On March 2, 2016, the United Nations
Security Council answered North Korea’s fourth nuclear weapons test and long
range ballistic missile launch by adopting Resolution 2270, its strongest set
of sanctions to date.
Resolution 2270 blocks North Korea’s
international mineral, weapons, and finance activities in an effort to shut
down the regime’s fiscal lifelines. In addition, all traded goods are subject
to inspection and all possible forms of funding and materials relevant to the
production of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction will be
thoroughly blocked off.
Through the resolution, the international
community has flatly condemned the North Korean regime for threatening the
peace and security of the the peninsula and the region at large. The more the
Kim Jong Un regime continues to obsess over and test nuclear weapons, the more
deeply the regime will be isolated by increasingly punitive sanctions.
On this topic, the Daily NK spoke with
Korea Institute for National Unification [KINU] Director Choi Jin Wook, who relayed
that “the Kim Jong Un regime’s days are numbered.”
More specifically, Director Choi said, “As
North Korea’s economic weaknesses get compounded by their worsening isolation
from the international community, the regime is becoming more and more
unstable. Collapse is coming.”
North Korea’s choice is simple, he added:
either accept institutional changes that reform and open up the country, or
completely block out all sources of outside information and try to continue
eking along.
“The regime appears to be having difficulty
selecting between these alternatives,” he asserted. “Though partial
marketization has occurred, there are clearly limits to how much change can be
tolerated in the current system. The time to choose for the very survival of
the nation is approaching.”
When asked about South Korean President
Park Geun Hye’s comments on North Korean regime change, Director Choi said,
“Given the conditions, it is impossible not to. Up to this point, we have tried
to provide a way for North Korea to be able to survive, but through threats and
provocations, North Korea has created an environment in which it is impossible
not to discuss the possibility of regime change.”
The fact that China, which had played the
part of North Korea’s protector, has now changed course in supporting the
resolution is an important development with implications for the continued
survival of the regime. From a geopolitical standpoint, the Korean peninsula
has become a nuisance with troubling consequences for the U.S.-China relationship, a fact that made it increasingly difficult for China to stick up
for an alliance that was once described as being, “as close as lips and teeth.”
China has reached a critical point when it
comes to bearing a burden for North Korea, and
therefore in a strategic sense, Director Choi argued that it might be worth it for China “to quit on
North Korea,”
“China looks at its U.S. relationship from
within the context of developments on the Korean peninsula. After weighing the
costs of the North Korean collapse against the costs of the UN Resolution,
namely that it would help to expand America’s influence and strengthen the
South Korea – U.S. – Japan alliance, China decided to support the
resolution,” he pointed out.
“The real thing to watch is how fully China
fulfills and participates in the implementation of the UN Security Council
Resolution. When compared with China’s policies in the past, the new approach
gives us reasons to suspect that the durability of the North Korean regime is
now in question.”
