I expect the engagement crowd will say that the Kim regime doesn’t really mean what they say:
North Korea on Tuesday rejected U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s latest proposal for dialogue without preconditions, saying that it has no interest in Washington’s scheme to make it give up its nuclear program.
Tillerson said last week that the U.S. is ready to begin talks with North Korea “without preconditions” in a possible shift of U.S. policy. But days later, he said that the North should halt its “threatening behavior” before talks can begin, backpedaling on his previous remarks.
The Rodong Sinmun, the mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), said that nothing has changed in its stance of pursuing nuclear weapons, regardless of whether Washington has offered talks without strings attached.
“The U.S. is trying to shift responsibility for tensions on the Korean Peninsula to us with its dialogue offensive,” the newspaper said in a commentary. “The move is seen as being intended to set the tone for manipulating new U.N. Security Council resolutions that may include a maritime blockade if we do not accept dialogue aimed at discussing the abandonment of our nuclear weapons.”
North Korea made it clear that it will not put its nuclear weapons and missiles on the negotiation table if the U.S. does not ditch its hostile policy toward Pyongyang. [Yonhap]
You can read more at the link, but I believe in believing what the Kim regime says. It is pretty clear they only want to talk if the US ditches its hostile policies. What that means is that the Kim regime wants the sanctions to go away and a peace treaty to be offered as part of negotiations. This basically rewards the regime for bad behavior before the talks have even begun. From their perspective this strategy has worked in the past and I guess they figure at some point the Trump administration will reward them as well.
The United States concludes that North Korea was behind the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries earlier this year. https://t.co/CaeeFgvohg
Here is what a former nuclear negotiator with North Korea had to say recently about the Trump administration:
Robert Gallucci, a former U.S. special envoy to North Korea, speaks in the National Assembly, Monday. / Yonhap
Robert Gallucci, the chief negotiator during the 1994 North Korean nuclear crisis, called for dialogue with the North to make a breakthrough in the crisis on the Korean Peninsula, during his speech at Seoul’s National Assembly, Monday.
Gallucci, chairman of the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., reiterated the U.S. should negotiate with Pyongyang, if there’s room for improved circumstances through the negotiation.
“What we should not ask is a perfect deal. We should not ask how much does it cost,” Gallucci said in an event co-hosted by Reps. Kim Kyung-hyup and Lee Tae-kyu, members of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee.
“We should rather ask are we better off with the deal,” the former special envoy noted, referring to his past experience of talking with his North Korean counterpart Kang Sok-ju in Geneva, Switzerland.
“In 1994, our intelligence community estimated North Korea was capable to produce 200 kilograms of plutonium a year. However, when President George Bush came into office in 2001, North Korea had zero nuclear weapons,” he said. “Did the North cheat us? The answer is yes. However, the deal was still a good one.” [Korea Times]
That last paragraph is all everyone needs to see to understand the problem with past negotiations with North Korea. Gallucci is apparently more than happy to allow the North Koreans to cheat on a deal as long as there is a deal.
Here is what else he had to say:
Touching on the heightened tension sparked by the North’s Nov. 29 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Gallucci pointed out that it is a crisis between the North and the entire international community.
“It is a crisis because if military activity were to begin in days, indeed just days, no one in this room could be surprised, or should be surprised. That I think is a fair definition of crisis,” he said. [Yonhap]
Who is assessing military action to happen within days except for people that don’t closely follow North Korea? The ICBM launch was a research and development activity like their other prior test launches. The US military has not launched any retaliatory strikes in response to these R&D activities and has instead focused on deterrence responses. If the Kim regime fires a missile that lands in or near US territory than we will definitely have a military crisis on our hands.
The Kim regime has clearly been firing missiles in areas that are no where near US territory in order to not provoke a crisis. Additionally the Kim regime has not shelled any islands, attacked ROK naval vessels, or murdered ROK servicemembers in quite sometime. It is clear the Kim regime does not want a military crisis and instead is focusing on R&D of their ballistic missile and nuclear capabilities.
Why they are developing their ICBMs and nuclear capability Gallucci believes is for deterrence:
“This North Korean capability raises a question about whether the U.S. will fulfill its alliance responsibilities to its allies,” he said. “It raises a question about whether the U.S. will put Washington D.C. and New York City at risk in order to prevent North Korea from blackmailing South Korea and to deter any attack on Seoul specifically.”
But he noted the military dominance of the South Korea-U.S. alliance, saying Pyongyang cannot hold Seoul “hostage” with its artillery or nuclear weapons unless it is “suicidal.” He also voiced skepticism about the existence of a “good” military option without any cost or risk.
“Its nuclear weapons are good for one thing only to deter an effort at changing their regime. That is plausible,” he said.
