North Korea's testing of a long-range missile system yesterday is a further sharp reminder that military instability added to economic turmoil in Asia makes for a dangerous and uncertain world. There are no clear explanations for the timing of the test, but it comes when the Stalinist regime is negotiating on nuclear energy with the United States, is reportedly selling missiles to Pakistan, Iraq and Iran, earning it much-needed foreign revenue, and badly needs to provide a morale boost for its armed forces and political cadres. That such activities coincide with continuing reports of mass famine casualties in North Korea illustrates the wretched and irrational political priorities.
The missiles' range would bring a growing number of Asian states within North Korea's shooting distance, including South Korea, Japan, China, Taiwan and Russia, as could be readily observed in their hostile reactions to yesterday's news. It must not be forgotten that the border between the two Koreas is now the most militarised in the world. In the next few days it is expected that the North's 700-member Supreme People's Assembly will meet for the first time in seven years to endorse Kim Jong-Il as President. After several disastrous recent years, he needs a dramatic symbol of military/political pride to lift the regime's spirits.
That the test should come just as negotiations on nuclear energy with the US reopen reinforces this point. In 1994, North Korea agreed to freeze the development of its nuclear programme (including the possible production of sufficient plutonium for atomic weapons) in return for the US selling it two light water reactors. It was an imaginative deal, which helped to underwrite Washington's nuclear non-proliferation policies; unfortunately its implementation has been delayed or interrupted by the US Congress's refusal to release funds for providing fuel oil aid as an alternative energy source, because of North Korea's sale of missiles to Pakistan.
It may have been calculated that the tests would bolster President Clinton's efforts to deal with Pyongyang, despite Congressional opposition. The dangers of missile proliferation in Asia have recently been underlined by the series of nuclear tests in India and Pakistan. But it is still worth the effort to contain North Korea's military capacity through the energy deal. This could help prevent the emergence of conditions which could precipitate a lurch towards military adventurism on the regime's part if it feared a generalised loss of political control.
The last thing South Korea or the East Asian region needs now is a precipitate collapse of the North Korean state just as all its neighbours are struggling to avoid an unravelling of their economic recovery programmes. Pyongyang's need for international aid and markets provides Washington and other powers with important levers to influence it, thereby helping the regime to reach a soft landing and encouraging it to open up to the rest of the world and towards its own people. These missile tests provide evidence that military, political and economic factors combine to add further instability and uncertainty in the Asian region. The turmoil in Russia has reinforced these trends, reminding us all that the world is rapidly becoming smaller because it is more mutually interdependent.