Korea’s threshold weapons-power talks, Softbank’s rise to Japan’s top spot, Gen Z’s youth slur revolt, Tokyo’s plan to shape regional power balance, China’s chip-making sanctions work-around and East Asia’s super-aged societies.

South Korea and the US have begun official talks on Seoul’s ambition to build nuclear-powered submarines and to win permission for civil uranium enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing.

A senior-level working group is focusing on the implementation of security agreements reached at a summit meeting last November between Donald Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung.

Under an agreement dating from 2015, known as the 123 Agreement, Seoul needs US approval to enrich uranium, even to civilian-use levels under 20 per cent. Approval has never been granted. Spent-fuel reprocessing for commercial purposes is banned.

The Korea Herald said Seoul saw enrichment and spent-fuel reprocessing as increasingly imperative for its nuclear reactor exports and its own energy security.

But Mason Richey, an international affairs expert based in Seoul, said in an analytical article these steps would move South Korea along the nuclear spectrum towards Japan’s status as a threshold nuclear power – able to build nuclear weapons in a relatively short time.

This week’s talks were led by Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister, Park Yoon-joo, and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Allison Hooker.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Park Il, said: “We will make every effort to ensure that both delegations meet as frequently as possible in order to make substantial progress.”

Seoul expected to build nuclear submarines in Korea and buy nuclear fuel from the US, The Korea Times said. It said discussions would also cover how international organisations could inspect nuclear materials used in submarines and how Korea would comply with international non-proliferation standards.

The paper said Seoul wanted to construct its first nuclear submarine by the mid-2030s and begin operations before the end of that decade.

Mason Richey, president of the Korean International Studies Association, said in his opinion piece Seoul wanted to design and build four 8,000-ton-displacement nuclear attack submarines, using low-enriched uranium in small, modular reactors.

It was a doable, if very expensive project, given South Korea’s shipbuilding expertise.

But the submarines were not needed to counter North Korea, which had a fleet of noisy, easily detectable, diesel-electric boats, he said. And South Korea was unlikely to use the submarines to attack China, given its economic interdependence with Beijing.

Richey said South Korea denied that its plans amounted to strategic nuclear hedging. “The concern is not what Seoul intends today,” he said. “It is Seoul’s capability.

“A South Korea with indigenous enrichment, reprocessing and nuclear-propelled submarines is a South Korea that has compressed the timeline to nuclear weapons, regardless of the political intentions of any particular administration.”

South Korea and the US planned to resume their talks as early as next month, The Korea Herald said. It quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying the two teams agreed to co-operate produce tangible results as quickly as possible.

AI boom pushes Toyota off top corporate rung

The AI stock market boom has produced a changing of the guard: Toyota is no longer Japan’s most valuable company. It has been pushed aside by Softbank.

Shares in the technology group rose 14 per cent in Tokyo trading on Monday, taking its market capitalisation past Toyota’s for the first time in more than 25 years. Softbank last achieved that feat in 2000, at the peak of the dot-com bubble, but held its lead only briefly, The Japan Times said.

The AI rally had boosted Softbank shares by more than 90 per cent this year, the paper said. Its market value was........

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