Donald Trump thinks his “maximum pressure” campaign persuaded North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But it’s a bunch of baloney. The reason Kim Jong-un is planning to denuclearize is because China adamantly opposes nuclear weapons on the peninsula. That’s the whole deal in a nutshell. China, who is North Korea’s biggest trading partner, gave Kim an ultimatum: Ditch the nukes or face long-term economic strangulation. Kim very wisely chose the former option, which is to say, he backed down.
The situation in North Korea is really quite bleak. Consider, for example, this recent piece in a United Nations periodical titled “The 5 most under-reported humanitarian crises that are happening right now”. Heading the list is this blurb on North Korea:
“….what has been drastically underreported in the last year is that unprecedented number of people who are going hungry. The UN estimates that 70 percent of the population, or 18 million people, are food-insecure and reliant on government aid. To make things worse, last year North Korea experienced its worst drought in 16 years, exacerbating an already dire food shortage. With tight control of its borders keeping out aid organizations and journalists, it’s almost impossible to capture how many are actually receiving the urgent food aid they need.” (U.N. Dispatch)
Unfortunately, famine and drought are just the tip of the iceberg. The economic sanctions have added a whole new layer to the North’s misery, in fact, they have brought the economy to its knees. Pyongyang might have been able to muddle through had Beijing not joined the international blockade, but once China agreed to participate, the North’s fate was sealed. In the last year, the DPRK’s currency has dropped precipitously, the country’s import-export trade has been slashed by half, and the battered economy has plunged into a deep slump. The problem is almost entirely attributable to China’s tightening sanctions regime which has effectively cut off the flow of capital and vital resources to the North. In order to grasp how overly dependent the DPRK is on China, take a look at this:
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