In a follow up to yesterday’s post, I have come across a piece in Time Magazine by Eben Harrell of Harvard’s Belfer Center. In it, Harrell discusses the thriving nuclear export business Kim John Il established during his reign in which he allegedly provided equipment for fissile materials production and missile technology to countries such as Syria and Iran. Such links are evidenced by, for example, the fact that the Al-Kibar reactor bombed by the Israelis closely resembled the North Korean plutonium reactor at Pyongyang.
With information from North Korean defectors, the Harrell piece also provides an interesting nugget of information about how the illicit export network allegedly functions.
AFP/Getty
“What’s not clear is how much this network relied on support or at least authorization from Kim Jong Il. But reports from North Korean defectors once involved in the tripartite proliferation network suggest it is highly sophisticated and involves many different layers of officialdom. It may work something like this: North Korean state trading companies working directly for the DPRK regime set up branch offices in mainland China. These companies contract private Chinese firms to send purchase orders to the local subsidiaries of European industrial machinery companies, who have set up shop in China specifically to cash in on China’s growing domestic market. These domestic orders, of course, are not subject to export controls, so without knowing it, western subsidiaries sell dual-use technology — industrial tool and dye equipment, for example — directly to private Chinese firms, who then use their established routes to transport the goods to North Korea. In terms of sales, North Korea state trading companies are also contracting private Chinese firms to move sensitive goods through Southeast Asia (including Myanmar) and on to clients in the Middle East.”
Harrell concludes by emphasizing that the potential vacuum created by Kim Jong Il’s death should prod the West to stop the DPRK’s illicit nuclear trade network once and for all. As I noted yesterday, one can only hope that the regime change indeed provides some opportunity for breakthrough in the ongoing impasse on the Korean Peninsula.