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| Korea |
| Japan Passes Bill on N. Korea Sanctions |
| 2004-01-29 |
| Forecast for Tokyo tomorrow: couple inches of spittle from the southwest. Japan’s lower house passed a bill Thursday to make it easier to impose economic sanctions on North Korea, a step aimed at pressuring Pyongyang to hand over relatives of Japanese abducted decades ago. Backed by both the ruling and main opposition parties, the legislation passed easily with a majority of lawmakers standing in show of support. There was no official tally of the vote. Wow, parties working together. The bill does not mention North Korea, but lawmakers say it is aimed at the reclusive state. Not the Esquimouxan Republic? Officials in Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s government also have said they don’t have any plans to impose sanctions, but the government is trying to build pressure on North Korea to agree to talks on the abductions. "Economic sanctions are one tool of diplomacy," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said before the bill was passed. "It would be beneficial to have such a tool for policymaking." I wouldn’t count on it, witness Iraq. And Cuba. The bill will go to the upper house for consideration next week. The legislation would enable Japan to take measures including banning imports of North Korean See, it’s already |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 Guyjean, for China, NK is an extremity that is hemoraging cash through it's primary artery. SK is protected from masses of refugees by the DMZ; China is not. NK will make appreciable advancement of their nuclear programs only at a snails pace and at the cost of food for it's people. The whole gambit of declaring their nuclear programs stems from the severe brokeness of NK internally. Although their Juche society is akin to Chistian Science, in this case the patient is under presure to capitulate before he bleeds out. We do the North Korean people no service by blinking and bailing Kim out so that he can continue to repress and kill them. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-29 2:18:35 PM |
| #3 What i don't get is - negotiations with the Norks takes forever irrespective of what you're negotiating about so if we were serious about negotiating, i would have thought that we would have been in constant talks with them over the past months instead of this once every 5 or 6 months business. This is just giving them more time to build nukes and nukes change everything. I can understand that if they only have 2 or 4 now that they want to keep them but if we give them much more time (see the IISS report from London) they will have 8 or 10 of the damn things and they will face massive pressure to sell them. What are the options for the US? 1) sit back and say it ain't our problem 2) continue talking for a few years hoping beyond hope that Kim dies or that the country disintegrates and praying he doesn't sell any nukes 3) catacylsmic nuclear war. 4) convince China and Japan that they MUST get serious about this and blockade the Norks and stop all shipping and flights in/out and stop the remittances from Japan which have kept this regime alive for so long. The 4th option seems the best at first glance but it would lead to war. |
| Posted by: Guyjean 2004-1-29 12:36:20 PM |
| #2 The biggest economic lever Japan has over NKorea is all the remittances the NKor population in Japan (some of the them there for generations) send back to NKorea... |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H 2004-1-29 11:54:21 AM |
| #1 Sanctions against NK by Japan may be more effective as Japan is an important market for NK. China and South Korea's bargaining position with Kim will be improved by the elimination of a large buyer for NK products. IMO the embargo against Cuba has been effective in that it has denied Cuba cashflow from an incredibly large, near contiguous market. Cuba still trades with the engagment crowd but realizes less profit. Limits on cash flow does not limit Castro's repression of his own people but it does limit the amount of damage he can cause throughout Latin America. If Venezeula were to become unfriendly to Fidel and the US to freeze remittances (the actual result being a reduced flow of cash into Cuba,) I can't see that Castro would have too many options left. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-29 8:14:06 AM |