Editorials
Thursday, July 29, 1999Warning North Korea
against missile testANOTHER crisis is brewing in Asia, this one over the prospect that North Korea will launch a new ballistic missile.The issue: The United States, Japan and South Korea are preparing a warning to North Korea against launching a new missile into the Pacific.
North Korea stunned Tokyo last August by test-firing a rocket named Taepodong that soared over Japan and into the Pacific. Now Pyongyang appears to be preparing a test-launch of a Taepodong-2 missile that might be capable of reaching Hawaii and other parts of the United States.
On Tuesday foreign ministers for the United States, South Korea and Japan, meeting in Singapore, warned that a new launch would provoke "serious consequences." Those consequences could include jeopardizing a 1994 agreement to give Pyong-yang $5 billion in light-water nuclear power reactors and fuel in return for a pledge to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
Defense Secretary William Cohen, visiting Japan and South Korea, emphasized the importance of a united response by the United States, Japan and South Korea with a view to discouraging the North Koreans from proceeding with the launch. Cohen conferred with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and Defense Minister Hosei Norota to fashion a coordinated approach to the problem.
A spokesman for Obuchi said, "We are expecting the North Korean authorities to carefully listen to the message of warning from the three governments, and, of course, the Japanese government will take necessary measures if the North Korean authorities do try to launch a missile." These measures might include economic sanctions, he said.
Washington has indicated it would offer Pyongyang economic and political benefits, but only if the regime agreed to abandon suspected nuclear weapons and missile programs and reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Japan is a major party to the 1994 pact but its willingness to continue financing the deal has been called into question since the North Korean missile firing last year. Another launching could provoke a stiffening of the Japanese position.
The annual Japanese government defense report, released this week, took note of North Korean missile activity and recommended that Japan continue to pursue development of a missile defense system with the United States.
The report made it clear that Japan asserts the right to defend itself, including military strikes to avert anticipated attacks.
The North Koreans, first under Kim Il-sung and now under his son, Kim Jong-il, have kept their enemies on the defensive for decades with provocative acts that somehow always fell short of reviving the 1950-53 war.
The Clinton administration hoped to eliminate the threat of nuclear attack with the 1994 pact, but the North continues to keep the accord's viability in doubt.
With its customary rhetorical belligerence, North Korea has threatened to withdraw from the nuclear agreement unless the United States began to show "good faith" by removing economic sanctions. The regime maintains that missile testing is its sovereign right.
Cohen's mission is to fashion a united message from the United States, Japan and South Korea warning Pyongyang in a credible manner of the consequences of exercising that right. But with North Korea you never know.
Greenspan’s advice
to go slow on tax cutsALAN Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman, commands more respect on issues affecting the national economy than anyone else. To paraphrase a stock brokerage slogan, when Greenspan speaks, people listen.
The Fed chairman's latest remarks before the Senate Banking Committee on the state of the economy are particularly worth considering. They have to do with the trillion-dollar projected federal budget surplus and what to do with it. Senate Republicans are proposing a 10-year, $792 billion tax cut.
First of all, Greenspan pointed out that the surplus is not a sure thing. Projecting budget surpluses over a long period is dubious because the country's economic boom cannot be entirely explained, he said.
"Things are happening which we call technical factors, which is another way of saying we don't have a clue, and they could just as readily go in the other direction," he observed.
"And, if you start to simulate a number of these things that could go wrong, those surpluses evaporate fairly rapidly -- at least the size of them shrinks dramatically."
Therefore, Greenspan suggested, Congress should proceed slowly and cautiously, delaying big tax cuts until the budget surpluses materialize. Moreover, he added, "it is apparent that the surpluses are doing a great deal of positive good to the economy."
By "positive good" Greenspan means paying down the national debt, which he describes as his "first preference" for the surplus because it helps lower interest rates and prepare the nation for the retirements of the baby-boom generation.
With the economy booming, a big tax cut could be inflationary. The Fed might feel it necessary to raise interest rates to fight inflation, which could curtail the boom and reduce or eliminate the projected surplus.
In other words, let's not get carried away on tax cuts.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
