A Samurai's Confessions: North Korea's state of mind and Security Council's response

North Korea blasted its second nuclear explosive device on May 25, 2009, contrary to the Security Council's Resolution 1718 (2006), which requires, inter alia, North Korea's abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Safeguards Agreement.
Shortly before this second nuclear test, North Korea was also censored by the Security Council's Presidential Statement for the launching of a missile. Let's review the chronology of North Korea's nuclear weapons development just to see where we are now: North Korea's first nuclear test was carried out on October 9, 2006, and the Security Council passed Resolution 1718 on October 14, 2006, only five days later!
When North Korea launched its missile, disguised as a satellite, on April 5, 2009, the Security Council only agreed to the adoption of the Security Council's Presidential Statement on April 13, 2009, more than a week after the launch, contrary to the initial expectations created by the United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea which vigorously campaigned for the Security Council's resolution.
Now we have the second nuclear test, and as if that was not enough, North Korea repeatedly launched missiles, all in violation of recent Security Council decisions. After three weeks from the test, we have, at last, new Security Council Resolution 1874 of June 12, 2009. Why did it take so long for the second test when it took only five days in the first test?
In view of blatant violations and defiance of the decisions of the Security Council, the second test must be considered a more serious challenge to the Security Council's authority. It should be expected that the Security Council would take a more decisive decision expeditiously. What accounts for this three weeks' delay?
Under Chapter V of the UN Charter, the Security Council has a "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security," and that competence was "to ensure prompt and effective action by the United Nations." Three weeks' delay is not a "prompt" response from the United Nations.
How effective Resolution 1874 will be, depends on how each member state conducts itself, in that apart from a mandatory ban on arms exports, the sanctioning measures included in Resolution 1874 are recommendations rather than mandatory obligations for all UN members. The Security Council acts on behalf of all the UN members, and they agreed to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council.
Whether for the first test or the second test, the fundamental hurdle to overcome is the same. That is to secure the concurrence of all the five permanent members of the Security Council, without of which no Security Council resolution of substance will be adopted. China and Russia are known as reluctant players in applying sanctioning measures against North Korea.
It is also known that the United States is anxious about the resumption of the Six-Party Talks on denuclearizing North Korea. The Six-Party Talks, suspended since December last year over ways to verify Pyongyang's nuclear programs, involve the two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States. China, as Chair of the Talks, plays an important role in keeping North Korea at the table.
Zhang Yesui, China's ambassador to the United Nations said, "We strongly urge [North Korea], stop any moves that may further worsen the situation and return to the Six-Party Talks."
For that, it seems the more the United States values its relationship with China by not insisting on harder sanctioning measures against North Korea, the more it will allow China to control the decision-making process in the Security Council. That explains in part why it took so long; it is in the ultimate interest of China to have North Korea as China's friendly state on its and Russia's borders.
Ambassador Zhang commented approvingly the adoption of new Resolution 1874, which covers the same mandatory sanctioning measures: "The resolution not only demonstrates the firm opposition of the international community to [North Korea's] nuclear test, but also sends a positive signal." According to him, the Resolution reflects that all parties are trying to solve the problem through political and diplomatic means.
Consider the importance the United States attaches to keeping North Korea in the talks as demonstrated by the removal of North Korea from the US blacklist of terrorist-sponsoring nations last October. And yet, despite an enormous investment, the United States' deals with North Korea under the Agreed Framework failed miserably.
The Framework's multilateral project, such as the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation, is no longer functioning. By now North Korea has restored and reactivated all the nuclear development programs that had been terminated under the Framework.
That was accomplished in the face of the Security Council's call for the early resumption of the Six-Party Talks and for the full implementation of the Joint Statements of issued on September 19, 2005 and February 13, 2007, and the Joint Document issued by all the parties, with a view to achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner.
The United States and its allies had wanted the draft resolution to include mandatory cargo inspections, if there was reasonable suspicion that the cargo was weapons or nuclear technology-related. But China and Russia objected to mandatory inspections.
The compromise on weapons inspections took the form of "calling upon all Member States to inspect vessels" suspected of carrying weapons or nuclear technology, "with the consent of the flag State, on the high seas". It is a request to Member States, not a mandatory obligation on them. The possible effect of such inspections is difficult to tell. North Korea carries significant cargo on its own vessels, and would be likely to refuse any inspection.
It is suspected that not many States will carry out an inspection of vessels in the high seas, if not in their territorial waters. North Korea has already announced that it will regard any such search as an act of war. Ambassador Zhang stressed that "under no circumstance should there be the use of force or threat of the use of force."
Resolution 1874 adopted under Article 41 of the UN Charter does not involve the use of force, but surely the conduct of inspection must be carried out in accordance with international law.
Whether Resolution 1874 insists that North Korea cannot have the status of a nuclear-weapon state in accordance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the reality is that it has acquired nuclear weapons and the international community is undertaking vigorous campaign to denuclearize North Korea. Israel, India and Pakistan are three other States who possess nuclear weapons without having the "official" status of a nuclear-weapon state.
North Korea has already responded to the Security Council's resolution in a very aggressive manner on June 13, 2009, announcing that it will start the uranium enrichment program and claiming nuclear weapons as means of self-defence.
Judging from North Korea's statement, I do not think that North Korea, a hermit-like reclusive country which has been subjected to economic sanctions of one kind or another for the past sixty years, will reverse its course of action because of the sanctions by the Security Council resolution.
Japan in 1941 did not reverse its course of action, either. Japan of 1930s-41 was not reclusive at all; however, the thought process of the leadership was so closed and rigid that they could not think about other alternatives and strategies in the face of escalating severity of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies.
The United States applied economic sanctions against Japan first by imposing licensing requirements in July 1940 for exports of scrap-metal and oil to Japan, and later placed an embargo on exports of iron and steel to Japan. In January 1941 the United States added brass, copper, and zinc to the list of embargoed goods for export to Japan.
Further, in reaction to Japanese expansion to French Indochina, the United States froze Japanese assets in the United States on July 26, 1941 and quickly placed an embargo on oil exports on Japan on August 1, 1941 when oil imports from the United States accounted for more than 50% of the total oil imports of Japan.
Together with American, British, Chinese and Dutch nets of economic sanctions known as "the ABCD lines" were closing in on Japan. The resources and raw materials that Japan needed for running its own economy were all blocked and withheld.
Then, Japan was given the most notorious "Hull Note" on November 26, 1944, which demanded, inter alia, Japan forfeit all interests, concessions, territorial possessions acquired since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and withdraw immediately from all territories controlled by Japan in China and Indochina.
The negotiations lasted until December. Time ran out. On December 8, 1941 Japanese fighter/bombers took off from the aircraft carriers and launched an attack on Pearl Harbour on Sunday morning. Are we going to repeat the same history on North Korea? We need a radically different approach to unwinding the hardened and closed mind of the leadership of North Korea not so much by beating them up by imposing more onerous sanctions as by making them to question the status quo and by encouraging them to entertain some other alternatives.
We should support North Korea's membership in the Asian Development Bank for economic development. We should give them incentives to explore more constructive ways of investment for development. And we have to encourage North Korea to develop normal international relations with other countries and in particular with the United States.