Anju, April 18, 2012

CHINA ‘PAUSES’ DEPORTATIONS? The AFP, citing the Yomiuri Shimbun, reports that China has temporarily stopped sending North Korean refugees back to Kim Jong Il’s firing squads and concentration camps to punish it for its latest misadventure in rocket science:

The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted two Chinese officials as saying the long-standing policy of swiftly returning any North Korean who made it across the border and into China — despite the punishment they face — had been put on hold.

“If refugees are sent back, that’s the end of their lives. We can’t ignore it,” one official in Liaoning province, which borders North Korea, told the paper, adding that deportations had been halted.

It’s nice to see some people in China acknowledging that their country’s policy makes them accessories to murder, but it all sounds very apocryphal and unofficial, and I’m not sure how much good it does if China only becomes less murdery for a few weeks and then empties its jails into Kim Jong Eun’s slaughterhouse.

I AM SHOCKED — SHOCKED TO SEE CHINA VIOLATING U.N. Security Council sanctions against North Korea:

China likely provided the mobile long-range missile launcher that North Korea displayed in a military parade over the weekend, which would put Beijing in violation of U.N. sanctions, analysts say. The 16-wheeled vehicle, known as a transporter-erector-launcher (TEL), is apparently based on a Chinese design, said Ted Parsons of IHS Jane’s Defense Weekly.

The Chinese and North Korean versions of the TEL “have the same windscreen design, the same four windscreen wiper configuration, the same door and handle design, a very similar grill area, almost the same front bumper lighting configuration, and the same design for the cabin steps,” Mr. Parsons noted. [Washington Times]

Not that I’m particularly interested in defending the ChiComs — there’s plenty of other evidence that they’ve been violating UNSCR 1695, 1718, and 1874 flagrantly — but the article offers no evidence to suggest that China sold North Korea this technology after 2006, when the Security Council passed the first two of those resolutions. More here, at GI Korea.

JIMMY CARTER WAS NOT AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT:

The South Korean Defense Ministry estimated this month that the North Koreans had spent $850 million on the launch — enough to buy corn to feed the entire population for a year. Hundreds of millions more are being spent to fly pro-North Korea delegates to Pyongyang for the centennial celebrations. [L.A. Times, Barbara Demick]

Loved the line about the broccoli, by the way.

REALLY, THE PRESIDENT PUT IT BEST:

President Obama defended the decision to cancel U.S. humanitarian aid to a country that suffers perennial food shortages. His administration has not previously provided any aid to the country.

“They make all these investments, tens of millions of dollars, in rockets that don’t work at a time when their people are starving, literally, and so what we intend to do is work with the international community to further isolate North Korea,” Obama said in an interview with the Spanish-language TV network Telemundo.

“Obviously any opportunity for us to provide them food aid was contingent on them abiding by international rules and international norms,” he added. “So we will continue to keep the pressure on them, and they’ll continue to isolate themselves until they take a different path.” [L.A. Times]

If only the actions lived up to the words. For example, the administration had insisted until recently that food aid wasn’t part of a quid pro quo linked to weapons. That pretense seems to have vanished now. Also, when President Obama says “keep the pressure on them,” I certainly hope he has better ideas than asking a U.N. sanctions committee to “expand the blacklist of North Korean goods, companies and individuals connected to that country’s nuclear and missile programs.” That, by itself, is hardly a credible response. It’s only my lingering sense of disbelief that prevents me from being more critical about this.

WILL NORTH KOREA’S NEXT NUKE TEST use uranium? Well, that would be another opportunity to ask Selig Harrison when we can expect to see his retraction.