The problem is North Korea is run by someone who -- whether clinically mad or not -- doesn't seem to mind if his own people starve.
That desolate nation's survival depends on two to three billion dollars of goods and money flowing in each year in order to feed and clothe its military and prevent a wholesale meltdown of its economy. But it's already near meltdown.
China is supplying some food and fuel, and North Korea's state-run enterprises are exporting a trickle of legitimate goods. But the United States has already interrupted flows of cash going into the country in exchange for illicit weapons, counterfeiting, and drug running. The Treasury has frozen international accounts of North Korean banks. Other penalties the United Nations could impose might include blocking North Korean ships, banning travel, and cutting off North Korea from world financial markets.
The idea would be to tighten the economic vise until -- until what?
That's the issue. Millions of people in that desolate land are already on the verge of starvation. Kim Jung Il doesn't seem to care. At some point the economic vise could become so tight that even Kim's military brass don't get adequate food and clothing, and maybe that drives them to pop him off. But by that time, who knows how many North Koreans will have perished.
Economics assumes people act rationality in their own self interest. But there's no guarantee of rational decision-making in North Korea, no checks and balances, no high-level council of wise strategists. All power is centralized in Kim Jung Il, who has not distinguished himself for being among the most rational of world leaders. And there's no obvious successor.
Some say Kim is only responding to what he perceives as an escalating threat of hostilities from the Bush administration. But Kim was on his way to developing a nuclear bomb before George W. Bush came to the White House. To be sure, the Bush hasn't improved the situation. It has refused to meet with him. And it has focused all its energies on Iraq -- where there were no weapons of mass destruction -- rather than North Korea, where they were clearly on the way. That's proven a tragic mistake. Of all the so-called "axes of evil," Kim's was the most dangerous from the start.
What to do now? China holds the cards here. China is the only friend Kim Jung Il has in the world. He's entirely dependent on his colossal neighbor for food and fuel. China doesn't want his regime to collapse because the ensuing chaos would send millions of refugees steaming into China, and force a takeover of that desolate nation by South Korea. Not even South Korea wants the huge financial burden that would entail -- which would make German reunification look cheap by comparison.
But nor does China want a nuclear North Korea, because that might prompt Japan to adopt nuclear weapons to counter the threat, which could lead to South Korea and even Taiwan to do so, too.
If China is smart it will bribe Kim Jung Il to give up his nuclear program -- dangling economic benefits, new investment, modern infrastructure. China could help transform North Korea into another Asian tiger, which would make it far less dangerous to everyone, including China.
Kim Jung Il may not be rational, but the Chinese leadership is. And they're our best hope now for a rational outcome to this mess.
Robert B. Reich is co-founder of The American Prospect. A version of this column originally appeared on Marketplace.
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