NK ghost ships, dead bodies and sanctions

The grisly find came just one day after three decomposing bodies were found floating off the coast of the adjacent Yamagata Prefecture. A week before that, a boat was found grounded on a beach in Akita Prefecture with the putrefying remains of eight people inside. 
Although the dead couldn’t talk, details such as a lapel pin and cigarettes showed where they had come from: North Korea. 
Twenty-eight such discoveries were made in the waters near Japan last month, some of boats carrying people who were still alive. 
Every year, up to 85 North Korean boats wash up on Japanese shores. But the November tally, which tops a previous monthly record of 21 in January 2014, is unusual. 
Experts attribute the recent spike to United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed on the rogue nation coupled with a growing trend of capitalism. 
“It seems [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un has been focusing on the fishing industry and pressuring North Korean citizens to produce results,” Professor Lee Woo-young, a professor of the University of North Korean Studies, explains.
“But with its poor infrastructure combined with the dire effect of the current sanctions, some are pushed over the edge,” he adds, referring to the poorly equipped boats that are easily pulled off course by strong currents and southwesterly winds if their engines fail. 
“There are also personal ambitions involved, as its citizens are now interested in making material profits after Kim Jong-un adopted a new pro-market economic structure,” Lee says. 
Whether it is by force or of their own volition, more of these North Korean “ghost ships” are expected to enter Japanese waters since fishing is now one of the few economic options left for Pyongyang after series of punishing sanctions. 
Last week a group of 10 North Korean crewmen told the Japan Coast Guard they were trying to meet the fishing quota assigned by the North Korean military. The fishermen were picked up on November 28, near Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, packed in a boat stamped with “The 854th military unit of the Korean People’s Army”.
“Since [Kim rose to power], fishermen have been frantically trying to meet catch goals, but what’s different this year is that they are travelling to distant waters in their fragile boats,” Pyon Jin-il, a leading North Korea watcher and writer based in Japan, told AFP. 
“North Korea last year sold part of its fishing rights in the Yellow Sea to China in exchange for foreign currency, so their fishermen have been kicked out of the western part of their waters,” he said.
The rogue state is also reported to have sold fishing rights in the East Sea to China. Fishing had raked in annual revenue of $75 million for Kim’s regime, Yonhap reported in August, citing unidentified intelligence sources. 
Most of the hard currency earned is believed to fund its weapons programme and military while ordinary North Korean citizens suffer from lack of food and other basic necessities. 
On November 29, Pyongyang test-fired what experts confirm was a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland. Government officials in Seoul and in Washington have warned that North Korea’s weapons programme is “near completion”.
Meanwhile, Japan has decided to bolster its sea patrols around its maritime border.