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.
Remember all the talk about how China was really serious this time with enforcing sanctions against North Korea? Well the data shows that to not be true:
The latest U.N. Security Council sanctions on North Korea are having little impact on the country’s economy, a U.S. expert said, citing trade data between the North and its biggest economic partner, China.
William Brown, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and non-resident fellow at the Korea Economic Institute in Washington, also said in a recent report that the sanctions do not appear to be affecting the North’s domestic economy.
The latest sanctions, which were adopted on March 2 in response to the North’s fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month, have been billed as the harshest-ever sanctions imposed on the communist regime.
The sanctions require mandatory inspection of all cargo going in and out of the North, regardless of whether by land, sea or air, while banning its exports of coal, iron and other mineral resources, a key source of hard currency that accounts for nearly half of the country’s total exports.
“The March 2 U.N. sanctions are having little impact so far on North Korea’s economy although they may be making Pyongyang even more dependent on China. Trade with countries except China seems to be slipping but, because it was so low to begin with, the significance pales in comparison to the large and generally flat pace of China-North Korean trade,” Brown said in the report. [Yonhap]
I doubt these sanctions will do much considering how North Korea is skilled at avoiding sanctions largely because of Chinese aid, but it is always fun to watch the Kim regime squirm a bit:
North Korea said Monday it will end a diplomatic communication channel with the United States and hinted at harsher punishment for Americans detained in the country in retaliation for U.S. sanctions that target leader Kim Jong Un.
The U.S. government last week imposed penalties on Kim and 10 other top officials for alleged human rights abuses. North Korea is already sanctioned because of its nuclear weapons program, but it was the first time that Kim has been personally sanctioned. The North called the sanctions tantamount to a war declaration.
On Monday, the North’s state media said it told the United States it will terminate contact through a U.N. channel in New York that allowed diplomats to communicate.
The New York channel refers to a method for North Korea’s U.N. diplomats to communicate with U.S. diplomats in New York. This is needed because the countries don’t have diplomatic ties and their animosities have deepened because of the North’s nuclear and missile programs.
The North also said it informed Washington that it will handle all issues between the two countries according to an unspecified wartime law, including Americans detained in North Korea, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
South Korean media have suggested that North Korea might use the wartime law to hand out harsher punishments on Americans detained in the North. [ABC News]
You can read more at the link, but if they do increase the punishment on the two detained Americans that is once again the risk they took by traveling to North Korea in the first place. I feel bad for their families, but US foreign policy with North Korea should not be compromised because of idiots who decided to travel to North Korea knowing fell well the risk of being detained.
Considering the few friends Pyongyang has this is a big diplomatic win by South Korea by getting Uganda to enforce the United Nations sanctions against North Korea:
Uganda has told North Korean military and police personnel stationed there to go home, according to multiple diplomatic sources.
One diplomatic source told the JoongAng Ilbo that President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda asked about 10 North Korean military training officials and another group of 40 police personnel stationed there to leave the country. No deadline was specified by the source.
Another source said Museveni had diplomatically told the North Koreans that his government no longer required their aid and cooperation in the field of national security and military strategy. Both sources asked not to be named, given the classified nature of the information.
If true, Museveni’s decision to drive North Koreans out of his country comes just a week after he promised visiting South Korean President Park Geun-hye that he would honor UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea approved in March, which bars Pyongyang from having any military links with foreign countries, including weapons trade and training deals. The South Korean government estimates about 50 North Korean military and police training officials were staying in Uganda as of February 2016. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
The United States has announced more financial sanctions will be implemented on North Korea:
The United States on Wednesday designated North Korea a “primary money laundering concern,” its newest way of freezing it out of the international financial system to curb its nuclear and missile programs.
South Korea quickly lauded the move, predicting it will have a more “far-reaching effect” than previous financial sanctions.
