Sung-Yoon Lee

“ North Korean people today need to be informed that their loved ones died during the famine in the mid- to late-1990s not because the regime was poor and did not have the funds with which to import food from abroad, but because of its perverse priorities. As tens hundreds of thousands died, the Kim Jong Un regime spent billions of dollars on defense and arms purchases, building the world’s most extravagant mausoleum for Kim’s deceased leader, preventing people from crossing into China in search of food, and proscribing food delivery to the Northeast region. ”

“ The cost of defending South Korea against the North’s nuclear-armed forces would be incalculably greater for both Seoul and Washington should Kim Jong Un gamble on Seoul’s capitulation in the wake of Pyongyang’s preemptive nuclear strike. Only a clear message of guaranteed nuclear counterattack will deter the North Korean despot, who values above all his own well-being and longevity. ”

“ The lessons of the past should not be supplanted by unfounded visions of the future. If the United States were truly intent on leaning on China to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs, it should act beyond mere moral suasion. Instead, give the Chinese a credible stake in the matter—an economic stake in the protection of the integrity of the international financial system that may be adversely affected by continuing to support the Kim regime. But until then, the Chinese will stay the course they’ve been on the past sixty years. ”

“ North Korea may respond with small-scale military provocations. But, as I wrote in a March oped, “the absence of justice in inter-Korean relations is a greater problem than the presence of tension. There can be no justice without freedom, and no true peace without justice.” [7] Human rights discourse should not be sacrificed at Pyongyang’s altar of temporary diplomatic outreach. ”

“ The self-restraint exercised by the U.S. in implementing sanctions against Pyongyang has been reminiscent of the self-restraint shown in the wake of each lethal attack by North Korea against South Koreans and Americans in South Korea since the 1960s. Even in egregious cases of attack by North Korea that may be regarded as acts of war, there has never been a military response by the U.S. No doubt, the risk of escalation and possible war in the Korean peninsula has impelled both the U.S. and South Korea to act with caution. ”

“ Whether the political situation in South Korea today turns into an opportunity or liability largely depends on actions by the U.S. Regime collapse in a democracy won’t bring down the entire political order, but it may lead to the revival of failed policies. On the other hand, regime collapse in a dictatorship may well mean the destruction of the existing system and the launch of a new legal order, which, in the North Korean context, may mean liberation for millions. ”

“ At the same time, it is undeniable that such reticence to respond with credible resolve or military force has conditioned Pyongyang to assume that it can get away with murder.
In recent years, overall U.S. policy toward North Korea has been tepid at best. Even nations that pose no security threat to the U.S., such as Belarus, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, and Burma have been more heavily sanctioned by the U.S. than North Korea, which, by all accounts, is among the world’s leaders in arms proliferation and human rights violations. ”

“ Conclusion To forge the future with proactive coercive diplomacy—one that employs targeted financial sanctions and multi-faceted information dissemination into the North—in tandem with conventional diplomacy and military deterrence offers hope. To remain reactive or return to the failed North Korea policies of the past will only give the Kim regime more time to perfect its nuclear arsenal while millions of ordinary North Koreans remain abused by the state. Coddling Pyongyang will ensure complete failure and beckon calamity. ”

“ The Kim siblings appear to be taking a page out of Vladimir Putin’s playbook in trying to routinize threats of nuclear attack as a new fact of life. Through repeated threats of nuclear annihilation supported by tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) and nuclear devices the Kims’ threats may in time come to be normalized. To the North’s leader, his own repeated threats may even become a tempting option. ”

“ Rare is the garland of attractive options when it comes to nuclear politics, which, short of waging war, is international politics at the highest level. And sanctions take time and uniform enforcement to bear fruit. North Korea’s systemic vulnerabilities actively invite exploitation by the U.S. and its allies. What has been lacking is the political will and sufficient government support in both human and financial resources to enable the exploitation of such systemic weaknesses. ”

“ Under the current dynamics in the region, China will remain more an obstacle than key to North Korea’s denuclearization. The road to North Korea’s denuclearization indeed lies through China, but only through a China incentivized by economic disincentives to change course and, out of pragmatic considerations, apply, even if begrudgingly, increasing pressure on Pyongyang’s international finances. ”

