NK belligerence and Workers' Party Congress
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By Shin Sung-won
North Korea seems to be taking all measures to show off its nuclear capabilities and delivery system. At the beginning of this year, the repressive country carried out a series of provocative actions, including its fourth nuclear test on Jan. 6, as well as the launch of an intercontinental rocket on Feb. 7. Coping with North Korea’s dangerous actions, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution No. 2270, accusing North Korea of these acts and sanctioning it for them. Even after the UNSC resolution, North Korea continues to take provocative actions, such as an ICBM engine test on April 10 and test-firing mid-range missiles which ended in failure on April 15 and 28. Pyongyang test-launched a ballistic missile from a submarine off the country’s east coast on April 23. The submarine, apparently built in secrecy some time before 2010, appears to be a modified version of a Yugoslavian sub design from the mid-1970s. North Korea’s nuclear-missile subs are rudimentary and unreliable but Kim Jong-un wants the world to think he is just crazy enough to use them in an attack.
Running counter to North Korea’s military provocations, South Korea and the United States which have been treaty allies since the end of the Korean War in 1953, have exercised regular defensive military drills. North Korea’s threat combined with an inexperienced leader who acts rashly makes it an urgent priority not only for South Korea and the United States but increasingly for China. The then North Korean Foreign Minister, Ri Su-yong, made an offer in New York to halt nuclear testing in exchange for an end to the annual American-South Korean military exercises. It was swiftly dismissed.
The Kim Jong-un regime test-fired a nuclear device in 2013 successfully after two nuclear tests failed in 2006 and in 2009 during his father’s era. Since then, Kim, who took power after his father’s sudden death on Dec. 17, 2011, has made every effort to modernize his country’s nuclear arsenal and delivery system. He even instructed his subordinates to write in the preamble to North Korea’s 2012 constitution, that the “nuclear and a militarily powerful state is indomitable.”
The May 2016 labor party convention was a coronation of Kim Jong-un. At the convention, which was last held in 1980, the current North Korean leader reconfirmed the “byeongjin” line, of pursuing nuclear weapons and economic development in tandem. Through the May 6 convention, Kim Jong-un wanted to show the successful completion of power transfer to him and show the world that North Korea has finally become a nuclear power. The May 6 Congress may be less of a turning point than a dead end.
In April 2016, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization produced a chilling report on persistent food shortages in North Korea. It estimated that 10.5 million people ― two-fifths of the population ― were undernourished and that 2.4 million pregnant or breast-feeding women and children under five were at risk of malnutrition.
In order to better the odds of North Korea’s survival, the international community should continue to put pressure on Kim and his regime through U.N. and bilateral sanctions until Kim feels threatened that his regime could collapse unless he changes his provocative and threatening behavior and attitude. It is past the time that North Korea should make a strategic decision to give up nuclear weapons and join the international community as a normal state.
Shin Sung-won is the director-general of the
Department of International Economy and
Trade Studies at the Institute of Foreign Affairs
and National Security, the Korea National
Diplomatic Academy.