TED Case Studies

Taiwan Nuclear Waste Exports (NKORNUKE)

CASE NAME: Taiwan Nuclear Waste Exports to North Korea


I. Identification

1. The Issue

The government-owned The Taiwan Power Company (Taipower) signed a contract with a state-run North Korean trading firm on January 11, 1997 to transport 60,000 barrels of low-level nuclear waste to North Korea within two years. As the waste will be buried in Pingsan in South Hwanghae Province, about 90 kilometers (55 miles) from the border with South Korea, Seoul has vowed to block the shipment. North Korean's conflict with global community due to its nuclear program, facilities inspections and Non-Proliferation treaties has given the shipment deal attention from surrounding countries and environmental groups. However, the shipments are needed due to the food and economic in the country. Therefore, there is now debate over safety confirmations for the waste storage facilities and measures in North Korea as well as environmental concern for the shipment passages in the nearby seas.

2. Description

Taipower currently stores its nuclear waste on Lan Yu (Orchid Island), about 65 kilometers (40 miles) off Taiwan's south-east coast. The nuclear waste, encased in cement, is stored low-carbon barrels in trenches on the island. The islanders demanded their removal, however, after some barrels reportedly developed leaks caused by erosion. Orchid Island is a small tropical island of only 45 square kilometers and with more than 2,000 indigenous Tao people. The company closed the site last July due to protests from the islanders, especially Tao people and supporters. Consequently, strong local opposition to dumping of nuclear waste forced Taipower to search abroad. Taipower discussed waste disposal with the Marshall Islands and Russia for possible new dumping sites. However, according to Greenpeace, the company failed in attempts to finalize plans to dump the waste in the above locations.

Pyounyang reportedly will charge Taipower $1,151 for storing each barrel of waste (400 kilograms). Thus, North Korea's charge is cheaper than building a nuclear waste storage facility on Taiwan. To find a site for storage, Taipower must compensate the local government $100 million for possible environmental damage. North Korea, continuing to have severe food shortages and crisis, is getting food aid, for instance, from the United Nations World Food Program. The program will soon make an emergency appeal for $37 million to $38 million to purchase about 100,000 tons of food for North Korea. This situation partly demonstrates how North Korea was attracted to Taiwan's offer currency in exchange of the storage site for low- level radioactive waste.

Taipower has three nuclear power plants, with a fourth under construction, and has produced some 180,000 barrels of low-radiation waste since they first became operational in 1978. There is a plan for a new reactor for North Korea. According to the initial plan, Pyongyong will receive the new reactors from a consortium including the United States, Japan and South Korea in return for closing down its current reactors, which produce weapon-grade plutonium, an origin of the international conflict with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in 1992. Seoul is footing the bill for most of the $4.5 billion project. However, to stop the nuclear waste shipment deal between Taiwan and North Korea, South Korea has expressed its concern over plan.

During the past several years, the combined efforts of the United States and Republic of Korea have led to a significant foreign policy achievement on the Korean peninsula. For instance, in 1992, as mentioned briefly above, the world community was forced to focus on the North Korean nuclear program as North Korea denied access to its nuclear facilities to inspectors of IAEA, contrary to its obligations under the Non- Proliferation Treaty. Amid suspicions that it had reprocessed enough plutonium for a few nuclear weapons, North Korea announced in March 1993 that it would withdraw from the NPT. In response to the United Nations Security Counsel call for member states to help resolve the growing crisis, the United States engaged Pyongyang at the political level. After the many arduous months of negotiations, these talks resulted, in October 1994, in an Agreed Framework.

The Agreed Framework also led to the creation of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO). This organization -- which is charged with implementing the nuclear provisions of the Agreed Framework, including the supply of oil and Light Water Reactors to North Korea -- has grown into a crucial international effort to make diplomacy work.

Presidents Clinton and Kim, in April 16 summit meeting on Cheju Island in the Republic of Korea, announced a joint proposal inviting the North to participate in Four Party talks with the United States, South Korea, and China to discuss peace on the Korean peninsula last year. However, in the midst of growing wariness toward the nuclear shipment deal between Taiwan and North Korea, the Four Party talks which were supposed to take in place at the end of January and on the alternatively set date of February 5th were canceled. It has been reported that the cancellations took place because of North Korea's claims for the food aid as the priority now.

