How many people over the years have claimed that sanctions against North Korea won’t work? Sanctions against North Korea work if everyone enforces them. Now that the North Koreans are back to negotiate what we will see next is whether the ROK and the US will relieve the Kim regime of the economic pressure they are facing with some kind of nuclear agreement:
The economic pinch is almost certainly why Kim Jong Un is suddenly so eager to talk to the outside world, traveling to Beijing in March and then crossing the demilitarized zone to meet Moon.
“Why would he be doing this unless he was being constrained by sanctions,” said Stephan Haggard, professor of Korea-Pacific studies at the University of California at San Diego and a close monitor of sanctions. “I think he’s sweating.” (….)
But analysts generally agree that the sanctions must be inflicting serious pain on North Korea, a desperately poor country with a highly inefficient economy. (….)
The sanctions are probably putting a chill through both these economies. That has to be a huge concern for Kim, who once declared that North Korean people “would never have to tighten their belts again.”
“If I were Kim, I’d be much more worried about textile workers out of work, milling around doing nothing, than I would be about an American attack,” said William Brown, a former intelligence analyst focused on North Korea who now teaches at Georgetown University. Citing the kind of discontent that brought down communist regimes in Eastern Europe, he said, “The real dangers to the regime are internal.”
But Moon could pursue very little economic engagement without sanctions relief.
Not only has the U.N. Security Council imposed waves of sanctions on North Korea, but South Korea imposed its own direct punishment following two deadly North Korean attacks on South Korea in 2010.
Those measures are still in place, and conservative politicians are urging Moon to leave them there. Even if Moon overturned his predecessor’s order to close the Kaesong industrial park, an inter-Korean factory complex on the northern side of the border, transferring money or equipment to it would be almost impossible in the current sanctions environment. [Washington Post]
This all goes back to why the Moon administration is buttering up Trump with promises of a Nobel Peace Prize by getting on the peace train and believing that North Korea is really going to denuclearize this time.
It looks like President Moon will be able to personally make his case to President Trump to get on the peace train and pretend trust that the Kim regime is going to denuclearize:
Chung Eui-yong, left, Blue House national security adviser, shakes hands with John Bolton, his U.S. counterpart, on Friday at the White House. [YONHAP]President Moon Jae-in will meet U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on May 22 to discuss the upcoming North Korea-U.S. summit, the Blue House said on Saturday. The date and location of the high-stakes meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Trump have yet to be announced.
Moon is expected to share the detailed outcome of his summit with Kim last month and convey the North Korean leader’s intentions to Trump. The presidential office said in a statement that the two leaders would “have an in-depth discussion over ways to make sure the North-U.S. summit will be successful on the back of achievements forged in the April 27 summit.”
On the upcoming Moon-Trump meeting, the White House said the two “will continue their close coordination on developments regarding the Korean Peninsula following the April 27 inter-Korean summit,” and discuss “Trump’s upcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.” [Joong Ang Ilbo]
Nonviolent free speech is not the problem. People who answer nonviolent free speech with threats & violence are the problem. A people who can't comprehend this won't stay free for long.https://t.co/4Dg4YTmQJo
— (((Joshua))) Stanton (@freekorea_us) May 4, 2018
Here is what a ROK Drop favorite Bruce Klingner had to say about the recent Inter-Korean Summit between President Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong-un:
Bruce Klingner
Friday’s declaration is replete with generalities and bereft of detailed plans or commitments, particularly on denuclearization. Its boilerplate language and ideas have been lifted from previous agreements and joint statements, in 1972, 1992, 2000 and 2007. Can Moon and Kim be penalized for plagiarism?
A recommitment to worthy goals of nonaggression and denuclearization is commendable, but North Korea has famously broken its previous pledges. Seoul and Washington must maintain sanctions against the North, and military deterrence, until Pyongyang proves it has truly altered its modus operandi. When you’re approaching the altar with a serial philanderer, it’s best to keep the divorce lawyer on speed dial. [LA Times]
I totally agree with Dr. Lankov that the recent Kim-Moon Inter-Korean Summit was more marketing and hype than actual substance:
Andrei Lankov
It was, frankly, quite striking to see the tidal wave of unwarranted optimism in South Korean media that accompanied the April 27 summit.
To be more precise, this tidal wave began to rise shortly before the summit actually took place, and reached a truly remarkable level after its (modest and predictable) results were announced.
