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Update: So if you saw a sneak preview of a longer post this morning, well, that was an unfinished draft that I published by accident. I hope you can be patient until all of the ideas interweave and are in final form. Apologies.

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Nothing says “responsible rising power” like giving billions to despots who shell nearby fishing villages:

China has proposed a huge investment deal to revive North Korea’s faltering economy, a report said Friday, amid an international drive to coax Pyongyang back to nuclear disarmament talks.

China’s state-run Shangdi Guanqun Investment plans to invest about $2 billion in a project to build up a North Korean free trade zone into a regional export base, the JoongAng newspaper said. [AFP]

China actually claims to be doing this to induce North Korea back to six-party talks. Now, I realize there are still people in this world who see great significance in North Korea’s hints that it might return to six-party talks for the right price, but then, with natural selection having been brought to an end several generations ago, a rising percentage of the free world’s population hasn’t the sense not to eat yellow snow. Talks that won’t disarm North Korea but that do fund (and thus perpetuate) the regime are moving us away from resolving this crisis, not toward it. Which is exactly Beijing’s design.

So the gauntlet is down. Either the Obama Administration applies its new financial sanctions to entities like Shangdi Guanqun Investment, or it must accept the failure of its entire North Korea policy and return to the demonstrable failure of agreed framework diplomacy.

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Or, as Sung Yoon Lee puts it:

In actuality, now is the winter of Kim’s discontent. He must contend with the collective weight of a nearly two decade-old food catastrophe, increasing influx of information, and outflux of citizens across the border. Add to that another hereditary communist power transition (to his son, Kim Jong-un), and the growing reality that even in the case of a leader-for-life, death will have its day.

Now is the time to constrict the Kim regime by exploiting these weaknesses rather than legitimating the regime with more concessionary diplomacy. Negotiations, in order to be effective, must be buttressed with sustained sanctions (pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1874) and crackdown on North Korea’s multifarious illicit financial transactions. To relax these measures in return for empty promises of good behavior would be a folly of the first degree.

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But if China is this determined to undermine financial sanctions, and if we’re not willing to protect our last non-violent deterrent by sanctioning Chinese companies, too, then we’re clearly beyond the point of deterring North Korea’s violence without sowing some violence ourselves. I think we can all agree that conventional deterrence is failing because we’re rightly afraid of how far things could escalate. Yet escalated provocations call for escalated responses. North Korea clearly breached the line between war and peace in 2010. I increasingly incline toward the view that we need a more incremental military deterrent, ideally one that shifts the conflict zone away from the DMZ and Seoul. The least violent way to deter North Korea and back our diplomacy with much-needed force may be to sow unrest and sponsor insurgency inside North Korea itself.

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North Korea has been named the world’s worst persecutor of Christians in 2010. For the eighth year in a row.

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LiNK is producing a documentary, Hiding, on North Korean refugees in China, and you can help get this film completed and distributed:

While the world focuses on North Korean security issues, hundreds of thousands of North Koreans continue to be enslaved in prison camps today. Up to 300,000 are estimated to have escaped to China ““ seeking food, medicine, work, or freedom from political and religious oppression. Over 70 percent of North Korean women are trafficked and sold into the sex trade, and more and more refugees are fleeing to Southeast Asia to escape repatriation and imprisonment.

You can learn more and watch a trailer here.

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8 Responses

  2. I have now seen 2 articles in the past 2 days that suggest a serious purge of military and political leaders is underway in North Korea (which it looks like could be targeting Jang Sun-Taek)
    http://news.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/01/07/2011010701134.html?Dep1=news&Dep2=top&Dep3=top
    http://www.fnkradio.com/board.php?board=qqqnewsmain&command=body&no=4412

    While conventional wisdom may suggest a purge of military leadership within N. Korea would likely mean things stay quiet for a while in S. Korea, while N. Korea gets its house in order, I would be careful in making such an assumption. According to the Chosun Ilbo article mentioned above, it looks like Jang Sun-taek’s faction may be part of this targeted purge. I seriously doubt Jang (widely considered to be the #2 guy in the DPRK until Jong-un came on the scene) is going to go quietly.