South Korea fears the waste may contaminate the Korean peninsula as the radiation will not fade for 300 year or longer, but Taiwan insists North Korea has been storing its own nuclear waste from the nuclear reactors at the dumpsite in Pingsan of South Hwanghae Province for more than ten years, providing that it knows how to handle the waste. However, after some reports of North Korea's possible radioactive waste storage in abandoned mines in Pingsan, the South Korean government reportedly considers the risk of collapse or submersion of the mines a possibility.

According to Yonhap news Agency in Seoul, the Agency for National Security Planning (NSP) briefing in South Korea covered how Pyongyang is excavating a closed-down uranium mine some 28 kilometers from Pyongsan to bury nuclear waste. The area is prone to earthquakes but North Korea reportedly may decide to bury its scheduled nuclear waste shipment from Taiwan in the same place.

In the latest development with regard to the waste dump site in North Korea, it is considered that there is a possibility in the change of location. According to Foreign Report, angry at the recent Chinese decision to allow a well-placed North Korean defector, Hwang Jang-Yop, to go to South Korea via the Philippines, North Korea has decided to switch the proposed site for storage away from just north of the border with South Korea to an area in the north- east close to the Chinese border.

3. Related Cases:


Keyword Clusters:

(1): Trans-boundary= YES
(2): Bio-geography= Temperature
(3): Environmental Problem= Radiation

4. Draft Author:

Chizuru Kato (Spring, 1997)

II. Legal Clusters

5. Discourse and Status: DISagreement and Inprogress

6. Forum and Scope:TAIWAN and UNILATeral

Although there are many organizations, such as the United Nations and Greenpeace, which are indirectly involved in the cases to oppose the reckless transport of dangerous radioactive waste on the seas, whether by Taiwan or any other country, the responsibility for this waste rests with Taiwanese authorities. Particularly, with regard to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the agency's 1995 program on radioactive waste management focused on three major areas: strengthening waste management infrastructures in developing Member States; establishing international principles and standards for the safe management of wastes; and preparing for the decommissioning/dismantling of nuclear installations and the restoration of radioactively contaminated sites was reflected in the introduction of new initiatives in these areas.

The Taiwanese government continues to say that Taipower deal with North Korea on the disposal of low-level radioactive waste is a purely commercial transaction. However, as the international climate began to warn against the nuclear waste shipment contract, Taiwan has modified its position. Taiwan will soon inform International Atomic Energy Agency of the exact nature and shipping process of the nuclear waste it plans to send to North Korea, said Mr. Hu Lhing-Piao, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Council. Reportedly, Mr.Hu said about the plan as a reaction to dispel IAEA concerns about the nuclear waste deal. In fact, in a joint news conference on February 22, 1997 with South Korea Foreign Minister Yoo Chong- Ha, the United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright mentioned that the United States will ask IAEA to take steps to ensure Taiwan's shipment does not harm environment.(Note 1)

While no international law currently regulates transboundary movement of low-level radioactive waste among states, a proposal of the Convention on the safety of Radioactive Waste is under review in IAEA. In 1990, IAEA adopted a Code of Practice on the International Transboundary Movement of Radioactive Waste, which would serve as a policy guideline for states. According to the Code, receiving states should have the administrative and technical capacity in a manner consistent with the international safety standards.

7. Decision Breadth:6 (Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and the United States)

The case directly involves Taipower company and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for transporting and storing the nuclear wastes. Taiwan does not have diplomatic ties with North Korea; however, bilateral trade has increased since South Korea switched recognition from Taiwan to China in 1992.

Taiwan has no long-term plan to deal with its high-level nuclear waste (irradiated nuclear fuel). Reportedly, the United States supplies enriched uranium for Taiwan's six nuclear rectors and retains control over the discharged irradiated nuclear waste as it contains weapon-usable plutonium. The United States has so far not allowed Taiwan to engage in reprocessing either on the island or in Europe, and the spent fuel is stored at reactor sites. South Korea and Japan also receive enriched uranium from the United States; South Korea has likewise been prohibited from reprocessing uranium. However, even though low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste is planned to be dumped in North Korea comes from uranium originally supplied by the United States, the United States retains no rights over disposal of that material.

