The latest news involving North Korea centers around the UN sanctions that have been imposed, supposedly the strictest sanctions in 20 years. Of course, those strict sanctions of 20 years ago did not work, so why should these latest ones work? But never mind, both our Secretary of State John Kerry and our UN Ambassador Samantha Power say that these are the "toughest" sanctions ever and that North Korea will be paying a heavy price. According to their explanations, the new sanctions will be imposed which will require that all ships and planes carrying goods with end-user documents listing North Korea will be thoroughly searched for materials that are not "allowed," i.e., material that can be used to make weapons. This, we are told, is going to prevent North Korea from acquiring goods that can be used for weapons making.
I am a little confused as to who exactly is going to impose these sanctions. UN is great at talking tough, but has so far proven to be the proverbial "paper tiger"! The last time UN did any fighting was in Korea, more than a half a century earlier! Since then, UN has been more or less a toothless organization that seems to create more controversy than good. The latest controversy involves some African nation UN peacekeeping force that allegedly is involved in rampant criminal misbehavior, namely raping of women! The other time that the UN peacekeepers were in the news was more than 20 years ago when Pakistani UN peacekeepers refused to send their armor to help the besieged U.S. Army Rangers in Mogadishu! UN has not had a very good record when it comes to peacekeeping!
If I sound somewhat cynical, it is because UN's track record has been lousy! Just how are they going to manage to control and sift through all the traffic that is found in the airways and sea lanes around the world. It is a known fact that many illegal items are shipped to different countries using false end-user documents. For instance, how is UN going to determine what is really heading to North Korea? A ship headed for Japan, Russia, China, or South Korea with appropriate end-user documents will not be stopped. Who is to say that this ship will not divert its course at the last instance and find port in North Korea or off load the goods to a smaller craft in the middle of the night? But the bigger issue is that North Korea does not get most of its "illegal" material from ships and planes coming in from outside. They get their stuff overland by trucks from China! I had blogged about this problem earlier, that China is the biggest supplier of "forbidden" goods to North Korea.
According to all the latest news agency reports, China was the main supporter of this latest UN sanctions. I had to laugh when I read that. Of course China will be the biggest supporter of sanctions. It makes China look good before other members of UN, especially the Security Council of which it is a permanent member! But more importantly, the heavier the sanctions, the more dependent North Korea becomes on China, something that China wants! Never fear, no matter how stiff the sanctions, North Korea will continue to receive what it needs to build its war machine! Is UN going to set up shop along the North Korean border with China and do inspections? Not very likely! That part of China is mostly off limits to anyone outside of official Chinese!
North Korea may find the new sanctions annoying, but it is in no way going to slow down or stop their weapons development. As if to thumb their nose at everyone, UN in particular, North Korea immediately launched a half dozen missiles into the sea upon hearing about the new sanctions. It was as if they were saying, "Here, take that! That's what we think about your sanctions!"
As long as China can benefit form North Korea's belligerent behavior and existence, they will continue to supply material to North Korea to build weapons. China benefits from this in two ways. First, it makes money off the sale of goods. Then, just as importantly, it keeps North Korea as a threat to South Korea and Japan, China's two biggest economic competitors in the world! China would like nothing more than to get Japan's and South Korea's share of the world market, especially the U.S. market. What better way is there to keep those two competitors nervous, and spending money on defense than having a belligerent, unpredictable North Korea with a crazy leader and nuclear weapons!
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