To a very large extent, this optimism has been deliberately manufactured by the South Korean bureaucracy. The Moon administration has spared no expense creating the impression that a historical breakthrough was made at Panmunjom.
These marketing efforts are eagerly supported by left-leaning media outlets, with the Hankyoreh Sinmun and Kyonghyang Sinmun being arguably the most vocal participants in this state-led enthusiasm building campaign. (…………)
One op-ed author, for example, assured his readers that in the near future, they will be able to take “the unification train” from Busan all the way to Moscow and Paris.
Another contributor shared his dreams about hiking in the North Korean mountains and buying freshly boiled corn from locals and assured readers that now, after this supposed breakthrough, these dreams are certainly about to come true very soon.
It has even been suggested that the architects of this supposed breakthrough should be considered as candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize.
These flood of naivety and self-imposed amnesia might sound comical, but there are good reasons why the Moon administration is working so hard to manufacture this optimism and to maintain it at a sufficiently high level. [NK News]
You can read more at the link, but the Moon administration is building this hype like I have previously posted about, to influence President Trump during his upcoming summit with Kim Jong-un. They need to get Trump on board with the Great Charade of 2018 and get him to also pretend that things are going to be different this time and that the North Koreans really do mean to denuclearize.
Rebuilding Kim’s image with the Inter-Korean Summit was part of this effort. The upcoming demolition of the nuclear test site will be the next dramatic optic of little substance that will happen before the Kim-Trump summit. If President Trump sticks to his demands of denuclearization with strict inspections before dropping sanctions than the Great Charade of 2018 will likely implode and Moon will likely blame Trump for its failure instead of the real source of the peninsula’s problems, Kim Jong-un.
To me it appears that President Moon Jae-in is attempting to play to President Trump’s ego:
South Korea’s president said Monday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the crisis over North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
Moon Jae-in made the comments during a Cabinet meeting three days after his momentous summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace,” he said in remarks confirmed by the presidential office.
Trump is planning to hold his own summit with Kim in coming weeks, although the venue and date have not been announced. [Stars & Stripes]
You can read more at the link, but if the North Koreans do not commit to real denuclearization President Trump could sink the entire facade that is going on right now. President Moon may be hoping that the possibility of winning a Nobel Peace Prize just like Trump’s rival Barack Obama did, may be enough to get him to play along with the current facade as well. Time will tell and we will all just have to wait and see what happens.
Here is already possibly billions in investment dollars to upgrade North Korea’s infrastructure for the little to nothing the Kim regime has tangibly offered in return:
In this photo taken on April 27, 2018, a man takes a photo of a bulletin that reads “The Steelhorse Wants to Run!” at a train stop no longer in use in a city of Gangwon Province near the border with North Korea. (Yonhap)
The historic inter-Korean summit is raising hopes for cooperation on social overhead capital (SOC) projects as the leaders of South and North Korea agreed on Friday to link cross-border roads and railways.
In the joint statement released by South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un after their summit, the two Koreas agreed to push forward the SOC projects agreed upon by late South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2007 for balanced growth and joint prosperity on the Korean Peninsula.
As part of the first step, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed to connect cross-border roads and railways and upgrade the existing infrastructure, the two sides said.
The plan includes taking practical steps to utilize the Gyeongui railway, which links Shinuiju, a city on the Korean Peninsula’s border with China, and Seoul.
During the summit talks, Moon said if the railroad is connected with the North, both South and North Korea can make use of trains in the future. Kim praised the quality of the railway that connects Seoul and PyeongChang, the site of the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in February. [Yonhap]
It looks like the Moon administration is about to surrender sovereignty of their side of the NLL to the Kim regime:
This map shows the West Sea peace-cooperation special zones proposed by South Korea at the 2007 inter-Korean summit. (Yonhap)
The leaders of South and North Korea agreed Friday to establish a peace and cooperation zone on their disputed western sea border, a move that could prevent future clashes.
The disputed sea demarcation line, which Seoul has enforced, has been the scene of two deadly naval clashes between the two Koreas since 1999.
On Friday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held a historic summit at the border village of Panmunjom and agreed to turn the area into a special region that can be used safety by both sides.
The agreement could also potentially allow South and North Korean fishermen to jointly operate their boats in the area while allowing maritime authorities crack down on illegal Chinese fishing. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but this is the same area where repeated attacks by the North Koreans have been executed against the ROK. In effort to appease North Korean aggression, the Moon administration is proposing giving up sovereignty of South Korean territory to the North Koreans to fish.
