As North Korea threat grows, US dismisses nuclear talk in Seoul as 'irresponsible'

North Korea's breach of a military accord in its recent rounds of shelling is a "dangerous situation" that analysts say could further inflame tensions on the Korean peninsula, but amid the growing threat, the US has dismissed calls by some in Seoul to acquire nuclear weapons as "irresponsible".

The South's military Joint Chiefs of Staff said North Korea on Tuesday fired some 100 artillery rounds into the Yellow Sea, another 150 rounds into the waters off the eastern coast. An additional 100 shots were fired around midday on Wednesday into waters off the west coast.

All the artillery shells fell into eastern and western "buffer zones" north of the de facto inter-Korean sea border, known as the Northern Limit Line, violating a 2018 accord to reduce tensions.

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"The 2018 inter-Korean military accord, which is the last security device aimed to prevent accidental armed clashes along the border, is being under threat from the escalating military activities by both sides," said political-science professor Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies. "This is a dangerous situation that must be carefully handled."

The latest salvo of artillery rounds came days after North Korea fired hundreds of artillery shells into the buffer zones. It has also staged eight rounds of ballistic missile tests since late last month, including a nuclear-capable ballistic missile that flew over Japan and could reach the US Pacific territory of Guam, some 3,400 kilometres away.

The launches were conducted as a tit-for-tat against two sets of military drills - one between the US and South Korea, and the other involving Washington, Seoul and Tokyo - off the Korean peninsula's east coast.

The latest artillery firings came as the South on Monday began their annual military exercises for a 10-day run and hours after Seoul announced a plan to launch a large-scale joint air force drill with the US, including the involvement of stealth jet fighters used for deeply invasive attacks.

The drills are set to take place over the South's airspace from October 31 to November 4, with the South Korean Air Force set to mobilise some 140 warplanes, including Stealth F-35A as the US military plans to deploy around 100 aircraft, including F-35B stealth fighters from an American base in Japan, according to officials.

It marked the first time since December 2017 that the two allies have conducted large-scale aerial exercises.

The exercise, previously dubbed "Vigilant ACE" from 2015 and 2017, were cancelled to help diplomacy during a series of US-North Korea summits in 2018 and 2019.

The South Korean and US joint military exercises come amid growing concerns Pyongyang may soon conduct a new nuclear test after carrying out six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017.

"Massive US-South Korea joint military drills tend to cause the North to be tempted all the more to push ahead with a new nuclear test even though such military exercises are purportedly designed to deter the North," Yang said.

South Korea's conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol, who considers the previous liberal president Moon Jae-in government as too sympathetic to the North, is less enthusiastic in preserving the 2018 military agreement signed under Moon, he said.

There have also been growing calls for the South to acquire nuclear weapons by either having US tactical atomic weapons redeployed or developing its own arsenal to deter the North's nuclear threats.

But US ambassador to South Korea Philip Goldberg dismissed such suggestions raised by conservative politicians and some scholars.

"All this talk about tactical nuclear weapons, whether it comes from [Vladimir] Putin or from Kim Jong-un, is irresponsible and dangerous and the escalation of those kinds of threats or speculation I don't think helps the situation," he said.

Goldberg emphasised the need to focus "not on increasing the threat from nuclear weapons, whether they be tactical or otherwise, but to address the need for ridding the world of these weapons".

"So our work at the moment with our allies here and our allies in Japan is to respond to these provocations and threats by showing resolve, but nobody should doubt our commitment to extended deterrence," he said.

Goldberg urged China to live up to its promise to play a constructive role in restraining the North.

"While we will continue to press Beijing to be the responsible actor on the world stage it claims to be, we cannot rely on the PRC [People's Republic of China] to play a supportive role in resolving regional and global challenges if that kind of attitude continues," he said.

Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at Sejong Institute think tank, cited an intensified US-China rivalry as a reason behind his scepticism about Beijing's intervention to restrain Pyongyang.

"US-China relations couldn't be worse and there is literally no room for the two sides to find common interests," he said.

Robert Kelly, a professor of political science at Pusan National University in the southern port city of Busan, said the US and China were sliding into a cold war and countries like North Korea and Russia were "informal partners".

"So China will not criticise the war in Ukraine nor North Korea's nuclear test," he said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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