tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/north-korean-missile-test-38775/articlesNorth Korean missile test – The Conversation2024-01-24T13:29:26Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214572024-01-24T13:29:26Z2024-01-24T13:29:26ZDomestic woes put Kim Jong Un on the defensive – and the offensive – in the Korean Peninsula<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570985/original/file-20240123-29-kr6fby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C3595%2C2396&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on a screen at the Seoul Railway Station on Aug. 24, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-watch-a-television-broadcast-showing-a-file-image-of-news-photo/1634983526?adppopup=true">Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kim Jong Un has had a busy and bellicose start to 2024. </p>
<p>On Jan. 14, the North Korean leader presided over the test of a “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-defines-south-korea-most-hostile-state-kcna-2024-01-09/">new solid-fuel hypersonic missile with intermediate range</a>.” Two days later, during a speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly meeting in Pyongyang, Kim declared South Korea “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/asia/north-korea-kim-unification-arch-intl-hnk/index.html">the North’s primary foe and invariable principal enemy</a>.” He also vowed to “<a href="https://www.nknews.org/2024/01/north-korea-to-destroy-inter-korean-links-redefine-borders-in-constitution/">purge unification language from the constitution</a>” and called for the destruction of “inter-Korean symbols,” such as the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korea-tears-down-monument-symbolizing-union-with-south-report-2024-01-23/">Arch of Reunification monument</a>, which has since been torn down in Pyongyang.</p>
<p>Then Kim went a step further: He spoke of war. </p>
<p>Noting that while North Korea does not want conflict, the communist country nevertheless had no “<a href="https://www.nknews.org/2024/01/north-korea-to-destroy-inter-korean-links-redefine-borders-in-constitution/">intention of avoiding it</a>.” Kim went on to disclose the North’s plans to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-koreas-kim-calls-change-status-south-warns-war-2024-01-15/">occupy, subjugate and reclaim</a>” South Korea in the event of war. </p>
<p>Kim’s remarks served to escalate inter-Korean tensions in a way familiar to observers of relations on the peninsula, <a href="https://www.ubalt.edu/cpa/faculty/alphabetical-directory/nusta-carranza-ko.cfm">like myself</a>. Kim has a tendency to issue threats directed at the South <a href="https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/new-year-same-old-story-korean-peninsula-2024">at regular intervals</a>. </p>
<p>The difference, this time, was the backstory behind Kim’s threats. Understanding that shines a light on North Koreans’ awareness of deficiencies in their leadership – and on Kim’s desire to deflect from domestic problems.</p>
<h2>A train wreck</h2>
<p>On Jan. 16, 2024, <a href="https://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/trainaccident-01162024092147.html">Radio Free Asia</a> published a news story about a train accident in North Korea. According to the outlet, a Hamkyung Province-bound passenger train departing from Pyongyang overturned due to a power shortage while traveling up a steep slope on Dec. 26, 2023.</p>
<p>North Korean passenger trains typically <a href="https://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/trainaccident-01162024092147.html">consist of nine to 11 carriages</a>, with the first two carriages reserved for high-level government officials. In this accident, the last seven carriages – loaded with everyday Koreans – derailed, according to reports. It is believed that <a href="https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25222782#home">hundreds died as a result</a>.</p>
<p>The details of the accident remain murky because news in North Korea is <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-16255126">tightly controlled</a>. Some <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1NuHt88WV8">South Korean reports</a> suggest that it may have been a bus and not a train accident. But Kim was careful to point out the need to “<a href="https://www.joongang.co.kr/article/25222782#home">improve safety of train rides</a>, during his Jan. 16 address, lending further weight to the train accident account.</p>
<h2>From crash to war threats</h2>
<p>The reported accident comes at a time of increased <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/north-korean-defectors-to-south-tripled-in-2023-seoul-says">awareness and discontent</a> among North Koreans that their leadership is not doing much to improve conditions, address the <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/N-Korea-at-crossroads/North-Korea-struggles-with-food-shortage-despite-import-rebound">scarcity of resources</a> or enhance the safety of average citizens. This is particularly true for those who are not part of the <a href="https://www.bushcenter.org/freedom-collection/kim-seong-min-songbun">ruling elite</a>. </p>
<p>In various surveys conducted by human rights groups of <a href="https://nkdb.org/publication/?q=YToxOntzOjEyOiJrZXl3b3JkX3R5cGUiO3M6MzoiYWxsIjt9&bmode=view&idx=6613026&t=board">North Koreans who have fled to South Korea</a>, escapees mentioned both the dire living conditions of average North Koreans and the gap between their lives and those of high-level government officials.</p>
<p>The current crisis facing North Koreans may not be as acute as the <a href="https://www.38north.org/2023/01/food-insecurity-in-north-korea-is-at-its-worst-since-the-1990s-famine">period of severe famine</a> during the 1990s, during which an estimated
<a href="https://repo.kinu.or.kr/bitstream/2015.oak/7850/1/0000599140.pdf">600,000 to 1 million</a> people died.</p>
<p>But power shortages and food insecurity continue to blight North Koreans. The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on North Korean Human Rights <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15387.doc.htm">highlighted in a 2023 report</a> conditions in which "some people are starving” and others are dying “"due to a combination of malnutrition, diseases and lack of access to health care.”</p>
<p>In such circumstances, the train accident may serve as a catalyst or focal point for discontent.</p>
<p>As social change scholar Jack Goldstone has noted, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780199858507.003.0002">societal unrest builds on</a> “some form of increasingly widespread popular anger at injustice” and when people feel “they are losing their proper place in society for reasons that are not inevitable and not their fault.”</p>
<h2>A master of deflection</h2>
<p>Worryingly for Kim, disquiet over both the train crash report and food and energy shortages comes as North Korea enters what experts have noted is “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/north-koreas-power-structure">a critical period of change</a>” in the state. Kim is faced with a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/music-ap-top-news-north-korea-international-news-kim-jong-un-32ef1db725824060bbed9074128d6875">younger generation</a> more used to market economics – typified by the “<a href="https://austriancenter.com/north-korea-black-markets-saving-lives/">jangmadang” black markets</a> – and with greater access to external information. This clashes with the regime’s official ideology of economic <a href="https://www.time.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/korea1.pdf">self-reliance, or “juche</a>,” and an isolationist approach that cuts off much of the outside world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A missile is seen being fired into the air trailed by a plume of smoke." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570986/original/file-20240123-23-w2j1u4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspecting the launch of a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/at-seouls-yongsan-railway-station-shows-north-korean-leader-news-photo/1859975434?adppopup=true">Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kim is aware of this new frontier in governance. To confront it, he has readopted the “<a href="https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/byungjin.htm">byungjin” policy</a> he first rolled out in 2013 — a two-pillared approach based on building up both the military and the economy in a bid to reduce chances for domestic discontent. </p>
<p>To successfully carry out this policy, Kim has had to become a master of deflection.</p>
<p>He is aware that the train incident comes amid <a href="https://www.rfa.org/korean/in_focus/nk_nuclear_talks/peoplecontrol-01162024091639.html">discontent and protest</a> over policies that have seen increased government surveillance and people’s homes raided over suspicion of anti-socialist tendencies.</p>
<p>As such, Kim appears to be deflecting domestic anger by signaling war and creating uncertainty for North Koreans’ future. This is similar to what <a href="https://www.eui.eu/Documents/DepartmentsCentres/Economics/Seminarsevents/Guriev-Micro.pdf">scholars explain</a> is a characteristic of new-style dictators who “manipulate beliefs” about the state of the world to make it look like outside threats are greater than domestic problems.</p>
<h2>International playbook</h2>
<p>The truth is, for Kim this deflection appears to be working. The war rhetoric has resulted in U.S., Japan and South Korea conducting combined naval exercises involving <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/us-south-korea-japan-conduct-naval-drills-tensions-106434423">American aircraft carriers</a>. Meanwhile, North Korea sent its foreign minister to Russia to cultivate bilateral relations that involve North Korean <a href="https://www.voakorea.com/a/7444240.html">weaponry used in the war against Ukraine</a>.</p>
<p>No one – North Korean news outlets, foreign journalists or world leaders – is mentioning the hundreds of people that likely died in the train accident, or those starving in the country.</p>
<p>Kim’s deflection also has an intended audience outside of North Korea itself: U.S. politicians and the South Korean public.</p>
<p>The Biden administration has <a href="https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/1089850.html">adopted a more hawkish</a> stance toward North Korea, <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/13/trump-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-plan-00131469">moving closer to allies</a> Japan and South Korea to ensure a coordinated approach to North Korea. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Biden’s likely challenger in the upcoming presidential vote is Donald Trump – who as president met Kim during a 2018 Singapore summit and has since touted the idea of allowing North Korea to keep its nuclear weapons while offering financial incentives to <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/13/trump-north-korea-nuclear-weapons-plan-00131469">stop making new bombs</a>.</p>
<p>Trump has stressed how much he has gotten to know the North Korean leader and the “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2023/03/09/trump-book-kim-jong-un-00086410">great relationship</a>” he has formed with him. There is a scenario where Kim’s belligerent rhetoric could be seized by Trump as evidence that Biden’s approach is not working.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, South Korea’s legislative <a href="https://www.munhwa.com/news/view.html?no=2024011601070130103001">elections are also impacted</a> by Kim’s deflection tactics. The declaration of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/16/asia/north-korea-kim-unification-arch-intl-hnk/index.html">South Korea as the “enemy</a>,” and the launch of missiles are designed, in part, to influence the South Korean public’s perception about security on the peninsula. </p>
<p>Evans Revere, a former State Department official, explains that Kim’s remarks are “<a href="https://www.voakorea.com/a/7443247.html">designed to exploit political divisions</a>” in South Korea. In this kind of environment of war rhetoric, voters could be persuaded to support political parties that stress engagement and are less likely to support current President Yoon Suk Yeol’s party’s <a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/N-Korea-at-crossroads/South-Korea-picks-hard-liner-as-new-North-Korea-point-man">hardline approach</a> to North Korean matters.</p>
<p>For Kim, a South Korean legislative body that is willing to tolerate his whims is more favorable than one critical of its regime, as is a friendlier man in the White House.</p>
<p>Kim Jong Un’s deflection certainly has more than one audience, but only one aim: to keep him in power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221457/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ñusta Carranza Ko does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Amid signs of growing domestic disquiet over his repressive regime, North Korea’s leader is trying to deflect scrutiny by upping war rhetoric.Ñusta Carranza Ko, Assistant Professor of Global Affairs and Human Security, University of BaltimoreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920732022-10-13T12:20:54Z2022-10-13T12:20:54ZIt’s time to take Kim Jong Un and his nuclear threats seriously<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489416/original/file-20221012-24-qqu6fp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=55%2C0%2C6224%2C4108&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kim Jong Un remains focused on reunifying Korea – on his terms.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-sit-near-a-television-showing-a-news-broadcast-with-news-photo/1243858058?phrase=Kim%20Jong-un&adppopup=true">Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the West <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/03/01/europe-putin-russia-ukraine-nuclear-weapons/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwy5maBhDdARIsAMxrkw2wuyAJLM02kr0vxVRKirNQ-y_cuOz9wDxrH_on-x1N016jXqt8pKMaAmz2EALw_wcB">frets over the possibility</a> of Vladimir Putin <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-close-is-vladimir-putin-to-using-a-nuclear-bomb">turning to nuclear weapons</a> in Ukraine, there is a risk that similar threats posed by another pariah leader are not being treated as seriously – those of <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-seoul-south-korea-nuclear-weapons-north-6ce0a8da47f8eb9228d4b33223ebfa3b">North Korea’s Kim Jong Un</a>.</p>
