Hostile Policy Not Quite Dead

History will record that President Bush experienced just one brief glint of success at influencing the North Koreans during his entire presidency. Naturally, our State Department had nothing to do with it. In fact, when State realized that another cabinet department (Treasury) might actually solve the North Korean problem once and for all, it dove in to rescue failure from the jaws of success.

Most people in Washington tend to think in terms of dealing with national security threats in either military or diplomatic terms, or some combination of the two. The ratio at which an individual blends the military and the diplomatic has a proportional relationship to the individual’s partisan affiliation. This is a lot like arguing over whether to crack a walnut with a wood chipper or a beach ball. We really haven’t had a military option with North Korea since at least 1994, and I don’t know how any serious, rational thinker could still believe that we have diplomatic options after everything else that’s happened since 1994. North Korea will never disarm voluntarily at any price, and it has said so, repeatedly.

That leaves us with a wide range of often overlooked economic options that, for the brief period when just a few of them were tried, inflicted a near-fatal wound to North Korea’s palace economy, the part that sustains the regime’s power structure while the people try to fend for themselves. This is why I welcome any sign of life in America’s economic constriction of North Korea like seeing a flicker of lamp light in the Temple of the Maccabees:

The Department of the Treasury designated, under Executive Order 13382 (E.O. 13382,) two Taiwan individuals and two entities in connection with attempting to provide, financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of North Korean entity Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID). These entities and individuals are Alex H.T. Tsai, Trans Merits Co. Ltd., Global Interface Company Inc. (formerly known as Trans Scientific Corp.), and Lu-chi-Su, also known as Lu-Chi Tsai Su. KOMID was designated by President Bush in the Annex of E.O. 13382 on June 28, 2005.

On June 19, 2008, Alex H.T. Tsai was indicted by Taiwan’s Taipei District Prosecutors Office for illegally shipping restricted materials to North Korea. Trans Merits Co. Ltd., controlled by an Alex H.T. Tsai operated company, Global Interface Company Inc. (formerly known as Trans Scientific Corp.), shipped to North Korea items that could be used to support North Korea’s advanced weapons program. Both Alex H.T. Tsai and Trans Merits Co. Ltd. were convicted in Taiwan in 2008.

Trans Merits Co. Ltd. and its parent company, Global Interface Company Inc., have also provided dual-use materials to other North Korean companies. These companies were designated for being owned or controlled by, or acting or purporting to act on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Alex H.T. Tsai.

Lu-chi-Su, also known as Lu-Chi Tsai Su, has also been designated pursuant to E.O. 13382 for acting or purporting to act on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Alex H.T. Tsai, Global Interface Company Inc., and Trans Merits Co. Ltd. Lu-chi-Su is the wife of Alex H.T. Tsai, an officer in Global Interface Company Inc. and Trans Merits Co. Ltd.

Today’s actions are a continuation of the U.S. Government’s efforts to halt North Korea’s involvement in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery. This ability of North Korea to use this network to support its global procurement activities highlights North Korea’s deceptive activities in the international commercial system and the risk associated with doing business with North Korea.

We regularly engage Taiwan authorities on the importance of preventing proliferation and will continue to work closely with them on improving their export controls. [U.S. Dep’t of Treasury Press Release, Jan. 16, 2009]

This is not so much a cause for excitement as for a small sigh of relief. KOMID is a notorious WMD proliferator that has been repeatedly sanctioned for years. In fact, it would be a sign of yet another capitulation if this administration or the next one were to cease imposing sanctions on KOMID and its business partners. Take it as a hopeful sign that so far, they haven’t.