N Korea slows processing nuclear rods

SPENT FUEL RODS: US officials said that work at a reprocessing plant at Yongbyon has halted, but that they do not have any idea what could be the reason for the move

AP , WASHINGTON

Plutonium reprocessing activity at a key North Korean site has apparently ceased, US officials said.

It is unclear why the North Koreans stopped work at their reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, the officials said Thursday, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Presumably, they either chose to stop or had technical problems at the plant. Unless something broke, the plant could be restarted at any time.

The plant turns spent nuclear fuel rods into plutonium that can be used in nuclear weapons. It is the only one North Korea is known to have. At the same site is a nuclear reactor that can make the spent fuel rods.

Also Thursday, US officials said North Korea appears to be developing a new intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the US. The missile hasn't been tested.

The North Korean move at its nuclear site in Yongbyon was first reported in Thursday editions of the Los Angeles Times.

The US officials declined to say precisely when activity at Yongbyon stopped, although other officials had said as recently as last month that low-level reprocessing was under way.

The North Koreans restarted the reactor in late February. They are also thought to have accessed some 8,000 ready-to-reprocess spent fuel rods that had been in storage.

Reprocessing work may have begun sometime in the late spring or summer.

It is unclear whether North Korea could have reprocessed enough spent fuel to make a nuclear weapon. Washington estimates they already have at least one or two.

Experts had previously estimated that running the plant at full speed could make five or six new nuclear weapons out of the 8,000 rods at the rate of one a month. But officials had previously described the activity at Yongbyon as small in scale.

The North Koreans claimed they finished reprocessing the rods in April, but Western intelligence officials have expressed doubts.

The new missile may have a range of 15,125km, a distance within the range of any US state or territory, two US government officials said.

Until now, the limit of North Korea's missile range was thought by US defense experts to have been Alaska or Hawaii for heavier payloads and the western half of the continental US for lighter payloads.

Whether Pyongyang could reach US targets with a nuclear warhead is not clear; officials are not certain whether their nuclear weapons are small enough to fit on their missiles.

Some officials said the new missiles are based on Russia's SS-N-6 "Serb," a Soviet-era, submarine-launched ballistic missile, suggesting cooperation from Russian scientists or other entities, the officials said.

The US administration has raised the issue with Russian government officials, who indicated surprise and disapproval of the activity, according to the US officials.

However, other US officials said the North Korean missile may be based on an indigenous design rather than a Russian one.

North Korea's possession of missiles with a range covering almost half the planet could add a troubling dimension to its dispute with the US over its nuclear weapons program.

In the absence of a proliferation agreement, the North could cap its missiles with nuclear warheads, leaving US cities vulnerable to attack.

Fight for freedom

I have lived in the US my entire life. I wanted to write to you, the people of the Republic of China (ROC), to encourage you to keep fighting for your freedom.

The Chinese believe they have the right to rule and repress the ROC, but that is a right they do not have. They are seeking to dissolve any resemblance of ROC self-government and redirect control of the island to Beijing. China is trying to take away your freedom. Thankfully, you are resisting. Do not give in to the communists. Freedom revoked is rarely returned.

Throughout history those who have denied freedom have been defeated and replaced by someone willing to give the people more liberty. We in the US say that history repeats itself. Communism has fallen in some places. It will fall again in others. Repression cannot last forever. Communism in China will fall, because freedom always triumphs over evil.

You admirably do not want to succumb to the many evils of communism. We in America passively watched as Mao Zedong led the communists to power. Since then America has treated China more like an equal than the enemy they are. Now America has another chance to defend a country against communism, and my country is indecisive. I strongly believe that the US must defend Taiwan and support full independence for the nation.

America fought the Cold War against the Soviets for decades before finally witnessing the collapse of the Soviet Union. Now America is faced with another "evil empire" called China and Americans regard them more like an ally than an adversary. China has the capability to reach the US West Coast with nuclear-tipped missiles, yet Americans seem to want free trade more than freedom.

Even though Washington is being petitioned to intervene, most in America claim that it is not our fight to resolve, not our people to protect, not our country to defend. And they are wrong. When freedom is in jeopardy, when liberty faces oppression, no matter where it is, we must act. Freedom's business is America's business.

America must preserve, protect and defend freedom, wherever it may be in danger, whatever the cost. There is no commodity more valuable than freedom. America has been blessed with great freedom; it is our responsibility to share that blessing with others. America and the ROC must work together to defeat the communists who seek only world domination, not friendly relations. China is not a true friend; they are a dangerous foe.

Stay strong. Stand tall. Don't give in or give up. Freedom will eventually prevail.

Justin Smith

Blue Springs, Missouri

A Taiwan-phobic party

Like most dictatorial systems, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) maintained its authoritarian rule over Taiwan for more than five decades by lies, bribery, coercion and violence.

Now Taiwan is a democratic country and the KMT is an opposition party that can no longer directly order the government forces to wreak violence against the people. It can still try to coerce Taiwanese by threats of invasion by the People's Liberation Army but this scare tactic has been to no avail. And without the government's abundant resources and coffers, the KMT's ability to bribe its cronies is limited. However, its dominance over the media proves it can still spread innuendoes and reinforce its lies. And it still has teeth with which it can bite.