<p>The isolationist East Asian nation has <a href="https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20221010000654325">conducted seven nuclear-capable missile blasts</a> over the course of 15 days, from Sept. 25 to Oct. 9, 2022. One <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/world/asia/japan-north-korea-missile.html">flew over Japan</a>, plunging into the Pacific after flying 2,800 miles – a distance that puts the U.S. military base in Guam within range. </p>
<p>Then, on Oct. 10 – the <a href="https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2022/10/510_337657.html">77th anniversary</a> of the founding of North Korea’s communist Workers Party – state media announced that Kim had <a href="https://apnews.com/article/business-seoul-south-korea-nuclear-weapons-north-6ce0a8da47f8eb9228d4b33223ebfa3b">personally conducted field guidance</a> of his nation’s “tactical nuclear operation units,” which displayed the capacity to “hit and wipe out” enemy targets.</p>
<p>True, Russia’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/05/russia-nuclear-weapons-military-arsenal/">enormous nuclear arsenal</a> make its threats more credible than North Korea’s. Moscow has the means, and fear over defeat in Ukraine could provide the motive.</p>
<p>There is another reason that Kim’s nuclear threats may sound less ominous, if not entirely hollow. North Korea’s leader strikes many in the West <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/06/kim-jong-un-funny-until-hes-not/">almost as a laughable figure</a> – a narcissistic, well-nourished dictator with, to many, <a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/kim-jong-un-outfit-gets-085243780.html">a comical look</a>. Yes, he harbors worrying nuclear bomb ambitions and presides over a <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/1/humanitarian-disaster-looms-in-north-korea">desperate state facing widespread hunger</a>. But his occasional threats to nuke his southern neighbor – South Korea – are greeted by many as little more than buffoonish bellicosity. Take, for example, then-President Donald Trump’s 2017 speech at the United Nations in which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/world/asia/kim-trump-rocketman-dotard.html">he belittled Kim</a> as a “Rocket Man on a suicide mission.”</p>
<p>But as a <a href="https://fletcher.tufts.edu/people/faculty/sung-yoon-lee">scholar of Korean history</a> who has watched as the North’s regime has threatened to destabilize the region, I believe Kim must be taken seriously. He is deadly serious about completing his grandfather’s and father’s <a href="https://www.hrnk.org/uploads/pdfs/4047.pdf">mission of reunification of the Korean peninsula</a>. It is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/opinion/north-korea-south-korea-peace.html">the dynasty’s “supreme national task</a>,” and there is little to suggest that Kim won’t resort to any length to make that happen.</p>
<h2>Preemptive nuclear strikes</h2>
<p>In 2022 alone, North Korea has fired over 30 missiles, including six intercontinental ballistic projectiles. These activities are in “open breach of United Nations sanctions,” as the <a href="https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N22/608/53/PDF/N2260853.pdf?OpenElement">U.N. Panel of Experts on North Korea reported</a> in September.</p>
<p>Yet, there has not been a single new United Nations Security Council Resolution passed in response to these serial violations. And I doubt one will be forthcoming even in the wake of a <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/06/23/north-korea-nuclear-test-looms-us-south-defense">major nuclear test</a>, which is looming. Security Council members Russia and China, which supported previous U.N. sanctions following North Korean missiles and nuclear tests, are unlikely to do so again this time amid the growing geopolitical rift with the West. Both countries <a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-china-japan-north-korea-c2814192ae7890d7cf08cbed76845336">actively blocked such moves</a> led by the U.S. earlier in the year.</p>
<p>Worse, recent remarks by Putin and Kim have brought back the once unthinkable notion of a nation preemptively nuking a neighboring state.</p>
<p>In September, North Korea <a href="https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1662721725-307939464/dprk%E2%80%99s-law-on-policy-of-nuclear-forces-promulgated/">promulgated a new</a> “law on the state policy on the nuclear forces.” It sets out the conditions under which North Korea would use nuclear weapons. In broad and vague terms, the law cites “taking an upper hand in a war” and being “inevitably compelled and cannot help but use nuclear weapons” as reasons to resort to the ultimate weapon.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A TV screen shows a map of North Korea with the trajectory of missiles on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489427/original/file-20221012-20-u7i2zu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reporting of North Korea’s missile launches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/screen-shows-a-news-program-reporting-north-koreas-missile-news-photo/1243843558?phrase=North%20Korea%20missile&adppopup=true">Kim Jae-Hwan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In outlining a fairly open-ended approach to nuclear action, Kim has escalated the rhetoric and attempted to normalize the right to strike first. It lays the groundwork for using any “hostile” move by South Korea – which the regime defines broadly as anything between <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-rights/north-korea-warns-u-s-could-pay-dearly-for-human-rights-criticism-idUSKBN1YP01Y">criticism of its human rights violations</a> to <a href="https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/08/10/nkorea-Kim-Yo-Jong-United-States-South-Korea-joint-military-drills/3601628577978/">combined defensive military exercises with the United States</a> – as as a pretext for preemptive nuclear strikes.</p>
<p>Kim appears to be arguing that it is his right to use nuclear weapons whenever he deems it necessary. It is a truly frightening prospect.</p>
<h2>A cycle of escalation</h2>
<p>The recent nuclear-capable missile launches, coming just weeks after a new nuclear doctrine and coinciding with Putin’s escalation in Ukraine, looks to paint the U.S. into a corner and seize on the growing Cold War split. Kim is forging new norms in the politics of the region.</p>
<p>It may be hard to accept that North Korea – a small economic actor compared with the U.S., China, Russia, Japan and South Korea – has outmaneuvered its bigger interlocutors. But, over the past 30 years of nuclear diplomacy, it has been North Korea that has mostly called the shots – from proposing talks, agenda-setting and agenda-shifting to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/north-korea-reportedly-cancels-high-level-talks-south-n874396">deciding when to walk away</a>.</p>
<p>In the process, Pyongyang has wrested away <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27033552">billions of U.S. dollars’ worth</a> of cash, food, fuel and other goods from other countries while building approximately 50 nuclear bombs, ICBMs and other strategic weapons. </p>
<p>From the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations alone, North Korea <a href="https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R40095.pdf">received over US$1.3 billion worth in aid</a> in return for repeated false pledges of denuclearization.</p>
<p>North Korea’s strategy throughout has been one that combines calculated provocations, graduated escalation and a post-provocation peace ploy. But the end game for Kim, like his father and grandfather before him, remains the same: triumphing over South Korea and incorporating its people and territory under the North’s jurisdiction. </p>
<p>To enable this, North Korea will need to repeat its cycles of provocations and deescalation while continuing to grow its military arsenal to the extent that it becomes a clear and present nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland and an unbearable regional liability. At that point, so the strategy goes, it can push the U.S. to withdraw forces in South Korea, rendering the South vulnerable to submission to the North’s plans.</p>
<h2>Kim’s grand strategy</h2>
<p>Reunification under the North’s terms is central to Kim’s plan. As such, international observers might be wise to focus more on the purpose of Kim’s provocations, rather than the cause.</p>
<p>Pondering “What caused Kim to test a nuke?” may lead some into the same trap as asking, “What caused Putin to invade Ukraine?”</p>
<p>Both questions assume the aggressor to be reactive rather than proactive and ignore his grandiose intentions. </p>
<p>Kim Jong Un has a grand strategy. As long as South Korea exists as a richer and more democratically legitimate Korean state that serves as a magnet for his own people, the specter of <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2021/02/german-reunification-it-was-nothing-short-miracle">the German model of reunification</a> – under which the richer Germany absorbed the poorer one – hovers ominously for Kim. And that, he cannot allow.</p>
<p>As such, world leaders must beware: When narcissistic tyrants make nuclear threats, they carry menacing meaning – even when uttered by unusually odd-looking despots.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192073/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sung-Yoon Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A recent barrage of nuclear-capable missile tests and a change in law setting out the conditions for a nuclear strike show that North Korea’s leader is intent on reunification on his terms.Sung-Yoon Lee, Professor in Korean Studies, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845562017-09-22T19:53:25Z2017-09-22T19:53:25ZChina’s leverage over ‘Rocket Man’ is key to avoiding nuclear war in East Asia<p>U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un are playing a dangerous game of brinkmanship while also trading personal insults.</p>
<p>Most recently, Trump <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/world/trump-un-north-korea-iran.html?_r=0">blasted the “Rocket Man”</a> in his inaugural speech to the United Nations, promising to “totally destroy” North Korea if it threatens the U.S. or its allies. The Trump Administration also <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/north-korea-sanctions-trump-china-banks-announcement-latest-a7960106.html">added new sanctions</a> aimed at strangling its ability to work with banks. </p>
<p>Kim, for his part, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/22/asia/north-korea-dotard/index.html">resorted to calling</a> Trump “mentally deranged” and a “dotard,” while his foreign minister <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/22/552861261/north-korea-says-pacific-test-of-nuclear-warhead-is-possible">threatened to test</a> a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific. </p>
<p>With <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/08/08/north-korea-trump-ratchet-up-tension-with-threats-fire-hours-apart.html">tensions escalating</a>, it is important to be realistic about how we can get out of this mess. </p>
<p>In short, any nonmilitary solution will rely on China choosing to apply its massive economic leverage over the North Korean regime. In a positive sign, <a href="http://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/552708231/china-cuts-off-bank-business-with-north-korea-as-trump-announces-new-sanctions">China’s central bank recently told Chinese financial companies</a> to stop doing business with North Korea.</p>
<p>Overall, however, it appears that China has increased its trade with North Korea in recent years while doing fairly little to forestall North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. China’s foremost objective seems to be promoting greater stability from its volatile neighbor, in part because it fears being faced with a massive humanitarian crisis should the regime collapse.</p>
<p>But while the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">poor quality of the data</a> hinders a detailed analysis, a quick look shows just how much leverage China has, if it wishes to use it. </p>
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<h2>North Korea’s primary patron</h2>
<p>In general, exports from one country to another <a href="http://www.cepii.fr/pdf_pub/wp/2013/wp2013-27.pdf">can be mostly explained</a> by the distance between them and the sizes of their markets, a pattern that holds for China and North Korea.</p>
<p>Geographically, they share a long border, which makes China a natural, though not inevitable, partner for trade. As a case in point, North Korea also shares a long border with South Korea, but these countries have almost no trade between them. In addition, North Korea shares a small border with Russia, with whom it has little, though ever-increasing, trade. </p>
<p>China’s large market, proximity and – most importantly – willingness to trade with North Korea has led to a situation in which North Korea has become highly dependent on trade with what has become its primary patron. <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">About half</a> of North Korean exports and imports go directly to and from China and most of the rest of its trade is handled indirectly by Chinese middlemen. </p>
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<p>North Korea’s dependence on its neighbor has grown alongside China’s increasing economic dominance of East Asia, which gained momentum 15 years ago when China <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/china_e.htm">joined the World Trade Organization</a>. Since then, both Chinese gross domestic product as well as its annual trade with North Korea have increased nearly tenfold, to around <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/country/china">US$11 trillion</a> and <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">$6 billion</a>, respectively. </p>
