NAPSNet Daily Report 27 July, 2010
Contents in this Issue:
- I. Napsnet
- DPRK Nuclear Program
- PRC on DPRK Sanctions
- Japan Defense Policy
- PRC Energy Security
- ROK Climate Change
1. I. Napsnet
2. DPRK Nuclear Program
Chosun Ilbo (“N.KOREA MOUTHPIECE THREATENS ANOTHER NUCLEAR TEST”, Seoul, 2010/07/27) reported that pro-DPRK newspaper mouthpiece in Japan on Monday issued a thinly veiled threat of another nuclear test. The Choson Sinbo said the DPRK “regards a nuclear test as an essential procedural requirement to gain a nuclear deterrent. In the past, it has not hesitated to conduct a test if it decided it needed one.” “Less than a year in power, the Obama administration led [North] Korea to conduct a nuclear test. A similar thing can happen if it misjudges the situation in the wake of its diplomatic failure over the Cheonan incident,” the paper warned.
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2010/07/27/2010072700382.html
3. PRC on DPRK Sanctions
Korea Herald (Kim Ji-hyun, “‘CHINESE BANKS CANNOT ESCAPE U.S. SANCTIONS'”, Seoul, 2010/01/26) reported that PRC banks will not be able to avoid the sanctions that the U.S. is pursuing against the DPRK, an official in the ROK said Monday. “The bigger banks cannot avoid the sanctions because all of its transactions go through the U.S.,” he said. He stressed that even smaller institutions ― such as Banco Delta Asia in the past ― could come under scrutiny because all wiring services go through New York. “This means that for everyone dealing with North Korea, it will become difficult for them to send and receive money from the North,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.
http://www.koreaherald.com/national/Detail.jsp?newsMLId=20100726000923
4. Japan Defense Policy
Global Times (“JAPAN OUTLINING NEW DEFENSE POLICY”, Beijing, 2010/07/27) reported that Japan’s new defense-program outline should enhance security on the country’s southern islands and relax restrictions on arms exports, the Kyodo News Agency quoted a defense official as saying Monday. Akihisa Nagashima, parliamentary defense secretary and a senior lawmaker of Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), said at a party he was hosting in Tokyo that the government should “seriously consider” deploying more troops to southern Japanese islands, Kyodo reported. Nagashima listed five core aspects of the new outline, including a new strategy for national security, enhancing security in Japan’s southwest region, transforming some of the Ground Self Defense Force into marines, participating more in international peacekeeping missions, loosening restrictions on arms exports and encouraging co-development of weapons technology with Japan’s allies.
http://world.globaltimes.cn/asia-pacific/2010-07/556162.html
5. PRC Energy Security
Calgary Herald (Peter Tertzakian, “CHINA HITS AN ENERGY BREAK POINT”, 2010/07/26) reported that it is interesting to know whether China or the US shovels more coal, guzzles more barrels of oil or pushes more nuclear fuel rods, but more striking is the difference between the growth profiles and the share of fuels that drive each of the two nations. All Western industrialized countries, including the United States, have altered their “diet” of fuels over time. Such change is characteristic of an energy “break point”, a point in the evolution of a country’s energy needs marked by abrupt diversification in fuel use and greater tendency toward more efficient consumption. The PRC’s economy on the other hand is still overwhelmingly fed by coal (70% of the total) and oil (19%), followed by a small fraction of hydroelectric power (6%), and even smaller portions natural gas (4%), nuclear (0.7%) and renewables (0.3%).
6. ROK Climate Change
Yonhap (“GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS FROM TRANSPORT DROP IN 2008”, Seoul, 2010/07/26) reported that greenhouse gas emissions from the ROK transportation sector dipped in 2008 from a year earlier due to higher oil prices and the global economic slowdown, a government report said Monday. The transportation sector’s emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) totaled 96.54 million tons in 2008, down 4.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the report by the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2010/07/26/0200000000AEN20100726006300315.HTML