[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 140 (Thursday, September 15, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5829-S5831]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NORTH KOREA
Mr. GARDNER. Mr. President, I rise today to speak about the threat
from North Korea.
Pyongyang has just conducted its fifth nuclear test, which is the
regime's fourth test since 2009. This is also the regime's second test
this year, and this is the largest weapon they have ever tested, with
an estimated explosive yield of 10 kilotons of TNT.
The rapid advancement of North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile
program represents a grave threat to global peace and stability and a
direct threat to the U.S. homeland in our immediate future.
This past week, since the detonation of this fifth nuclear test, I
have had the opportunity to visit with General Robinson, our combatant
commander of NORTHCOM, to visit with Ambassador Ahn of North Korea, to
speak with Ambassador Sasae of Japan, to visit with Ambassador Fried of
the State Department, to talk to representatives at the Treasury
Department--all about what is happening in North Korea and our response
to the provocative actions, the dangerous actions of this regime as
they continue to attempt to obtain nuclear status. All of them are very
worried about what is happening.
In my conversations, it was clear that we can expect and anticipate
even more tests coming up, whether that is the launch of rockets
against international sanctions, U.S. sanctions, the international
community, United Nations security resolutions, or whether that is
indeed further attempts to test or actual tests of nuclear weapons.
They all recognize this will continue. They recognize the dangerous
position our allies and our homeland are in.
This morning, there was testimony from the U.S. State Department--Tom
Countryman, Assistant Secretary--talking about the fact that these
activities continue in North Korea with the assistance of outside
actors, that North Korea receives material for its nuclear program from
illegal operations in China, operations out of Russia.
So in response to this test and the dangerous actions of North Korea
and the conversations I have held across all levels of government this
past week, I am asking the administration to urgently take the
following actions:
No. 1. Take immediate steps to expand U.S. sanctions against North
Korea and those entities that assist the regime--most importantly,
China-based entities. We know there are entities within China that are
assisting the
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North Korean regime, violating U.S. sanctions, and violating United
Nations Security Council resolutions. The administration must take
immediate steps to expand these sanctions against them and anyone who
is violating the regime of sanctions.
No. 2. We must negotiate a new United Nations Security Council
resolution that closes loopholes that have allowed China to skip full-
faith enforcement. I will talk more about that in a little bit, but the
fact is that China is finding exemptions in existing resolutions to
skip full-faith enforcement. Why is that important? Because we know
that about 90 percent of North Korea's economy--their hard currency--
comes from these types of operations and business with China.
No. 3. We must expedite the deployment of the terminal high altitude
area defense--THAAD--system in South Korea. We must expedite the THAAD
system to make sure South Korea has the ability to protect itself from
these aggressive actions taken by the North Korean regime.
No. 4. Take all feasible steps to facilitate a stronger trilateral
alliance between the United States, Japan, and South Korea to more
effectively counter the North Korean threat. A strong trilateral
alliance between Japan, the United States, and South Korea can be used
to help China make sure they are enforcing the regulations, standing up
to full-faith execution of the sanctions, and make sure we are pushing
peaceful denuclearization of the North Korean regime.
It is unfortunate--this aggression in North Korea isn't new. The
aggression we see from North Korea today predates the current
administration and goes back multiple administrations. Time and time
again since I came to the Senate, I have stood before this great body
and I have argued that this administration's policy of so-called
strategic patience--which was crafted under then-Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton--was failing to stop the forgotten maniac in Pyongyang.
The regime's nuclear stockpile is growing fast. Nuclear experts have
reported that North Korea may have as many as 20 nuclear warheads and
has the potential to possess as many as 100 warheads within the next 5
years. The administration has admitted that the policy of strategic
patience has failed. It is evident in the fact that they have 100
nuclear warheads coming online in the next several years. But we have
gone from a strategy of strategic patience to no strategy at all when
it comes to dealing with the North Korean regime.
The regime's ballistic missile capability is rapidly advancing.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has stated in his
testimony to Congress that ``North Korea has also expanded the size and
sophistication of its ballistic missile force--from close-range
ballistic missiles to intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)--and
continues to conduct test launches.''
Director Clapper also stated that ``Pyongyang is also committed to
developing a long-range, nuclear-armed missile that is capable of
posing a direct threat to the United States.''
Assistant Secretary Tom Countryman testified before the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee that the activities involved for the
construction of this nuclear warhead in North Korea have been
indigenized, meaning that it is coming from the industry within North
Korea. They are not relying on Pakistan or others to provide it for
them; they have the engineering know-how and they have the capabilities
to build it on their own, within the country, without turning outside
for help. He also said that some material, yes, is coming from China
and Russia. And that is exactly what we must stop.
We should never forget that the Kim Jong-un regime has been one of
the world's foremost abusers of human rights. The North Korean regime
maintains a vast network of political prison camps where as many as
200,000 men, women, and children are confined to atrocious living
conditions, where they are tortured, maimed, and killed. This isn't
just report language; I have spoken to defectors from North Korea who
talk of these political concentration camps where this torture is
occurring. On February 7, 2014, the United Nations Human Rights
Commission of Inquiry released a groundbreaking report detailing North
Korea's horrendous record on human rights. The Commission found that
North Korea's actions constituted a ``crime against humanity.''
