Seeing as my Major in College is East Asian Studies International Relations (EASIR), I want to briefly comment on the UN Security Council’s recent resolution (Resolution 1718) concerning North Korea (DPRK) and their WMDs. This is a big deal, internationally, for a couple of reasons.

1. First, the U.S. and Japan are the most aggressive players, calling for heavy sanctions against North Korea. (Huh? Japan holding an aggressive position? Japan debating a military response? Interesting)
2. Second, China voted for Res. 1718 which binds them to some serious sanctions against North Korea (normally China veto’s sanctions against anyone even Iran or Iraq).
3. Third, North Korea’s actions indicate that they do not care. (the display made my the DPRK walking out shows arrogance and a general disregard for international diplomacy system)
4. And forth, no one knows how far this is going to play-out, so precautions are already taking place in case of the worst.

Some things that are significant (in my opinion) in the actual resolution is that:

· It demands the DPRK to not test/fire another missile

· It demands DPRK is disband every WMD they own

· It calls on all UN States (China, ROK, Japan incl.) to not send direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer military goods or otherwise including luxury goods (something that the DPRK elite often import) (See Paragraph 8)

Other things that are important are that, China is bound by the resolution to carry out what it requires of them. Perhaps this little stunt by the DPRK will convince China of their rogue-state behavior?

I might be wrong, but I also think that the reason the U.S. is cracking down on North Korea is because they want to send a clear message to Iran, basically saying if you go ahead with WMDs, the US will thrown down on you.

Here in Japan, it’s on the news all the time. It’s on people’s minds here, the general opinion is that the North Korean People are good people; it’s just that their leader is not. I’ll simply say that there’s years of history between Japan and the Pacific Rim Asian nations. If you want to see diplomacy at work, I find this N.Korea situation to be the ultimate example of international diplomacy at work… for all of us little people.

More to come later…

~J out

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