Are International Sanctions Working On North Korea?

It is pretty obvious that sanctions are not stopping the Kim regime’s nuclear and missile programs and it is because of China’s refusal to strictly enforce them:

While the U.S. government says sanctions work, a recent analysis by John Park of Harvard University and Jim Walsh of MIT concluded that sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council “have not worked, and that in some ways, the sanctions have had the net effect of actually improving (North Korean) procurement capabilities.”

One effect of sanctions is that North Korean trade with nations other than China has come to a virtual halt. But China allows numerous state-run companies from North Korea to operate on its soil and those have learned to adapt, Park and Walsh wrote in their study, “Stopping North Korea, Inc.: Sanctions Effectiveness and Unintended Consequences.”

The North Korean managers in charge of these companies have hired better Chinese middlemen, moved to China to improve their effectiveness and expanded their nuclear procurement operations in Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and North Korean embassies around the world, the study found.

Some analysts, such as Gordon Chang, author of Nuclear Showdown; North Korea Takes on the World, urge the U.S. to impose sanctions on Chinese companies that aid North Korea’s nuclear program.  [USA Today]

You can read more at the link, but I agree with Gordon Chang that sanctioning Chinese companies may be an incentive to get the Chinese to clamp down on the North Korean nuclear program.