<p>North Korea <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/chn/prk/show/2015/">imports nearly everything</a> from China, from rubber tires to refined petroleum to pears, with no single category dominating. Meanwhile, <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/chn/prk/show/2015/">coal constitutes about 40 percent</a> of North Korean exports to China. </p>
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<h2>Time to use that leverage?</h2>
<p>However, recent events – such as the use of front companies by Chinese firms to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-idUSKCN11W1SL">evade sanctions</a> imposed on North Korea and China’s <a href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2017/01/05/2017010501412.html">reluctance to cut off</a> energy supplies to the country – have led to some uncertainty about the extent to which China is willing to use this economic leverage to rein in North Korea’s military ambitions. </p>
<p>On one hand, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/world/asia/north-korea-china-coal-imports-suspended.html">China previously claimed</a> to have stopped coal imports from North Korea as part of recent efforts to punish the regime for missile tests and the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/asia/kim-jong-nam-death-timeline/index.html">suspected assassination of Kim Jong-nam</a>, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-kim-jong-un-tick-77143">Kim Jong Un</a>. This was an important signal of China’s willingness to support U.S. concerns about the missile program since oil represents <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">about a third</a> ($930 million) of North Korea’s import revenue. </p>
<p>On the other hand, there is evidence that coal shipments in fact <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/05/trump_tried_to_make_china_to_do_his_bidding_against_north_korea_and_is_shocked.html">never ceased</a>. And, in any case, China <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">may have increased</a> its imports of iron ore from North Korea to offset the lost coal revenues. </p>
<p>This is consistent with the idea that China carefully considers the resources and revenue that are available to the North Korean regime at any moment, and uses trade as a lever to control them. In this way, China walks a fine line between providing too many resources, and thus allowing the regime to prosper, and not enough resources, such that North Korea is in danger of collapsing. Ultimately, trade may be used as a lever to do some light scolding, but China’s overwhelming concern is preventing North Korea’s collapse.</p>
<p>Further evidence that China has tight control over the North Korean economy comes from <a href="https://c4ads.org/reports/">a recent report</a> from <a href="https://c4ads.org">C4ADS</a>. The research group found close, and often common, ownership ties between most of the major Chinese companies who do business with North Korea. This suggests that trade with North Korea is highly centralized and thus easily controlled.</p>
<h2>Russia: North Korea’s other ‘friend’</h2>
<p>China is not the only country that North Korea trades with, though the others currently pale in comparison. Other top export destinations include India ($97.8 million), Pakistan ($43.1 million) and Burkina Faso ($32.8 million). In terms of imports, India ($108 million), Russia ($78.3 million) and Thailand ($73.8 million) currently sell the most to North Korea. </p>
<p>Russia in particular may soon complicate <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nikki-haley-says-u-s-will-propose-tougher-sanctions-against-north-korea/">U.S. efforts to isolate the regime</a>. While still small, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/05/russia-boosts-trade-north-korea-china-cuts/102389824/">Russian trade with North Korea increased</a> 73 percent over the first two months of 2017 compared with the same period of the previous year. </p>
<p>But whereas China is legitimately worried that an economic crisis in North Korea could lead to a flood of refugees or all-out war, Russia likely sees engagement with North Korea in much simpler terms, namely as an additional way to gain geopolitical advantage relative to the U.S.</p>
<h2>A way out?</h2>
<p>Nearly all experts agree that there is no easy way to “solve” the North Korea problem. However, one plausible approach is to encourage South Korea and Japan to begin to develop nuclear weapons programs of their own, and to only discontinue these programs if China takes meaningful steps to use its trade with North Korea to reign in the regime. </p>
<p>Threatening to introduce new nuclear powers to the world is clearly risky, however stable and peaceful South Korea and Japan currently are. But China is highly averse to having these economic and political rivals acquire nuclear capabilities, as it would threaten China’s ongoing pursuit of regional control. In short, this is a sensitive pressure point that could be used to sway the Chinese leadership.</p>
<p>One way or another, China must become convinced that the costs of propping up the North Korean regime through trade are higher than the costs of an increased probability that the regime will collapse.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-china-could-use-trade-to-force-north-korea-to-play-nice-with-the-west-80609">an article</a> originally published on July 6, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84556/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The latest salvo of insults and threats between President Trump and North Korea’s Kim brought the region a little bit closer to war. China, North Korea’s closest trading partner, may be the only way out.Greg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/836392017-09-08T05:58:03Z2017-09-08T05:58:03ZWhat the West gets wrong about North Korea’s motives, and why some South Koreans admire the North<p>North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on September 3 – of what was possibly a hydrogen bomb – prompted a flurry of Western media think pieces attempting to explain the past and predict the future. </p>
<p>Most left out important aspects of the current crisis, says analyst B.R. Myers, a South Korea-based academic expert on North Korean propaganda and author of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/28/books/excerpt-cleanest-race.html?mcubz=0">The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why it Matters.</a></p>
<p>In this Q&A, The Conversation asked Professor Myers to explain what most in the West are missing about the North-South conflict.</p>
<p><strong>You’re always complaining about press coverage of the Korean crisis. What is it you think people need to know more about?</strong></p>
<p>A major problem is the mischaracterisation of the government in Seoul as liberal, as if it were no less committed to constitutional values and opposed to totalitarianism than the West German social democrats were in the Cold War. This makes Westerners think, “North Korea can’t take over the South without a war, but it knows it can’t win one, therefore it must now be arming only to protect itself”. </p>
<p>In fact, South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in has pledged commitment to a North-South confederation, and stressed his opposition to any use of military force against the North, no matter what happens. That makes Moon’s current displays of military hardware seem pretty meaningless. </p>
<p>If Seoul and Washington are playing a good-cop, bad-cop game, it’s a terrible idea. The more placid South Korea appears, the more US troops look like the only real obstacle to unification. </p>
<p>Western media applaud Moon’s soft-line declarations, and they like it when the South Korean man in the street says he finds Trump scarier than Kim Jong Un. But there is a danger of Kim taking all these things the wrong way. </p>
<p><strong>You’ve written that some South Koreans admire the North, or at least, feel a sense of shared identity. Why is that? And can this persist in the current climate?</strong></p>
<p>Many intellectuals here admire the North for standing up to the world. It’s a right-wing sort of admiration, really, for a resolute state that does what it says. More common than admiration are feelings of shared ethnic identity with the North. We are perhaps too blinkered by our own globalism to understand how natural they are. </p>
<p>But the average South Korean’s pan-Korean nationalism is rather shallow. Most people here want to see symbolic shows of reconciliation with the North – like a joint Olympic team in 2018 – but they don’t want unification, least of all under Kim Jong Un’s rule. </p>
<p>And they want the US Army to stay here in case he gets the wrong idea. It’s understandable enough, but this crisis will soon force them to pick one side, and one side only. “No ally is better than one’s own race,” President Kim Young Sam (president of South Korea from 1993 to 1998) said, which no West German chancellor would have dreamed of saying. </p>
<p>Washington has let this stuff slide for a long time, but people there are now asking themselves, “Must we really expose America to a nuclear threat in order to protect moderate Korean nationalists from radical nationalists?”</p>
<p><strong>While the failures of the Vietnam War loom large, the US bungling of Korea is rarely discussed in “western media”. What’s the national memory of that war in both Koreas, and how is that impacting the current state of affairs?</strong></p>
<p>That memory impacts the current situation less than one might think. Foreigners assume that because of the war, the two sides must dislike each other more than West and East Germans did. The opposite is the case. Some of my students say, “The North would never attack us, we’re the same people,” as if the war never happened. And North Korea would now be just as committed to unification if it hadn’t. </p>
<p>You mention the Vietnam War. In some ways that’s the more relevant and topical event right now. Kim Il Sung (leader of North Korea from its inception in 1948 until he died 1994, and the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un) was struck both by Washington’s decision not to use nukes on North Vietnam and by its general reluctance to go all out to win. </p>
<p>I’m sure the ease with which bare-footed Vietcong marched into Saigon in 1975 now strengthens Pyongyang’s conviction that the “Yankee colony” will not last long after the colonisers pull out. </p>
<p>In South Korea, meanwhile, conservatives are now loudly invoking the story of South Vietnam’s demise. They say, “There too you had a richer, freer state, and it fell only a few years after US troops pulled out. Let’s not make the same mistake”. They point worriedly to President Moon Jae-in’s own remark that he felt “delight” when predictions of US defeat in Vietnam came true.</p>
<p><strong>How likely is a war?</strong></p>
<p>I agree with those who say North Korea knows a nuclear war is unwinnable. I also think it fancies its chances of a peaceful takeover too highly to want to risk a premature invasion while US troops are here. </p>
<p>On the other hand, the North’s legitimacy derives almost wholly from its subjects’ perception of perfect strength and resolve. This makes it harder for Pyongyang to back down than it was for Moscow during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.</p>
<p>Also, the North’s ideology glorifies the heart over the mind, instincts over consciousness, which makes rash decisions more likely to be made, even quite low down the military command structure. There is therefore a significant danger of some sort of limited clash at any time. But that has always been the case.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83639/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>B.R. Myers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>North Korea’s legitimacy derives almost wholly from its subjects’ perception of perfect strength and resolve. This makes it harder for Pyongyang to back down.B.R. Myers, Professor of International Studies, Dongseo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/835332017-09-06T00:15:51Z2017-09-06T00:15:51ZApple and 7-Eleven show why Trump’s threat to sever China trade over Korea rings hollow<p><a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/904377075049656322">President Donald Trump tweeted</a> on September 3 that the U.S. “is considering, in addition to other options, stopping all trade with any country doing business with North Korea” after it <a href="https://www.vox.com/2017/9/3/16249504/trump-north-korea-trade-tweet">performed a nuclear test</a>. </p>
<p>Though North Korea <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">currently trades</a> with nearly 100 countries, this threat was almost certainly <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-china-could-use-trade-to-force-north-korea-to-play-nice-with-the-west-80609">aimed at China</a>, by far its <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">biggest trading partner</a>.</p>
<p>And it is technically something that a U.S. president can do. Under the <a href="https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Documents/ieepa.pdf">International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977</a>, the president can impose trade restrictions in the face of an “unusual and extraordinary threat.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, it is an empty threat. In the same way that North Korean leader Kim Jung Un is unlikely to commit political (and national) suicide by following through on a war with the U.S., Trump is unlikely to commit political suicide by following through on this hyperbolic threat.</p>
<p>This is because the damage to the U.S. economy, the global economy and international relations due to a cessation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-us-shouldnt-start-a-trade-war-with-china-82106">U.S.-Chinese trade</a> would be catastrophic, so much so that it is nearly impossible to predict exactly how it would play out. </p>