Although Japan has no diplomatic ties with Taiwan or North Korea, it expresses its environmental concern over the trade-deal with South Korea and the United States via Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's talk with the South Korean president Kim Young-Sam. Since Taiwan's presidential election in March, which crowned the island's decade long march from KMT autocracy to a multi-party democracy, it has been reported that Taiwan used its democratic credentials to push for inclusion of security matters in unofficial dialogue with Japan. Moreover, despite the absence of diplomatic relations, Japan and Taiwan maintain strong economic and cultural ties. However, Japan has avoided official dialogue with Taiwan over potentially sensitive political and security issues for fear of upsetting China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province. Against this backdrop, Beijing is believed to have become increasingly wary about Taiwan's intensifying advances toward Japan.

We should also consider the fact that global community is concerned about the nuclear waste issue regardless of their direct involvements.

8. Legal Standing:Treaty

Taiwanese government's aforementioned position to observe the nuclear waste contract as a purely commercial transaction continues. At the same time, most countries with nuclear power plants manage and dispose of radioactive waste domestically under their government control, in consideration of the serious and pensive aspects surrounding transfer of such material. In addition, reportedly, overseas transfer of radioactive waste requires approval of responsible Taiwanese authorities according to Article 6 of the Taiwanese Nuclear Committee Guidelines.

III. Geographic Clusters

9. Geographic Locations

a. Geographic Domain: Asia

b. Geographic Site: East Asia

c. Geographic Impact: North Korea (NKOR)

10. Sub-National Factors:NO

11. Type of Habitat:Temperature

The habitat also covers seas, namely Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, through which the ship carrying the low-level nuclear waste will pass.

The Yellow Sea is an extension of the Western Pacific Ocean bordered by China, Korea and Japan. It is open to the south via the East China shelf Sea, which is screened from the open Pacific by the Ryukyu island arc.

China has expressed Beijing's resolute opposition to the planned shipments in general. This stance is the concern over the transport route mentioned above. Also, Beijing contends that radiation from Taiwan's proposed waste shipments could pollute surrounding countries and regions. However, China's concern is more likely over the ties between Taipei and Pyongyang. China does not want to see Taiwan act as an independent country. Relations between the two sides have remained strained even nearly a year after the communist military conducted its missile tests and war games to intimidate Taiwan ahead of the island's March presidential election, an aggression that provoked intervention by the United States by sending two aircraft carriers to the region.

On the other hand, there is Beijing's shifting of allegiance from Pyongyang to the capitalist South because of obvious economic considerations. In the eyes of Beijing leaders, South Korea, now a major provider of investment capital and technology for mainland China is more important to the mainland economy than the impoverished North Korea.

With regard to South Korea's protest to the shipment via Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, there seems a belief among many people that the strong reaction goes beyond its environmental concerns. Seoul is not pleased to see Taiwan develop economic relations with its enemy in the North.

IV. Trade Clusters

12. Type of Measure:LICENsing

13. Direct v. Indirect Impacts:DIRect

14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact

a. Directly Related to Product: YES, low-level nuclear waste

b. Indirectly Related to Product: NO

c. Not Related to Product: NO

d. Related to Process: YES, RADIATION

Global concerns for safe shipment and storage of nuclear wastes as well as for nuclear facilities in manners consist with the international safety standards are related, also.

15. Trade Product Identification:

Nuclear Waste

Tlhe nuclear waste that Taiwan plans to ship to North Korea is mostly low-grade radioactive waste, including gloves, clothes, shoes and hats used by staff members working in nuclear power plants. This low-grade waste can be easily disposed of, according to the Executive Atomic Energy Council under the Cabinet (Yuan).

Reactor wastes reportedly fall into the three broad categories: high-level radioactive waste, transuranic waste and low-level radioactive waste. Form these wastes, the Taiwan deal involves low-level nuclear wastes only as it insists above.

According to a report from Korean Information by Lee Wha Rang, in general, low-level radioactive wastes of a reactor may include the following types(see Table 1).

Table 1 - Types of Nuclear Wastes to be Exported-
(1) reactor hardware and pipes that are in continual contact with highly radioactive waste for the twenty to thirty years the reactor operates. The metal becomes radioactive from neutron irradiation
(2) control rods from the reactor core-- rods that regulate nuclear fission
(3) poison curtains which absorb neutrons from the water in the reactor core and irradiated fuel water pool
(4) resins, sludge, filters and evaporator bottoms from cleansing the water that circulates around the irradiated fuel in the reactor vessel and in the fuel pool, which holds the irradiated fuel when it is removed from the core
source:Lee Wha Rang. (Note 2)

16. Economic Data:

North Korea's decision to pursue a fledgling open-door economic policy while retaining strict political control is based in large part on the recent years' experience of China, its giant Communist neighbor and long-term ally. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of North Korea's widespread barter trade with the old Soviet block exposed Pyongyang to the harsh winds of a world where oil and other vital commodities must be paid for in hard currency.

