Sanctions are changing North Korea but not in ways expected by the world community imposing them, or by the Kim regime that is fighting them. Clearly, they have not yet succeeded in stopping North Korea’s nuclear program and, arguably, not even slowed it. But equally clear is North Korea’s increasing isolation from the global economy and, more importantly, loss of aid receipts that, until a few years ago, kept the regime barely afloat. To make up for these lost resources, Kim is accepting elements of a market economy that his father and grandfather had shunned, and which threaten Stalinist controls on the population, especially through the nearly defunct public rationing system. Ironically, the rise in private productivity that these new competitive activities is enabling, especially in the services and construction sectors, and possibly in farming, is creating progress that may allow Kim to think he is indeed achieving “byongjin,” the simultaneous development of nuclear weapons and economic progress. But he, or at least his more experienced advisors, likely understand that market activity, carried too far, presents an enormous risk to the country’s bedrock controls and that Kim may have “mounted the (capitalist) tiger” of Chinese legend. With much stronger sanctions coming into play—China a year ago stepped up with economy threatening measures, and results are just now showing in its trade data—the verdict is still out on their ultimate impact. There are signs, still ambiguous, that the economy may turn against Kim. Smarter and stronger sanctions, used as precise instruments rather than blunt tools, might create wedges inside the North Korean command economy, but much depends on how well the sanctions are used and what risks Kim will take with his economy. If the sanctions are to succeed, he will have to see the nuclear program as adding to, rather than subtracting from, these economic and security risks. 

Read full article at www.theasanforum.org.