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太田述正コラム#3297(2009.5.26)
<北朝鮮の2度目の核実験をめぐって>(2009.7.4公開)

1 始めに

 英米の主要紙の表記についての論調をご紹介します。
 本来引用については、邦訳すべきところ、分量が多すぎるので、例外的に原文のままにさせていただきます。

A:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/north-korea-arms-race
B:http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/25/north-korea-nuclear-testing-editorial
C:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fd8b0976-4919-11de-9e19-00144feabdc0.html
D:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9144ed02-4925-11de-9e19-00144feabdc0.html
E:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501961_pf.html
F:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501391_pf.html
G:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052501505_pf.html
H:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/26/world/asia/26northk.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
I:http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0525/p06s01-duts.html
J:http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1900828,00.html

2 論調

 (1)核実験のねらい

 北朝鮮は核計画放棄の見返りに米国から賄賂を欲しがっている、というのがクリントン政権以来の米国政府の基本的な考え方だった。これは韓国政府の考え方でもあった。
 ブッシュ政権も、初期においてこそこの考え方から逸脱したが、最後にはクリントン政権の考え方に戻った。
 ・・・The fundamental notion underlying U.S. diplomacy with Pyongyang, going back to Bill Clinton's first term, is that North Korea can be bribed. In this view, everything that Kim's regime says or does is meant simply to up the ante in negotiations and get the U.S. and its negotiating partners to sweeten their offerings. This conviction is widely shared among career diplomats in Seoul as well, and they joined their State Department colleagues in being outraged when the Bush administration at first took a confrontational approach to the DPRK.・・・(J)

→私自身は、(皆さんの多くがご存じのように、)ブッシュ政権もこの基本的な考え方から逸脱したことはない、と考えてきたところです。
 ブッシュ政権は、相手は賄賂を欲しがっている、という前提に立って、一貫して北朝鮮をいたぶり続けたのである、と考えたわけです。
 このいたぶり戦略は功を奏し、北朝鮮は実質的な見返りを何も得られないまま、様々な譲歩をさせられてしまうという羽目に陥ったのでした。(太田)
 ・・・North Korea began decommissioning its reactor at Yongbyon and produced a 60-page declaration of its nuclear assets. This did not include its weapons or weapons facilities. But North Korea did declare it held 30.8 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium--a conservative but still plausible estimate. The talks stalled over the US insistence on intrusive verification.・・・(B)

 しかし、今回の核実験で、米国政府は、この基本的な考え方の見直しを迫られている。
 ・・・the assumption that North Korea is ultimately willing to negotiate away its nuclear program will come under new scrutiny after today's test. ・・・(J)
 北朝鮮が核能力を持つことそのものを目指すに至ったのではないか、というのだ。
 ・・・North Korea・・・detonating bombs to・・・achieve a working nuclear capability. There could be strong internal reasons for seeking to improve its nuclear deterrent. Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke last year, which may have forced him to quicken the pace of a transfer of power to one of his three sons, the youngest, Kim Jong-un, being the favourite. A successful test might just give the physically ailing Mr Kim renewed political vigour at home.(B)

 しかし、たとえ北朝鮮が核能力を持ったと認められた暁においても、それが北朝鮮にとって対外的にそれほどのメリットがあるとは思えない。中共だってホンネでは強く反発するはずだからだ。
 But the diplomatic gains that North Korea will reap from going credibly nuclear are less clear. The blast will seriously annoy North Korea's strongest neighbour, China--whatever it says in public. Beijing will not like this challenge to its authority, whether or not it was secretly forewarned. ・・・(B)

 この疑問を解くカギは、北朝鮮が現在国内で行っているキャンペーンにある。金日成生誕100周年の2012年までに富国強兵を達成するというのだ。
 ・・・North Korean streets currently sport propaganda posters depicting workers punching the air as a rocket rips into the sky behind them. The mantra is the same: the Stalinist regime is en route to becoming a “mighty and prosperous nation” by 2012, in time for the centenary celebrations of the birth of the founder of the nation, Kim Il-sung.(D)

 しかし、富国の達成がありえない以上は強兵を達成しなければならない。つまりは核ミサイルを保持しなければならない、ということになる。
 In practical terms, this now means only one thing: the communist state must develop nuclear missiles in the next three years.
 ・・・They cannot become a mighty nation through their economy or through conventional troops, so the nuclear programme would be their only way・・・(D)

 では、一体何のためにこんなキャンペーンを行っているのだろうか。金正日及び彼の子供達、すなわち金王朝を永続させるために強兵達成に向けて着々と前進していることをアピールしたいのだ。 
 Pyongyang’s apparent detonation of a nuclear device on Monday may have been designed as a propaganda coup to shore up the dynasty of the country’s ailing dictator, Kim Jong-il, and protect him and his more vulnerable sons from internal rivals, analysts argue. (注)・・・(D)

