Nathaniel Aden, Senior Research Associate with the Lawrence Berkeley Lab China Energy Group, writes, “China is North Korea’s largest international trading partner…Whereas North Korean electricity and iron ore exports are sold at sub-market “friendship prices,” Chinese coal and oil products have been sold to North Korea at premium prices. Chinese Customs data suggest that Beijing is taking a pragmatic, market-oriented approach to trade with its reclusive neighbor, while the increasingly asymmetrical energy embodiment of bilateral trade may reflect dilapidation of North Korea’s non-military industries.”
Archives
NAPSNet 2 June 2011
- CLIMATE CHANGE: Global climate change and children’s health: threats and strategies for prevention
- ENERGY SECURITY: China’s low-carbon leadership headlines fail to capture the reality
- DPRK: DPRK will not deal with Lee Myung Bak: Spokesman for NDC of DPRK
- GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: China censors web to curb Inner Mongolia Protests
- DETERRENCE: Committee on ‘Nuclear Weapons, Non Proliferation & Contemporary International Law’
- AUSTRAL SECURITY: U.S. military buildup in Asia-Pacific region just beginning
Policy Forum 11-13: Japan’s Nuclear Crisis Sparks Concerns over Nuclear Power in China
Wen Bo, Senior Fellow at Pacific Environment’s China Program, writes, “[The Fukushima accident] was a rare opportunity for the Chinese media to cover nuclear issues and address concerns over nuclear power and its related hazards and risks. Though some nuclear specialists, indeed most of them, are supportive of nuclear power, mounting concern amongst the general public has emerged, making it clear that many would rather not have nuclear power at all. Other scholars indicated this is a golden opportunity to increase knowledge amongst the public on nuclear radiation and safety measures.”
Between Centrifugal and Centripetal World Forces: Extra-Territoriality of Resolution 1540 and Southern Perspectives
This report, by Rodrigo Alvarez V., Executive Manager of the Global Consortium on Security Transformation and Coordinator of the Non-Proliferation and Disarmament project, asserts that Latin America must keep supporting all types of WMD non-possession, disarmament and non-proliferation initiatives. The paper analyzes the southern perspective on WMD proliferation, develops the current vision for Resolution 1540 in the region, and analyzes the resolution with respect to Latin America’s nuclear energy dilemma.
NAPSNet 26 May 2011
- DPRK: N. Korea pushes generational change in parliament
- GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: China-North Korea economic cooperation expected to pick up steam
- ENERGY SECURITY: Future regional nuclear fuel cycle cooperation in East Asia
- DETERRENCE: The nuclear weapons complex as deterrent: challenges and issues
- AUSTRAL SECURITY: Malaysia’s carelessness over WMD
- CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Vulnerability to heatwaves and drought
Non-State Nuclear Proliferation: A Factsheet on the De jure and De facto WMD Control Regime in South Asia
Debi Prasad Dash, Additional Director-General, Government of India, examines the efficacy of the legal and enforcement systems in South Asia, with particular focus on India, in preventing and combating the possible use of WMDs by the non-State actors.
Policy Forum 11-12: Recommendations for Kim Jong-il to visit Seoul in Spring 2012
Wooksik Cheong, a Representative of the Peace Network, writes, “the [Lee Myung-Bak] administration should not take the North’s sincerity of nuclear abandonment as a precondition of negotiation. Instead, it should respond in kind to the North’s determination to seek out larger compromise, such as denuclearization for a peace treaty.”
NAPSNet 19 May 2011
- Deterrence: The U.S. policy of extended deterrence in East Asia
- DPRK: DPRK denounces Lee Myung Bak’s provocative remarks against DPRK
- AUSTRAL SECURITY: Myanmar, North Korea in missile nexus
- GOVERNANCE AND CIVIL SOCIETY: Action June 11: no nuclear power
- ENERGY SECURITY: Stanford Ovshinsky: pursuing solar electricity at a cost equal to or lower than that of coal electricity
- CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION: Spending adaptation money wisely
Policy Forum 11-11: 6-Party Trap
Nicholas Eberstadt, Senior Adviser, National Bureau of Asian Research and Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, writes, “North Korean leadership is confident it can manipulate the “6 Party” process to generate further, perhaps unprecedented, benefits for its otherwise impoverished and discredited regime.”
Supporting Online Material: North Korean Nuclear Statements (2002-2010)
This report is a collection of selected North Korean statements on their nuclear program. This material was assembled to support the report, “North Korean Nuclear Nationalism and the Threat of Nuclear War in Korea” by Peter Hayes Professor, RMIT University and Executive Director of the Nautilus Institute and Scott Bruce, Nautilus Institute Director. These sources are meant to show the change in DPRK statements on its nuclear program between October 2002 and the present. Statements from the Korean Worker’s Party (KWP), Korean People’s Army (KPA), and DPRK Cabinet are labeled as such so that the distinctions between the views of these different institutions in the DPRK can be observed.
We invite our audience to send us other relevant statements that may compliment and expand this study.