A former North Korean government official who defected to the US says North Korea is struggling against tough sanctions — and doubts the hermit state can last a year.
“The sanctions that the White House has imposed on North Korea are of a historic level,” said Ri Jong-ho, who ran the international network of North Korean businesses that funnels hard currency to Pyongyang before leaving North Korea for the US last year.
“Never before has the country faced such tough sanctions. I don’t know if North Korea will survive a year with these sanctions. People will die.”
North Korea’s provocative behaviour is a result of Pyongyang’s “desperate” need to force a diplomatic opening with the US, Ri told an Asia Society event in New York, adding that one of the government’s priorities is to sever Washington’s ties with South Korea.
“Right now the leadership of North Korea have deployed missiles aimed at the US and are doing these provocations, but they desperately want relations with the US,” he said.
“The North Korean leader wants to stay in power for a long time. He believes he must have friendly relations with the US to do that. They didn’t want South Korea involved in the talks.
“They just wanted two-way talks. What the North Korean leadership wants is to know how to warm relations with the US.”
“One can interpret recent actions and declarations regarding North Korea’s nuclear and missile testing in two ways.
“It should either be taken at face value or seen as an effort to extract maximum concessions should there be arms control negotiations in the future,” Paul Stares, a senior fellow for conflict prevention and director of the Centre for Preventive Action at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, told the South China Morning Post.
“What should be clear by now, however, it that any such negotiation would be about the size of the North Korean nuclear arsenal, not its existence. They are not going to give it up. Period.”
Ri also said North Korea’s relations with China had soured because of Kim Jong-un’s purge of his uncle Jang Song-thaek and other officials close to Beijing.
Kim’s hatred of Beijing intensified after China’s President Xi Jinping visited Seoul before Pyongyang on his first trip to the Korean peninsula.
Xi’s decision was prompted by the deaths of “thousands” allied with Jang and, by extension, China, Ri said.
Kim Jong-un took Xi’s decision as an insult and in July 2014 convened a meeting of high-ranking officials where the North Korean leader “called president Xi a ‘son of a bitch’ and called the Chinese people ‘sons of bitches’”, Ri said.
“Now China has blocked trade, which has never happened before, so this is the very worst point of their relationship.”
Ri’s comments were in stark contrast to the scepticism he had previously cast on United Nations sanctions meant to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons programme. Since defecting last year, Risaid that Pyongyang had managed to circumvent most of the restrictions – often with help from Chinese entities.
“I can see the North Korean economy like it’s in the palm of my hands,” Ri said.
“[North Korea] has to buy the raw materials in order for them to produce [their weapons] and they have to export products [to support this programme]. They are in a very difficult position, so they need to resolve that.”
While in Dalian, Ri served as head of the Korea Daehung Trading Corporation, which is managed by Office 39, a clandestine organisation under direct control of Kim’s family.
Office 39 is responsible for procuring for the Kim government hard currency that is critical to support the economy and ensure the loyalty of party elites.
In July, Ri told The Washington Post that he oversaw the implementation of tactics North Korea used to bypass UN sanctions. Some of the circumvention methods included having China-stationed North Korean officials like Ri hand-deliver bags filled with millions of US dollars in cash to captains of North Korean vessels heading back to home ports from China, Ri told the newspaper. Another tactic was changing the names of companies targeted by UN sanctions, Ri said.
UN sanctions have been piling up on North Korea since 2006, after six-nation talks involving North Korea, China, the US, Japan, South Korea and Russia broke down. The most recent sanctions, passed in August and September, effectively cut all trade with North Korea except for humanitarian deliveries and limited quantities of oil.
Prompted by North Korea’s most recent nuclear detonation, on September 3, the UN Security Council unanimously passed less than a week later the latest resolution put forward by the US.
That resolution aims to cut North Korea’s imports of refined petroleum products by 55 per cent and ban the supply of natural gas and natural gas derivatives to ensure they aren’t used as substitutes.
Moreover, banning North Korea’s textile exports and remittances by overseas North Korean workers to Pyongyang, the resolution would cut US$1.3 billion in revenues annually.
The US agreed to allow some oil shipments to keep flowing to North Korea to secure China’s approval.
Previous UN sanctions on North Korea stopped short of controls on oil and fuel, also at China’s behest, owing to concerns that such moves might destabilise the country and leave Beijing with a refugee problem. China shares a 1,400km border with North Korea along the Yalu River.
Ri defected in 2014 from his last posting, in the northeastern Chinese port city of Dalian, travelling with his family to South Korea.
A North Korean official reaffirmed Pyongyang’s commitment to developing a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching “all the way to the east coast of the mainland US,” on Monday, telling CNN that the rogue nation was currently not interested in diplomacy with the US until it achieved that goal.
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