Mick Hartley

Are the State Department's efforts to isolate Pyongyang paying off? Joshua Stanton thinks so:

Our objective should be to isolate Pyongyang and its allies until we have sufficient leverage for negotiations to have a chance of achieving our interests. Rather than approach Pyongyang now, while its leverage exceeds our own, we should approach friendly states (South Korea, Japan, Canada, the UK, the EU, Singapore, Panama) first and ask them to cut their economic and diplomatic ties to Pyongyang. Our next targets should be wavering states (Malaysia, Zambia, Namibia), then Pyongyang’s more willful enablers (China, Russia) and finally, Pyongyang itself. That sequence maximizes our leverage at each stage of this diplomatic process by approaching hostile states only after they are relatively isolated.

For the last 20 years, we’ve had that sequence entirely wrong. Give Rex Tillerson credit for getting it right, and for what he has done in the last several months to translate that strategy into policy. If the unplugging of Pyongyang’s diplomatic and financial links to the world is starting to cause it pain, and there are growing signs that it may be, I would expect Pyongyang’s provocations to escalate. Contra the pro-engagement critics who characterize each new nuclear and missile test as proof that sanctions aren’t working, it’s at least as likely that those escalating provocations are signs that they are. 

And this, from the Daily NK, suggests he may be right:

After North Korea conducted its sixth ever nuclear weapons test on September 3, gasoline prices jumped. Prices for daily necessities and grains followed suit shortly. Until recently, prices for such goods in North Korea remained relatively stable despite consecutive rounds of strong international sanctions targeting the North. But now the international community’s actions have started to have an effect, stoking anxiety among the residents about the potential for ever climbing prices.  

 ….as reports and rumors from the outside world penetrate further into North Korea, more and more people are coming to realize that North Korea’s closest friends, especially China, are meaningfully participating in the sanctions. This information also helps to push prices up.   

A poor yield of corn this year is also playing a role. Severe droughts in the spring have hurt bottom line harvests of grains such as corn. 

North Korean traders are doing their utmost to maintain contact with the outside world so they can ascertain information about how the international situation will affect their livelihood. The source explained, “Residents who trade with Chinese merchants are trembling with fear because they are worried that the goods they deal in will become restricted or the prices will rise.” 

The residents are especially concerned because prices are rising for both food products and other daily necessities…. 

It is also possible that the gasoline price rise is partially due to an effort by the authorities to restrict supply in order to ration. Kim Jong Un, sensing an impending reduction in trade and gasoline supply, might have begun to store up food and oil in military and private warehouses–behavior that would certainly block up market-based distribution networks.