from the international-tantrum dept.
Last week, North Korea promised a “preemptive nuclear strike” prior to a UN vote on new sanctions. Despite the threat, the sanctions were unanimously approved. North Korea has responded by killing a Red Cross hotline with Seoul and claims that it has canceled the 1953 Armistice although the UN notes this cannot be done unilaterally (North Korea attempted the same thing in 2003 and 2009). While everyone thought that Kim Jong Un would ride out the sanctions on slush funds, the United States claims to have found his funds in Shanghai and other parts of China totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Beijing has reportedly refused to confiscate these funds despite voting for the very UN resolutions sanctioning North Korea that read: ‘More specifically, States are directed to prevent the provision of financial services or the transfer of any financial or other assets or resources, including ‘bulk cash,’ which might be used to evade the sanctions.
My comment,
I don’t think the United States has a leg to stand on when it comes to bitching at China for harboring/sactioned funds for North Korea. We haven’t even dealt with HSBC, but with a slight slap on the wrist that wasn’t even a dop in a bucket in cost to the bank. Hell we have more problems to care about NK right now.
However, NK is a legitimate threat, to itself. When they do something (2004, 2009, 2010, 2012) it is nothing more than just small show. With a nuke, they could end up harming more innocent people than intentioned (or intentional) doesn’t really matter. NK will end up destroying itself.
