enough
for several nuclear weapons -- in its only operating nuclear reactor in Yongbyon,
north of its capital, Pyongyang.
Pyongyang officials have reportedly said that they have converted all the
plutonium they have to make nuclear warheads.
The U.S. and its allies are trying to persuade North Korea to join another round
of six-party talks on ending the North's nuclear weapons ambitions, although the
latest round hit a snag in December over North Korea's refusal to agree to a
verification protocol for its nuclear facilities.
The new Barack Obama administration has said it will continue the multilateral
nuclear talks while pursuing more direct bilateral engagement.
hdh@yna.co.kr
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