More Balanced Nuclear Pact

By Lee Byong-chul

Last year, South Korea made an unexpected landmark achievement in the field of nuclear power reactors by successfully leading a consortium for a $20 billion contract with the United Arab Emirates.

It came as a surprise, not only to South Koreans themselves but to people the world over, that a Korean-led consortium beat out a General Electric-Hitachi team and a French consortium that included Electricite de France and Areva. This was especially so, as the nation had no track record of exporting its nuclear power plants until the dramatic deal was signed.

Suppose one day that a once poverty-stricken country like North Korea of today emerges as one of the most competitive bidders in the global market for nuclear power reactors, long after South Korea started operating its first nuclear reactor in 1978 with the assistance of the United States.

That said, it would not have been possible to see South Korea ``standing shoulder to shoulder with the U.S., Japan, France and Russia'' without the full support of nuclear-related technologies and know-how from Washington at that time.

South Korea is currently operating 20 nuclear power plants, although it has imported key components and core technologies such as reactor coolant pumps and a man-machine interface system.

But this has created a critical issue in the country ― how to deal with the nuclear waste created from depleted fuel rods.

A lot of nuclear experts here have warned that if South Korea cannot acquire additional storage facilities for the waste, or technical means to deal with it by 2016, it might face dangerous operational issues at its nuclear power plants, calling their safety into question.

The problem could eventually lead to a national crisis due to a severe lack in electric power supply. South Korea's nuclear stations generate about 36 percent of the country's power supply.

The domestic challenge is similar to that of other countries building and operating nuclear power stations; South Korea also finds it difficult to obtain suitable sites ― that require the highest level of safety ― for disposal facilities, not to mention the protests of interest groups and residents in the designated areas.

Given its small land size and lack of natural energy resources such as oil and gas, the government has to consider the technical aspects of resolving the waste issue, which is necessary due to its growing dependence on nuclear energy.

Thirty-six years ago, the authoritarian military regime was a poster child for the U.S.-backed anti-communism fronts during the Cold War. In 1964, South Korea's exports amounted to $100 million, equivalent to those of Ethiopia and Mozambique. These African countries' exports in 2008 were $1.6 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively.

In 1971, the exports of Portugal and the Philippines were over $1 billion ― as was true for South Korea ― while each marked $49 billion and $56 billion in 2008.

Korea became the world's ninth-largest exporter earning $363.8 billion as of October 2009. It is no surprise to see that one out of four people uses a Korean-made mobile handset.

In terms of economics and business, political systems and culture, the nation is weaving a new landscape that is quite different from what most Americans might have seen through the prism of the old South Korea that had no choice but to accept the U.S.-led pact in full.

The ``new version'' of South Korea is the result of a series of dynamic trends that have been progressing over the last 50 years, trends that have so far created unique, economic and political prosperity. Obviously, South Korea's nuclear-related technologies have now outpaced the client-patron relations in the past.

The ROK-U.S. nuclear energy agreement, which was initially signed in November 1972 and revised in May 1974, is officially set to expire in March 2014. Both countries reportedly agreed to reach the completion of the revision of the pact by 2012.

Few details have emerged, but we are told that the U.S. is concerned that South Korea may try to develop nuclear weapons by obtaining the right to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.

America still appears unwilling to ``radically'' change the 38-year-old pact, despite the fact that Seoul clearly declared in the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula that it ``will not test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.''

The declaration also stipulates that South Korea ``shall not use nuclear energy solely for peaceful purposes'' but also ``shall not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities.''

Why does the U.S. not trust South Korea? Do Korea policymakers in Washington suspect that South Koreans have the same mindset about nuclear weapons as that of the North?

I'm not saying that a new pact is not essential for curbing nuclear proliferation. Part of the suspicious perceptions that some Washingtonians might have is based on one or two past cases that were enough to invoke doubts over the mishandling of nuclear material.

There is a widely held sentiment that the U.S. cannot fully trust South Korea, at least from the perspective of nuclear nonproliferation. But South Koreans are well aware that its entire economy will undoubtedly become bankrupt if it attempts to possess nuclear weapons. The clueless North Korea is a good example.

When tough negotiations begin in earnest, both South Korea and the U.S. need to convince each other of their intentions in a sincere and wise manner, instead of bickering over how to amend the agreement. On the one hand Seoul needs to stress the importance of green energy by demonstrating its growing investment in solar and wind energy.

On the other, it needs to convince the U.S. that as a major global nuclear energy exporter, South Korea has no choice but to develop nuclear energy-related technologies, while reassuring the U.S. government that it has no intention of developing any kind of nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the U.S. should not rule out the possibility that the prior consent right given to Japan and Switzerland could be equally applied to South Korea.

The qualities and quantities of the alliance management between the two countries have already become too critical to put the South Korean case on the backburner of the ready-made standard agreement being applied to the rest of the world, except for a few strategically crucial allies of America.

In order to transform the nuclear energy debate framed in the 1970s into the 21st century, the U.S. needs to communicate better with South Korea, its major ally in Northeast Asia. South Korea must urge the U.S. to reconsider its stubborn stance.

Lee Byong-chul is a senior fellow of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Center at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation, a nonpartisan policy advisory body based in Seoul, South Korea.