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Teddy Ng

Shi Jiangtao

China announced sweeping sanctions against North Korea on Monday, extending an import ban to iron, iron ore and seafood.
The Ministry of Commerce said the ban, which also covered coal, would take effect on Tuesday.
The order extends the existing ban on coal imports to next year and is expected to hit the North Korean economy hard.
The latest sanctions are open-ended and will stay in place as long as North Korea continues with its nuclear and missile programmes.
But observers said it was not clear how effective it would be in curbing the reclusive state’s nuclear ambitions.
How US sanctions against North Korea could affect Chinese banks
The UN Security Council approved tough sanctions against Pyongyang on August 6 in response to North Korea’s two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month.
It came after China announced in February that it would ban coal imports from North Korea for the rest of this year, complying with an earlier UN resolution.
As a result, China’s imports from North Korea fell 13 per cent to US$800 million in the first half.
Just 10 days elapsed between the UN resolution and China’s adoption of the latest sanctions, compared with 90 days between the earlier UN resolution and the coal ban in February.




Zhang Huizhi, a northeast Asian studies specialist at Jilin University, said the situation now was much more urgent and “Beijing apparently hopes to ease the escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula”.
“It may be considered effective if the latest sanctions can have an immediate effect on North Korea’s trade revenue. But North Korea has usually remained defiant and this is unlikely to force Pyongyang to give up its nuclear ambitions,” Zhang said.
Meet China’s new point man to handle North Korean affairs
Zhang Liangui, an international relations professor at the Central Party School, said the latest ban would slash Pyongyang’s foreign trade revenue but there was still a big question mark over its effectiveness.
“Considering its track record, I doubt the North Korean regime will back down and return to the negotiating table because such limited economic sanctions will have little effect, let alone force its top leader to change his course,” Zhang Liangui said.
Beijing’s announcement comes after days of increasingly bellicose rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Xi urges restraint from Trump in phone call on North Korea crisis
On Saturday, President Xi Jinping urged Trump to avoid “words and deeds” that could worsen tensions on the peninsula. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is also in Asia to try to lessen the risk of miscalculation on the peninsula.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a regional forum last week that China would pay a price for implementing the sanctions, given China’s traditional economic ties with North Korea.


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North Korea

China extends ban on imports from North Korea in line with United Nations resolution

A worker surveys coal imported from North Korea at Dandong port on China’s border with North Korea. Photo: Reuters

No one, whether in the US or North Korea, has the moral right to drive the world to nuclear war

Our times have become revolutionary, and America must face new realities. Illustration: Craig Stephens

In this Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, file photo, a child wears a pair of shoes embroidered with the map of China in the colors of the national flag and the slogan "Those who invade my territory will be punished no matter how far away" as he lines up to visit an exhibition to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army at the military museum in Beijing, China. Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a tough line on national sovereignty Tuesday amid multiple territorial disputes with his country's neighbors, saying China will never permit the loss of "any piece" of its land to outsiders. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File)

A banner with an illustration of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed to oppose his war rhetoric on North Korea, on a street in Seoul, South Korea, Sunday, Aug. 13, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a plea for cool-headedness over escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in a phone conversation with Trump on Saturday, urging both sides to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-Joon)

China’s backing for North Korea sanctions is unlikely to turn the tide against Kim Jong-un’s regime

Nikki Hayley, the American ambassador to the UN in discussion with her Chinese counterpart Liu Jieyi ahead of Saturday’s vote to impose sanctions on North Korea. Photo: AFP

epa06114915 (FILE) - A handout photo made available by the official North Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) allegedly shows the North Korean inter-continental ballistic rocket Hwasong-14 being prepared before a test launch at an undisclosed location in North Korea, 04 July 2017. According to media reports, Japan and US Pentagon said North Korea launched a ballistic missile on 28 July 2017, believed to have landed in the Sea of Japan. EPA/KCNA HANDOUT HANDOUT EDITORIAL USE ONLY/NO SALES

epa06127008 Members of the United Nations Security Council vote on a resolution to implement new sanctions against North Korea as way to pressure Kim Jong Un's regime to return to international nuclear and missile negotiations at United Nations headquarters in New York, New York, USA, 05 August 2017. EPA/JUSTIN LANE

Trump ‘appreciates’ China, Russia backing on tough North Korea sanctions that have ‘big financial impact’

US President Donald Trump. Photo: AFP

FILE - This file photo distributed by the North Korean government shows what was said to be the launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, ICBM, in North Korea's northwest, Tuesday, July 4, 2017. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this photo. North Korea’s flurry of missile launches - 20 of them just in the past year - are a new and alarming fact of life for Japan and its other neighbors. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP, File)

(170806) -- UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 6, 2017 (Xinhua) -- Nikki Haley (R, front), U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, shakes hands with Liu Jieyi, China's Permanent Representative to the United Nations, prior to a Security Council on DPRK, at the UN headquarters in New York, Aug. 5, 2017. The United Nations Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted a U.S.-drafted resolution that aims to slash by a third the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's 3 billion U.S. dollars annual export revenue over Pyongyang's two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in July.  (Xinhua/Li Muzi)(gl)

How US sanctions against North Korea could affect Chinese banks

North Korean workers carry boxes of seafood as they load a Chinese transport truck at the Suchae Bong Corp seafood factory in Rajin, North Korea. Jessica Bartlett, a senior associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer based in Hong Kong. says since the vast amount of trade between the countries is conducted in dollars, that would make it near impossible for many Chinese banks to do business if sanctions get tougher.

A worker operates machinery on parts used to assemble locomotives at the Dalian Locomotive and Rolling Stock Works (DLoco) factory in northern China's Dalian city, Wednesday, 26 November 2003. DLoco is the largest manufacturer of diesel locomotives in China, producing 50% of the market in the entire nation. The company exports to nine countries including Iran, North Korea and Iraq. EPA/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

News

China

Diplomacy

Sanctions net expanded to iron ore and seafood but observers doubt it will be enough to bring Pyongyang to heel


North Korea nuclear crisis

North Korea sanctions