S. Korea, RP deplore China nuclear tests

S. Korea, RP deplore China nuclear tests

SEOUL (AFP): South Korea and the Philippines yesterday joined the international outcry against China's latest nuclear test, as Japanese politicians said Tokyo's retaliatory economic sanctions on Beijing did not go far enough.

Philippine President Fidel Ramos "strongly deplored" Thursday's test at Lop Nor saying it flew in the face of a regional resolution against nuclear testing, as South Korea issued a statement of "deep regret."

Ramos, on a visit to Australia, urged both China -- which Japanese experts say is planning a third test before the year's end, and France, which has scheduled tests in the Pacific this month -- to abandon their plans.

Both countries, he said "have raised serious concerns about the sincerity of the nuclear weapons states."

Seoul echoed the deep qualms voiced by China's neighbors, saying the Lop Nor test violated the trust between nuclear and non-nuclear states which had in May made the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) possible.

In Tokyo, which on Thursday curbed grant aid in reaction to the test, calls mounted among leading politicians for a tougher response.

"There is nothing for it but to review Japan's assistance ... as our protest against China is repeatedly ignored," said an official of the Liberal Democratic Party, the largest force in the ruling coalition.

"China carried out nuclear tests twice despite our protests, we really have to impose conditions on our official loan program," said Tashio Nishioka, of the opposition New Frontier Party.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono assured the Chinese ambassador Thursday that Tokyo's low interest official loans, which amount to 93 percent of Japan's total assistance to China, and totalled some US$1.5 billion last year, would not be affected by the protest.

In Beijing yesterday, officials and the Chinese press were silent on the test, China's second this year and the 43rd since its nuclear program started in 1964, announced by Foreign Ministry spokesman Chen Jian without comment Thursday.

But in the United States, the White House issued a statement in Jackson Hole, Wyoming -- where President Bill Clinton is vacationing -- deeply regretting the test, which comes at a particularly awkward time in Sino-U.S. relations and flouts President Bill Clinton's efforts to curb nuclear testing.

"We urge China to refrain from further nuclear tests and to join in a global moratorium as we work to complete and sign a Comprehensive test Ban treaty (CTBT) in 1996," the White House statement said.

"It will be harder to get a test ban agreement if such tests continue," said White House spokeswoman Ginny Terzano.

The Clinton administration has made a global ban on nuclear testing in 1996 one of its main foreign policy goals, and Clinton on Aug. 11 announced over Pentagon objections that the United States would abandon testing under the CTBT.

Apart from the five declared nuclear "haves" -- the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France -- Clinton must muster nuclear and borderline nuclear powers such as Israel, Iran and Iraq, India and Pakistan and North Korea.

In May all five nuclear "haves" agreed at an NPT extension and review conference to exercise the "utmost restraint" in nuclear testing before the CTBT came into effect, the White House said.

The U.S. reaction was complicated however by a low in relations exacerbated by Taiwanese President Lee teng-Hui's private visit to the United States last month and the arrest of Chinese-American rights activist Harry Wu.

The Chinese ambassador to Washington has been recalled indefinitely and Beijing has cancelled several high-level exchanges.