True it may not be that harmful, but Japan has today started its first "not a sanction" sanction against North Korea. On its own this is not a big deal - but it will put a crimp in Norh Korea's trade and it should bring home to the North Koreans that failure to negotiate doesn't just affect the size of the "aid" bribe but may have other negative consequences.
Japundit links to another piece on North Korea, in this case it is a proposal that the US deploy tactical nukes in South Korea again. I can see some problems here but I can also see that this would tend to ratchet up the pressure on North Korea and the PRC quite nicely. On the whole anything that helps to split the PRC from N Korea has to be good.