Three more North Korean companies have recently been placed on a U.N. blacklist of corporations banned from international trade. On Wednesday, a U.N. Security Council committee decided to add the companies to the blacklist as sanctions on North Korea against its April 13 rocket launch.
The U.N. decision followed China’s consent to sanctions on the three companies. The number fell far short of the 40 or so North Korean companies that the United States, South Korea and other countries had reportedly wanted to put on the blacklist.
What was significant nonetheless was that China agreed to the sanctions, instead of vetoing them ― an action that could be construed as an indication that China would not defend its communist ally should it go ahead with a third nuclear test. Indeed, a Chinese expert recently said China is likely to reduce or suspend oil and other shipments in aid to North Korea if it conducts a nuclear test.
When the rocket exploded shortly after liftoff, speculations widely circulated that North Korea would conduct a new nuclear test to make up for the failed rocket launch. Pyongyang had intended the rocket launch to highlight the centennial of Kim Il-sung’s birth.
A nuclear test would undoubtedly anger China, which recently voiced opposition in public. It would also invite greater sanctions from the international community, with U.S. President Barack Obama repeatedly warning that there will be no reward for bad behavior.
At the moment, Washington says it has found no North Korean activities supporting the speculations about a forthcoming nuclear test. But it does not lessen concerns about a nuclear threat from North Korea, which experts believe has already been keeping six to seven bombs with plutonium and another three to six bombs with uranium in its arsenal.
North Korea has been maintaining its nuclear weapons development program at the expense of its residents, who have had to go hungry. According to an estimate by a South Korean nuclear expert, North Korea has since the 1980s sunk into the development of nuclear weapons an amount of money that could purchase enough food to feed the entire North Korean population for eight years.
Should it continue to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, Pyongyang would have much more to lose than to gain. It would be wise of the North Korean leadership to abandon its costly WMD programs before it is too late.