We also know that Pyongyang is quickly developing its cyber
capabilities as another dangerous tool of intimidation, an asymmetric
tool, demonstrated by its attack on Sony Pictures, the hacking incident
that occurred in November of 2014, and the repeated attack on the South
Korean financial and communication systems. According to a recent
report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, ``North
Korea is emerging as a significant actor in cyberspace with both its
military and clandestine organizations gaining the ability to conduct
cyber operations.'' They are trying and striving to achieve an
asymmetric capability so that they can attack South Korea, our allies,
such as Japan, and, indeed, the United States.
So given this record of aggression from North Korea and fecklessness
from this administration--the fact that we went from a failed policy, a
strategy of strategic patience to no strategy--the Congress came
together this year to pass the North Korean Sanction and Policy
Enhancement Act, legislation I coauthored here in the Senate with my
colleague Senator Bob Menendez. This legislation, which President Obama
signed into law on February 18, 2016, was a momentous achievement, and
for the first time ever, our Congress imposed mandatory sanctions on
North Korea. Unfortunately, the administration's implementation of this
legislation has been lacking and certainly disappointing. While they
have taken some positive steps, such as designating North Korea as a
jurisdiction of ``primary money laundering concern'' and also
designating top North Korean officials, including Kim Jong-un, as human
rights violators, these actions only scratch the surface of the
sanctions authorities provided to the President under the new law.
We know the source of the majority of North Korea's export earnings
is the People's Republic of China. Nearly 90 percent of North Korea's
trade is with China. Yet, to date, no Chinese entities that are
responsible for this 90 percent have been designated for sanctions
violations under the new legislation. So while we are trying to keep
this regime from continuing to grow a nuclear profile, the entities
that are giving them the money and the resources to do it outside of
the country haven't faced the sanctions this body authorized earlier
this year.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in an editorial on August 18, 2016:
The promise of secondary sanctions is that they can force
foreign banks, trading companies and ports to choose between
doing business with North Korea and doing business in
dollars, which usually is an easy call. . . . But this only
works if the U.S. exercises its power and blacklists
offending institutions, as Congress required in February's
North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act. The Obama
administration hasn't done so even once.
As the Wall Street Journal further noted, for instance, the
administration has not acted on information from the United Nations
Panel of Experts Report that the Bank of China ``allegedly helped a
North Korea-linked client get $40 million in deceptive wire transfers
through U.S. banks.''
Moreover, there is ample evidence of increased North Korean efforts
to evade sanctions with help from Chinese-based entities. According to
a New York Times report on September 9, 2016, ``To evade sanctions, the
North's state-run trading companies opened offices in China, hired more
capable Chinese middlemen, and paid higher fees to employ more
sophisticated brokers.''
This isn't a regime that is facing the full wrath of the sanctions of
the United States; this is a regime that has figured out how to use its
neighboring countries to cheat to evade sanctions. We need those
neighboring nations, which I know also agree in the denuclearization of
North Korea, to step up, to stand up and agree to stop the provocations
of North Korea by ensuring that we can shut down the money flow,
ensuring that we can shut down the supplies, the materials they are
using in this nuclear production, make sure they stop providing trade
opportunities for hard currency going to North Korea that is feeding a
nuclear program, not feeding the people of North Korea.
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This behavior can't be tolerated, and the administration now has the
tools to punish these actions. It is unacceptable that it has not done
so already, despite the will of this body. Passage of our legislation
96 to 0--every Republican and Democrat supported our efforts to impose
sanctions on this regime. These latest developments in North Korea show
that we are now reaping the rewards for our weak policies. The simple
fact is that this administration's strategic patience has been a
strategic failure, both with North Korea and with China, and has
resulted in no strategy.
As Secretary Ash Carter stated immediately following the latest
nuclear test, China shares an important responsibility for this
development and has an important responsibility to reverse it. It is
important that it use its location, its history, and its influence to
further the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and not the
direction that things have been going. We must now send a strong
message to Beijing that our patience has run out and exert any and all
effort with Beijing to use its critical leverage to stop the madman in
Pyongyang. We must not tolerate this behavior.
The four things that I pointed out at the beginning of this talk are
important to secure. Tomorrow I will be sending a letter to the
President. Over a dozen Members of this body have signed and agreed to
participate in this letter, asking a series of questions about our
strategy toward North Korea, about the compliance of China and whether
they are living up to the full faith of the United Nations Security
Council Resolution 2270.
Are they skirting the resolution? We are encouraging the closure of
the livelihood exemption in the Security Council resolution. It talks
about Air Koryo and its ability to skirt the sanctions to help secure
luxury goods that are banned by the sanctions.
I hope that other colleagues will stand with me as we make sure that
we are doing everything we can to stop the actions of a regime that is
bent on the destruction of its neighbor South Korea--our great ally. It
is bent on the destruction of our allies around the region and
certainly intent on finding the capability, the technology to deliver
one of those warheads to the U.S. homeland.
This is an important issue for this generation. It is important that
this generation act and solve it before the next generation bears the
consequences.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
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