    This purge may very well invite a coup attempt (and a serious one at that if led by Jang). A serious leadership struggle could lead the Kims to make a decision that the only way to preserve the regime is an external crisis.

    At this stage, it won’t take much of a provocation to set the ROK off. A general resumption of hostilities (or even a “limited war”) on the peninsula could serve as that crisis.

    If a purge goes smoothely, then I would agree that it may be pretty quiet in the short term while the new “young” generals loyal to Kim Jong-un solidify their positions. But if the stability of the regime becomes an issue (and by going after Jang, it’s certainly a possiblity), I believe it makes renewed hositilies more, not less, likely.

  3. Rason (your second paragraph) is a very big deal. There are reports that three new container berths are to be built. If Rason ever becomes operational, then it will enable Chinese manufacturers and ocean shipping companies to undercut the Japanese and South Korean shipping trade’s prices to the USA and Canada — and this is really important in that industry, where every dollar counts.

    Rason is very much closer to Vancouver BC than the present route out of China — so the costs of carriage will be less, as well as the delivery times. This really matters, and makes the completion of Rason into a national priority for northern Chinese businesses.

    Now, if the West really wanted to undercut the DPRK, we should be working in the UN for a declaration that Rason remains DPRK territory and that all vessels and enterprises in that “Free Trade Zone” are still covered by prohibitions in trading expressed by the sanctions rules. That would close down Rason, and seriously damage the DPRK — until there was regime change. It would destroy a key Chinese infrastructure development. China would then want regime change so that its own investment in Rason would be worthwhile.

    But so long as Kaesong continues, with its own special status as being outside the sanctions regime, there is no real likelihood of this approach working at Rason — so that Kaesong is in fact propping up the Kim Family Kingdom. When Rason opens, the Kims won’t have to worry about foreign exchange again: they’ll be rich and their regime will be stable.

  4. Check out this journalistic Hershey squirt from the back story of an English-language Xinhua article yesterday:

    The DPRK made a series of conciliatory gestures recently, repeating call[sic] for unconditional and early inter-Korean talks to help defuse cross-border tension,[sic] heightened by a series of South Korean military drills following the mysterious sinking of a South Korean warship in March and the exchange of artillery shelling[sic] near the disputed maritime border in November.

    Note:

    1) The use of “DPRK” to refer to the North.

    2) The North is an active agent making conciliatory gestures that “help defuse cross-border tension.”

    3) Note the use “South Korea” as opposed to “ROK.” One wonders why the article uses the North’s official name, but not the South’s. This pattern is repeated throughout the entirety of the article.

    4) The South is an active agent that “heightens tensions” through military drills.

    5) The Cheonan sinking is “mysterious.”

    6) There phrase describing the Yeonpyeong attack is described as merely an “exchange of artillery shell[s].” No agency is ascribed to either side. It just happened…like the way the Cheonan was “attacked” but according to the UNSC, no one was to blame.

    According to this paragraph, South Korea is the aggressor, North Korea is peaceful bystander, while the reader is left to guess about who is to blame for the two worst military conflagrations since the Korean War. At best they were blameless acts and at worst the reader is led to infer that the Yeonpyeong-do shelling was South Korea’s fault for “heightening tensions.” Not that any of this is surprising, coming from China and all…

    (If Adam Cathcart is reading this, yes I know the way the North is portrayed in Chinese-language publications is different from the way it is portrayed in English-language publications. I do read the Chinese-language media and I do follow your blog)

  5. jhpigott,

    Great finds. The two articles are complimentary in that they both appear to be from different sources, take place in different locations, and focus on slightly different aspects of the same story. This type of consilience increases the level of confidence we can put in defector/undercover reporter stories.

    What’s interesting is that the Chosun article seems to focus on the bureaucratic side of things, while the RFNK article focuses more on the military side. If it’s true that this purge is directed at Jang and Oh, then it puts to bed the rumors that both men were to be/will be KJU’s regents. China seems to place a lot of stock in Jang. When KJI went to Beijing, Chinese media listed Jang as North Korea’s number two guy. If the purge is indeed directed at him, I wonder if that has anything to do with it. If Jang Song-taek is “Beijing’s man in Pyongyang” it might be the case that he is encountering a nationalistic backlash or perhaps there are fears that Jang is opening the door to greater Chinese influence in domestic affairs. Anybody got any data on public appearance by Jang and Oh? Do they still appear in KJI’s entourage?

