China Pursues Dual Strategy on Sanctions Compliance

For what little it’s worth, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice says that because of UNSCR 1874 sanctions, “North Korea is feeling far greater pressure to halt its nuclear weapons program than it has in the past.” Well, maybe. I think the sanctions are still insufficient to disarm North Korea, because Kim Jong Il still thinks he can either ride them out, or bait-and-switch our diplomats, just like he did to Madeleine Albright and Chris Hill before. And as I never tire of pointing out, there’s plenty more we ought to be doing in response to North Korea’s continued violations of those sanctions and its ever-more-brazen nuclear activities.

I credit Ms. Rice with being half right. I do think the regime is under economic pressure. I suspect that in some way, the Great Confiscation arose from the economic distress of the palace economy, due in part to the interception of arms shipments, but probably more due to Treasury having frightened away financial institutions that might be inclined to deal with the North. The Great Confiscation likely had more than one objective. The main objective, I suspect, was probably to suppress markets and restore the dependency of the people on the state. But an important secondary objective may have been to squeeze the people to fill the state’s coffers, by forcing North Koreans to “deposit” their savings in North Korean banks — especially those in hard currency — and using a draconian monetary policy to manipulate the state’s balance of payments in international transactions. I doubt that the Obama Administration is really trying to destabilize the regime, but if that’s the effect nonetheless, I’ll only complain that they’re giving Kim Jong Il and the Chinese too much time to adapt.

I credit Cheng Yonghua, China’s Ambassador to South Korea, with being one-third right at best when he says:

“China maintains normal economic cooperation with North Korea as the neighboring countries have traditional had friendly relations. But this should not be seen as mixed with the contents of the U.N. resolution (on Pyongyang),” Amb. Cheng Yonghua told Yonhap News Agency. “China, as a standing member of the U.N. Security Council, has a heavy responsibility for the implementation of the U.N. resolution.” [Yonhap]

Most of this is disingenuous spin. China has a distinguished history of poor compliance with U.N. sanctions resolutions against North Korea, and of doing much to assist North Korea to acquire and sell WMD technology. China’s trade boom with the North Korean military continued, apparently unabated, even after UNSCR 1874 passed. When China finally agreed, reluctantly, to vote for UNSCR 1874, it did so with several important provisos. One was that it retained the right to sell small arms to North Korea. I wonder how many weapons made in China, or made with Chinese components, were seized in the UAE or Bangkok last year. China also made it clear that it would exempt itself from the responsibility of interdicting North Korean weapons shipments, but there, the flight path of the arms shipment seized in Iran is telling. Ordinarily, such shipments would have to cross Chinese airspace. This time, the flight path seems to have avoided Chinese airspace, and rather laboriously. See for yourself. First, the direct route from Pyongyang to (the presumed destination) Tehran:

What’s interesting about this is that the max range of an Il-76 is almost exactly half of a direct flight path from Pyongyang to Tehran, meaning that if the plane had flown a direct path, it would have had to refuel in Western China. By landing in China, the North Koreans would have put the Chinese in the embarrassing position of having the right to inspect the cargo, which would have subjected them to American pressure. To the extent North Korean shipments arouse China’s suspicions, it may have begun taking the “three monkeys” approach of telling the North Koreans to avoid its ports and airports. Or, there may be some completely unexplained reason why the Il-76 chose that circuitous path. Here’s the route the plane actually took from Pyongyang to Bangkok:

This still doesn’t get the Chinese off the hook; after all, according to Larry Niksch of the Congressional Research Service, China still let the plane pass through its airspace.

I don’t want to oversell this theory, either; after all, the MV ANL Australia appears to have stopped in or been loaded in Shanghai. Clearly, the Chinese would bother to maintain this charade if the Americans weren’t pressuring them. It’s enough to make me wonder if the Americans said something to the Chinese about overflight rights:

The Obama administration brought up concerns about North Korean use of Chinese airspace for arms exports this summer ““ shortly after the adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution banning such transfers ““ but has yet to receive a meaningful response, U.S. officials said. “North Korean proliferation by air is an important matter for us, and [Philip] Goldberg brought it up during his meetings in July,” said one official, referring to an Asia trip by the State Department envoy for the implementation of Resolution 1874. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing private diplomatic communications.

Hmmm.

The pattern that emerges is that when it comes to the ordinary, mundane trade that attracts less press attention but really funds the North Korean military’s spending priorities, China turns a blind eye. Occasionally, China throws us a bone to give the appearance of cooperation. And when a particular shipment presents the potential to embarrass China, it signals to the North Koreans that they want to be kept out of it. To China, the ultimate win-win is to keep Kim Jong Il on his throne, while pretending that by doing so, it’s really being helpful in the nuclear diplomacy.