Chapter 179
Chapter 179
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Nuclear Armament (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 179
Since I already had nukes in hand, I decided to push forward with nuclear power generation as well.
In truth, military nukes and civilian commercial power plants weren't entirely unrelated.
Both required uranium and plutonium reprocessing.
That said, nuclear power was an incredibly dangerous force, so I made sure to emphasize safety.
'If we're doing this, we need to set up safety measures like double and triple redundancies, just like the Americans. If we half-ass it like the Soviets, it'll be a disaster.'
In America's case, Hyman Rickover, the father of the nuclear navy, crushed the Navy's demands for cost-cutting and civilian opposition to build the myth of safe nuclear power. But the Soviets couldn't pull it off.
They skimped on costs at every turn, leading to countless accidents.
Take the Mayak reprocessing plant—one of many examples—it had hundreds of radioactive material leaks.
The victims numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
If we slacked off on safety in Korea, there was no guarantee we wouldn't end up like the Soviets.
I established an Atomic Energy Commission to oversee nuclear safety and staffed it with stubborn sticklers for principle.
"Your job is to nitpick. If even a single screw in the reactor deviates from regulations, shut down construction immediately."
I stressed safety even in the reactor design phase.
"Don't skimp on construction costs. Make it double- and triple-proof. One accident could bring the country down."
The Soviet Union was a prime example.
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster's blow to the Soviet Union was so devastating it didn't even need explaining.
It didn't single-handedly destroy the federation, but it was undoubtedly one of the main reasons the USSR collapsed.
Even Japan, with relatively minor damage, lost parts of its territory after Fukushima and poured trillions into cleanup.
And they still hadn't fully cleaned it up—that was the scary part.
Nuclear accidents like these could make or break a nation once they happened.
No such thing could be allowed in my Korea.
With this policy in place, I made the Atomic Energy Commission swear to prioritize safety time and again.
The companies got the same treatment.
"If an accident happens, it won't just be compensation—you'll lose your heads, literally. Keep that in mind."
Even with all these precautions, if something went wrong, we'd just have to chalk it up to bad luck.
While we accelerated preparations for commercial reactors, intelligence came in that the British were gearing up for their own nuclear test.
It wasn't surprising—they'd been nearly complete even before we shared intel.
But seeing Britain already prepping a test filled my head with one worry.
'China will eventually manage nuclear armament too, and that's the problem.'
Of course, we hadn't just sat idly by on China's nuclear program up to now.
We'd thoroughly eliminated and disappeared their key talent to sabotage it.
But in a boundless place like China, pour in enough money and time, and the tech and people would follow.
Sooner or later, China would reach for nukes.
I never forgot that.
We had to slap the shackles on before they got them.
Of course, meddling too broadly in China's unstable politics could end up helping unify the Chinese under one banner, so we needed precise surgical strikes.
'First, let's speed up the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.'
I instructed Ambassador Jang Chan at the UN to coordinate with the US and push the treaty through with all his might.
Once the NPT passed, we could monitor nuclear materials like uranium flowing into China.
And another measure.
I prepared export control proposals on China and discussed them privately with the Anglo-Americans.
"China's in the middle of a civil war right now. If they develop nukes, it could turn dangerous. What if both the Communists and the Nationalists go nuclear? There's no guarantee a local war won't escalate into a nuclear one."
"You're saying we should ban exports of enrichment facilities and such to China?"
"That's right."
The Anglo-Americans gave my proposal positive consideration.
For nuclear haves, nothing was more appealing than pulling up the ladder.
"We'll look into it. We'll cooperate."
I made the same pitch to France, Israel, and the Soviets, who were accumulating nuclear tech.
France, already cooperating on nukes, agreed readily.
"We won't send even 1 gram of enriched uranium, let alone enrichment facilities, to China."
Israel showed tentative positivity.
"If the Prime Minister keeps his promises, we'll keep ours."
They said that, but Jews had a fifty-fifty chance of changing their minds once they got the warheads.
