New UN sanctions unlikely to hurt North Korean regime

(Baonghean.vn)- The latest United Nations (UN) sanctions against North Korea are more likely to hurt civilians in the isolated country than slow down the progress of leader Kim Jong-un's regime in developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the US mainland.

“The most likely impact of further restrictions on petroleum imports would be on sectors that are not essential to the regime’s survival, meaning the impact of such cuts would be most damaging to the North Korean people,” said Paul Musgrave of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

North Koreans watch a military paragliding demonstration in Wonsan, North Korea. Photo: AP

While the Pyongyang government is able to maintain fuel supplies for its own use, the vast majority of its population continues to struggle as its economy is a fraction of the size of neighboring South Korea, said Hong Kang-chel, a former North Korean border guard who defected in 2013.

These latest sanctions could face greater domestic criticism of the administration of US President Donald Trump.

“Cutting off oil supplies will only make North Koreans angrier at the United States because they will have to do more manual labor in the fields while government officials continue to drive cars that use little oil,” Hong said. “North Korean workers sent abroad return home with the ideas and culture of capitalism they witnessed, but President Trump is on the path to stopping this path.”

Mr. Tong Zhao, an analyst at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for International Policy in Beijing (China), said that the latest sanctions only give UN member countries the right to seize North Korean cargo ships in their own waters.

North Korea's trading partners in 2016. Photo: Bloomberg

The US would then be unable to monitor suspicious vessels in areas controlled by Russia or China.

Even if ship-to-ship transfers could be monitored by satellite systems and other means, enforcing an end to the practice would still be difficult, according to the executive director of the Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainability.

“I suspect there will be calls to lift these sanctions before next spring to help prevent food supply shortages,” said Bill Brown, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University.

Lan Ha

(According to Bloomberg)