President Barack Obama imposed tough new unilateral U.S. sanctions against North Korea to press the country to stop
its nuclear weapons program, signing into law a bill that enjoyed near
unanimous support in Congress following nuclear and missile tests by
Pyongyang.
Analysts said the president's endorsement Thursday of North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, which was approved in recent votes by the
Senate by 96-0 and the House by 406-2, will expand U.S. unilateral
curbs on Pyongyang's financial activities while intensify the focus on
China's dealings with its neighbor and historic Cold War ally North
Korea.
The expanded sanctions aim to cut off North Korea's access to the
money it needs to advance its nuclear warhead and long-range missile
development. The legislation also authorizes $50 million over five years
for radio broadcasts into North Korea and humanitarian assistance programs.
The bill's provisions aim to curb the
regime's cash flows by sanctioning trade in coal, minerals and precious
metals. It also penalizes those helping Pyongyang's cyber warfare,
money laundering, counterfeiting, narcotics trafficking, human rights
abuses and imports watches, pleasure boats and other luxury goods.
North Korea is already the target of a
series of sanctions dating back 2006, when it conducted the first of its
four nuclear tests, but leader Kim Jong Un and his isolated country
have still found the resources to fund its quest to improve and
miniaturize the weapons and advance the rockets needed to deliver an
atomic payload.
China, most experts say, provides
critical aid and trade for Pyongyang, helping the regime sidestep U.N.
sanctions that Chinese diplomats had agreed to support.
"We can't stand by while the North Korean regime develops a nuclear arsenal capable of striking the United States," California Republican Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement after Obama signed the bill.
Royce, one of the co-authors of the legislation, added : "Targeted
sanctions aimed at banks and companies that do business with Kim Jong
Un will cut-off the cash he needs to sustain his illicit weapons
programs, his army, and the continued repression of the North Korean
people."
Professor
Sung-Yoon Lee of Tufts’ University’s Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy, who advised lawmakers who wrote the bill, said the measures
bring U.S. sanctions against North Korea to the level of its sanctions
against Iran, Syria, and other sanctioned states.
"It
imposes secondary sanctions on North Korea’s partners, thus presenting
them with a strong economic disincentive: Either continue to do business
with North Korea and be blocked out of the U.S. financial system or
stop all business with North Korea and continue to have access to the
U.S. financial system," Lee told RFA's Korean Service.
"Most rational profit-seeking banks and corporations will choose the latter, thus, rendering North Korea more isolated than ever.," Lee added.
Much of the onus of the new sanctions is likely to fall on China,
whose banks, trading firms and ports are North Korea's main lifeline to
the outside world.
"The trade relation that North Korea has with China is very
significant to the country's national economy and to its internal
stability," said Yun Sun, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the East Asia Program of the Stimson Center in Washington.
"The problem is if the U.S. wants to put unilateral sanctions on
North Korea, it will have significant damage to China's natural
interest," she told RFA's Korean Service.
Washington and Beijing are at odds at the U.N. in New York over the
drafting of new multilateral sanctions against North Korea and "signs of
competition and potential conflict are rising" as the two powers
dispute maritime issues in the South China Sea, cyber security and human
rights, added Sun.
Reported by Changsop Pyon and Sungwon Yang of RFA's Korean Service.
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