hankyoreh

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun talks with US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Seoul on February 26

The final countdown has begun for the tough sanctions that the United Nations intends to place on North Korea for its recent nuclear and rocket provocations.

During a meeting of the UN Security Council held at the UN Headquarters in New York on Feb. 25, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power made public a draft resolution containing stern measures and asked the Security Council members for their cooperation. Since the draft was produced with the agreement of the US and China, it is certain to be adopted in basically its present form when the Security Council votes on it in a few days.

The sanctions can be described as a stern warning by the international community to North Korea for its violation of previous UN Security Council resolutions and its continuing provocations.

What sets this draft apart is that it both contains numerous measures that were not included in previous resolutions and also strengthens previous measures to make the sanctions much tougher.

For example, previous resolutions had instructed UN member states to only search North Korean vessels that were suspected of carrying illegal cargo, such as weapons of mass destruction, but this resolution makes such searches mandatory for all cargo ships carrying North Korean imports or exports.

In addition, the new sanctions would restrict or ban exports of coal, iron ore, gold, titanium and rare earths – some of North Korea’s major trading commodities – while banning the supply of jet fuel and rocket fuel. If these measures alone are implemented properly, Pyongyang will suffer a major blow.

In addition to this, not only nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles but also small arms and all conventional weapons have been placed under embargo, while the draft also enables for the first time the expulsion of North Korean diplomats who are engaged in illegal activities.

While it is true that, overall, the resolution contains very tough sanctions, it does not amount to the “conclusive sanctions” sought by the South Korean government, which hoped for sanctions that would make it impossible for North Korea to carry out any more nuclear tests.

Another doubtful point is whether these tough sanctions will actually be implemented literally. For example, measures such as the requirement to search all cargo being imported to or exported from North Korea and the ban on exports of mineral ores largely rest in China’s hands, and their success will largely depend on whether China chooses to cooperate.

What is even more important (though it is not included in the resolution draft) is that the China-led initiative to find a resolution to the North Korean nuclear issue through parallel negotiations for denuclearization and for a peace treaty is rapidly attracting attention.

Following a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Feb. 23, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a guest lecture at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, during which he once again officially suggested that parallel denuclearization and peace talks could be the solution to the North Korean nuclear issue. In the speech, Wang went one step further by asserting that there could be no peace treaty without denuclearization and that it would be difficult to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula without assuaging North Korea’s concerns about a peace treaty.

Given that China has a huge role to play in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue and given indications that the US is sympathetic with its position as well, China’s official proposal for simultaneous denuclearization and peace talks deserves our careful attention.

Looking at the recent series of events, there is reason to believe that China yielded to the US on strengthening sanctions against North Korea in exchange for gaining the support of the US for its efforts to resolve the situation through a peace treaty. The fact that the US appears to have given some ground in the face of strong opposition from China to the potential deployment of the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system in South Korea hints that the two countries may have reached a deal behind the scenes.

The South Korean government must not ignore these international developments and must draw up a new plan for resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, bearing in mind the negotiation phases that will follow sanctions. If Seoul continues its myopic blustering about how tough measures are the only answer, it may find itself left behind by changing circumstances.

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