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Washington moves to checkmate
Pyongyang
By Alan Boyd
SYDNEY
- Will it or won't it? Pyongyang has vowed to strike
back at a threatened naval blockade, even at the risk of
provoking a war with the United States and that
country's chief allies in the region, South Korea and
Japan.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell isn't
sure, but plans to raise the stakes anyway against the
newest nuclear power, because "everybody is saying the
same thing to the North Koreans with respect to the
unacceptability of their actions".
Washington
and 10 of its closest allies assembled in Madrid this
month for what has been portrayed as a forum on the
broader threat of nuclear shipments and the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Australian
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, one of the
participants, denied that the summit was aimed solely at
Pyongyang. However, there is little doubt that North
Korea will be the first to feel the heat from the
gathering flotilla.
In addition to the US and
Australia, backing for the blockade has come from Japan,
the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain, though it is
uncertain whether all will contribute military
personnel.
The objectives also appear to go
beyond the interdiction of nuclear materials, with
Australian officials referring to an "economic" motive
that in effect aims to undermine the existence of the
ailing communist state. Ten years of crop failures and
declining industrial output have drained North Korea's
foreign-exchange reserves to a point where it is thought
to rely heavily upon hard currency from a range of
questionable exports.
Naval patrols will be
targeted at North Korea's defense-equipment shipments as
well as revenues from the alleged trafficking of
contraband drugs, counterfeit money, human smuggling and
state sponsorship of piracy activities. Arms exports
alone net North Korea an estimated US$250 million to
$300 million a year, putting it in the top 15 of weapons
suppliers worldwide. Ballistic missiles comprise about
half of this trade.
Shipments of narcotics and
other contraband, mostly marketed for East Asia and the
Pacific, are thought to bring in an additional $300
million to $500 million, including $50 million to $100
million from the drug trade.
Powell said at a
security forum in Phnom Penh that Madrid had "aligned
the international community in a way that makes it clear
to North Korea that they will not have any support or
friends helping them".
What he didn't say was
that most of these friends are states such as China,
Russia and Pakistan that help Pyongyang market its
military hardware and provide a diplomatic buffer on the
nuclear issue. Beijing and Moscow have already made it
known that they will not support an economic embargo,
and - surprisingly - so has South Korea, the country
with most to gain from the collapse of its belligerent
neighbor.
Seoul is part of a diplomatic thrust,
along with Japan and the United States, that aims to
find a peaceful resolution to the standoff. The three
nations issued a statement in Hawaii last week that
rebuked Pyongyang for its involvement in illicit
activities, including narcotics trafficking.
But
South Korea is convinced the North is too unstable for a
military solution and that it would not hesitate to use
its ballistic arsenal if pushed into a corner by US
brinkmanship. "The feeling in Seoul is that Washington
has misread the depth of Pyongyang's determination to
survive after years of economic deprivation and external
pressures. In questioning how it might respond, one has
to consider the xenophobic mindset of this regime," said
a diplomat.
North Korea gave a hint of this
mindset after the US-led offensive in Iraq, when it
spoke of the war as justification for the creation of a
"powerful deterrent force" to "defend the security of a
country and the sovereignty of a nation".
Even
efforts to ease tensions are met with suspicion. When
the United States began pulling its 37,000 troops back
from the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas last
week, it was interpreted in Pyongyang as an act of
aggression.
"The US nuclear war provocation
moves to stifle the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic
of Korea] have already entered into a stage of action,"
the state-run news agency reported, adding: "Since it
has been made clear that the US is steadily putting into
practice its moves to stifle the DPRK, we can never
remain a passive onlooker to them. If the aggressors
dare amount a preemptive attack, we will wipe them out
with an unpredictable and limitless strike."
Pyongyang will be on solid legal ground in
resisting the blockades as long as seizures are
conducted in international waters. Last December,
vessels acting on the behalf of the US had to release a
shipment of North Korean missiles bound for Yemen
because they had no jurisdiction over its passage.
An obvious solution is to wait until suspect
North Korean vessels reach territorial waters; but in
East Asia, where the ships are most active, only Japan
has so far shown any inclination to conduct searches.
Japan's role will be crucial, as almost 150
North Korea vessels brought goods to its markets last
year, making about 1,300 port calls. Millions of dollars
of other income is generated by a black-market web of
gambling, prostitution and loan-sharking.
Convinced that it would be among the first
targets of a hostile attack by North Korea, Tokyo has
already struck the first blow in the blockade by
stepping up inspections of fishing boats and ferries
that it believes are used to transport intelligence
operatives and supply illegal goods to Japan's Yakuza
mafia underworld. One vessel, the Mangyongbong 92, was
barred from docking last week after a North Korean
defector told a US congressional hearing that missile
parts were being smuggled on board. Pyongyang promptly
shut down a ferry service in protest.
But just
how effective a blockade would be without Chinese
participation is questionable, as much of North Korea's
contraband flow could be diverted to overland routes
through Central Asia.
Since North Korea was cast
adrift by the former Soviet Union shortly before its
collapse, China has also become the country's main food
lifeline and supplies most of its fuel through an oil
pipeline.
The Washington hawks pushing the
blockade, led by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have
shown little interest in brokering a diplomatic solution
through China, possibly because the issue has taken on
more of an anti-terrorism slant since Iraq.
"President [George W] Bush has nearly run out of
time. The United States has to denuclearize and
deterrorize North Korea at the same time," said Peter
Hayes, executive director of the Nautilus Institute for
Security and Sustainable Development. "[Bush] should
tell Kim Jong-il that he has to show his anti-terrorist
credentials now in order to get off the US terrorist
listing and to get an economy as a
result."
Nevertheless, a failure to involve China
could backfire if, as widely expected, the blockade is
eventually extended to cover the energy supplies that
Pyongyang needs to keep its military apparatus
operational.
Under a 1994 accord administered by
the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization
(KEDO), North Korea is guaranteed 500,000 tonnes of fuel
oil a year in the form of international aid in return
for abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Washington regards
this agreement as void after Pyongyang's refusal to
dismantle a uranium-enrichment plant, though it will
have to overcome South Korean opposition before
implementing an oil squeeze.
In any case,
Nautilus has calculated that Pyongyang has 300,000
tonnes of bulk fuel stockpiled as a buffer against
supply disruptions, with the military having first
option.
While it is doubtful that China would
comply with a blockade engineered by the United States
and its allies, Beijing has already demonstrated a
willingness to use the oil lever for its own diplomatic
ends. Piped supplies to North Korea were temporarily
halted in April in an apparent bid to pressure Pyongyang
into joining China's own peace initiative. These talks
are continuing, but without evident progress.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
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