Editorial: North Korea's dangerous game

Confronted by North Korea's long-range rocket launch, the United Nations Security Council has done what it usually does in a crisis - nothing.

Russia's ambassador to the UN has warned against an "emotional knee-jerk reaction" and China's foreign minister wants offended nations to look at all sides of the picture and avoid taking actions that might exacerbate the situation. Both countries have signalled that they will use their veto power to oppose any new sanctions on North Korea.

They are set against the Western nations, which do not view North Korea's growing missile prowess with the same equanimity as Moscow and Beijing. The rocket might have crashed into the Pacific, but its launch is rightly seen as another step along the way to a North Korean intercontinental missile.

That is why the Japanese, under the flightpath of Sunday's test, want, at a minimum, the UN to enforce the sanctions it has already put in place against the Kim Jong-Il regime. It is why United States President Barack Obama declaimed that "rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something".

In the absence of any meaningful UN action, it is up to those nations, and the others that do not relish the idea of a dictator facing desperate times and having access to intercontinental missiles, to come up with new answers to their North Korean dilemma.

The reality is that Kim Jong-Il is not a mad man. Instead, he has played a skilled hand with the launch, strengthening his position internationally and domestically.

At home, he will tout the launch which the North Koreans are being told was successful, with the satellite not crashing but going into orbit, from where it is now broadcasting patriotic songs to the military and people as showing his leadership is still vital.

Internationally, he will use it to gain more aid and more concessions.

His timing has been astute. The launch tests a new American president who is already facing a titanic recession at home and who is wrestling with the legacy his predecessor left him in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now Mr Obama cannot let North Korea slip down the agenda.

Mr Kim's expectation will be that Mr Obama's solution will be the same as his predecessor's a lot of rhetoric, followed by a stick-and-carrot programme where the stick gets forgotten. In recent years much of the aid that is vital to his country's survival has come from the US, supposedly in return for defusing crises that North Korea itself created.

That cannot be allowed to happen again. This time the West must ensure the stick is applied as vigorously as the carrot is offered.

More importantly, it must convince the Chinese that it is in no-one's interest to allow Mr Kim to continue to thumb his nose at the international community, because ultimately solving the Korean dilemma rests on what is decided round the politburo table in Beijing, not the security council table in New York.

- © Fairfax NZ News

Newest First

Oldest First

Korea's right   #1   03:59 pm Jul 06 2009

Korea has every right to build up its own defence systems. The world has no right to interfere. Only China has the right to manage its region. Certainly USA has no right even to be in South Korea causing this continual threat to another country. It has no business to be there, just like it has no business in New Zealand. We don't want another America caused war! America has an equal right to build up its own miltary and defence systems for itself. Asia has no right to interfere with America, Europe has no right to interfere with Asia, America has not god given rights either outside of America. Korea has not threatened New Zealand, and N.Z has no right to interfere with Korea either. Keep it simple stupid. A map of the world is good for that, see where things are!

Ad Feedback