Division over North Korea could have lethal results

Defiant North Korea challenged the international community again last Sunday when it tested yet another missile, and no one has yet discovered a clear way to stop tensions mounting on the peninsula. Two missile tests in as many weeks underscored Pyongyang’s resolve to ignore international warnings and concerns. It aims to achieve its stated objective at all costs – the ability to strike back at any aggressors.
The latest test – the 11th this year – likely involved a medium-range ballistic missile. It flew 560 kilometres before falling into the Sea of Japan. The previous test, on May 14, covered 800km, but still dropped short of Japan’s offshore Exclusive Economic Zone. That one involved the new Hwasong-12 missile, which can reportedly reach an altitude of 2,000km, making it both more accurate to aim and more difficult to detect or shoot down.
All indications suggest North Korean armament technology is well advanced and becoming more sophisticated all the time. The country still lags far behind the big powers – the United States, Russia and China – but it has reached a stage where the potential mass destruction and lethality of its rockets cannot be underestimated. Add to this the far greater threat of the North’s nuclear capabilities. It is believed its missiles will soon be able to deliver nuclear warheads considerable distances. The top-secret nuclear programme began in the 1950s, but has made significant progress since Kim Jong-un came to power half a decade ago.
Amid such grave concerns, it is deeply worrying that the international community has no cohesive strategy for dealing with the threat. The same three approaches are discussed endlessly – deterrence, sanctions and dialogue. All three could be pursued at the same time, but none can be effective unless they’re implemented systematically and with unity. For now, the United States and its allies in Northeast Asia favour applying pressure through political and economic sanctions. Other nations, notably China, want to get Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.
Washington and Seoul have already ramped up pressure on the North by bringing to the peninsula the US-built Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THADD), designed to knock down incoming rockets. As well as making Kim even more intransigent, the deployment has dismayed Beijing, which responded by threatening economic retaliation against South Korea. Nor does Beijing support additional financial sanctions against Pyongyang, which buys more than 90 per cent of its foreign goods from China. Beijing points out that more sanctions would also hurt North Korean citizens. 
Meanwhile the situation in South Korea changed dramatically with the election a week ago of progressive president Moon Jae-in. He has family in the North and is apt to be empathetic regarding cross-border relations. He’s also no great fan of the US, and as a candidate opposed the THADD plan. Moon is of the camp that prefers talking with the North to tightening the sanctions noose.
It is this divisiveness among nations, born of disparate interests, that gives North Korea the loopholes it needs to survive. If the North’s survival were all that was at stake, there would be little if any cause for concern. But its arrogance in the face of international appeals, its refusal to abandon nuclear weaponry, and its loud, steady testing of long-range missiles demand that foreign nations agree on an approach to the problem, and soon.