<p>Some have tried to do this anyway, such as by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/business/trump-china-north-korea-trade.html">citing the value of American trade with China</a>, which was <a href="https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan/peoples-republic-china">about US$650 billion</a> in 2016, or around 4 percent of U.S. GDP. Some simple thought experiments illustrate why this barely scratches the surface of the impact. </p>
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<h2>Apple’s complex global supply chain</h2>
<p>The scale of the damage would primarily be due to the fact that global supply chains have become <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/2cf5bebe-9773-11e5-9228-87e603d47bdc">so complex</a>. </p>
<p>A common example is Apple’s iPhone, whose components are sourced from dozens of countries, with China playing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/iphone-china-apple-stores.html?mcubz=0">a major role</a>. And that’s not just due to China’s relatively low labor costs. In many cases a supplier has been chosen because it has particular expertise. </p>
<p>Or, in some cases, a supplier has grown so large and efficient that it dominates the market for a key element of production, such as the vast iPhone <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/technology/apple-iphone-china-foxconn.html">assembly operation</a> run by Foxconn in Shenzhen, China. Much of this work would be very costly, or impossible in the short run, to source elsewhere. </p>
<p>In other words, if you were eagerly anticipating the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2017-09-05/bofaml-s-qiao-china-s-macro-environment-is-stable-video">10th anniversary of Apple’s flagship device</a>, you’d probably have to wait a lot longer than expected. And it would cost Apple a lot more to make without Chinese components and labor, which would probably be passed on to consumers. </p>
<p>Focusing only on the value of trade between the U.S. and China misses a big part of the immediate impact if Trump were to carry out his threat. Suddenly, U.S. production of everything from toasters to T-shirts that depend on Chinese workers for any part of the production process would also shut down. </p>
<p>Affected American companies would then spend the next several months either trying to find new sources for those “inputs” – such as labor, energy or raw materials – or find a way to circumvent the policy, such as relocating their headquarters to another country. This could lead to a long-run loss of jobs and corporate tax revenues for the U.S. economy.</p>
<p>More generally, it is not clear that U.S.-based multinational companies could continue to do any business in China, the <a href="https://www.emarketer.com/Article/China-Eclipses-US-Become-Worlds-Largest-Retail-Market/1014364">world’s largest consumer market</a>. </p>
<p>For instance, consider the Dallas-based convenience store chain 7-Eleven, which operates in 16 countries, including China. Convenience stores are currently a booming industry in China, and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/30/chinas-convenience-store-segment-booms-7-eleven-familymart-ones-to-watch-bain.html">7-Eleven is well-positioned</a> to succeed in the market. This success will almost certainly generate jobs in the Dallas headquarters. </p>
<p>But 7-Eleven is also dependent on trade in services between Dallas and its Chinese outlets since, as a franchise, it licenses its brand to Chinese operators, and the revenue from these licenses is recorded as a U.S. export of services. Many U.S. companies <a href="https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/China_ServicesEBOT_ExternalFinal.pdf">face similar situations</a>. As a result, a cessation of U.S.-China trade would severely hamper American companies whose growth prospects are currently focused on the Chinese market. </p>
<p>In fact, the Department of Commerce estimates that trade with China supports <a href="http://trade.gov/mas/ian/build/groups/public/@tg_ian/documents/webcontent/tg_ian_005508.pdf">nearly a million U.S. jobs</a>, and <a href="https://www.chinabusinessreview.com/study-understanding-the-us-china-trade-relationship/">others suggest</a> that the number is much higher. </p>
<h2>Farther down the chain</h2>
<p>The repercussions don’t end there, of course. </p>
<p>Companies in <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/usa/fra/show/2015/">France</a>, Germany and elsewhere rely on American suppliers for key components to make their products – <a href="https://ustr.gov/map/countriesaz/fr">from computer chips to jet engines</a>. And many of these U.S. companies invariably rely on Chinese businesses, in turn, to supply components they need to build those chips and engines. These U.S. companies would clearly be hard-pressed to stay in business without their Chinese partners. </p>
<p>This connection highlights the impact of U.S.-China trade on other nations: If it ended, these German and French companies would need to find new suppliers of chips and engines to make their computers and airplanes – and in some cases few alternatives exist. In addition, all of their other suppliers would suffer if they’re unable to find new sources of chips and engines. And so on down the supply chain. </p>
<p>In short, the U.S.-China trade relationship doesn’t stand alone. It is responsible for <a href="https://www.chinabusinessreview.com/study-understanding-the-us-china-trade-relationship/">a large number of links</a> in the global supply chain. If those links are broken, much of the global supply chain ceases to exist, and much of the global economy, essentially, breaks down.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/184811/original/file-20170905-13709-vdxbuj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jefferson tried a trade embargo. It didn’t work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Colin Dewar/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Jefferson’s embargo of 1807</h2>
<p>Because today’s global economy is so complex and integrated – with the U.S. at the center of it all – it’s difficult to find a suitable historical comparison. However, in terms of the scale and motivation for the policy, the closest event may be the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xaJeCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72&lpg=PA72&dq=jefferson+trade+cessation+1807+embargo&source=bl&ots=kd-r_f9lB7&sig=ZdzTY2gBaqA4mQMruDnqODVTgh8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG4ayW3I7WAhXh6oMKHXgXDNAQ6AEIWjAJ#v=onepage&q=jefferson%20trade%20cessation%201807%20embargo&f=false">self-imposed U.S. embargo</a> enacted by the Jefferson administration from 1807 to 1809.</p>
<p>In that case, the U.S. effectively ceased trading with the world, with the goal of inflicting economic costs on Britain, which had been harassing ships off the U.S. eastern coast. The policy, however, failed to achieve its goal of changing British behavior, while the cost to the U.S. was <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Edirwin/docs/Embargo.pdf">significant, at about 5 percent of GNP</a>.</p>
<p>Today, the cost of cutting off trade to China would be much greater. In 1807, trade was primarily in finished goods, and supply chains were primitive. Now, <a href="https://www.ifw-kiel.de/ifw_members/publications/growing-trade-in-intermediate-goods-outsourcing-global-sourcing-or-increasing-importance-of-mne-networks/kap1006.pdf">two-thirds of international trade</a> is in “intermediate goods,” or products that make up other products (like computer chips and jet engines). Cutting one link in a supply chain can bring down the entire production process. </p>
<p>Finally, and somewhat ironically, cutting off trade would give China one less reason to listen to the U.S. on a range of topics – <a href="https://theconversation.com/china-is-the-key-to-avoiding-nuclear-fire-and-fury-in-north-korea-82257">including reining in North Korea</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The president said he’s considering ending trade with any country that does business with North Korea. Here’s why that will never happen.Greg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834132017-09-04T04:54:25Z2017-09-04T04:54:25ZNorth Korea panics the world, but ‘H-bomb’ test changes little<p>North Korea has conducted its sixth nuclear device test, and based on what we know so far it looks like by far the biggest yet. Pyongyang’s own news agency, KCNA, described the test as a “perfect success”, and claimed the device was an advanced hydrogen bomb small enough to fit atop a long-range missile. </p>
<p>Though it’s still too soon to confirm whether that’s true, whatever the north tested was clearly much larger than its previous devices. Seismic readings detected the blast via a 6.3 magnitude earthquake, and Norway’s <a href="https://www.norsar.no/press/latest-press-release/archive/large-nuclear-test-in-north-korea-on-3-september-2017-article1534-984.html">NORSAR seismological observatory</a> suggested the explosive yield would translate to a massive 120 kilotons.</p>
<p>After an extremely tense few months of tough rhetoric, missile launches, military exercises and troop movements, it seems North Korea has come very close to achieving what it’s always said it was after: a viable missile-borne thermonuclear deterrent. So has the time finally come to run for the bomb shelters?</p>
<p>Before answering that, it pays to take stock of what the north has been up to of late – and why.</p>
<h2>The best-laid plans</h2>
<p>As of September 4, North Korea had tested more than 20 missiles in 2017. Some were short-range, some medium-range; many of them were targeted to land into the East China Sea. Some launches failed, but one flew over northern Japan. None of these launches took place in a vacuum. They are part of a delicate, almost choreographed interplay between East Asia’s most important actors, a dance of military moves, domestic political shuffling and international aspirations. </p>
<p>The Korean peninsula’s problems always come down to the unresolved issues of Korean partition, the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/10165796">post-Korean War armistice</a>, and the thousands of US troops permanently stationed in the region for the sake of Japan and South Korea’s reconstruction and protection. The American military presence is a direct threat to the security of the Pygonyang power elite, and provides a pretext for the Kim government to claim it needs a massive military and a nuclear deterrent. </p>
<p>In the last year, the north has been especially concerned with the US’s deployment of the the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) system, a Lockheed Martin-manufactured ballistic missile interceptor. THAAD is <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2016/02/what-is-thaad-what-does-it-do-and-why-is-china-mad-about-it/">controversial in China and South Korea</a> too, but it had arrived on the peninsula by March. By then, North Korea had already tested a new <a href="http://www.38north.org/2017/02/jschilling021317/">Pukguksong-2 missile</a>, apparently assassinated Kim Jong Un’s stepbrother, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global/video/2017/feb/20/kim-jong-nam-killing-cctv-footage-appears-to-show-attack-on-north-korean">Kim Jong-nam</a>, and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39175704">launched four intermediate-range ballistic missiles</a> into the East China Sea on March 6. </p>
<p>With THAAD partially deployed and operational by early May, and with a <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-koreas-president-is-getting-his-north-korea-policy-badly-wrong-81047">new South Korean president</a> assuming office, North Korea fired off various other missiles of other ranges in the ensuing weeks. The US, meanwhile, conducted its <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/25/asia/north-korea-fires-projectile/index.html">usual joint missile drills</a> with South Korea and <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/uss-nimitz-pacific-deployment-north-korea-2017-6?r=US&IR=T">dispatched military ships</a> to waters near the Korean peninsula. </p>
<p>The international community also condemned, as is customary, all of the launches with the standard volley of castigations: unacceptable, deplorable, beyond the pale. It all culminated on August 5 with <a href="https://www.un.org/press/en/2017/sc12945.doc.htm">United Nations Security Council Resolution 2371</a>, which further targets North Korean exports and imports and its foreign workers. </p>
<p>Clearly that resolution hasn’t deterred the north from its plans. But though this test looks like a giant step, technologically and politically speaking, it’s only a small one. </p>
<h2>Business as usual?</h2>
<p>While the world’s attention was mostly focused on the diplomatic tit-for-tat – and especially with what Donald Trump would do when forced to take an actual decision on North Korea – a number of sources, including the site 38 North, were <a href="https://www.38north.org/2017/04/punggyeri041217/">already reporting</a> that the established Punggye-ri test site was prime and ready for a new nuclear test, and had been as early as April. That in itself was hardly surprising; a bigger, more mobile bomb is just latest step in the nuclear programme, and has always been on the agenda. </p>
<p>Yet Pyongyang still hasn’t made it all the way. Even if it might (and only might) be able to fit a hydrogen bomb onto a missile, it still has to solve other stubborn technical problems, particularly how to design long-range missiles that can re-enter the atmosphere without burning up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, in the absence of ill-advised and highly unpredictable military action, the international community seems to have little up its sleeve other than sanctions and tough rhetoric. So far, both have failed – and they could be starting to backfire.</p>
<p>When Donald Trump threatened the north with “fire and fury” in retaliation for its long-range missile tests, I <a href="https://theconversation.com/trumps-threat-of-fire-and-fury-is-a-gift-to-north-koreas-propaganda-machine-82275">suggested</a> it was likely that his inflammatory rhetoric would only spur Pyongyang to test yet more missiles. It seems this will continue. As soon as he woke up to the news of the latest nuclear test, Trump not only suggested that North Korea was a rogue nation, unsurprising, but that it was an embarrassment to China. </p>
