Japan yesterday banned all remaining trade with North Korea to punish Pyongyang for its latest nuclear and missile tests.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso’s Cabinet “agreed on a ban on all export goods” to North Korea on top of an import freeze imposed after the North’s first atomic test in 2006, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said.
Tokyo’s latest move comes amid worries Pyongyang may soon conduct a third nuclear test after the UN Security Council voted on Friday for tougher sanctions in response to the regime’s May 25 underground test.
Japan’s exports to the North — mainly machinery and transport equipment such as trains and vehicles, food, electronics and industrial goods — totaled just ¥792.6 million (US$8.2 million) last year, the finance ministry said.
Analysts see Japan’s new sanctions as largely symbolic because North Korea conducts the bulk of its trade with China, also its biggest source of aid.
“Japan’s additional sanctions won’t have a substantial impact on North Korea,” said Lee Young Hwa, a Korean affairs expert at Kansai University. “The only thing left for Japan to do now is to persuade China to fully comply with the UN sanctions.”
But Kawamura insisted the ban was more than a token gesture.
“What’s most important is that North Korea make the right response ... to Japan’s strong message, even though there are people who point out the volume of exports is small,” he said.
Meanwhile, the youngest son — and reportedly heir apparent — of North Korea’s ailing leader Kim Jong-il secretly visited China last week and was urged by President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to get the government to halt additional nuclear tests, the Asahi Shimbun reported yesterday.
During the trip around June 10, Kim Jong-un asked China to continue its energy and food aid to the North, the Asahi said, quoting unnamed North Korean sources in Beijing.
It also said that Hu urged the 26-year-old to have Pyongyang refrain from carrying out any further nuclear and missile tests. It did not provide further details.
South Korea’s Foreign and Unification ministries said they could not confirm the report.
In related news, Pyongyang said yesterday that two US journalists jailed last week for 12 years had admitted a politically motivated smear campaign against the North.
Official media, giving its first details of their alleged crimes, said they crossed the border illegally “for the purpose of making animation files to be used for an anti-DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] smear campaign over its human rights issue.”
A Pyongyang court on June 8 sentenced Taiwanese-American Laura Ling (凌志美), 32, and Korean-American Euna Lee, 36, to 12 years of “reform through labor” for the illegal border crossing and an unspecified “grave crime.”
The official Korean Central News Agency said the pair were “prompted by the political motive to isolate and stifle” the North’s system.”
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