Putting Kim Jong Il on a diet
By Edward Kim
The U.S. government’s recent moves on sanctioning luxury sales to North Korea is ingenious on many levels.
It heeds the wisdom of Sun Tzu: “If your opponent is of choleric temper, irritate him.” As one report puts it:
“The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.”
Just the thought that the life of even one party cadre will be inconvenienced in any way makes the U.S. effort worthwhile.
It reminds the world that the U.S. does not consider North Korea to be the enemy but those 600 loyalist families who enjoy watching their plasma tvs while tens of thousands of their citizens flee to Mongolia and Thailand for their lives.
It seeks to punish the governing elites while avoiding the negative repercussions that more general aid sanctions would likely have had on the general population.
It exposes the moral inconsistency and general lack of wisdom of groups like America’s mainline denominations which have zealously advocated for divestments against Israel but have remained deafeningly silent in regards to North Korea.
It reveals with greater clarity the fundamental moral difference between the governments of the United States and China as represented by their U.N. ambassadors’ responses in this news account (note: Bolton’s statement here is my favorite quote of the year):
Asked why luxury goods were banned, Bolton said, “I think the North Korean population has been losing average height and weight over the years and maybe this will be a little diet for Kim Jong Il,” North Korea’s leader.
Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya, asked earlier whether Beijing was prepared to go along with the ban, said: “I don’t know what luxury goods means, because luxury goods can mean many things for different people … if they don’t have it.”
Above all, the sanctions have tremendous prophetic value in revealing the depths of the depravity of this regime as well as of those companies that continue to support it.
For example, during the height of the Kim Jong Il-made famine in the 1990s that killed 2 million North Koreans, foreign customs offices reported that North Korea imported $24 million worth of Swiss watches, and $1.3 million worth of French perfume. The regime partied while the people starved.
I am heartened that the U.N. luxury bans are gaining traction in the international community and that Japan has already begun vigorously pursuing enforcement (though I am wary just how sympathetic their WWII atrocities-denying prime minister really is to the plight of the “impoverished general public” of North Korea). I can only hope that more of Kim Jong Il’s private funds are frozen as was done with his $24 million in Macau-based Banco Delta Asia.
In any case, let us continue to pray not only for the weight loss problem of the average North Korean but also for the success of the special diet program for the Dear Leader and his inner circle.