The Soviets were ambiguous.
"We'll think about it."
Even after I'd mediated the Iran deal last time, their attitude was lukewarm.
Was it because we'd switched to democracy?
Ideology aside, we kept cooperating with the Soviets where our camp logic allowed.
For now, I'd buy time and see.
Once Stalin kicked the bucket soon, the federation's stance would shift.
I'd hold out until then.
Stalin gone, and Khrushchev or Beria would come around.
The Soviets couldn't afford to ignore Korea's position anyway.
Compared to the West, the federation was outclassed and couldn't turn Korea into an enemy too.
That was Moscow's innate weakness.
While dragging things out, I kept a steady watch on China.
With superpowers worldwide securing nukes, I needed to check if China was sitting it out.
That's when I spotted China's suspicious moves.
'Importing yellowcake as soap raw material?'
It screamed nuclear cover story.
They were pulling the same trick Israel had used back in the day.
'Like hell I'd allow that.'
Yellowcake was on our watchlist from the start.
"Try importing it. I'll make sure you can't."
We pressured every company that might sell yellowcake to China.
"The moment you export that to China, you're done in the East Asian market forever. Remember that."
We leaned on their governments too.
"Yellowcake exports touch Korea's core interests. Approve it, and we'll be very displeased."
This was how I kept throwing wrenches into China's nuclear works.
Finally, the Chinese cracked and responded.
"Is it really such a problem if civilians buy some yellowcake?"
Yes. Big problem.
You don't get near uranium or plutonium until you renounce nukes.
I offered that if they declared no nukes, we'd supply uranium.
"This is interference in a sovereign nation's internal affairs."
"Fine, don't then."
We cut subsidies to China while we were at it.
'With the Great Leap Forward turning the Communists into idiots, why keep funding them?'
We halted the anti-communist alliance pact too.
I rolled out measures one by one to squeeze China.
"No precision or machine tool exports either. China will use them to build enrichment gear for nukes."
Petty excuses, sure, but when the world's third power plants its face and pushes, it works.
America, busy with the Italian war, took a hands-off stance.
"Isn't Korea the boss over there? Handle it yourselves."
Finally, Chiang Kai-shek waved the white flag.
"If we give up nukes, the Communists must too. Without that premise, we can't abandon ours."
"Come on, trust us and drop yours first."
Chiang announced the "Denuclearization of the Chinese Mainland Declaration."
"Our Chinese people have endured wars for over a decade. Chemical weapons have polluted the mainland in the process. But compared to nukes, those are nothing. Nukes are the devil's weapon—one blast tortures a hundred thousand. And the damage doesn't stop there; it passes down generations. Do we need such a thing in our China?"
Chiang strongly argued that for China's peace and people, nukes were off-limits.
Nanjing echoed him.
"Chongqing finally said something right. The people's interests lie in peace, not death-making nukes. We have a duty to spare the people nuclear war's terror by renouncing them."
With the mainland regimes declaring no nukes, Mao Zedong felt the heat.
Everyone was watching Mao's mouth.
Already weakened by the Great Leap Forward fiasco, Mao couldn't hold out.
"The new China under our Chinese Communist Party needs no nukes. Nukes are evil weapons for irrational imperialist states. As the world's moral leader, China will show the courage to break from such evil."
China's nuclear renunciations drew praise from Washington and London.
"We salute the Chinese people's commitment to peace."
Of course, the renunciators didn't see it that way.
Without us, they wouldn't have given them up.
By ditching nukes, China had lost its path to great power status.
"Ha ha ha."
I laughed watching the Chinese willingly shackle themselves.
The promise wouldn't last forever, but once voiced, the rationale was hard to retract.
Why hadn't South Korea armed with nukes?
The biggest reason was America, but second was the Korean Peninsula Denuclearization Declaration.
No country trusts a nation that breaks its own word.
China had staked its credibility against nukes.
They couldn't decide on them lightly now.
'This is a satisfactory result.'
At least during my term, I wouldn't see China go nuclear.