Slapping North Korea with new sanctions Dec.22, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un sounded defiant, telling the world U.S.-sponsored sanctions were an “act of war.” Already restricting oil imports to Kim’s regime, new U.N. Security Council sanctions limit crude oil supplies to 4 million barrels a year, capping refined products, like unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel, to 500,000 barrels a year. New sanctions also gave the U.S. or any Security Council member the right to interdict at high seas North Korean ships circumventing U.N. sanctions. “More and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest ever sanctions and pressure on our country,” said North Korea’s official KCNA news agency. North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the new sanctions amounted to a blockade on the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea [DPRK], calling it an “act of war.”
Unlike past sanction-routines on North Korea, Trump has persuaded China and Russia to wholeheartedly go along with more draconic actions. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin understand that Trump is serious about neutralizing Kim’s nuclear and ballistic missile arsenal. There’s been much handwringing since Trump warned North Korea Aug. 8 about “fire-and-fury,” prompting Kim to detonate and hydrogen bomb Sept. 3, then launching a medium-range ballistic missile over Japan. North Korea’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told the U.N. General Assembly Sept. 23 a DPRK missile strike on the U.S. was “inevitable.” Firing a Hwasong-15 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile [ICBM] Nov. 28, Kim served notice that the DPRK would not disarm its nukes and ballistic missiles. Kim claims his latest missile test proves he could hit anywhere in the U.S.
With the Seoul Winter Olympics due to start Feb. 5 going to Feb. 25, Trump’s hands are tied until everyone clears out of South Korea. Cut off from the real world, the DPRK blames the U.S. for past-and-present U.N. sanctions, despite knowing that their “allies” China and Russia could veto any resolution. Voting unanimously on the new sanctions, one more missile test could trigger a total oil and refined products embargo on North Korea. Russia, China and the European Union seek to avoid war on the Korean Peninsula at all costs, agreeing to the new sanctions. Xi and Putin take Trump dead serious when he says the U.S. won’t let Kim get a nuclear-tipped ICBM. North Korea has shown no willingness to de-nuclearize the Korean Peninsula, something demanded in U.S. resolutions. More defiance from Kim increases the chances that war looks imminent in North Korea.
North Korea’s KCNA new agency speaks directly the party line from Kim Jong-Un, “We define the sanctions resolution rigged up buy the U.S. and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violation peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and the region and categorically rejects the resolution,” said KCNA. More threats from North Korea seal Kim’s fate sometime in 2018. Kim no longer confronts the U.S. but now faces a united U.N. Security Council demanding the DPRK give up in nukes and ballistic missiles. “There is no more fatal blunder than the miscalculation that the U.S. and its followers could check by already worn-out ‘sanctions’ the victorious advance of our people who have brilliantly accomplished the great history cause of completing the state nuclear force,” said the KCNA News Agency defiantly.
North Korea continues to threaten nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula should the U.S. strike Pyongyang. Trump means business when he says that he won’t let Kim get the nuke-ready ICBM to hit the U.S. homeland. “The U.S. should not forget even for a second the entity of the DPRK which rapidly emerged as a strategic state capable of posing a substantial nuclear threat to the U.S. mainland,” said North Korea’s Foreign Ministry. China and Russia finally get the extent of North Korea’s nuclear threats against the U.S. and anyone committed to U.N. sanctions. North Korea warned all countries voting for the sanctions will face the DPRK’s revenge, including possible nuclear missile strikes. Kim can no longer count on China or Russia to oppose U.S. military intervention. With more threats against the U.S. and Security Council members, Kim’s on thin ice in 2018.
When war broke out on the Korean Peninsula June 25, 1950. it was only five years from WW II and one year from Mao’s Communist Revolution. China and Russia had vested geopolitical interests in defending North Korea in 1950. Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis has already reassured China’s Xi Jinping that the U.S. in any military action against North Korea would not seek Korean re-unification. Mattis told China that once the Kim regime falls, China would be in charge of any post-Kim government, not the U.S. Putin too has been notified that if the U.S. must change regimes in Pyongyang, the Kremlin would have a say in the new government. With at least a three-month window for more diplomacy, it’s still possible for Kim to go the bargaining table for face a certain U.S. military strike. China and Russia remain committed to a diplomatic solution, pressuring Kim to finally back down.
