There’s No Stopping Kim Jong Il
Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of North Korea’s Taepodong 2 rocket launch on Sunday was what a non-event it was. True, the Korean missile travelled further than any previous one – 3,200 km – but it failed to carry out Pyongyang’s stated goal of putting a satellite into orbit (although the North’s media says it did). This has soothed fears that the rocket can quickly be used to deliver nuclear weapons. Also noteworthy was that the UN Security Council failed to reach agreement on a condemnatory statement, let alone on an actual policy response. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi share index and won currency rose further on Monday, as investors shrugged off the test.
So why did Pyongyang go ahead with the launch? Three reasons:
• The regime seems to want to draw US attention to itself at a time when the Obama administration is much more fixated on the economy and the war in Afghanistan. As to why Pyongyang seeks attention, the answer is to extract political and economic concessions from the US, South Korea, and Japan.
• Kim Jong Il probably figured that the launch would reassert his authority after a recent period of illness. The launch surely plays well with the North Korean military, which is Kim’s main constituency, and drums up a celebratory mood ahead of Thursday’s opening of the new parliament. This is expected to appoint a whole bunch of new state officials and possibly even a successor leadership to Kim himself.
• There is also a prestige factor. Very few countries have launched satellites into space using their own rockets. Hence the importance of Pyongyang claiming the launch as a success. Of course, this comes with a price – up to US$500mn, according to one South Korean think tank. This is a fortune given the North’s impoverished economy. (Incidentally, the UK’s BBC2 TV channel is broadcasting a documentary on Monday night on the plight of those fleeing North Korea.)
Rest Of The World Cannot Do Much
Also evident is how little the world can do to punish North Korea:
• Military action by the US, South Korea, and Japan is virtually out of the question, because it could set off a new war on the Korean peninsula, with Japan also the target of retaliation.
• New economic sanctions are of dubious use, because North Korea is already under heavy sanctions, and because its trade with the outside world was limited even before sanctions were tightened in recent years.
• China won’t turn up the pressure on North Korea, because it fears a collapse of the North. This could lead to anarchy on China’s doorstep, and the arrival of millions of impoverished North Koreans into China’s northeastern rustbelt provinces.
Thus, I expect that once the fuss dies down, the Great Powers will seek to entice North Korea back to the ‘six-way talks’ aimed at persuading Pyongyang to give up its nukes. The North will come back to the table in order to seem flexible and perhaps be given some rewards, while pretending that it will indeed give up its nukes. However, in reality it will continue to stall, citing legal and technical reasons for delays, while using even the slightest excuse to halt the process. Meanwhile, the longer it delays, the more the world gets accustomed to a nuclear North Korea, and the less urgent the denuclearisation issue will become.