“ It pays to stand up to the bigger powers as long as Kim remains within bounds, that is, as long as he is able to read the strategic environment and does not deviate too far from the socialist line of anti-imperialist revolutionary struggle—which, in modern parlance, would translate as “strategic provocations against the U.S.”
Over the past decade, the record shows that China has increased trade with North Korea with each nuclear test by Pyongyang, even as it endorsed tougher UN Security Resolutions. This trend, short of a clear and present economic cost for Beijing, is expected to continue. ”

“ Citizens in free societies would do well to remember that sending information into North Korea is not merely a defense of the principle of the freedom of information; rather, it is an act that saves real lives. In this effort, the U.S. can provide South Korea, Japan, and other free nations with moral, financial, technical, and logistical support. ”

“ The more people in democratic societies think about the North Korean regime as a threat to humanity and less as an idiosyncratic abstraction, the more they will be resolved not to allow their leaders to resort to politically expedient measures with each future provocation by Pyongyang or defer Korean reunification. ”

“ The North Korean regime’s continuing dependence on illicit international financial transactions in U.S. dollars as an instrument of regime preservation begs exploitation by the United States. Recent annual reports by the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea all note that in spite of North Korea’s multifaceted tactics of circumventing UN Security Council-mandated sanctions and inadequate enforcement or non-compliance by member states, Pyongyang’s choice of currency for international transactions still remains the U.S. dollar. ”

“ In other words, Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests are likely to proceed as planned almost irrespective of U.S. sanctions or negotiations. To posit that further sanctions may forestall denuclearization or lead to war is to deny the past several decades of history: Conventional diplomacy will only allow North Korea to buy time and the resources with which to advance its WMDs programs. On the other hand, inflicting financial costs on North Korean and Chinese entities will have few, if any, deleterious effects on U.S. interests. ”

“ That the totalitarian regime thus far has been successful in repressing its own people and blocking the flow of information in and out of its domain does not necessarily mean that this perverse equation cannot one day be overturned. ”

“ However, because Pyongyang uses food insecurity as a weapon with which to make the people dependent on the regime for goods and extract aid from abroad, Pyongyang insisted that the NGOs operating inside North Korea continue to use only the Foreign Trade bank. As a result, aid workers lost their access to international banking services and ended up carrying bulk cash in bags from Beijing to Pyongyang. ”

“ China today enjoys greater political and economic influence over the Korean peninsula than at any time since its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which largely removed China from Korean affairs until the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 and forestalled official relations with South Korea until the normalization of relations in 1992. ”

“ The Chinese leadership will put up with a recalcitrant Pyongyang, make platitudes about upholding peace and stability in the region, and counsel Washington on the need for patience and dialogue as North Korea continues to march to its own drumbeat of internal repression, periodic provocations, proliferation, weapons tests, and nuclear blackmail. ”

“ Congress could encourage President Trump to call on Pyongyang to release all political prisoners. A firm, public stand by President Trump may not deter all third-country entities from engaging in shady deals with Pyongyang or move the Kim regime to close down its vast network of gulags. But it will raise cost of collusion and continued crimes against humanity. ”

“ Tellingly, North Korea stands alone among UN’s list of nations most afflicted with chronic food insecurity: It is the only nation that is industrialized, urbanized, and literate. All others are impoverished, pre-industrial agrarian economies often beset by internal turmoil, in which illiteracy rates among the adult—especially the female—population range from the 20 to 70 percent. ”

“ Nearly 50% of North Koreans who have defected to the South since the famine years say that they had come into contact with outside information primarily through South Korean TV shows on DVD and radio broadcasts, which served as an incentive to escape their nation. ”

“ According to one survey, among North Korean defectors who have resettled in the South since 2009, 75 percent say they have been exposed to foreign media, with 25 percent reporting they had experienced heavy exposure. ”

“ They could and should cooperate closely together and sponsor—if necessary, through third civilian parties—reports, publications, international conventions, transmissions and dissemination of information related to North Korea's multifarious nefarious human-rights abuses throughout their respective countries and the world. ”