Afghanistan – Security Cooperation in East Asia (GLIMUN 2017)
Topic: Security Cooperation in East Asia
Country: Afghanistan
Delegate Name: Mr. Thomas Westrick
School: Forest Hills Eastern High School
Recent armament in East Asia has led to uneasiness in the region. Recently, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) claimed to have successfully detonated a thermonuclear bomb. According the the Japanese Defense Ministry, the test created a 160 kiloton explosion and caused 6.3 seismic tremor (according to the United States Geological Survey). Some suspect DPRK’s aggressions and nuclear program come from their need to deter any interference to get resource gifts from other nations. Meanwhile, South Korea was given new THAAD anti-ballistic-missile system by the United States. While South Korea claims that this system is was meant to defend against DPRK, the system angered China who saw it as a means to weaken China’s nuclear arsenal. In the South China Sea, more tension has arisen. China has begun expanding its military reach by building man-made islands in its self-proclaimed 9-point line. This upset other countries in the South China Sea who have territorial claims within the United-Nations-set maritime borders. Furthermore, Japan is diverging from its constitutional pledge to pacifism because the United States’s protective role in the region is unsure. The overall tension in the region needs to be dealt with by this committee.
Afghanistan has economic and political ties to both China and the United States so it is in our interest that they cooperate. According to Liu Zhenmin, the vice minister of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “no country would want to see confrontations between [the] U.S. and China because… impacts will be felt across the world.” As a result, strongly desire for the sovereignty of each both China and the United States to be respected and for tensions in the East Asian region to be mitigated. In relation to North Korean aggression, we wish that North Korea would stop threatening South Korea, a country we are developing positive political relations with. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has “regard[ed] using most types of weapons of mass destruction as contrary to the international norms.” Also, our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our former president Hamid Karzai have promoted that “peaceful future for our world lays not in the clash of civilizations, but in ‘cooperation among civilizations.’”
In order for that to happen, Afghanistan would support and write a resolution that pressures South Korea, North Korea, United States of America, China, Japan, and Russia to restart the six-party talks they ended in 2007. These talks discussed issues pertinent today and would be valuable to restart. North Korea backed out of these talks and restarted their nuclear program back in 2007, but if nations across the world gave extra support to DPRK, they might yield and rejoin. Further, Afghanistan recommends that the United Nations resolve to protect North Korea’s sovereignty from foreign forces. North Korea seems to be motivated by fear of attack and continues its nuclear program to deter its enemies. Reinstating the six-party talks would help communication between these countries and help security cooperation in the region.