US And China Pressure North Korea After Sanctions Vote

A PAC-3 surface-to-air missile launch system
is seen deployed at the defence ministry in
Tokyo on July 4, 2017. North Korea
launched a ballistic missile on July 4 as the
United States prepared to celebrate its
Fourth of July independence day, just days
after Seoul’s new leader Moon Jae-In and US
President Donald Trump focused on the
threat from Pyongyang in their first
summit.
Toshifumi KITAMURA / AFP
The United States and China piled new
pressure on North Korea Sunday to
abandon its nuclear missile programme
after the UN Security Council approved
tough new sanctions which could cost
Pyongyang $1 billion a year.
One day after Council members voted
unanimously for a partial ban on exports
aimed at slashing Pyongyang’s foreign
revenue by a third, top diplomats from the
key powers in the dispute met in Manila.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he
was encouraged by the vote, but officials
warned that Washington would closely
watch China North Korea’s biggest trade
partner — to ensure sanctions are
enforced.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his
North Korean counterpart Ri Hong-Yo
before a major regional security forum
being hosted by the 10-nation Association
of Southeast Asian Nations.
He urged the North to halt its nuclear and
ballistic missile tests.
“It will help the DPRK to make the right and
smart decision,” Wang told reporters,
speaking through a translator, after talks
with Ri — referring to the sanctions and to
Ri’s presence in Manila.
Pyongyang’s top envoy has so far avoided
the media in Manila.
But in a characteristically fiery editorial
before the latest sanctions were approved,
the North’s ruling party newspaper Rodong
Sinmun warned against US aggression.
“The day the US dares tease our nation with
a nuclear rod and sanctions, the mainland
US will be catapulted into an unimaginable
sea of fire,” it said.
Tillerson was due to meet Wang and
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later
on Sunday, seeking to intensify Kim Jong-
Un’s diplomatic isolation and reduce the
risk of renewed conflict.
“It was a good outcome,” Tillerson said of
the UN vote, before a meeting with South
Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-Wha.
Senior US envoy Susan Thornton said
Washington was “still going to be watchful”
on the implementation of sanctions,
cautioning that previous votes had been
followed by China “slipping back”.
But she added China’s support for the UN
resolution “shows that they realise that this
is a huge problem that they need to take
on”.
‘Military option’
The urgency of the situation was
underlined by President Donald Trump’s
national security adviser H.R. McMaster, who
told MSNBC news that the US leader was
reviewing plans for a “preventive war”.
“He said he’s not going to tolerate North
Korea being able to threaten the United
States,” McMaster said.
“It’s intolerable from the president’s
perspective. So of course, we have to
provide all options to do that. And that
includes a military option.”
Saturday’s UN resolution banned exports of
coal, iron and iron ore, lead and lead ore as
well as fish and seafood by the cash-starved
state.
If fully implemented it would strip North
Korea of a third of its export earnings —
estimated to total $3 billion per year despite
successive rounds of sanctions since the
North’s first nuclear test in 2006.
The resolution also prevents North Korea
from increasing the number of workers it
sends abroad. Their earnings are another
source of foreign currency for Kim’s regime.
It prohibits all new joint ventures with
North Korea, bans new investment in
current joint companies and adds nine
North Korean officials and four entities
including the North’s main foreign
exchange bank to the UN sanctions
blacklist.
What next?
Trump hailed the vote — saying in a tweet
that the sanctions will have “very big
financial impact!” — and thanked Russia
and China for backing a measure that either
could have halted with their UN veto.
The United States began talks on a
resolution with China a month ago, after
Pyongyang launched its first
intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4,
followed by a second ICBM test on July 28.
But the measure does not provide for cuts
to oil deliveries as initially proposed by the
United States — a move that would have
dealt a serious blow to the North’s
economy.
China accounts for 90 percent of trade with
North Korea, and Beijing’s attitude to its
volatile neighbour will be crucial to the
success or failure of the new sanctions
regime.
China and Russia had resisted the US push,
arguing that dialogue with North Korea
was the way to persuade it to halt its
military programmes.
Speaking to reporters after the council vote,
Washington’s ambassador to the UN Nikki
Haley said “what’s next is completely up to
North Korea.”
US officials have insisted that while Tillerson
and Ri will be in the same room d