N. Korea nuke sanctions prove ineffective due to China's shipments: report

By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (Yonhap) -- International sanctions imposed on North Korea
after its nuclear test in 2006 have proven to be ineffective due mainly to
China's continued shipments of luxury goods to the North, a report said Friday.

The value of China's exports of luxury goods to North Korea reached US$120
million in 2007, up from $50 million a year earlier, Marcus Noland, senior fellow
at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said in the report posted
on the institute's Web site.
"This study finds that North Korea's nuclear test and the imposition of U.N.
Security Council sanctions have had no perceptible effect on North Korea's trade
with its two largest partners, China and South Korea," Noland said.
The sanctions imposed on Oct. 14, 2006, five days after the North's nuclear
detonation, have a loophole: they failed to detail the luxury goods to be banned,
said Noland.
U.N. resolution 1718 also bans shipments of conventional and weapons of mass
destruction and their parts.
"Before North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test, it was widely believed
that such an event would have cataclysmic diplomatic ramifications," the report
said. "However, beginning with visual inspection of data and ending with
time-series models, no evidence is found to support the notion that these events
have had any effect on North Korea's trade with its two principal partners."
With five other nations, North Korea has been negotiating its denuclearization
for five years, but critics say Pyongyang is just toying with the talks while
trying to keep its arsenal intact as a deterrent against invasion.
The latest round of the six-party talks ended without an agreement last week as
Pyongyang refused to sign on to a verification protocol for its nuclear list,
presented in June under a multilateral aid-for-denuclearization deal.
North Korea may be taking a page from Pakistan and India, long sanctioned by the
U.S. and its Western allies for their development of nuclear weapons.
Washington, however, mended ties with New Delhi and even signed a civilian
nuclear cooperation deal in recent years as the U.S. is seeking India as a check
on China's emergence in South Asia.
Pakistan, for its part, has received huge economic assistance from the U.S. in
recent years as Islamabad has played a key role in the U.S. war on terrorism
along its border with Afghanistan, which is said to be the home of Taliban
insurgents and al-Qaida.
"In retrospect, North Korea may have calculated quite correctly that the direct
penalties for establishing itself as a nuclear power would be modest or,
alternatively, put such a high value on demonstrating its nuclear capability that
it outweighed the downside risks, however large," Noland said.
"If sanctions are to deter behavior in the future, they will have to be much more
enthusiastically implemented," he said.
hdh@yna.co.kr
(END)