<p>This is a fundamental misunderstanding. Yes, Chinese trade is vital to the North Korean economy, but Pyongyang is responsible for its own behaviour. This crisis draws its energy not from China’s supposed enabling, but from the way North Korea understands its own security and protection – and as mentioned above, that worldview dates all the way back to the Korean armistice and its unresolved problems.</p>
<p>As things stand, it’s clear that the north has developed enough technology to claim the title of “nuclear power”, and whether or not other nations think it has the right to be regarded as such is irrelevant. Equally, any military incursion on northern territory would very likely meet with retaliation from what’s now a nuclear-armed state, meaning any discussion of conventional military intervention is effectively moot.</p>
<p>All the parties involved are fully aware of this. And as such the only way forward in this crisis is through some sort of dialogue about how to control the north’s nuclear arsenal. When the safety of millions is at stake, talking with an opponent is no sign of weakness.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83413/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Virginie Grzelczyk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pyongyang’s latest test isn’t the great leap forward it purports to be.Virginie Grzelczyk, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/834152017-09-03T22:01:02Z2017-09-03T22:01:02ZQ&A: what earthquake science can tell us about North Korea’s nuclear test<p>North Korea is believed to have conducted a <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/03/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test/index.html">hydrogen bomb test</a>. Seismic shockwaves from the underground test were felt in China, and quickly detected by both South Korea and Japan – both independently confirmed it was a nuclear test. So what can seismic science tell us about such tests?</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is the history of using seismic techniques to monitor nuclear tests?</h2>
<p>The use of what’s called “forensic seismology” to detect and identify nuclear tests dates back almost to the birth of nuclear weapons themselves. In 1946, the US conducted the first underwater test of a nuclear bomb at <a href="https://theconversation.com/bikini-islanders-still-deal-with-fallout-of-us-nuclear-tests-70-years-later-58567">Bikini Atoll</a> in the Pacific Ocean. The shock waves created by the huge explosion were picked up at seismometers all over the world, and scientists realised that seismology could be used to monitor these kinds of tests.</p>
<p>In 1963, at the height of the Cold War, nuclear testing moved underground. The seismic waves from underground tests are more difficult to detect, because the shaking felt over such long distances is very small – only around one millionth of a centimetre. </p>
<p>To measure the waves from underground tests, scientists developed more sensitive seismometer instruments and began installing <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/seismic-array">seismic arrays</a>, where multiple seismometers are deployed within a few kilometres of each other. A seismic array is better able to pick out the small vibrations from a particular source than a single seismometer, and can also be used to work out with greater accuracy where the waves originally come from.</p>
<p>In 1996, the <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/">Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty</a> (CTBT) was opened for signatures, aiming to ban all nuclear explosions. To enforce this treaty, the Vienna-based CTBT Organisation is establishing an International Monitoring System with over 50 seismic monitoring stations to detect nuclear tests anywhere on Earth.</p>
<p>This system doesn’t just use seismometers. Infrasound instruments listen for very low frequency sound waves, inaudible to the human ear, generated by potential nuclear explosions in the atmosphere; hydroacoustic instruments listen for sound waves travelling long distances through the oceans generated by underwater explosions, and <a href="https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/monitoring-technologies-how-they-work/radionuclide-monitoring/">radionuclide detectors</a> “sniff out” radioactive gases released from a nuclear test site.</p>
<h2>What do seismic monitors look for?</h2>
<p>Any sort of earthquake or explosion, whether natural or man-made, produces different sorts of shock waves which travel through the Earth and can be detected by seismometers, which can measure very small ground movements. The fastest waves to arrive are the primary waves (P waves), followed by secondary waves (S waves), which travel deep through the Earth. Then come the slower surface waves, which cause the most shaking felt at ground level because they only travel close to the surface.</p>
<p>Seismometers use the difference in the arrival times of the different types of wave to figure out how far away an earthquake or explosion occurred, and how deep underground its source was. They can also measure how powerful the earthquake was (its magnitude).</p>
<h2>How do seismologists distinguish between an explosion and an earthquake?</h2>
<p>There are a number of ways to do this. One is to measure the depth at which the earthquake occurred. Even with modern drilling technology, it is only possible to place a nuclear device a few kilometres below the ground; if an earthquake occurs at a depth of more than 10km, we can be certain it is not a nuclear explosion.</p>
<p>Studies of the numerous nuclear tests that took place during the Cold War show that explosions generate larger P waves than S waves when compared with earthquakes. Explosions also generate proportionally smaller Surface waves than P waves. Seismologists can therefore compare the size of the different types of wave to try to determine whether the waves came from an explosion or a natural earthquake.</p>
<p>For cases like North Korea, which has carried out a sequence of nuclear tests since 2006, we can directly compare the shape of the waves recorded from each test. As the tests were all conducted at sites within a few kilometres of each other, the waves have a similar shape, differing only in magnitude.</p>
<h2>What can seismology tell us about the most recent test?</h2>
<p>Seismological data can tell us whether there was an explosion, but not whether that explosion was caused by a nuclear warhead or conventional explosives. For final confirmation that an explosion was nuclear, we have to rely on radionuclide monitoring, or experiments at the test site itself.</p>
<p>Similarly, we cannot explicitly differentiate between a nuclear fission bomb and a <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-a-hydrogen-bomb-and-why-it-may-not-be-what-north-korea-exploded-52841">thermonuclear hydrogen bomb</a>, nor can we tell if a bomb is small enough to be mounted on a missile, as the North Korean government claims.</p>
<p>What we can get from the data is an idea of the size of the blast. This isn’t simple, as the magnitude of the seismic waves and how they relate to the explosive power of the bomb depends a lot on where exactly the test took place, and how deep underground. But in the case of this latest test, we can directly compare the magnitude to previous North Korean tests. </p>
<p>This latest explosion is considerably more powerful than the north’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/10/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test.html?_r=0">last test</a> in September 2016; the Norwegian seismic monitoring centre, NORSAR, estimates an explosion equivalent to <a href="https://www.norsar.no/press/latest-press-release/archive/large-nuclear-test-in-north-korea-on-3-september-2017-article1534-984.html">120 kilotons of TNT</a>. For comparison, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 yielded 15 and 20 kiloton blasts respectively.</p>
<h2>How reliable is the technology?</h2>
<p>Despite the caveats above, the improved sensitivity of the available instruments and the increased number of monitoring stations means there is now a very reliable network in place to detect nuclear tests anywhere on the planet. </p>
<p>Even though the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not in force, the scientific expertise of those investigating such events is always improving. The fact that monitoring agencies in Japan and South Korea confirmed this latest test within hours shows just how impressive it can be.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83415/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Wilkins receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE).</span></em></p>Within hours of North Korea’s latest underground nuclear test, Japan and South Korea were both able to independently confirm it had happened. How?Neil Wilkins, PhD Candidate, School of Earth Sciences, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/823652017-08-14T02:32:45Z2017-08-14T02:32:45ZWhy didn’t sanctions stop North Korea’s missile program?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/181827/original/file-20170811-12740-bacwqy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Images of Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are shown on a news program in Seoul, South Korea on Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>North Korea’s long-range missile program has made significant technological advances in the past few months. </p>
<p>For most of the past 20 years, the international community has struggled to stop this kind of progress.</p>
<p>Kim Jong Un’s plan to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/world/asia/north-korea-guam-missiles-kim-trump.html">target four test missiles</a> approximately 20 miles off the coast of the U.S. territory of Guam shows just how destabilizing this rapidly advancing ballistic missile program can be. North Korea’s plan – which Kim claims will be finalized later this month – follows last month’s <a href="http://thediplomat.com/2017/08/north-koreas-second-icbm-test-introduced-new-features-to-the-missiles-second-stage/">two successful tests</a> of an intercontinental ballistic missile with the capability to hit the U.S.</p>
<p>My research on how states <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0096340213485948">illegally obtain missile technologies</a> and my experience conducting <a href="https://projectalpha.eu/outreach-workshop-in-dalian-china/">outreach related to U.N. sanctions</a> give me some insight into the methods North Korea used to make illicit procurements and the limitations in using technology-based sanctions to prevent them.</p>
<h2>Technology-based sanctions</h2>
<p>In 2006 – following North Korea’s first nuclear test – the U.N. Security Council <a href="https://undocs.org/S/RES/1718(2006)">prohibited</a> the “supply, sale or transfer” of “items, materials, equipment, goods and technology” that could contribute to the country’s missile program. </p>
<p>Efforts to prevent North Korea’s acquisition of missile technology by certain nations – notably the United States – had been <a href="https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron">underway since the 1990s</a>. However, the U.N. sanctions went further by placing standardized legal requirements on all states to prevent the development of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs.</p>
<p>These sanctions are “universal” – obligatory for all states around the world. Each nation is responsible for implementation within its borders. Missile, nuclear and military technologies are regulated through national export control systems. Exports of certain goods and technologies need to be granted an export license by the government. This allows governments to do a risk assessment on transactions and minimize the diversions to undesirable uses, such as Weapons of Mass Destruction programs or human rights abuses.</p>
<p>In theory, all countries should have the capacity to implement technology-based sanctions. Having an export control system has been mandatory for states since the passage of <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/RES/1540(2004)">U.N. Security Council resolution 1540</a> in 2004. However, more than a decade after this resolution was passed, many nations – particularly developing ones – are still struggling with <a href="http://www.nti.org/analysis/reports/1540-reporting-overview/">implemention</a>.</p>
<p>This has led to uneven execution of missile-related sanctions on North Korea. A recent report has described the U.N. sanctions regime as a “<a href="https://rusi.org/sites/default/files/201706_whr_a_house_without_foundations_web.pdf">house without foundations</a>,” noting that not a single element of the sanctions regime “enjoys robust international implementation.” </p>
<h2>Sources of missile technology</h2>
<p>As <a href="http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/delivery-systems/">North Korea’s missile program</a> has advanced, its sources of missile technology have evolved. </p>
<p>North Korea began by importing full missile systems and seeking to reverse-engineer or replicate them. For example, after procuring short-range <a href="https://sketchfab.com/models/63dc9c5369804d008171cae0d9922f58">Scud missiles</a> from Egypt in the late 1970s, North Korea “reverse-engineered” them by the mid-1980s. The 1990s saw North Korea develop the <a href="https://sketchfab.com/models/74e8a504b63340e284da666629bac84e">Nodong</a>, a scaled-up Scud design. It also experimented with longer-range missiles in the late 1990s and mid-2000s. These Taepodong missiles drew together elements of the shorter-range systems such as their engines. The <a href="https://sketchfab.com/models/1d2f4783998146a0a574ae05c509c607">Taepodong-2</a> allegedly had an intercontinental range, although it was never successfully tested.</p>