In October 1992, in a clear attempt by technocrats within the government to show a more welcoming face to potential investors, North Korea passed its first foreign investment law. In the months that followed came a foreign exchange control law, a law establishing the Tumen River zone and another on taxation for foreign and joint- venture enterprises. At the same time, however, the government was in strident political confrontation with the world community over attempts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect North Korea sites it believes could be linked to a nuclear weapons development program.

Taipei, after exchanging representative offices with Pyongyang last year, is reportedly moving to encourage more companies to invest in North Korea. On the other hand, North Korea defied Chinese protests to open a Taipei travel office in 1996 and has begun business in Taiwan.

Dealing with North Korea has become something of a growth industry for Taiwanese business, including trade in clothing manufacture and many other items for North Koreans.

Taiwanese and Hong Kong tourists and investors are welcome in North Korea. North Koreans are well aware of the fact that Hong Kong has close ties to Taiwan that may end with the hand-over of the colony to China in 1997.

Enhancing the cooperation between North Korea and Taiwan without formal diplomatic ties, Taiwan had offered to send North Korea $1 million in food aid and $1 million in cash. A first shipment of rice and other food reportedly left Taichung Harbour in central Taiwan at the end of March. The foreign ministry was clearly indicating the mission as non-political act, reportedly due to the possible criticism from the mainland China.

In addition,Taiwan and North Korea will hold a meeting on economic cooperation in May, drawing opposition from South Korea and China. Russia's Itar-Tass news agency cited unnamed sources in Beijing representatives saying ruling party and business executives will attend talks Pyongyang on expanding cooperation. Pyongyang is also seeking food assistance to alleviate chronic food shortages.(Note 3)

There is an economic dimension in the relationship between South Korea and Taiwan, also. For instance, South Korea has recently announced that it will not impose an anti-dumping tax on Taiwan's bicycles.

Seoul originally planned to impose the anti-dumping tax on Taiwan's bicycles and their components on April 13 due to their keen competitiveness, despite the fact that Korea has dumped steel and computer chips in Taiwan. The Board of Foreign Trade of South Korea had proposed that economic and financial authorities in Seoul impose a so-called "emergency tax"of reportedly 21.7% on Taiwanese and mainland Chinese bicycles and their components in addition to the 8% tariff on such products.

From the harsh reaction from Seoul regarding the Taiwanese nuclear waste shipment deal with North Korea, this briefly and suddenly planned economic resistance attempt could be seen as a way to put added pressure on Taiwan.

17. Impact of Trade Restriction:HIGH

18. Industry Sector:UTILities

19. Exporters and Importers:TAIWAN and NORTH KOREA

In terms of nuclear waste shipments, there are many other exporters and importers. It is well known that Japan has imported uranium and spent waste from France.

V. Environment Clusters

20. Environmental Problem Type:RADIATION

The problem is one of pollution concentration. During the shipment of nuclear waste through the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, pollution concentration and possible accidents and leaks could affect the surrounding environment.

North Korea is to take in 200,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste from Taiwan. Some believe that the radiation from this waste dump would depend on the mass of waste and the danger of one barrel of waste varies from zero to 'red hot'. Thus, one barrel of waste can be more dangerous than one million barrels of waste. Assuming that the Taiwanese nuclear waste is in fact of 'low-level', the main danger of the waste seems radiation from leakage into ground water sources.

Some radioactive wastes have long half-life. This is the time it takes for 50% of a radioactive matter to decay. Different radioactive elements have different half-lives reportedly. The danger of nuclear wastes is believed to decrease exponentially with time.

As a rule of thumb, low-level nuclear wastes become non-hazardous after about ten to twenty half-lives, reportedly. Among the radioactive elements commonly found in low-level waste are: Tritium, with a half-life of 12 years, Iodine-131, half-life of 6 days, Strontium-90, half-life of 28 years, Nickel-59, half-life of 76,000 years, and Iodine-129, half-life of sixteen million years. The weighted average of low-level waste is about five years and the waste may be considered safe in 50 to 100 years (Note 4].

How safe is the North Korean waste storage site for these wastes? Presumably, the wastes will be kept in leak-proof containers in underground mines dug into bed rocks, as reported by Taipower and North Korea. It is considered that waste containers do erode with time and may not outlast long-lived radiation matter. Therefore, waste should be placed in a manner which will facilitate recontainerization and make continued isolation from the environment possible in the future, reportedly. In other words, one cannot simply place barrels of nuclear wastes somewhere and forget about them.

A team of Taiwanese nuclear experts as well as Taipower reportedly have inspected the waste sites in North Korea and they have publicly confirmed that North Korea is fully capable of managing nuclear wastes. However, others including South Korea do not believe that North Korea's nuclear waste management is up to the western safety standards.

The following comments from Speaker Newt Gingrich after the trip to Asia seems to tell some aspects about North Korea and mystery of nuclear waste safety there.

"I just want to say quick things. One, North Korea is very unstable. The truth is that we do not know anything about North -- I shouldn't say it's very unstable; it has the appearance to an outsider of great instability, but the truth is we do not know very much about North Korea. We have been trying to understand North Korea since 1953, and it is fair to say that neither our intelligence assets nor the Japanese nor the South Koreans nor the Chinese truly understand that regime and what's happening there. But, I think it's an area that Americans should be much more concerned about and much more cautious about. And when I spent time with the Second Division right on the North Korean border, you had a sense of the sober reality of the military buildup and the fact that this is a regime which is collapsing economically but has enormous political will and a great ability to manage its people through very, very severe privation." (Note 5)

21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species

22. Resource Impact and Effect:HIGH and PRODuct

23. Urgency of Problem:HIGH and hundreds of years

Although the pollution caused by low- level radioactive waste may not seem to lead to the immediate destruction of sea species, it does still pose a serious threat to them as well as to land organisms in the long run. In addition, health of human beings might be effected severely in the long run, for instance, with inherited cancer problems for generations to come.

Consider the effect of nuclear wastes contaminating water of River Han, which flows through Seoul with 20 million citizens. If this happens, although North Korea assures that this will not happen, it's effect will not be felt immediately. Instead, Seoul citizens will suffer from genetic defects and long-term radiation ills over a long period of time.

24. Substitutes:Biodegradable [BIODG] products

VI. Other Factors

25. Culture:NO

Because of historically unresolved tensions among the nations in the region, the nuclear waste shipments could undermine efforts to bring peace on the Korean Peninsula where North and South Korea remain technically unfriendly to each other since the 1950-53 conflict. Disputes over the islands and the issue of recognition of the sovereign states add more complicated dimensions here tied with additional problematic historical dealings in the region.

While the United States, Japan and China voicing concerns about the safety of the shipments, South Korea officials have been strongly critical, citing the North Korea's lack of technology and facilities to store nuclear waste safely. Moreover, after the contract between Taipower and North Korea had been disclosed, there have been protests by environmental groups, politicians and other people. These include possible violent conflicts around the coast of Inchon after South Korean fishing boats off recently rehearsed a planned open-sea blockade of the nuclear waste shipments.

In Inchon, some 20 kindergarten children, South Korean flags around their necks, reportedly joined the open sea demonstration by 150 civil rights activists around Palmi Island, five kilometers (three miles) off this western port city, according to Agence France Presse and other reports. The protestors wearing headbands reportedly waved placard urging Taiwan to cancel its nuclear waste deal with the communist North as their boats formed a circle and followed each other in a Greenpeace-style sea protest. Other people and groups leaders such as the head of the Korean Federation for Environment Movement (KFEM,) talked about the possible blockade for any nuclear waste shipments to the North through the Yellow Sea. This kind of the blockade plan, however, seems to cause concerns about the danger of sea violence, amid a record of armed conflict of Inchon near the border between the two Koreas.

Demonstrators held protests in front of the Taiwan representative's office in Seoul. The controversy over nuclear waste shipment even at the earlier stages of planning at the end of January escalated when a second group of South Korean protesters arrived in Taipei a day after a party of their compatriots had been expelled. The 12, including four parliamentarians, arrived in Taipei to demand that Taiwan cancel the shipment. The group are numbers of the Korean Federation for the Environmental Movement.

