U.S. Sounding Very Serious About Counterfeiting
If only we were this hard-headed about international nuclear proliferation.
In an interview with Reuters, Mr. Hill said that at a meeting in Beijing last week, Kim Gye-gwan, his North Korean counterpart, said Pyongyang was prepared to follow international rules on money laundering and was also willing to “cooperate internationally.”
“We’re not looking here for words. We’re more interested in actions. We’d like to see this activity cease,” Mr. Hill reportedly told the news agency.
It’s refreshing to see signs that our government does have some spine, I suppose, although even from a cold realist perspective, this stuff seems like just as good a place to put one’s foot down.
Even the State Department is sounding decisive and principled!
“We’ve made very clear our views with regard to illicit activity, and the United States is going to take steps to protect itself in this regard, whether it’s counterfeiting or drug smuggling or money laundering. And we would expect any state would act in a similar manner,” [State Department Spokesman Sean] McCormack added — in a way that left no doubt that Washington will go its own way no matter what position Seoul takes.
This, in reaction to President Roh’s public Yankee-bashing tantrum of yesterday. Washington appears to have lost all capacity to be shocked by much of anything Roh says anymore. Studied public apathy, combined with aggressive public diplomacy on specific issues (rather than specific personalities) seems like the tack Washington is taking these days, and it seems like a sound strategy. Just what the South’s strategy is isn’t clear to me, or to the Chosun Ilbo:
Since the president has made it clear that “friction” will be the result of the U.S. North Korea policy, perhaps he ought to explain how South Korea is going to solve the North Korea problem without the U.S.
You can’t reason a man out of what he was never reasoned into.
But let’s assume that North Korea were to play the game that Iran had played until recently–nominally accepting “international norms,” arguably just to shut everyone up. So how would we verify that they’d gotten out of the money laundering business (almost any handling, holding, transfer, or use of ill-gotten proceeds qualifies as money laundering)?
The “international norm” the North Korean chief delegate referred to likely means 10 stipulations laid down by the UN, including its Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and Security Council Resolution 1540 against money laundering to finance terrorism. Nations who subscribe are encouraged to enact legislation that prohibits terror financing, but that is not mandatory. It is thus unclear if subscribing alone would put an end to all Pyongyang’s illegal activities. North Korea already subscribed to an international accord on terror financing in 2001.
Given the history, you have to view their commitments with extreme suspicion. Verification of they’ve stopped counterfeiting could also be difficult–or, alternatively, a test case for their willingness to be transparent on weapons. At a minimum, we shouldn’t take their promises seriously unless they hand over the plates, ink, and paper, which will be (as with the Japanese abductees) an admission of guilt. And (as with the Japanese abductees) it won’t be the end of the story, because we’ll continue to have questions about the completeness of their abandonment of the ill deeds unless they give our investigators unimpeded access to every person and location we have reasonable suspicion to investigate.