Korea most likely candidate to go nuclear in Northeast Asia: U.S. expert

South Korea is the most likely candidate to go nuclear in Northeast Asia in the face of nuclear threats from North Korea, but Seoul is unlikely to do so as long as the U.S. security commitment to the Asian ally remains firm, a U.S. expert said.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a nonproliferation expert who heads the U.S. office of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, made the observation in his new book, "Asia's Latent Nuclear Powers: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan."

Fitzpatrick said the three democracies can be called "latent nuclear powers" as they have civilian nuclear programs and development of several dual-use technologies that would enable them to produce nuclear weapons in perhaps two years -- or less in Japan's case.

The three countries have strong reasons to maintain a nuclear option, he said. South Korea faces nuclear threats from North Korea, Taiwan has to cope with increasingly powerful mainland China, and Japan has to cope with both of them, the expert said.

"If a new nuclear-armed state were to emerge in Northeast Asia, it would most likely be the Republic of Korea," he said, adding that this observation, however, is not meant to predict that South Korea will choose nuclear armament, according to a summary of the book available on the IISS website.

He also noted that South Korea has been steadfast in its adherence to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while the government in Seoul firmly rejects the pro-nuclear arguments posed by a few politicians and commentators.

"Officials understand well the downsides that those advocates ignore: the damage that nuclearization would cause to the nation's economy and international status due to direct and indirect sanctions, and the huge security risks in jeopardizing its alliance with the U.S.," he said.

Fitzpatrick pointed out, however, that such negatives are not readily apparent to the general public, citing polls that have shown that two-thirds of people support nuclear weapons. Such polls suggest that the nonproliferation norm is still "shallow" in South Korea, he said.

The expert also noted South Korea's past attempts to go nuclear in the 1970s.

"A nationalist desire to possess the rights to sensitive nuclear technology that Japan enjoys could eventually see South Korea moving purposefully towards a recessed weapons capability," he said. "Seoul is very unlikely to cross the nuclear-weapons threshold, however, as long as the U.S. defense commitment remains credible."

Following the North's nuclear test on Jan. 6, some members of South Korea's ruling party raised calls for the deployment of nuclear weapons. But the government dismissed the idea, saying it runs counter to the principle of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. (Yonhap)