    Purges are a time-tested and effective North Korean tactic for getting through tough times and cementing loyalty during transitional periods. But with the economy continuing to buckle and the information blockade crumbling, one does wonder if this purge will be met with resistance at some point if it continues to intensify.

    The English version of the Chosun article can be found here:
    http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/01/10/2011011000554.html

    The English version of the RFNK article is here:

    Kim Jong-un’s purge becomes more violent.

    A source inside North Korea told this news agency on the 8th that compared with last year, there has been a sudden increase in the number of prisoners held at a labor camp (prison) run by the North Korean military’s Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces in a valley in Janghyeun-dong, below Macheon Ridge in Kim Chek City, Hamgyeongbuk-do. In particular, recently the number of general-grade prisoners—targets of a purge by Kim Jong-un—has increased.

    Surrounded by high fences and barbed wire, the military-only Janghyeon-dong Labor Camp was established in the early 1970s to educate and punish disobedient soldiers. Within the North Korean military, the camp is said to be the devil’s labor camp where even the most tumultuous of soldiers comes out crippled. Just hearing the name brings about goose bumps of dread.

    The uniforms there are black like those worn by North Korea’s coal miners, and regardless of position or rank, everyone must wear the red insignia of a private. It’s a place where in order to get out one must thoroughly educates oneself through hard labor during the course of a year.

    According to the source, beginning around the start of the New Year, generals in the Ministry of People’s Armed Forces, the General Political Bureau, and the General Reconnaissance Bureau, as well as those responsible for earning foreign currency for military authorities have been arrested and brought to the labor camp, where many soldiers and high-ranking military authorities are confined. They have no idea what their crimes are. According to a labor camp administrator, these people have expressed dissatisfaction with or have not responded positively to Kim Jong-un’s succession. He added that his order is to revolutionize them through ideological education and forceful hard labor.

    The source also said that all the officials from the prison division command—located in Suwon-dong, Kim Chek City—have either been dispatched elsewhere or have left the area without explanation. He added that the atmosphere in the North Korean military now crackles with a brutal fear in which the winds of Kim Jong-un’s purge can be directly felt.

  6. Milton,

    The North Korea Leadership Watch blog indicates that Oh was not in attendance at the recent NDC-CMC banquet held in late December. However, it looks like Jang did attend. Still looking around to see if either have been spotted recently on Kim’s guidance visits.

    Chosun Ilbo reports on rumors of purges Chong-un may have instigated that could displace Gen. O Kuk-yol (NDC Vice Chairman and chief of the DPRK’s SOF), as well as Chang Song-taek. With regard to Gen. O, it was interesting that someone of his stature was listed last in KCNA’s report about Kim Chong-il’s attendance of the 2011 New Year’s Concert. O was also not reported to have attended the joint NDC-CMC banquet in late December 2010. It is not clear if this represents concerted effort or if the various movements in Pyongyang have displaced certain (and intersecting) patronage networks.

    http://nkleadershipwatch.wordpress.com/

  7. Note the use “South Korea” as opposed to “ROK.” One wonders why the article uses the North’s official name, but not the South’s. This pattern is repeated throughout the entirety of the article.

    This is standard usage in official English-language Chinese media and has been as long as I can remember. I suspect it actually has more to do with North Korea’s touchiness over their English name relative to South Korea, which doesn’t seem to mind so much (it’s hard to imagine a South Korean soccer coach doing something like this). Note that official Chinese-language media uses the official names of both countries (or rather their short forms, 朝鲜 Chaoxian for the north and 韩国 Hanguo for the south) — which is easy since their official names are totally different in Chinese, but the official English names both use “Korea”. Up through the ’80s China officially called the south 南朝鲜 Nan Chaoxian.

  8. Strategypage had an article about North Korea this morning. Basically, the Chinese are engaged in a slow motion take-over of North Korea. They don’t want to see anything happen that would heurt their economy.