In late 2011, then foreign minister Kevin Rudd wrote an opinion piece warning Australia about the threat of missile attack from North Korea — a “cruel, totalitarian state” — which he claimed could “prove to be our worst nightmare”.
Matters have heated up since then. A failed North Korean missile test in March 2012 was reportedly headed in our direction, and the US State Department issued a personal warning to Foreign Minister Bob Carr. And North Korea tested a nuclear weapon as recently as February of this year.
Suddenly, what Australia thinks about this area of conflict does matter. In January, Australia and the other 14 members of the UN Security Council unanimously voted to adopt sanctions against North Korea under Resolution 2087. These imposed travel bans and asset freezes on some senior officials.
In response to the latest nuclear test in February, the most recent resolution strengthened and intensified the sanctions in place since the first test in 2006. For Australia, these sanctions mean a ban on supplying, selling or transferring all arms and related material to North Korea as well as a long list of items, materials, equipment and technology that relates to ballistic missile programs or weapons of mass destruction.
These impositions have only served to aggravate the regime further. While Pyongyang continues to conduct missile and nuclear tests in clear violation of Security Council resolutions, its nullification of the 1953 truce to end the Korean War stands as the most problematic of its retaliatory actions so far.
North Korea’s withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, the most comprehensive international agreement to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, still draws widespread condemnation; consequent six-party talks and other negotiations about its suspected — and self-professed — nuclear program have failed to reach a suitable compromise.
Dr Leonid Petrov, a Korean Studies expert from Australian National University, considers the situation to be more serious now than it was a few months ago.
“Technically, North Korea is now openly at war with South Korea; but not only South Korea but also the United States and the other nations that participated in the Korean War, including Australia,” he told Crikey. If the armistice agreement is defunct from North Korea, hostilities can be resumed. If war resumes, it will first of all affect South Korea. In that region, South Korea is the main ally of the United States as well as Australia, so generally if the war returns into the hot stage, it looks like Australia will find itself in the war.”
With increasing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, continuous threats from an ambitious new leader Kim Jong-un, a ramping up of US military drills in South Korea, Pyongyang’s nullification of the 1953 Korean Armistice and the latest propaganda video of an imagined attack against Washington, could Australia truly be in harm’s way?
Not according to Petrov. “North Koreans don’t have any intention to attack Australia,” he said. “They didn’t event test an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile].” The gravest fear is of North Korea developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of mounting a nuclear warhead.
Petrov believes it was wrong for Carr to block the re-establishment of the North Korean embassy in Canberra (the embassy had packed up and left in January 2008, in the early days of the Rudd government). “Australia should be more proactive in engaging North Korea in trade and economic co-operation, cultural exchange and visits. These would be advisable in helping Australia and North Korea to maintain peaceful and productive relations. By doing that, Australia would secure its place in the camp of North Korean friends rather than enemies.”
Australia has long been on alert to a threat from the north. The 2009 Defence white paper considered “threats posed by ballistic missiles and their proliferation, particularly by states of concern such as North Korea”. Recently, the National Security Strategy also flagged the tensions and unstable environment on the Korean Peninsula.
Pointing to the two nuclear tests conducted by North Korea in 2006 and 2009 and the imminent destabilising transition of power, Rudd wrote in The Daily Telegraph: “We, in Australia, have no cause for comfort.” He detailed the rogue regime’s development of the the Taepodong 2 — a long-range missile that was tested in 2006 but crashed shortly after take-off — put Australia well within its purported 9000km range, with Darwin lying 6000km and Sydney 8500km away.
I’ve been to North Korea, about 25 years ago. I can’ t begin discuss the experience here – mind boggling – but I can see how they have become what they are today. Most people don’t know they were occupied by the Japanese before the Korean War and they were brutal. Culturally we are worlds apart, although the elite do seem to enjoy a drink – the whole visit was managed and of course we didn’t get to meet dissenters. Some of the patriotic displays we got were comical, from a cynical Australians point of view.
They are right though to distrust the US – they behaved appalling when they realized they couldn’t win the war and they will still do whatever it takes to maintain their presence on that strategic peninsula. South Korea (about the size of Tasmania) has many US bases and is dense with US nuclear bombs – I read this in a book written by an Australian – Peter … I’ve forgotten his last name. I’m sure it’s not hard to find.
Petrov is right. Australians exposed many of the atrocities committed by the US so they think we are pretty fair as a people. I believe that we would be well placed to have some influence, but it would take time build the trust.
It wouldn’t hurt if the US wasn’t still officially still at war with them.
Kim Jong-eun’s aunt is dying of cancer, according to the media here in Japan. She is his chief protector within the regime, and the sicker she gets the more desperate are the moves he makes – brinkmanship as a self- preservation policy. Also Beijing stopped selling Pyongyang gasoline on credit in February. Young Kim seems painted into a corner. It is noteworthy that his grandfather Kim Il Sung was nearly captured by the pro- Chinese faction of his party before turning the tables on them and forcing them to flee to Beijing pursued by Kim’s pro-Soviet faction . Surely the grandson knows he’ll be betrayed by China in the end. Family experience explains a lot in history.