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“NORTH KOREA” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Senate section on pages S5829-S5831 on Sept. 15, 2016.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
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 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.
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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