North Korean Groundhog Day

Unacceptable. Won’t be tolerated. Serious consequences. Those are just a handful of the scolding phrases uttered over the past two decades at every bend on North Korea’s road to becoming a nuclear state to its more recent advances in weapons and missile technology.

There have been sanctions designed to stop North Korea from acquiring weapons technology and conventional arms, sanctions to block its ability to move money around the world and sanctions to prevent the ruling Kim family and its cronies from getting personal watercraft and fancy watches.

The United Nations was already considering a new round of measures to punish Pyongyang for its fourth nuclear test, conducted last month, when leader Kim Jong Un ordered the latest launch of a long-range rocket thought to be part of his country’s ballistic missile program.

Denunciations of North Korea’s behavior and pleas for China–a veto-wielding member of the U.N. Security Council–to get tough on the regime followed immediately, prompting a familiar sense of deja vu.

Although sanctions have no doubt made it harder for Pyongyang to do business, they clearly have not forced the regime to change its behavior or prevented significant advances in the North’s nuclear weapons program. Indeed, no matter how strong any sanctions may be, they count for almost nothing if China is not on board.

[Washington Post]

Why cracking down on North Korea is difficult

Cracking down on Pyongyang is much tougher than it sounds. Here’s why.

1. Sanctions – Much of the talk about North Korean sanctions comes from Seoul and Washington, but it’s Beijing that holds most of the cards. While additional sanctions will hurt, North Korea has long been economically insulated by its relationship with China, its northern neighbor and main trade partner, which fears that strict sanctions could undermine the Pyongyang government, unleashing chaos. While North Korea’s economic isolation and the international financial system make it tricky to identify sanction targets and prove violations, new US legislation could hit companies in China that deal with the North, including those that buy its main exports — coal and minerals.

2. Diplomacy – Is North Korea a nuclear state? That question has largely paralyzed major diplomatic efforts on the Korean Peninsula for years. The main diplomatic forum to try to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program, the so-called six-party talks, hasn’t met since 2008. Some in the international community now believe that North Korea will never abandon its nuclear program, and say the only way to negotiate with the North is to accept it as a nuclear power and work on a freeze, and then gradual arms reductions. But with Washington steadfastly refusing to accept North Korea as a nuclear state — and North Korea steadfastly insisting it is one — diplomacy remains frozen.

3. Military response – What about simply erasing North Korea’s weapons programs, launching missiles to destroy its weapons facilities? Since the 1950s, South Korea and the United States have wrestled — both internally and sometimes with each other — over how to respond to North Korean aggressions. Again and again, the decision has been made to avoid military action. The immense danger on the Korean Peninsula is that any military response from the South could quickly spiral into all-out war. And with nearly half of South Korea’s 50 million people living in or around Seoul — just 50 kilometers (35 miles) from the border and within range of the North’s artillery batteries —— Pyongyang could inflict immense damage on its rival in just minutes. The potential risks are simply too high.

[Times of India]

Defiant North Korean animosity toward America

The United States and Japan have already announced plans for new sanctions over North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch, and the U.N. Security Council is likely to deliver more soon. Cross-border tensions with Seoul are escalating quickly and even China is starting to sound more like an angry neighbor than a comrade-in-arms.

But with a storm brewing all around them, North Koreans have their own take on things — and it’s decidedly unapologetic.

Pyongyang started off the new year with what it claims was its first hydrogen bomb test and followed that up with the launch of a satellite on a rocket. When Seoul responded by closing down an industrial park that is the last symbol of cooperation between the two rivals, Pyongyang lashed back, expelling all South Koreans from the site just north of the Demilitarized Zone and putting it under military control.

Each move brought a new round of international outrage. But ask a North Korean what’s going on and the reply is swift, indignant and well-practiced. It’s America’s fault.

“It’s not right for the U.S. to tell our country not to have nuclear bombs,” Pak Mi Hyang, a 22-year-old children’s camp worker, told The Associated Press as she walked with a friend near Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on Sunday. “The U.S. has a lot of them and tells us not to have any. It’s not fair. We’ve been living with sanctions for a long time and we are not afraid.”

“We have a lot of hatred toward Americans,” Pak said, politely, before walking on.

But anti-U.S. sentiment in this country does run deep, for good reason. That is partly because the relentless propaganda that depicts Washington — which has made no secret of its desire for regime change — as its biggest existential threat. But it also reflects the brutality of the Korean War, which left millions of Koreans dead and most of North Korea’s cities and industrial base in ruins. Though called the “Forgotten War” in America, it is anything but forgotten in North Korea. And since the 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty, the U.S. is still technically and literally “the enemy.”

[AP]