So why do the North Koreans want the NLL changed? Well this map shows why:
The current NLL is depicted with the Blue line and North Korea’s claimed NLL is depicted with the Red line.
The prior proposed joint fishing areas on the NLL nearly mirror what North Korea claims to be their ocean waters. The giving up of sovereignty of this maritime territory will make it harder to defend the South Korean islands along the NLL. Such an agreement would also set a precedent that the Kim regime’s claim against the legitimacy of the NLL is valid. The last time a South Korean leftist government tried to give away the NLL the ROK Defense Ministry was furious. It will be interesting to see how they respond this time to this news.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in’s televised summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday was spectacularly effective as pageantry aimed at South Koreans fearful of a U.S. attack on North Korea — and spectacularly empty in terms of meaningful commitment by the North to denuclearization. In fact, everything Kim put on the table was designed to reaffirm North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons state and dilute Chinese and South Korean support for sanctions. Many veterans of negotiations with North Korea worry that Kim is now getting ready to play the United States. While the Trump administration’s tough sanctions no doubt had some role in pushing the North toward this summitry, one can also imagine exactly how this was a scenario the North itself sought from the beginning. [Foreign Policy]
Green then goes on to write a satire email from Vice Marshall Kim Jong Gak, director of the Political Bureau, Korean People’s Army to Kim Jong-un on their peace strategy. Here is an excerpt from the email:
You will pledge seemingly historic commitments that are all unverifiable and easily reversed, many of which we have deployed successfully in past negotiations. These include your commitment (like your father’s and grandfather’s) to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, your pledge to join the global quest for denuclearization as the other nuclear weapons states have pledged to do under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, a promise not to transfer nuclear weapons to third parties, a no-first use pledge, and a promise to halt testing and to shut down our nuclear test site at Punggye-ri (for added drama, you might invite inspectors to the facility).
These commitments all parrot the aspirations of the current members of the nuclear weapons club and will thus confirm our membership in that club as we negotiate arms control with the Americans as a fellow nuclear weapons state. We, of course, made no commitment to cease production and deployment of our deterrent. We can easily reverse all these steps later, at the time of our choosing, yet already many in the imperialist and puppet media are proclaiming these meaningless declarations on your part to be a historic breakthrough.
I recommend reading the whole thing at the link, but as I have been saying since this whole peace initiative began, the Kim regime was conducting a facade. The North Koreans are very good at executing facades and Kim Jong-un has shown a particularly great talent for it, so much so that he has most in the international media believing every word he is saying.
The short term goal of this facade is to create a perception of progress towards peace and denuclearization on the peninsula to justify South Korea reopening the Kaesong Industrial Park, restarting joint tourism projects, and other inter-Korean cooperation initiatives that will be huge cash cows for the Kim regime. In return the Kim regime will pretend to denuclearize and make other commitments that can easily be reversed at a time of their choosing.
The Kim regime’s long term goal backed by China is to get the United States out of South Korea. That is why there has been such a strategic messaging emphasis on a peace treaty to end the Korean War. If there is a peace treaty South Korean leftists could argue why US forces are still needed in South Korea? The Kim regime’s even longer term goal is to separate the US from Japan as well with their surrogates in the media already pushing ideas of removing the US nuclear umbrella for Japan as part of any denuclearization agreement.
The wild card in all of this is President Donald Trump. South Korea, China, Russia, and most in the international community are willing to pretend denuclearization and a lasting peace is happening. Will the United States? For all we know President Trump could be conducting his own facade. For the US to get international consensus to conduct any strike against North Korea all options will have to be exhausted. Since this supposed peace process has began President Trump has been saying all the right things and being very reasonable even agreeing to meet with Kim Jong-un.
Going into the negotiations President Trump could be very solid about stringent inspections to ensure denuclearization compliance. If the Kim regime does not agree to stringent inspections or agrees and then plays their old tricks against inspectors than President Trump could have his rationale to strike North Korea. Or maybe President Trump is willing to go along with the facade to get a Nobel Peace Prize like his rival Barack Obama did and then let some other future US president deal with the consequences when Pyongyang ultimately reneges on the deal. Time will tell but the next 1-2 years should continue to be interesting times on the peninsula as everyone involved continues to play their role in this great facade.
