Lee Jin-Man/Associated Press
A South Korean watched news reporting about a possible nuclear test conducted by North Korea on a TV screen in Seoul on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON — American and South Korean officials reported seismic activity in North Korea on Tuesday that appeared to be evidence of the country’s third, and long-threatened nuclear test and a new challenge for the Obama administration in its effort to keep the country from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.
“We believe that North Korea has conducted a nuclear test,” said Kim Min-seok, spokesman of the South Korean Defense Ministry.
The shock appeared to be centered in the same location where the North conducted tests in 2006 and 2009, and the United States Geological Survey said it was only a kilometer underground, all indications consistent with a nuclear blast.
If confirmed, the test would be the first under the country’s new leader, Kim Jong-un, and an open act of defiance to the Chinese, who urged the young leader not to risk open confrontation by setting off the weapon. Just in the past few days a Chinese newspaper that is often reflective of the government’s thinking said the North must “pay a heavy price” if it proceeded with the test.
But past United Nations Security Council sanctions have not deterred the country from accelerating its missile and nuclear programs. And recent actions, including a successful missile test nearly two months ago that reached as far as the Philippines and sent a washing-machine sized satellite into space have dashed hopes that the country’s Swiss-educated new leader might be willing to focus on economic reform rather than pursuing the path taken by his father and grandfather: open defiance of the country’s adversaries.
The Obama administration has already threatened to take additional action to penalize the North if it conducts a test, through the United Nations. But the fact is that there are few sanctions left to apply against the most unpredictable country in Asia. The only penalty that would truly hurt the North would be a cutoff of oil and other aid from China. And until now, despite issuing warnings, the Chinese have feared instability and chaos in the North more than its growing nuclear and missile capability, and the Chinese leadership has refused to participate in sanctions.
Mr. Kim, believed to be about 29, appears betting that even a third test would not change the Chinese calculus.
It may take days or weeks to determine if the test, if that is what it proves to be, was successful. But American officials will also be looking for signs of whether the North, for the first time, conducted a test of a uranium weapon, based on a uranium enrichment capability it has been pursuing for a decade. The past two tests used plutonium, reprocessed from one of the country’s now-defunct nuclear reactors. While the country only has enough plutonium for a half-dozen or so bombs, it can produce enriched uranium well into the future.
No country is more interested in the results of the North’s nuclear program, or the Western reaction, than Iran, which is pursuing its own uranium enrichment program. The two countries have long cooperated on missile technology, and many intelligence officials believe they share nuclear knowledge as well, though so far there is no hard evidence. The Iranians are also pursuing uranium enrichment, and one senior American official said two weeks ago that “it’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” Some believe that the country may have been planning two simultaneous tests, but it could take time to sort out the data.
The timing of the test, if that is what it was, is critical. It comes just as a transition of power is about to take place in South Korea, and the North detested the South’s hard-line outgoing president, Lee Myung-bak. By conducting a test just before he leaves office, the North could be both sending a message and giving his successor, Park Guen-Hye, the chance to restore relations after the breach a test will undoubtedly cause.
Western officials considered the country’s first nuclear test, in 2006, a fizzle, but the next one in 2009 was judged more successful. It may take outside experts days or weeks to determine if the latest blast moved the program to a “higher level,” as Pyongyang recently promised, allowing it to improve, or even expand, an arsenal that intelligence experts say includes enough plutonium for roughly 6 to 10 nuclear bombs.