<p><iframe id="r10BA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/r10BA/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Since taking power in 2011, Kim Jong Un has accelerated North Korea’s missile program. In the past year alone, <a href="http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/cns-north-korea-missile-test-database/">the country has tested</a> four seemingly new missiles for the first time – including a <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN10Y2B0">submarine-launched ballistic missile</a> and an <a href="http://www.usfk.mil/Media/Press-Releases/Article/1182085/us-pacific-command-detects-tracks-north-korean-missile-launch/">intermediate range ballistic missile</a>, as well as the ICBMs tested last month. </p>
<p>The country has also sought to learn how to produce required parts and components at home. North Korea’s program is opaque, and the balance between reliance on external sources and homemade parts is unclear, but some episodes provide insights.</p>
<p>Rocket debris salvaged from the sea following a satellite launch in December 2012 suggested an ongoing reliance on the international market place for parts. A 2013 <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/147">U.N. report</a> suggested the rocket had used modern components sourced from China, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S., as well as “cannibalized” Scud components and other 1980s vintage Soviet parts.</p>
<p>Since then, North Korea has continued to pursue more advanced manufacturing technologies. Footage from the leadership’s <a href="http://www.38north.org/2013/09/jlewis090413/">frequent factory visits</a> has shown that North Korea has acquired advanced computer numerically controlled machine tools which are of use in missile and nuclear programs. Photographs from a parade in April 2017 <a href="https://storify.com/ArmsControlWonk/ribbed-for-your-pleasure">suggest</a> that North Korea’s new submarine-launched ballistic missile was constructed with wound filament. This material is lighter and stronger than aluminum, and a significant step forward in capability.</p>
<h2>Evading sanctions</h2>
<p>To make these advances in their missile program, North Korea has had to evade sanctions and the broader scrutiny of the international community. Their illicit procurement techniques include using front companies, obscuring the end user, falsifying documentation and mislabeling cargo. A 2017 <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2017/150">U.N. report</a> notes that North Korea’s evasion techniques are “increasing in scale, scope and sophistication.”</p>
<p>North Korea’s military and WMD procurement networks are global in nature. <a href="http://projectalpha.eu/alpha-in-depth-north-koreas-proliferation-and-illicit-procurement-apparatus/">According to one study</a>, they have touched more than 60 countries. </p>
<p>Due to geographical proximity, historic relationship and broader trading links, China has played an unparalleled role in these networks. Many middlemen and procurement agents have operated in <a href="http://thebulletin.org/engaging-china-proliferation-prevention">China</a>, and increasingly – as the country’s private sector develops – its manufacturers have been a source of technology. A series of revelations in early 2017 demonstrated that Chinese manufacturers and Chinese-North Korean joint ventures are benefiting North Korea’s missile program – including with <a href="http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Shenyang_Machine_Tools_13Apr2017_Final.pdf">machine tools</a>, <a href="http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2017/150">components</a> and <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinese-north-korean-venture-shows-how-much-sanctions-can-miss-1494191212?mod=djem10point">materials</a>.</p>
<h2>The effects of sanctions?</h2>
<p>Observers might rightfully ask: Have sanctions failed? </p>
<p>This question is complicated. It might be more useful to consider what the effects of sanctions have been.</p>
<p>The primary objectives of technology-based sanctions have been to slow and prevent North Korea’s nuclear and missile development. The recent ICBM tests clearly prove these measures have not prevented North Korea’s missile development. Whether they slowed progress is debatable. </p>
<p>What is undeniable is that sanctions have had unforeseen consequences. <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-curb-north-koreas-nuclear-program-follow-the-money-65462">Research suggests</a> that sanctions could have made North Korea’s procurement efforts more sophisticated as Chinese middlemen monetize the risk.</p>
<p>Americans tend to view North Korea as an inward-looking, economically isolated state cut off from the international community. However, the country’s illicit networks – including those supplying its missile program – are global and responsive. Ultimately, they will be difficult to counter.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-did-sanctions-against-north-koreas-missile-program-fail-80666">an article</a> originally published on July 7, 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82365/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daniel Salisbury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The international community has been trying to stop North Korea from developing long-range missiles for decades. So how did North Korea get them?Daniel Salisbury, Postdoctoral Fellow, MiddleburyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/818732017-08-02T01:09:06Z2017-08-02T01:09:06ZFacing the threat from North Korea: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/180625/original/file-20170801-15290-hbgbnm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People watch news on missile launch in Pyongyang, North Korea.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: The following is a roundup of archival stories related to North Korea.</em></p>
<p>North Korea has launched <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/northkorea-missiles-southkorea-idUSL3N1KJ4UL">repeated tests</a> of ballistic missiles, which it claims are now advanced enough to carry a nuclear warhead as far as the United States. Although experts have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/31/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-video.html?_r=0">cast doubt</a> on the veracity of these claims, the international community has sounded the alarm. South Korea in particular is taking steps, with support from the U.S., to defend itself against the threat.</p>
<p>To better understand this intensifying conflict, we turned to stories in our archive.</p>
<h2>Basics</h2>
<p><strong>1.</strong> Especially for younger generations, the origins of this conflict are not always clear. We asked East Asia scholar <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/ji-young-lee-321792">Ji-Young Lee</a> of American University <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-things-to-know-about-north-and-south-korea-80583">to take us way back in this Q&A</a> and explain how Korea got divided into North and South in the first place. Along the way she unpacks some myths about the effect the North Korean regime has had on its people:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Still, not all North Koreans are interested in defecting. According to anthropologist Sandra Fahy, interviewees said they left the North reluctantly driven primarily by famine and economic reasons, rather than political reasons. A majority of them missed home in the North.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2.</strong> By now, most people are familiar with the man at the helm in North Korea – Kim Jong Un. But his motives still mystify world leaders. Foreign policy expert <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/stephen-benedict-dyson-137046">Stephen Dyson</a> of the University of Connecticut writes a brief history of how the U.S. has sought insight into <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-makes-kim-jong-un-tick-77143">the minds of other strongmen – from Hitler to Khrushchev</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“History tells us that to influence Kim, we must empathize (note: not sympathize) with him. To figure out what makes him tick, Trump and his advisers must first understand how we look to the North Korean leader, peering at us from his very particular vantage point.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Options</h2>
<p><strong>3.</strong> What options are on the table for dealing with the threat from North Korea? A good first step would be increasing U.S. cooperation with Asian allies on security issues, writes <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/flynt-l-leverett-328790">Flynt Leverett</a>, a former National Security Council and State Department staffer and professor at Pennsylvania State University. But will Trump’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-and-the-dangers-of-trumps-diplomacy-free-asia-strategy-74494">focus on trade get in the way</a>?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“For Trump and ‘inner circle’ advisers like Steve Bannon, the top concern is economic. Trump and his team see U.S. trade deficits, concentrated in Asia, as draining America’s wealth and threatening its national security…Overall, Trump’s Asia strategy is unlikely to boost Sino-U.S. cooperation on regional security.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>4.</strong> Another option that the international community has resorted to for years is imposing sanctions to limit the regime’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. But these sanctions have had, it seems, limited effect. <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-curb-north-koreas-nuclear-program-follow-the-money-65462">John Park</a> at Harvard University interviewed former North Korean business managers who bought components for the regime’s nuclear and missile programs. His findings suggest that <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-curb-north-koreas-nuclear-program-follow-the-money-65462">sanctions must be revisited</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“As sanctions have become tougher, these local Chinese middlemen have charged higher fees to reflect the elevated risk of doing business with North Korean clients. Instead of hindering procurement activities, we found that sanctions have actually helped to attract more capable middlemen, who are drawn by the larger payday.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>5.</strong> And after a cyberattack linked to North Korea penetrated the global banking system last year, analysts are urging U.S. leaders to <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-korea-cyberspace-offensives-pose-challenge-in-us-china-relations-75803">take the online threat just as seriously</a>. As <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/frank-j-cilluffo-156337">Frank Cilluffo</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/sharon-l-cardash-156339">Sharon Cardash</a> from George Washington University write:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“North Korea keeps its military capabilities secret, and is particularly cautious about revealing its cyberwarfare capabilities. South Korea’s Defense Ministry estimates that North Korea’s ‘cyber army’ is 6,000 strong. That’s as big as the U.S. military’s Cyber Mission Force is planned to be.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81873/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Refresh your knowledge on the origins of North Korea’s nuclear threat and the options world leaders have to deal with it.Danielle Douez, Associate Editor, Politics + SocietyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/816422017-07-28T09:30:10Z2017-07-28T09:30:10ZJames Bond, North Korea and the shadow of intercontinental ballistic missiles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179974/original/file-20170727-31972-13rwchl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Moonraker movie poster from 1979 created by Dan Gouzee.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.bondmovies.net/moonraker.html">United Artists/bondmovies.net</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Fears over North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/21/north-korean-travel-ban-marks-return-to-cold-war-era-restrictions-on-u-s-citizens-abroad/?utm_term=.b96e88f07c30">mounting tensions</a> with America are a chilling reminder of the Cold War and an era that many assumed was in the past. </p>
<p>Yet these disturbing echoes continue to resonate – perhaps because the themes are so embedded in popular culture and, in this case, popular fiction. Even that very British hero James Bond has something to say to diplomats dealing with the worsening situation with Pyongyang.</p>
<p>July 27 marked the anniversary of the signing of the armistice that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10165796">ended the Korean war</a> in 1953 – although the war between North and South has never officially ceased. Sixty-four years on the after effects continue with North Korea now <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40502361">possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile</a> (ICBM). Desire for a missile that can deliver a nuclear warhead to far-away continents returns to the 1950s Cold War pursuit of a nuclear warhead that could travel faster than any bomber aircraft. America, Britain, China, France and the USSR all chased this goal, that combined space race and Nazi-era weapons technology.</p>
<p>The USSR won both, firing the <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/russia-tests-an-intercontinental-ballistic-missile">world’s first ICBM</a> in 1957 and getting the first human to space and back with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/from-the-archive-blog/2011/may/29/gagarin-first-space-travel-1961">Yuri Gagarin</a> in 1961. Joseph M Siracusa argues in <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003E1BGL4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1">his book</a>, that the nuclear missile seemed to offer immunity from nuclear attack as “no nuclear power may use military force against another nuclear power”. Other countries seeking the security of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17026538">Mutually Assured Destruction</a> (MAD) have followed, with the nuclear “club” since growing in size to an official, possibly inaccurate, number of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-nine-countries-that-have-nuclear-weapons-a6798756.html">nine members</a>. </p>
