The U.S. government, which already maintains economic sanctions against the DPRK, has proposed a United Nations Security Council resolution empowering member states to board ships and inspect all imports to or exports from that country, freeze all assets claimed to be connected with its nuclear program, and impose a trade ban on all commodities it defines as military and luxury goods.

U.S. officials want the resolution to fall under Section VII of the UN Charter, which authorizes the Security Council to “enforce” sanctions by breaking diplomatic ties or sponsoring military action if the targeted government does not comply with its demands.

“We’re talking about really making it hurt,” U.S. assistant secretary of state Christopher Hill said October 10. “We’re not going to accept that North Korea…is going to join the nuclear club.” Last week Hill said that north Korea “can have a future or it can have these weapons. It cannot have both.”

U.S. president George Bush issued a statement branding north Korea as “provocative,” and warning that if Pyongyang were deemed to have transferred nuclear materials to other countries, Washington would treat it as a “grave threat to the United States.”

Democratic Party politicians seized on the nuclear test to criticize the Bush administration for not being tough enough in its hostile actions against north Korea.

“What it tells you is that we started at the wrong end of the ‘axis of evil,'” former Democratic senator Sam Nunn told the New York Times. “We started with the least dangerous of the countries, Iraq…and now we have to deal with that.”

On October 9 Sen. Hillary Clinton condemned the White House’s “failure to deal with the threat posed by North Korea” and called for “the strongest possible action from the entire international community” against “this rogue nation.”

The following day the editors of the New York Times complained that the Bush administration’s proposed sanctions and cargo inspections “won’t be enough to quickly change Pyongyang’s mind.” They instead called for “starting with a Security Council-ordered ban on all trade, until the North agrees to stop expanding its arsenal.”

On October 11 the Japanese government, which tightened sanctions against the DPRK last month, ordered a total ban on north Korean imports and barred the entry of any ships from that country. It also banned most north Koreans from entering Japan. North Korea exported $133 million in goods to Japan last year.  
 
Beijing joins call for sanctions
The Chinese government urged the Security Council to impose “punitive action” against Pyongyang, although it opposed interdicting shipments.

Beijing is part of six-party talks aimed at pressuring Pyongyang to give up its nuclear programs. The talks, which also involve Washington, Tokyo, Seoul, and Moscow, have been stalled since November 2005, when Washington imposed new economic sanctions against the DPRK. The north Korean government has repeatedly stated it will not participate in the talks as long as the imperialist sanctions remain in effect.

“The U.S. extreme threat of nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test…as a corresponding measure for defense,” said north Korea’s Foreign Ministry in an October 3 statement explaining the decision to conduct the test.

The north Korean government also noted that it “will make positive efforts to denuclearize the peninsula.” The statement added that “the ultimate goal of the DPRK is not a ‘denuclearization’ to be followed by its unilateral disarmament but one aimed at…removing the very source of all nuclear threats from the Korean Peninsula and its vicinity,” referring to the U.S. military presence there.

Washington keeps nearly 30,000 troops on the Korean peninsula, part of maintaining the division of Korea it imposed after being fought to a stalemate in the 1950-53 Korean War. While the Pentagon officially claims to have withdrawn all of its nuclear weapons from south Korea in 1991, it continues to station nuclear-armed warships in the surrounding waters.

Among the armaments Washington has deployed in the Pacific are non-strategic air-delivered bombs and sea-launched ballistic missiles on Trident class submarines, which provide “a unique very short notice (12-13 minutes) strike capability against time-critical targets in North Korea,” according to the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists.

Since 2003, the U.S. and Japanese governments have collaborated as part of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), asserting their right to stop, board, and confiscate the cargo of any ship they claim is carrying “suspect” cargo. Several north Korean ships have been boarded and inspected as a result of this U.S.-led initiative, which legalizes piracy on the part of over 60 signatory governments.

Washington and Tokyo have recently expanded their military cooperation toward establishing nuclear first-strike capacity against their adversaries in Asia. Tokyo, which reportedly has the technology to develop a nuclear arsenal within six months, is believed to have a stockpile of enough separated plutonium for 9,000 nuclear weapons.

Washington, the only government to ever have used nuclear weapons, has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world with some 10,000 warheads, 5,735 of which are classified as active or operational. Forbes reports that north Korea “is believed to have enough radioactive material for about a half-dozen bombs.”

In late June, Washington and Tokyo agreed to jointly produce antiballistic missiles, and to deploy Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles on U.S. bases in Japan, where some 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed. Tokyo also signed an agreement to produce PAC-3 missiles to deploy on its own bases.

The Japanese government is using the Korean nuclear test to wave the banner of “national security” and push forward its plans to remove constitutional restrictions on the use of its military force abroad, imposed as a result of its defeat in World War II.

“A nuclear test by Pyongyang might lead to the last gasp of Japanese pacifism,” noted an October 9 editorial in Investor’s Business Daily. “The transformation of Japan from Asia’s Switzerland to Asia’s Britain—a strategic partner with teeth—is under way.”
 
 
Related articles:
U.S. hands off Korea!
Socialist Workers Party, Young Socialists leaders: Support reunification of Korea!  
 
 
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