The unanimous passage of the US-initiated resolution on North Korea was probably the easier part of the challenge confronting the United Nations Security Council as it grapples with the fallout of Pyongyang’s nuclear test. There were signs of differences among the permanent members of the council when the resolution was being drafted, and it appears those differences have not quite been bridged after its passage. The resolution calls for a freeze in the funds or assets of persons or companies that support Pyongyang and lists a raft of measures targeting its weapons and missile programmes, including a call for the inspection of North Korea-bound cargo vessels for banned materials. This is obviously a tricky proposition, given that the restrictions do not apply to essential items like foodstuffs and medicine. The North Koreans, acknowledged masters of clandestine global trade, are likely to take advantage of this, smuggling in goods meant for civilian use before painting them khaki. Pesticides for instance, can be used for rocket fuel, just as aluminium tubes meant for prams can also double as missile fuselage.
The bigger challenge to the proposed embargo is in the attitudes of the two most important countries needed to enforce them — North Korea’s neighbours, China and South Korea. Though Beijing supported the resolution, it now seems to be shying away from large-scale cargo inspections. South Korea, too, shows no signs of abandoning its economic projects with Pyongyang, which include a major industrial zone and tourist resort in the North that are important sources of hard currency for Pyongyang. Without the cooperation of these two countries, an embargo will be more or less meaningless.
Worries over the consequences of a North Korean collapse may be behind Beijing and Seoul’s soft stance. This should not be seen as being unreasonable as long as the two take the primary responsibility of getting the parallel six-nation talks going again. There is a special urgency for either process — the UN embargo or the six-nation talks — to yield results fast because of North Korea’s erratic behaviour. The failure of either the UN or the six-nation talks to get Pyongyang’s nuclear genie back into the bottle will have repercussions across the entire world. But the biggest losers will be north-east Asia, not excluding China.