The U.S. Treasury Department prohibited certain U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining correspondent accounts with North Korean financial institutions. It also prohibited the use of third-country U.S. correspondent bank accounts to process transactions for North Korean financial institutions working on behalf of the Kim Jong-un government and state-controlled corporations. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but according to ROK Drop favorite One Free Korea these sanctions are “the single most powerful sanction the United States has ever imposed on North Korea.” That is the good news, but it does make me wonder why did it take this long to finally implement them on North Korea? For those looking for the details on how these sanctions will be implemented I highly recommend reading One Free Korea’s posting. Hopefully these financial sanctions are vigorously enforced considering how skilled North Korea is at avoid past sanctions. If so these sanctions really could hit the Kim regime hard.
This just proves what I have always said, that action speak louder than words when it comes to Chinese government claims they are complying with sanctions on North Korea:
An oil storage and pipeline facility is located in the Chinese border town of Dandong, Liaoning Province, from which crude oil from China is sent into North Korea through a 30.3-kilometer (18.8-mile) pipeline across the border. [SHIN JIN-HO]While the Chinese government claims in official trade figures that it no longer exports oil to North Korea, a JoongAng Ilbo reporter visited a pipeline facility located in the outskirts of the border city of Dandong and witnessed crude oil being loaded into the pipeline for transport across the border.
Located on the China-North Korea border along the Yalu River, this facility is where crude oil goes through a last inspection before being transported across the river.
When the reporter visited the pipeline facility, crude oil was being loaded into the pipeline from oil tankers. The crude oil, which comes from the Daqing Oil Field – the biggest oil field in China located in Heilongjiang Province – was transported there by train and would be piped to a storage facility in Baekma, North Pyongan Province, from which it will be distributed among state agencies, military bases and transport-related factories in the energy-hungry country. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
You can read more at the link, but I have never believed that the Chinese government would fully comply with sanctions because even though the Kim regime is a foreign policy headache for them, a collapsed North Korean state would be even worse.
For anyone wondering how the regime continues to supply itself with military components despite the UN’s shipping sanctions and China’s apparent motivation to actually enforce them, this may be the answer:
Among the North Korea-linked ships still on the U.N. blacklist, some are making fresh maneuvers that appear aimed at camouflaging their identities. The North Korean vessel the Dawnlight, which the U.S. has designated since last year, was flagged to Mongolia. In January it was renamed the Firstgleam and acquired by Sinotug Shipping Limited, a company set up just this past September in the Marshall Islands.
The U.N., having apparently missed the update, blacklisted this ship on March 2 under its old name of Dawnlight. A day later, despite a provision calling for member states to deflag North Korean ships, the Firstgleam was reflagged to Tanzania, according to Lloyds. As of this week, the ship, which the U.N. and U.S.-sanctions lists still refer to as the Mongolia-flagged Dawnlight, was signaling a position close to Japan. [Wall Street Journal]
One Free Korea has a really good read over at his site on this topic. It seems to me that the shipping sanctions are working to an extent, but they need to be tightened to ensure military components are not getting into North Korea to assist their missile and nuclear programs.
Who knows if this is true or not, but I would not be surprised at all if China is claiming one thing to the international media about enforcing sanctions and then in reality continuing to let banned items into North Korea to sustain the Kim regime’s military:
Although inspections at border customs offices have officially intensified as China takes measures to abide by international sanctions targeting North Korea (UNSCR 2270), it is being been reported that Chinese companies and their North Korean counterparts have been disguising military supplies as everyday merchandise in order to smuggle them through customs checkpoints.
“There is a lot of talk about how the new sanctions are harsher than those adopted in years past, but illegal smuggling through border customs is continuing relatively unimpeded,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on April 1.
This is because the North Korean Ministry of People’s Armed Forces operates a number of entities acting under the pretense of ordinary trading companies, trading entities and mobilization offices that are tasked with bringing banned items into North Korea.
“In particular, the Kumunsan Trade Company and a munitions branch called ‘Sung Kang Office,’ are using bribery and illicit methods to smuggle supplies despite the sanctions. These items include tires, stainless steel, machine components, acetone, industrial lubricant, and raw materials needed for gunpowder production. The items are labeled as normal goods in order to get them past the customs guards,” the source added. [The Daily NK]