Recently, again, environmental protesters aboard fishing boats and dingies staged an exercise off South Korea on April 14 aimed at blocking any effort by Taiwan to ship nuclear waste. Reportedly, some 200 activists, mostly members of the KFEM, were in the flotilla that surrounded a vessel representing a waste ship. It was the latest in a series of protests since January.

Former Greenpeace activist Bruce Abraham, helped organize this latest exercise off the southwest port of Mokpo along a route that any waste vessel would be likely to follow, according to the federation.(Note 6)

Despite the continuous international criticism, Taipei insists its nuclear deal is still strictly a business affair and would go ahead with the shipment.

26. Trans-Boundary Issues:YES

The case involves Taiwan and North Korea directly in the trade; the case involves at least the following countries and international organizations indirectly: South Korea, China, the United States, Japan, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

27. Rights:YES

Dumping of nuclear waste in the other territorial lands should relate Human Rights to the issue. Hazardous effects in either pollution of sea or pollution of land could affect health and conditions of human lives.

28. Relevant Literature:

Agence France Press. "U.S. vows action over Taiwan's nuclear shipment to North Korea." February 22, 1997.

BBC Summary of World Broadcast. Part 3:Asia-Pacific. March 11, 1997.

China Economic News Service. "Taiwan: MOEA reaffirms it will not interfere in nuclear waste plan." January 28, 1997.

China Economic News Service. "Taiwan: Taiwan will inform IAEA of nuclear waste shipment details." February 13, 1997.

Daily Yomiuri. "U.S. would consider North Korean food aid." February 5, 1997.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur. "Taiwan's V.P.defends nuclear waste shipment to North Korea." February 1, 1997.

Ibid. "Germany denies exporting nuclear waste to North Korea." January 24, 1997.

Dingwell, A., Greenpeace (Hong Kong). The statement sent to Mr. Choi Yul, General Secretary of Korean Federation for Environmental Movement (KFEM) on Thursday, January 30, 1997.

The Economist. "Dump and be damned." January 18, 1997. pp.38

Environmental News Service. "Nuclear waste on Orchid Island, Taiwan."July 10, 1995.

Federal News Service. Section: Capitol Hill Hearing. "Speaker Newt Gingrich" April 7, 1997.

Greenpeace (Hong Kong). "Greenpeace condemns Taiwan radioactive waste shipment." owners-press-release. January 31, 1997.

Japan Economic Newswire. "Taiwan politicians to participate in security talks."February 1, 1997.

Korean Information Center, Embassy of the Republic of Korea. "An official speech by Mr. Cho Won-il, Deputy Minister for Policy Planning (Seoul)." January 26, 1997.

Ibid. "Taiwan's attempts to Transfer Nuclear Waste to North Korea."February 3, 1997.

Minton, Mark. Director of the Office of Korean Affairs. Testimony of Mark Minton before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs. "U.S. Policy toward North Korea." September 12, 1996.

The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development: (e-mail) via Asia Pacific Retgional Environment Network (APRENet). DPRK Nuclear Waste Commentary: "Much Ado About little Radiation" by Peter Hayes. April 1, 1997.

Reuters North American Wire. "Protests grow over Taiwan's nuclear waste deal."January 31, 1997.

Reuter Textline:Business Taiwan. "Taiwan: Shipping Nuke Waste Stirs Up Controversy by Osman Tseng." February 3,1997.

Reuter World Service:BC cycle. "Taiwan sending officials, aid to North Korea." April 11, 1997.

Reuter World Service: BC cycle. "South Koreans protest Taiwan nuclear shipment plans." April 14, 1997.

Wakabayashi, Masahiro. Taiwan Tokyo. University of Tokyo Press, 1992.


(Note 1) Agence France Presse. "U.S. Vows action over Taiwan's nuclear shipment to North Korea." February 22, 1997.

(Note 2) Lee Wha Rang. "In Defense of North Korea's Waste Dump Deal withTaiwan." February 9, 1997.

(Note 3) United Press International. BC cycle: International Section. " North Korea, Taiwan talks reported" April 14, 1997.

(Note 4) Lee Wha Rang. February 9, 1997.

(Note 5) Federal News Service. Section: Capitol Hill Hearing. "Speaker Newt Gingrich" April 7, 1997.

(Note 6) Reuters World Service. BC cycle. "South Koreans protest Taiwan nuclear shipment plans" April 14, 1997.

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May, 1997 