For example, the ROC is a thing of the past, yet the KMT claims its territory still includes Mongolia and China and represents China. Its policy is always to pursue unification, yet it takes "Taiwan first " as its motto for next year's election.

The KMT is Taiwan-phobic. The party's failed policies and criminal acts in Taiwan are countless. For many Taiwanese it is a no-brainer to ditch such a party. Still many are misled by its semantic games and well-disguised deception.

Fortunately, the myth and claims it tries to propagate are easily defeated under careful examination. Its lies cannot hold up and will disappear like a shadow under the sun.

Yang Ji-charng

Columbus, Ohio

The ROC is a parasite

"The last democratic reform" (Editorial, Sept. 7, page 8) pointed out a crucial historical fact that Taiwan was not part of the ROC at its founding nor was sovereignty ever transferred to the ROC at a later date.

This fact has made the ROC an exile in Taiwan. It's like a kind of parasite that causes an identity crisis on a body, like a mask on a face. After more than 50 years, it is time to naturalize the exile, to eliminate the parasite, to remove the mask. These will be a win-win situation for both the ROC and Taiwan. The Chinese KMT should also take off its hat "China" otherwise it is nothing but an exile party.

Former presidents Chiang Kai-shek and Lee Teng-hui declared that the ROC has been dead since 1949. This is a reality people in Taiwan have to accept, like it or not. The republic lost not only its territory but also its people. It is identity theft.

The name rectification should abolish the many strange synonyms used for "Taiwan." Taiwan is the name that fits the character and the size of Taiwan.

Charles Hong

Columbus, Ohio

Taiwan's status left unresolved by treaties

By Ho Szu-shen

Expectations that the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty and the 1952 Treaty of Taipei may be incorporated into high-school textbooks -- alongside the Cairo and Potsdam declarations -- have sparked a debate on the claim that Taiwan's status remains unsettled. I would like to give some background on this theory.

On Feb. 14, 1950, China and the Soviet Union signed a "Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance," which proved that Beijing was leaning toward the Soviets. On June 25 that year, North Korea invaded South Korea. In succession, the US and China entered the war. The military clash between the US and China on the Korean Peninsula made the US understand Taiwan's strategic value in containing the expansion of Chinese and Soviet communists in East Asia.

Then US president Harry Truman announced that the US Seventh Fleet would prevent any attack on Taiwan. To legalize such an action and to avoid criticism of interference in China's internal affairs, Truman stated that Taiwan's future status would not be determined until peace was restored in the Pacific region, a peace treaty was signed with Japan and the matter was reviewed by the UN. This was the origin of the theory that Taiwan's status remains unsettled.

As for the question of where Taiwan's sovereignty belongs, Article 2 (b) of the San Francisco Peace Treaty and Article 2 of the Treaty of Taipei only stated that Japan renounced all right, title and claim to Formosa and the Pescadores. There was no mention whatsoever of these areas being returned to China. Then Japanese prime minister Shigeru Yoshida also said that Japan merely renounced its territorial rights over Taiwan and that the sovereignty issue remained undecided.

On Sept. 29, 1972, then Jap-anese prime minister Kakuei Tanaka and then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai signed a joint communique and established full-diplomatic relations. Japan recog-nized that the government of the PRC was the sole legal government of China. More interestingly, in the communique, Japan did not entirely accept Beijing's stance on the issue of Taiwan's sovereignty, which was something China was most concerned about.

The Chinese demanded during the negotiations that Japan recognize Taiwan as PRC territory. However, in the communique establishing diplomatic ties, Japan only used ambiguous language, using the words "understand and respect" instead of "recognize."

Japan said that because it had renounced sovereignty rights over Taiwan, the Pescadores and other affiliated islands in the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, it no longer had any legal ground on which to "recognize" that the sovereignty of areas that were no longer its territory belonged to the PRC. Based on this principle of international law, territorial rights can only be determined by the countries involved. They cannot be recognized or determined by any irrelevant third country.

The day after China and Japan established diplomatic ties, the Japanese government said -- in a statement by then foreign minister Masayoshi Ohira at the Liberal Democratic Party's bicameral congressional meeting -- that Japan understood and respected Beijing's claim that Taiwan was an inseparable part of the PRC, but had not taken any stance recognizing such claim. Japan made it clear that the two countries' positions on the issue could never be unanimous.

At best, Japan could only equivocate politically and handle the issue with words like "understand and respect." At the same time, it also left room for maneuver in the development of Taiwan-Japan relations after the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Ho Szu-shen is an associate professor in the department of Japanese at Fu Jen Catholic University.

INFLATING THE NUMBERS

The alliance to Campaign for Rectifying the Name of Taiwan yesterday urged the public to back the group’s planned march next year in support of changing the country’s name to Taiwan, applying for UN membership under that name and drafting a new Constitution. The alliance hopes to rally more than 500000 people, or 350000 more than showed up for its rally on Sept. 6. Chief organizer Wang Hsien-chi, third from left, cited a poll that said 60 percent of respondents supported the name-change campaign. Also in attendance were DPP Legislator Chiu Yung-jen, left, and presidential adviser Ng Chiao-tong, second left.