Are sanctions over-hyped? Is North Korea really a threat?

Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has.

Sun, 10 March 2013

Oman Daily Observer

By Louis Charbonneau — NEW steps by the UN against North Korea over its nuclear arms programme were designed to bring its sanctions regime more, but fears remain that the measures will have little impact on Pyongyang’s defiant leaders. US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice — who led the drafting of UN Security Council resolution 2094 adopted unanimously last Thursday as well as the bilateral negotiations with China that produced it — said, “These sanctions will bite and bite hard.”
North Korea responded with an escalation of its bellicose rhetoric, including a threat to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States. It also repeated previous threats to cancel the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war and moved to cut off a hotline with the South. But will the sanctions actually bite? And, if they do bite, will they end the cycle of rocket launches and nuclear tests that have resulted in a sustained push by the US, South Korea and Japan at the UN Security Council to condemn and punish Pyongyang?
Only Beijing and Pyongyang can answer those questions. Some analysts question whether North Korea’s ally and diplomatic protector China really wants “full implementation” of the UN restrictions on trade with North Korea, as its UN envoy Li Baodong called for last Thursday. Without China’s active support, the measures could be largely symbolic. George Lopez, a professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former member of a UN expert panel that monitors compliance with the North Korean sanctions regime, said the new measures could prove to be more effective than previous rounds of UN sanctions have been against Pyongyang.
“This diversity of sanctions measures and other directives in the new resolution have the potential to take a considerable bite out of DPRK (North Korea) money movements and to constrain their access to specialised products critical to missile and centrifuge operations,” he said. The Council’s latest resolution prohibits countries from engaging in any financial transactions with Pyongyang that could in any way be linked to its nuclear and missile programmes.
It also makes interdictions of suspicious North Korean cargo coming in and out of the country in violation of UN sanctions mandatory. Such raids on North Korean vessels were voluntary prior to last Thursday’s action by the Council. Some diplomats and analysts say North Korea’s effectively closed economy dulls the impact of sanctions. But not everyone believes China is ready to get tough on North Korea, even though it clearly dislikes Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme and wants to avoid a new Korean war. As one senior UN Security Council diplomat put it recently, if China had to choose between a nuclear North Korea and no North Korea at all, it would choose the former.
Beijing wants to avoid a collapse of its neighbour. The dissolution of North Korea could mean a flood of economic refugees into China and the formation of a capitalist Korea controlled by Seoul and friendly with the United States. Bruce Klingner, a retired CIA North Korea analyst at the Heritage Foundation, doubted China was prepared to take the steps needed to make North Korea suffer the way Tehran has. “Despite excitement by China watchers that internal debate amongst pundits and media organisations indicate the new Chinese leadership will adopt a new, more stringent policy towards its pesky ally, Beijing again shows itself to be an obstruction at the UN Security Council,” he said.
“The new UN resolution is an incremental improvement, but it doesn’t live up to Ambassador Rice’s hype that it’s exceptional and will significantly impede North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes,” he said. Pyongyang was hit with UN sanctions for its 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests, measures that were subsequently tightened and expanded after several rocket launches. In addition to the luxury goods ban, there is an arms embargo on North Korea, and it is forbidden from trading in nuclear and missile technology.

http://main.omanobserver.om/node/156192

North Korea Not a Threat

breakingtheset

Published on 6 Feb 2013

March 9, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized