North Korea penalized by U.S., Japan, China, South Korea for hostility

Aftershocks from North Korea’s satellite launch over the weekend continued to reverberate on both sides of Pacific on Wednesday, as South Korea pulled the plug on a high-profile joint venture with Pyongyang, the U.S. and Japan moved ahead on new economic sanctions on the North and China faced increasing pressure to rein in its rogue ally.

In the latest sign of international anger, Republican and Democratic senators set aside their partisan differences Wednesday evening to pass on a 96-0 vote a sanctions bill to cut off the lifeline North Korea is using to finance its nuclear ambitions.

“While there is no silver-bullet solution, it is clear that Congress must play a proactive role in providing more robust policy tools to the executive branch to confront this threat,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, Tennessee Republican, said during the debate.

There were signs of internal turmoil in the North Korean capital as well. Reports said Kim Jong-un had ordered the execution of a top military general earlier this month — the latest in a yearslong parade of bloody purges that the young dictator has carried out in a bid to consolidate power in the isolated nation.

Gen. Ri Yong-gil, No. 3 in the North Korean army, was executed last week on charges of corruption and pursuing personal gains, according to a report by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, which cited unidentified sources, including one who said the development “shows that Kim Jong-un is very nervous about the armed forces.”

If confirmed, the death would come less than a year after the execution of former Defense Minister Hyon Yong-chol and add to the list of some 70 officials purged since late 2011. The most spectacular example was the 2013 killing, allegedly for treason, of the 33-year-old dictator’s uncle Jang Song-thaek, considered to be the second most powerful man in the regime.

Mr. Kim has repeatedly defied the U.N. Security Council and wider international community with a series of provocative actions, including the test early last month of a miniaturized nuclear bomb and the subsequent long-range rocket launch carried out just days ago by Pyongyang.

North Korea’s state-controlled media said the launch Sunday was merely to put a satellite into orbit. But U.S., South Korean and Japanese officials said it was intended to test ballistic missile technology for long-range nuclear weapons.

While the Obama administration for years has pursued a self-described policy of “strategic patience” toward Pyongyang, in hopes that the Kim regime may re-engage in multiparty nuclear talks that broke down in 2009, the latest launch and nuclear test appear to have spurred action at the White House and on Capitol Hill.

In addition to pushing for a new U.N. Security Council resolution to ramp up international economic sanctions against North Korea, U.S. officials on Sunday announced the formalization of long-anticipated talks with Seoul toward deploying an advanced Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile shield in South Korea.

White House officials have said President Obama conferred by phone Monday with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to discuss other potential actions the three nations might take. Both leaders responded Wednesday.

Japan announced that it would unilaterally impose new sanctions, including expanded restrictions on travel and a complete ban on visits by North Korean ships to Japanese ports. All money transfers, except for those less than $880 for humanitarian purposes, will also be banned.

Killing Kaesong

South Korea, meanwhile, said it will end operations at the Kaesong industrial complex — the symbolic joint business venture between the two Koreas, which technically remain in a state of war.

The Kaesong complex, where goods have been produced by North and South Koreans working together since 2004, was a test case for reunification on the Korean Peninsula. In the past year alone, 124 South Korean companies hired 54,000 North Koreans to produce socks, wristwatches and other goods at the complex.

Ms. Park came to power in 2013 on a promise to pursue peace and reunification with the North, but officials in Seoul on Wednesday accused Pyongyang of using hard-currency profits from Kaesong to pay for its missile and nuclear weapon development programs.

South Korean Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo claimed at a news conference that Kaesong has provided some $560 million in cash to the impoverished North.

“It appears that such funds have not been used to pave the way to peace as the international community had hoped,” he said, “but rather to upgrade its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.”

That assertion was made a day after Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper testified in Washington that North Korea was expanding its uranium enrichment activities, had restarted a plutonium reactor and was developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile capable reaching the U.S. mainland.

U.S. lawmakers for weeks have called on the Obama administration to level a tough response to the early January nuclear test, the fourth carried out by North Korea since 2006. The Senate vote Wednesday reflected the growing anger.

The bill, authored by Sens. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat, and Cory Gardner, Colorado Republican, targets North Korea’s ability to finance the development of miniaturized nuclear warheads and the long-range missiles required to deliver them, and authorizes $50 million over the next five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea, purchase communications equipment and support humanitarian assistance programs.

House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce, California Republican and the sponsor of a version of the bill already cleared by the House, said the legislation amounts to a “break from President Obama’s approach of ’strategic patience’ that even the administration knows isn’t working.”

What remains to be seen is whether the U.N. Security Council will also increase sanctions. The Obama administration has pushed for more punitive measures in recent weeks but has met resistance from China, a permanent Security Council member and North Korea’s chief trading partner and ally.

But there are signs Beijing may change its calculus about Mr. Kim’s regime.

The Nikkei Asian Review reported Wednesday that a chorus of voices inside China are calling for tougher measures against North Korea, quoting Zhang Liangui, a professor and analyst on Korean Peninsula affairs at the Party School of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee — a training ground for future Chinese officials — as calling for a harder line against Pyongyang.

“North Korea continues to challenge international law,” Mr. Zhang said in a recent interview, according to the Nikkei. “So China should impose tougher sanctions.”

Beijing, he said, should introduce a trade embargo on minerals from North Korea and, every six months, review whether to crack down further. Mr. Zhang is known for advocating a strict approach toward Pyongyang, but he is not the only Chinese pundit proposing more pressure, according to the Nikkei.

The publication maintained that China imports more than $860 million worth of coal from North Korea annually and that reducing these shipments would dent North Korea’s already feeble economy, potentially delaying the country’s nuclear weapons program.