<h2>Bond and the bomb</h2>
<p>That 1950s obsession with the long-range ballistic missile found its way into fiction. To be popular, spy fiction must reflect the fears of society and governments. During the Cold War, <a href="http://www.ianfleming.com/james-bond/">Ian Fleming’s James Bond</a> was there to examine those fears. Two years before the first ICBM was fired by the USSR, Fleming made Britain’s desire for such a weapon the centre of his 1955 Bond novel, <a href="http://www.ianfleming.com/products/moonraker/profile/">Moonraker</a>.</p>
<p>Fleming – who was once described by Sean Connery as a “<a href="https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/03/snobbery-with-violence/">tremendous snob</a>” – was also capable of bringing racism into his novels. In <a href="http://www.ianfleming.com/products/goldfinger/profile/">Goldfinger</a>, published six years after the messy end of the Korean war, Fleming, perhaps still smarting from a conflict that Britain and American <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1285708.stm">came out of quite badly</a>, has the eponymous villain tell Bond: “Koreans are the cruellest, most ruthless people in the world”. So, of course, Goldfinger employs a Korean by the name of Oddjob as his chief henchman. </p>
<p>Fleming was born in London, went to Eton and tried to find work in the diplomatic service after learning French, German and Russian before finally landing a job at Reuters news agency. He worked there for three years and honed his trademark sparse writing style. At the onset of World War II, Fleming joined the navy and with his talent for languages went into <a href="http://www.ianfleming.com/timeline/war-declared/">Naval intelligence</a>. Fleming credited that time with helping inform his Bond books.</p>
<h2>Cold War echoes</h2>
<p>The Cold War haunts Fleming’s novels. In 1955 Britain was less than a decade out of World War II and was now in the throes of a long and troubling stalemate with the USSR. The legacy of war was everywhere. Rationing had only just ended in 1954 and the meals, drink, drugs and lifestyle described in the Bond books were unimaginable to the majority of the public. This was a time of dreary poverty, National Service, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/spies_cambridge.shtml">the Cambridge spies</a> and high-profile defections to the USSR, such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/10790144/Kim-Philby-had-no-regrets-about-betraying-Britain-to-the-Soviet-Union-recordings-reveal.html">Kim Philby</a>. The war in Korea had ended only two years before. In 1954 the French were defeated in their Indochinese colony (Vietnam) by Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist army, setting the scene for America’s entry into the Vietnam War which lasted until 1975.</p>
<p>Moonraker was Fleming’s third novel featuring secret agent, Commander James Bond. In this book Hugo Drax – on the surface a millionaire war hero – promised to make Britain great again by creating an ICBM before any other country has one. Drax plans to use the kind of Nazi rocket technology that had sent the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140905-the-nazis-space-age-rocket">V2 rocket</a> to bomb Britain during the war and would be the next big advance in nuclear warhead delivery. Drax publishes an open letter to the Queen promising that Britain will become a first-rate power with an ICBM and becomes a national hero as Britain will be ahead of the Americans and the Russians.</p>
<p>But Bond’s boss, M, who like Drax is a member of the <a href="http://www.007james.com/locations/blades.php">London club Blades</a>, does not trust Drax because he thinks he cheats at cards. Bond humbles the villain at a card game and quietly exposes him as a cheat. The pair meet again when Bond goes to Drax’s plant where the IBCM is being made. Our hero eventually discovers that Drax and his men are indeed Nazis, backed by the USSR, who plan to fire the ICBM at London. His evil plans are, of course, foiled by Bond.</p>
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<p>Not all fiction of the period ends with heroes saving the day. In Neville Shute’s atmospheric <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beach-Nevil-Shute/dp/1520805209/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9JKCZJX1EVDR438JATN3">On the Beach</a>, nuclear conflict occurs by accident and survivors go to Australia where the last humans will exist until the nuclear cloud reaches them. <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuclear-Weapons-Short-Introduction-Introductions-ebook/dp/B003E1BGL4/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=">Siracusa asserts</a> that the Cold War demonstrated “two ironclad, unwritten rules: first, no nuclear power may use military force against another nuclear power and, second, a nuclear power using military force against a non-nuclear nation, may not use nuclear weapons”. As more nations continue in the quest for nuclear bombs, we can only hope those rules still apply because Bond won’t be there to save the day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Gardner works for Anglia Ruskin University. </span></em></p>The tensions between North Korea and the US over its long range ballistic missile programme echo a well-known James Bond plot.John Gardner, Professor of English Literature, Anglia Ruskin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/806092017-07-06T19:04:23Z2017-07-06T19:04:23ZHow China could use trade to force North Korea to play nice with the West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/177214/original/file-20170706-26461-n7vj28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chinese President Xi Jinping may be the only person able to rein in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Wong Maye-E, Michael Dinneen</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>North Korea got the world’s attention – and President Donald Trump’s – when it said on July 4 that it had <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-missile-icbm-pentagon-trump-not-seen-before-a7825541.html">successfully launched</a> an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. The weapon, potentially equipped with a nuclear warhead, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-04/where-could-a-north-korean-icbm-hit/8678296">could reach Alaska</a>. </p>
<p>President Trump’s initial reaction included blaming China for letting things get this far. He tweeted that Chinese trade with North Korea “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/882560030884716544">rose 40% in the first quarter</a>,” implying that China is reluctant to punish North Korea for continuing to pursue nuclear weapons. </p>
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<p>Is he right to call out China’s trade relationship with North Korea, which formally goes by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea?</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">poor quality of the data</a> on trade between these countries should lead one to be skeptical of any sweeping claims, Trump’s overall sentiment is probably correct. China has increased its trade with North Korea in recent decades and has likely done very little on that front to try to forestall this trading partner’s nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>Yet a quick look at the data, however murky, shows just how much leverage China has, if it wishes to use it. </p>
<h2>North Korea’s primary patron</h2>
<p>In general, exports from one country to another <a href="http://www.cepii.fr/pdf_pub/wp/2013/wp2013-27.pdf">can be mostly explained</a> by the distance between them and the sizes of their markets, a pattern that holds for China and North Korea.</p>
<p>Geographically, they share a large border, which makes China a natural partner for trade. North Korea also abuts South Korea, which doesn’t trade with its rival, and shares a tiny border crossing with Russia, with whom it trades a little (more on that later). </p>
<p>China’s large market, proximity and willingness to trade with North Korea has led to a situation in which the latter has become highly dependent on trade with its primary patron. <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">About half</a> of North Korean exports and imports go directly to and from China and much of the rest of its trade is handled indirectly by Chinese middlemen. </p>
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<p>North Korea’s dependence on its northern neighbor has grown hand-in-hand with the nascent superpower’s increasing economic dominance of East Asia, which began 15 years ago when China <a href="https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/countries_e/china_e.htm">joined the World Trade Organization</a>. Since then, both Chinese gross domestic product as well as its annual trade with North Korea have increased nearly tenfold, to around <a href="http://data.worldbank.org/country/china">US$11 trillion</a> and <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/prk/">$6 billion</a>, respectively.</p>
<p>And today, China is responsible for more than 80 percent of both North Korea’s imports and exports. </p>
<p>North Korea <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export/chn/prk/show/2015/">imports pretty much everything</a> from China, from rubber tires (1.8 percent of the total) to refined petroleum (4 percent) and apples and pears (1.3 percent), with no single category dominating. Meanwhile, <a href="http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/import/chn/prk/show/2015/">coal makes up about 40 percent</a> of its exports to China, followed by “non-knit men’s coats” (7.2 percent). </p>
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<h2>Time to use that leverage?</h2>
<p>However, recent events have led to some uncertainty about the extent to which China is willing to use this economic leverage to rein in North Korea’s military ambitions. It appears that China is willing to use these close economic ties to serve its own diplomatic purposes but it’s unclear whether that includes using this economic leverage to rein in North Korea’s military ambitions. </p>
<p>On the one hand, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/world/asia/north-korea-china-coal-imports-suspended.html">China claims</a> that coal imports from North Korea have recently been stopped as part of an effort to punish the regime for recent missile tests and the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/20/asia/kim-jong-nam-death-timeline/index.html">suspected assassination of Kim Jong-nam</a>. If true, this would be an important signal of China’s willingness to support U.S. concerns about the missile program as it would represent a loss of about a third ($930 million) of North Korea’s import revenue. </p>
<p>However, there is evidence that coal shipments in fact <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/07/05/trump_tried_to_make_china_to_do_his_bidding_against_north_korea_and_is_shocked.html">never ceased</a>. And in any case, China <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/07/05/the-messy-data-behind-chinas-growing-trade-with-north-korea/?utm_term=.41435ab3f758">may have dramatically increased</a> its imports of iron ore from North Korea to offset the lost coal revenues. </p>
<p>This is consistent with the idea that China carefully considers the resources and revenue that are available to the North Korean regime at any moment, and uses trade as a lever to control them. In this way, China walks a fine line between providing too many resources, and thus allowing the regime to prosper, and not enough resources, such that North Korea is in danger of collapsing. Ultimately, trade may be used as a lever to do some light scolding, but China’s overwhelming concern is preventing North Korea’s collapse.</p>
<p>Further evidence that China has tight control over the North Korean economy comes from <a href="https://c4ads.org/reports/">a recent report</a> from <a href="https://c4ads.org">C4ADS</a>. The research group found close, and often common, ownership ties between most of the major Chinese companies who do business with North Korea. This suggests that trade with North Korea is highly centralized and thus easily controlled.</p>
<h2>Russia: North Korea’s other ‘friend’</h2>
<p>Of course, China’s not the only country North Korea trades with, but the others pale in comparison. Other top export destinations, after China, include India ($97.8 million), Pakistan ($43.1 million) and Burkina Faso ($32.8 million). In terms of imports, India ($108 million), Russia ($78.3 million and Thailand ($73.8 million) also sell North Korea stuff. </p>
<p>Russia in particular may be beginning to complicate things for <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/nikki-haley-says-u-s-will-propose-tougher-sanctions-against-north-korea/">U.S. efforts to isolate the regime</a>. While still little, <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/06/05/russia-boosts-trade-north-korea-china-cuts/102389824/">Russian trade with North Korea increased</a> 73 percent over the first two months of 2017 compared with the same period of the previous year. This may be part of a coordinated effort with China to obstruct attempts by the U.S. to pressure North Korea on its military ambitions. </p>
<p>But whereas China is legitimately worried that an economic crisis in North Korea could lead to a flood of refugees or all-out war, Russia likely sees engagement with North Korea in much simpler terms, namely as an additional way to gain geopolitical advantage relative to the U.S.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/80609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Wright does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China is North Korea’s biggest trading partner by far, giving the former a great deal of leverage over the behavior of its neighbor.Greg Wright, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of California, MercedLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/779082017-07-05T11:17:02Z2017-07-05T11:17:02ZHow Trump’s unpredictability changes the game on North Korea<p>Given that North Korea can already produce a nuclear weapon, it is vital to keep it from developing an intercontinental ballistic missile. On this measure, the rest of the world has so far failed – and that was made clearer than ever on July 4 2017, when Pyongyang claimed to have successfully tested an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-icbm.html">intercontinental ballistic missile</a> for the first time. </p>
