A South Korean best-seller from a decade ago, The Flower of Sharon Has Blossomed starts with the mysterious death of a Korean-American nuclear scientist. The renowned scientist is killed in a traffic accident, but there is lingering speculation that the CIA was behind it. A South Korean journalist investigates the case and concludes the death was linked to the scientist's attempts to develop nuclear weapons for his motherland - South Korea. The journalist has a role in reinvigorating the weapons development programme despite Washington's efforts to stop it. North Korea also is key to the programme's completion. When Japan attacks South Korea over a territorial dispute involving a tiny island on the sea separating the two countries, the two Koreas launch nuclear bombs against Tokyo and other main cities in Japan. The plot was too nationalist and unrealistic. Nevertheless, more than 3 million South Koreans have bought the novel since it was published, making it one of the country's biggest selling works of fiction. Officially, South Korea is strongly opposed to developing nuclear weapons. Faced with a belligerent northern neighbour trying to make atomic bombs, South Korea has every reason to detest such weapons of mass destruction. But beneath the surface, South Koreans are not totally averse to nuclear weapons. As they become more proud and confident about themselves, they resent the fact that they have to rely heavily on the United States for national defence. Viewing China and Japan as their potential future threats, more South Koreans, particularly young ones, demand to have their own weapons of mass destruction ready just in case. And the southerners firmly believe the main targets of the North's nuclear arsenal would be the US or Japan. The same nationalism can perhaps explain why South Koreans aren't much shocked by the revelation of its own secret nuclear experiments in the past two decades. The late president Park Chung-hee tried to develop nuclear weapons in the 1970s despite Washington's objection. And they couldn't understand what they view as hysteric international reactions to the recent revelation of primitive and tiny nuclear experiments prompted by mere scientific curiosity. But South Korea will lose a lot more if it were to develop atomic bombs. It will face stern actions by not just the US but almost all other nations. Perhaps the only one that would condone the South's nuclear ambition would be North Korea, which is already an international outcast.