 (注)より詳細には、次のとおり。
 ・・・the initial view across the region was that this had been yet another defiant gambit by the North to extract more concessions from Washington.・・・
 But this time around, North Korea’s succession crisis is the primary driver, many experts believe, suggesting that the audience for the test is its own population as much as the United States.
 Monday’s test culminates a shift toward a more assertive foreign policy, which some analysts say seems to have begun not long after the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, was believed to have suffered a stroke in August. ・・・
 Some experts say the test was a display of might aimed at showing solidarity with North Korea’s powerful military, whose support would be essential in securing Mr. Kim’s choice of successor. Others believe the intended audience was North Korea’s largely impoverished population, in hopes a display of technological prowess could serve as the elder Mr. Kim’s legacy in a government that has failed to deliver even basic food and electricity.
 Either way, the North Korean government most likely hopes the test will help ensure a smooth transition of power--and, perhaps, show that the elder Kim is still in charge, at least for now.
 “Kim Jong-il wants to show that he has given his nation mighty nuclear power・・・This test was absolutely a domestic demonstration.”
 ・・・the ruling family may be preparing for a transition. Last month, Kim Jong-il’s brother-in-law, Jang Seong-taek<(張 成沢=チャン・ソンテク)>, joined the National Defense Commission<(国防委員会)>, the most powerful group in the North Korean government・・・. ・・・Mr. Jang’s promotion may be a move to secure support from the military in case Mr. Kim’s health worsens.
 In April, South Korean news media reported that Kim Jong-un<(金正雲=キム・ジョンウン)>, who is in his mid-20s, was appointed to a low-ranking job in the commission. Mr. Jang, Kim Sung-han said, may also be a caretaker until the younger Kim is old enough to assume power in a society that values seniority. ・・・(H)

 <強兵の達成とは、テポドン2に搭載できる程度まで核弾頭を小型化した上で、しかもテポドン2をアラスカの一部やハワイに到達する距離、飛ばせるようにすることだ。
 この目標を目指して核実験やミサイル発射を繰り返せば、早晩>オバマ政権の関心を北朝鮮に惹き付けることができる。
 ・・・The likelihood is that North Korea is throwing its radioactive rattle from its pram in an effort to grab the attention of Barack Obama. The new US president has put Pyongyang fairly low down a list of priorities dominated by efforts to get the domestic economy going and to tackle terrorist threats brewing in Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of the Middle East. His administration has taken the view that it will talk to Pyongyang when the time comes, but that there is no rush. ・・・(C)

→北朝鮮は、たまらずオバマ政権が北朝鮮とサシの対話を始めることになる、とふんでいるのでしょう。
 超大国と核保有国としての立場で「対等に」サシで対話できれば、金王朝の威信は対内的に一層高まります。
 問題は、北朝鮮の手持ちプルトニウムには分量的に限りがあるにもかかわらず、核爆弾の改善や小型化のための核実験を続けて行けば、プルトニウムが尽きてしまう恐れがあることです。
 考えられる可能性は次の3つあります。(太田)

<1> typical NK bloody-mindedness in upping the ante for attention, even at the cost of using up some scarce fissile material
<2> apparent NK confidence that they’re going to make some more fissile material, as they keep threatening to re-open Yongbyon and also build some more reactors.”
<3>  North Korea had a greater supply of processed weapons-grade plutonium than it previously declared.
(D)

 (2)オバマ政権の対応

 オバマ政権のこれまでの北朝鮮への対応は、全く腰が定まっていなかった。
 ・・・Obama inherited a sputtering multilateral diplomatic process on North Korea from the Bush administration, and initially U.S. officials suggested they would jumpstart the talks with the offer of direct, high-level bilateral discussions. Still there were suspicions in Asia and Washington that the president only intended to manage concerns over North Korea's nuclear weapons, not resolve them, when he appointed a part-time special envoy to handle the talks.
 But then North Korea surprised the administration by spurning the offer of direct talks and in April tested a long-range rocket. When the United States led an effort at the U.N. Security Council condemning the rocket test, North Korea angrily responded by suggesting it soon would test a nuclear weapon in order to strengthen its "deterrent."
 The administration response to North Korea rhetoric has been inconsistent in recent months, perhaps in part because the Senate, leaving a key policy-making role for North Korea unfilled, still has not confirmed Obama's nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Kurt Campbell.・・・
 Gary Samore, the White House nonproliferation director.
 Bosworth, who also retained his job as Dean of the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told reporters just days before the rocket test that "pressure is not the most productive line of approach" in dealing with North Korea and that talks probably would likely resume after "a cooling-off period."
 But Samore recently told a conference at the Brookings Institution that "it's very clear that the North Koreans want to pick a fight. They want to kill the six-party talks." He was referring to the six-nation negotiating forum -- made up of the United States, North Korea, China, Japan, South Korea and Russia -- that has met since 2003 to try to resolve the issue.
 Samore predicted that North Korea would conduct a test, but that North Korea would be forced back to negotiations within nine months. "We'll just wait," he said.
 Clinton, meanwhile, gave an entirely different message in recent congressional testimony, telling lawmakers that "at this point it seems implausible if not impossible, the North Koreans will return to the six-party talks and begin to disable their nuclear capacity again." ・・・(E)