“But the North cannot plausibly blackmail, it cannot deter a military response to its adventurism, it cannot compel the ROK (Republic of Korea) or the U.S. to do anything, it cannot break our alliance,” he added. [Yonhap]
I think his remarks that North Korea is not developing nuclear weapons to blackmail the South is in direct response to ROK Drop favorite Joshua Stanton. Stanton of One Free Korea fame has long argued that the North’s nuclear program is less about deterrence and more about driving concessions out of the South to create a confederation of the two countries on Kim’s terms.
I support Stanton’s position because reunification is a driving force within the Cult of Kim. The Kim regime has long had deterrence through its conventional weapons that could destroy Seoul. Most other countries in the world would have faced regime change retaliation for the provocations the North Koreans have executed over the years. However, the Kim regime has faced little military retaliation because of the threat to Seoul.
Developing nuclear weapons allows the regime to threaten the US homeland for the first time. It is arguable the regime wants to create a negotiating environment where it hopes to separate the ROK from the US. This would explain why the North Koreans continuously bring up wanting to negotiate a peace treaty to end the Korean War. If a peace treaty is signed then why would US troops be needed in South Korea any more? The next goal for the Kim regime would be to co-opt the ROK into a confederation on North Korean terms.
What is going on with this "80" on a North Korean mountain? It is visible on @planetlabs and @googleearth as far back as 2011 (oldest available imagery). It is the only case in the country as far as I am aware. Coordinates: 40.511746°, 127.520018°. pic.twitter.com/qyistgDUJz
North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un pays respect to his late father at a mausoleum in Pyongyang in this photo published in the Dec. 18, 2017, edition of the North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun. The North’s media had been mum on the leader’s whereabouts on Dec. 17, when the entire country mourns the death of Kim Jong-il, raising curiosity among North Korea watchers. The photo on the right shows the basket of flowers Kim placed at the mausoleum. (Yonhap)
I really don’t understand the whole bitcoin trend, but obviously the North Koreans do because they continue to hack and make money from it:
South Korea’s spy agency suspects North Korea might be involved in recent hacking incidents related to cryptocurrency, according to sources on Saturday.
The National Intelligence Service (NIS) is said to have secured evidence that the North was involved in stealing the personal information of some 30,000 people from Bithumb, the country’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, back in June, as well as robbing virtual money at another exchange Coinis in September.
The NIS reportedly confirmed that the same code used by Lazarus, a group accused of being behind the 2014 Sony hack, was used in the previous two cases.
The evidence is said to have been passed to the prosecution for further investigation. The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office has been handling the former case, while the latter is being taken care of by local police. [Yonhap]
Hopefully we see more North Korean agents getting arrested to further constrict the money going to the Kim regime from overseas:
It is the first time anyone has been charged under Australia’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Act
A man has been arrested in Sydney for allegedly acting as an economic agent for North Korea, Australian Federal Police (AFP) have said.
Chan Han Choi, 59, has been charged with brokering illegal exports from the country and discussing the supply of weapons of mass destruction.
Police allege he has broken both UN and Australian sanctions.
The case against Mr Chan, who has lived in Australia for more than 30 years, is the first of its kind in the country.
It is the first time anyone has been charged under the country’s 1995 Weapons of Mass Destruction (Prevention of Proliferation) Act.
Police say there was evidence that Mr Chan had been in contact with “high ranking officials in North Korea”.
They allege he had brokered services related to North Korea’s weapons programme, including the sale of specialist services including ballistic missile technology to foreign entities, in order to generate income for the North Korean regime.
Mr Chan also was charged with brokering the sale of coal from North Korea to groups in Indonesia and Vietnam. He is facing six charges in total after being arrested at his home on Saturday night. [BBC]
Just another example of the horrors the Kim regime has brought on the North Korean people:
A wooden boat, which drifted ashore with eight partially skeletal bodies and was found by the Japan Coast Guard, is seen in Oga, Akita Prefecture, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo on November 27, 2017
A fishing deal between North Korea and China could be why dozens of boats containing dead bodies have appeared in Japan recently, experts have said.
The Japanese coast guard has found around 50 dilapidated boats believed to be from North Korea — many containing corpses or skeletons — along the country’s western coast since the beginning of November, the Japan Times reported on Tuesday.
The latest discovery came on Wednesday, when officials in Akita found a wooden boat containing partially decomposed bodies, one of which was wearing a badge of former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, according to CNN.
The exact reasons behind the phenomenon remain unclear — it could be due to food scarcity in North Korea, as one expert previously told Business Insider, or it could be due to annual quotas imposed on North Korean fishermen.
It could also be because North Korea has sold fishing rights off its west coast to China, forcing fishermen to flock to its east coast near Japan, where sea conditions are too rough for rickety wooden boats this time of year. [Business Insider]
You can read more at the link, but according to the article the Kim regime sold off their West Coast fishing rights to China for $75 million.
Most clueless piece on #NorthKorea this week: @ryanlcooper "North Korean weapons buildup came immediately after Trump took office" + #DPRK conventional weapons could kill "millions" of South Koreans "in a matter of minutes." Does @TheWeek have editors? This truly is #FakeNews
