Taipei, May 29 (CNA) Taiwan has nothing to gain from prolonged tension or full-out war on the Korean Peninsula and it should firmly support its allies -- South Korea, Japan and the United States -- in the confrontation, scholars said.
A "new Korean War" over the sinking of a South Korean naval ship would hurt Taiwan because the U.S. would have to refrain from strengthening military cooperation with Taiwan in exchange for China's assistance in Korea, said Alexander Huang, a professor in Tamkang University's Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
North and South Korea are not likely to engage in a full-out war, but "a strategist will tell you to never say never, " he said. The odds are "98 percent against them waging war." North Korea understands very clearly that if it does launch a war, it would be slapped with a string of international sanctions and have to increase its food production dramatically, Huang said.
"And for South Korea, military conflict is the last thing Seoul wants to see, " he said. "To me, the current stalemate is more of a gesture from both leaders -- North Korea's Kim Jong Il and the South's Lee Myung-bak -- to secure domestic political benefit."
Economically, a Korean war would impact not only the regional economy but also the global one, he said, adding that the idea that it would benefit Taiwan's DRAM and LCD sectors was totally misguided "unless the entire Seoul metropolitan area is flattened."
Relations between North and South Korea appear to have returned to the Cold War era, said Lai I-chung, a researcher at the Taiwan Thinktank. Despite the fact that chances of an all-out war are slim, he urged Taiwan's government to develop a national strategy in case of a military conflict.
Lai said Taiwan should clearly express its support to South Korea, Japan and the U.S. -- as President Ma Ying-jeou did Friday when he condemned violence in response to an interviewer's question about the Korean Peninsula -- so that the international community will not misunderstand Taiwan's position.
Lai also urged Taiwan to support the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led multinational effort to stop the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction, as it did in 2003 when a North Korean cargo ship carrying chemicals was intercepted and detained at the southern port of Kaohsiung. (By Chris Wang) enditem/bc