 さりとて、かっちりした北朝鮮政策を策定しようとしても、
経済制裁は、中共とロシアがまともにやる気がないし、
 ・・・Isolation and more punitive sanctions would make sense if China and Russia would go along. But they haven't, and they won't.・・・(F)
そもそも、まともに中共が経済制裁をやる気になったら、それだけで北朝鮮を追い詰めることができるが、中共にはその気がないのであるし、
 Sure, in theory China could pressure Kim to give up his weapons -- it has the power and influence. But the fact is, China doesn't want to. Beijing is content to live with a nuclear and anti-Western North Korea. While China fears a collapsed North that would flood its struggling Northeast with refugees, it also fears a unified, democratic, prosperous Korea allied with the United States. China wants a puppet state in North Korea, which is why, far from joining in sanctions, it steadily increases its economic investment there. ・・・(F)
軍事的手段を行使することも、当面は不可能だ。
 We would support military action against North Korean missiles and missile sites, if we had prepared ourselves over the past few years to protect our allies against possible North Korean retaliation. Former defense secretary William J. Perry and current defense undersecretary Ashton B. Carter recommended this course of action on this page a few years ago ["If Necessary, Strike and Destroy," op-ed, June 22, 2006]. But the supposedly bellicose Bush administration didn't take such action, and the odds of this administration doing so are even smaller. ・・・(F)

 では、オバマ政権はどうすればよいかだが、考慮すべきことがいくつかある。
 第1に、現時点で既に北朝鮮の核の脅威に晒されているはずの北東アジアの国や地域がこの脅威をほとんど感じていないということだ。
 ・・・Asian markets "shrugged off" North Korea's test, with most posting gains Monday.
 The region's markets have grown accustomed to such maneuvering by North Korea・・・For the South Korean market, it's just an excuse for the market to make a correction because markets have shot up too much recently,・・・But <nobody can> see any great impact in other Asian markets. ・・・(I)

 第2に、<まだアラスカの一部やハワイすら北朝鮮の核の脅威には晒されていないことだ。米国自身は北朝鮮の核の脅威には晒されていないわけだ。>

 第3に、世界中の安全保障に関わっている米国にとって、北東アジア以外での核の潜在的・顕在的「脅威」が高まりつつあることだ。顕在のパキスタン、潜在のイランだ。 
 ・・・Last week the Pentagon assessed that Pakistan now had between 70 and 100 bombs or warheads of the same capacity, and this is being expanded. Asked at a congressional hearing last week if he thought Pakistan was boosting its nuclear weapons capability, Mullen replied with a terse "yes" ・・・
 As if today's news from North Korea wasn't bad enough, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran has issued his note of defiance about his own nuclear programme. He flatly rejected the offer by the US and its allies to discuss a freeze on nuclear fuel enrichment in return for lifting sanctions. He rejected the terms, and said he did not plan to open any talks at all in the near future.・・・(A)

 そこで、オバマ政権としては、英国とフランスの核戦力の助けを得ることを考慮中だ。
  The thinking is now that the US navy can only man and deploy between eight and 10 nuclear patrols at the maximum, and the British and French contributions will be vital to mounting their own deterrent activity, particularly round the coasts of Africa and the Gulf.・・・(A)
 <こういう状況下で、北朝鮮の核の脅威への対処にまで手が回らないわけだ。>

 よって、オバマ政権は、北朝鮮をこのまま放置せざるを得ない。
 ・・・ Mr. Obama should simply decline to treat North Korea as a crisis, or even as a matter of urgency.・・・
 There should, however, be no new economic favors to the North, no further political recognition, no grand visits by the secretary of state to Pyongyang. ・・・(G)

 これは、韓国と日本は自分の才覚で北朝鮮の核の脅威に対処せざるをえないことを意味する。
 そもそも、オバマ政権は、ミサイル防衛のための予算さえ削ることにしている。<ミサイル防衛をしたいのなら、基本的に自分のカネでやれということだ。>
  First, it should enhance its deterrent to protect itself, South Korea and Japan. That means, above all, bolstering American and allied missile defenses and deterrent capabilities. Unfortunately, it is precisely American missile defense capabilities that the Obama administration is now cutting -- despite the growing missile threat from North Korea and Iran. (F)

 もちろん、オバマ政権が音頭を取ってPSI等が強化されることにはなろう。
 Second, it should strengthen multilateral efforts to stem North Korean proliferation, including more active efforts at interdiction and freezing bank accounts used to fund proliferation. (F)

 6カ国協議は諦めざるを得ず、仮に対話が行われたとしても、それはかなり先の話であって、米国と北朝鮮とのサシの対話という形になるだろう。
Third, it should give up on the six-party talks. If it ever proves useful to talk to Pyongyang -- a big "if" -- let's do so directly. ・・・(F)

3 終わりに

 さぞかし読みにくかったと思いますが、英米の主要紙の論調の大体の方向性をつかんでいただければ幸いです。

太田述正ブログは移転しました 。
www.ohtan.net
www.ohtan.net/blog/