<p>If reports of the missile’s performance are accurate, Kim Jong-un may soon have the ability to hit US territory for the first time. Donald Trump previously <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/816057920223846400">said</a> this will never be allowed – and, sure enough, the US and South Korea responded to the test with a missile drill of their own in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-40503558">Sea of Japan</a>. </p>
<p>Trump has been banging this drum on and off since his presidency began – albeit very inconsistently. Heralding the end of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials/obamas-strategic-patience-strategy-toward-north-korea-is-over-but-trump-could-make-the-region-safer-a7675161.html">Barack Obama’s policy</a> of “strategic patience”, he has ostensibly hardened the US’s stance on North Korea, saying that there is chance of a “major, major conflict” if the country does not curb its nuclear ambitions. </p>
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<p>In April 2017, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-north-korea-nuclear-latest-war-a7710521.html">pressed</a> to say whether another nuclear test would trigger military action from the US, Trump said “we’ll see”. But in the same interview, Trump has gone on the record saying he would be “honored” to meet the North Korean president, Kim Jong-un, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2017/apr/30/trump-kim-jong-un-is-a-pretty-smart-cookie-video">praising</a> his counterpart as a “pretty smart cookie” and apparently empathising with him, noting that it must have been “hard” for Kim to take the reins at such a young age. </p>
<p>Observers saw this as yet another sign of Trump’s <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/04/the-many-north-korea-policies-of-rex-w-tillerson/524736/">ineptitude and incoherence</a>. But looked at another way, his apparently garbled messages could have value as a sort of extreme carrot-and-stick methodology, simultaneously threatening devastating military action and offering the ultimate diplomatic prize of a meeting with the US president himself. </p>
<p>This approach has so far yielded mixed results. </p>
<h2>Oil and coal</h2>
<p>On the plus side, the US’s behaviour of late may in fact be helping pressure China to properly reconsider its policy towards the north. As it said in a <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/07/russia-china-korea-missile-test-unacceptable-170704145934120.html">statement jointly issued with Russia</a> after the latest test, Beijing considers Pyongyang’s weapons development “unacceptable” and would like to see the two Koreas negotiate in the interests of peace and stability.</p>
<p>The importance of China’s role should not be underestimated. Despite its <a href="http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/china-pushes-back-trumps-north-korea-rhetoric-20245">protestations to the contrary</a>, it is the only country with any significant leverage over Pyongyang: if it stops <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-china-oil-idUSKBN17F17L">selling North Korea oil</a> and <a href="https://www.38north.org/2017/04/ysun040517/">buying its coal</a>, the North Korean economy would collapse. </p>
<p>This was previously thought of as a line China would never cross – but things could be changing. China has signalled that it is willing to consider slaying this sacred cow. In April 2017, in a <a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1041998.shtml">Global Times editorial</a>, China issued an unprecedented public threat: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the North makes another provocative move this month, the Chinese society will be willing to see the UNSC adopt severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before, such as restricting oil imports to the North.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>North Korea’s state media <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/05/north-korean-state-media-lashes-main-ally-china-170504041539856.html">responded</a> by chiding China, telling Beijing not to “test the limits of [North Korea’s] patience”, further adding that China had “better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of [North Korean-Chinese] relations”. A Chinese riposte, again <a href="http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1045325.shtml">via the Global Times</a>, condemned North Korea’s statement as “hyper-aggressive” and “filled with nationalistic passion”. Pyongyang, it said, is “grappling with some form of irrational logic over its nuclear programme”. </p>
<p>The irony is surely not lost on China-watchers. As Beijing’s patience gets stretched to the limit, it may be forced to finally bring put some real pressure on its naughty neighbour.</p>
<h2>Tug of war</h2>
<p>Kim Jong-un and his progenitors have always relied on unpredictability as their main diplomatic and political tactic – but, with Trump in office, they no longer have a monopoly on quixotic behaviour. Mysteries about the administration’s North Korea policy abound. Did the US’s Carl Vinson aircraft carrier <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-north-korea-carl-vinson.html">sail to the Korean peninsula or not?</a> Why was the entire Senate <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-senate-idUSKBN17Q1LR">called to the White House</a> in April for a North Korea briefing? Will Trump order surgical strikes on North Korea? And what do his latest tweets mean?</p>
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<p>It is par for the course for Kim Jong-un to broadcast war rhetoric because he has normalised it to such an extent that the international community expects it, but it’s quite another matter for the president of the US to follow suit. </p>
<p>Trump’s behaviour is ratcheting up the tension on a number of fronts. While the South Korea-Japan-US triangle is holding together, the early deployment of their joint <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-us-america-anti-missile-thaad-defense-system-south-north-korea-spying-donald-trump-military-a7713251.html">Terminal High Altitude Area Defence</a> (THAAD) missile system has provoked an outsize reaction from China. When the THAAD deployment began in earnest in early 2017, China responded by cracking down on <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-china-lotte-idUSKBN16D03U">Lotte Mart</a>, a South Korean discount retailer that agreed to furnish land for the placement of THAAD; many of its Chinese outlets were suddenly shut on vague pretexts. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, South Korea remains close to the US and Japan – the newly elected president, Moon Jae-in, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/south-korea-confident-north-peace-talk-moon-jae-in-meet-donald-trump-washington-a7819066.html">visited Trump in Washington</a> days before the July 4 test, where he sounded assured that Trump would not scotch his plans for some kind of diplomatic dialogue. </p>
<p>Trump also seems to have overestimated the personal rapport he built with Xi during their <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39517569">meeting at Mar-a-Lago, Florida</a>, insisting that this translates into direct results with regards to reining in North Korea. For all the talk of oil and coal restrictions, the results they were meant to generate have not come to fruition. Xi, correspondingly, may have underestimated how much pressure he needs to apply on the Kim regime to <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/877234140483121152">keep Trump happy</a>.</p>
<p>With this latest missile breakthrough, Kim probably hoped to surprise the world yet again and continue bending it to his will. But he may have underestimated just how much Trump’s own penchant for the unexpected and contempt for losing has changed the calculus among the countries with a stake in stopping Pyongyang’s progress.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dylan M.H Loh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Intentionally or not, Trump’s approach to North Korea makes more sense than many people think.Dylan M.H Loh, Graduate Research Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778792017-05-17T14:08:01Z2017-05-17T14:08:01ZPutin, North Korea and what Russia really wants in the region<p>North Korea’s <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-39918497">missile test</a> on May 14 sparked condemnation and concern. But one world leader <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2017/05/15/europe/north-korea-putin-russia-missile/">spoke up for Pyongyang</a>, warning the international community to exercise caution and patience – and stop intimidating the state and its ruler. That man was Russian president Vladimir Putin. </p>
<p>One might think that Moscow would be extremely concerned about North Korea’s missile tests. Russia, after all, is one of only three countries to have a land border with North Korea (measuring all of 17km). Its territory in the east is incomparably more vulnerable to a strike from North Korea than the US is. The Kremlin is also interested in preserving the exclusivity of nuclear club membership. </p>
<p>Yet President Putin’s <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/54499">reaction</a> to North Korea’s latest test (the missile even landed in Russian economic waters) was surprisingly sanguine. So what is Russia’s game plan here?</p>
<p>In simple terms, North Korea is just not at the top of Russia’s list of security concerns. This is instead dominated by Ukraine, Syria, relations with NATO and the terrorist threat from radical Islamic groups. So, while its priorities are engaged elsewhere, the Kremlin is happy to let Beijing take the lead over North Korea. </p>
<p>Their core interests coincide in not allowing the US a greater military presence in Korea, while China has a much deeper strategic interest in the fate of North Korea. At the same time, Moscow sees itself as potentially playing a useful diplomatic role between different parties over Korea, gaining in its overall international standing. </p>
<p>The political elite in Russia also understands the logic of having nuclear weapons as the only firm guarantee against regime change. In the 1990s it resorted to nuclear sabre rattling in the face of Western criticism of its war in <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/553304.stm">Chechnya</a>. Boris Yeltsin, on his last foreign trip as Russian president in 1999, reminded Bill Clinton that Russia as a nuclear power <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-12/10/123r-121099-idx.html">“won’t let the US determine the rules for the rest of the world”</a>. </p>
<p>So, unlike many in the West, the Kremlin doesn’t see the regime in Pyongyang as crazy or irrational. In fact, from Russia’s perspective, Western interventions in the former Yugoslavia, Iraq and Libya, and support for Maidan protesters in Ukraine are far more dangerous to Russia than North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>Yet, ironically, Russia is perhaps the only country in the region which genuinely wouldn’t mind if the tensions between North and South Korea were resolved, and the countries reunited.</p>
<p>South Korea, for example, would be apprehensive about the huge costs and potential instability a reunification with the North could bring – particularly given the enormous gap in development and living standards between the two Koreas. </p>
<p>And while it would welcome the end of the most immediate security threat to itself, Japan might have concerns about a potential rival in a unified Korea which would nearly match it in terms of size and population. <a href="https://www.cfr.org/report/japan-south-korea-relations-time-open-both-eyes">Relations between the two countries</a> are still tense after World War Two and other post-colonial legacies from the Japanese rule in the Korean peninsula.</p>
<h2>Russian reasoning</h2>
<p>Most importantly of all, for China, the continuing existence of North Korea, though annoying to the Chinese leadership, still serves as an indispensable strategic buffer against the threat of a land invasion. The US maintains a sizeable military presence in South Korea, but its presence on the Chinese border, which would be possible if the Kim regime simply collapsed, is something that Beijing will never accept.</p>
<p>Likewise, for the US, the continuing threat from North Korea is the best excuse to maintain its <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/17/thaad-anti-missile-system-makes-china-lash-out-at-south-korea.html">military presence in the region</a> – ostensibly to counter Pyongyang, but in the long run also to contain China. </p>
<p>Against those concerns, Russia doesn’t have much to lose from the disappearance of the Pyongyang regime. It does though have plenty to gain in terms of potential new economic projects with a unified Korea, such as a <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0220a776-3668-11e3-aaf1-00144feab7de">gas pipeline</a> (Russia’s favourite foreign trade undertaking) or new rail links. </p>
<p>Plus, if unification also meant the removal of the US presence (as Chinese would surely insist on), then the end of the division in the Korean peninsula would mean a more favourable balance of power in East Asia, as well as a new economic partner. </p>
<p>So for now, Russia is happy with the status quo and does not wish the conflict to escalate to unacceptably dangerous levels. But while Putin calls for calm, it’s also clear that Moscow will never see the North Korean problem through the Western lens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexander Titov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Pyongyang’s latest missile test sparked a surprising reaction from the Russian leader.Alexander Titov, Lecturer in Modern European History, Queen's University BelfastLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.