China Gets a Little Tougher With North Korea

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/09/china-north-korea/541371/

China has ordered the closure of North Korean companies operating inside the country within 120 days of the September 12 UN sanctions imposed on Kim Jong Un’s regime, the Commerce Ministry announced Thursday. The ministry also said Chinese joint ventures with North Koreans or North Korean companies would be closed, but didn’t provide a timeframe.

The measures, which come weeks after China’s central bank reportedly told Chinese financial institutions to strictly implement the UN sanctions against North Korea, are the most significant announced by China against North Korea since Kim’s missile and nuclear tests prompted the imposition of the harshest-ever UN sanctions against the regime, which has already been subject to eight round of UN sanctions and additional sanctions imposed by the U.S. and others in the international community. China voted in favor of the latest sanctions, which unanimously passed in the Security Council. But China finds itself in a precarious position over the North: On the one hand, it is growing increasingly annoyed at Pyongyang’s actions, which have raised global tensions and also put pressure on China itself to take action, including through the threat of  U.S. sanctions on Chinese banks. On the other, it is North Korea’s largest trading partner and main political benefactor, and fears that applying too much pressure on the North—the so-called “strategic strangling” approach—could result in the collapse of Kim’s regime, leaving China encircled by U.S. allies.

Lord Herbert wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 8:39pm:


I agree with the first part, but I think the entire Kim dynasty and all of those responsible for decades of suffering deserve the following:

- to be tortured every minute every day within an inch of his life; resuscitated and then tortured again. Death is too good for these assholes.

Bobby. wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 9:38pm:


Nah, Trump wants to be able to spar off with Fatty.

Auggie wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 9:39pm:



No - Trump likes good deals -

give NK to China - no American lives lost -
nuclear problem solved.

Auggie wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 9:44pm:


Unlike muzzos, they'd instantly drop the defective software loaded into their heads when they see how amazing Australia is and how badly they've been lied to.

I've never met a person from a communist country in Australia who holds onto any of their old ideas.

The only communists are from Balmain

The idea that the collapse of NK would be important to China for the reason of US ally encirclement, is reasonable but hardly paramount. At present NK provides nothing to China in the way of stability, in fact the opposite.

You have to ask what possible advantage a broken down, little military state with no infrastructure provides. Their missile program is not going to alter the situation viz a vi China-USA. They are a backwater now, and in a war, they would still be a backwater.

Look at it as a business deal. What can NK offer China.

There's a lot of posturing going on. After the second ICBM went over Japan, China went with the UN, but made some comments that amounted to both sides being at fault. They had to say that so as not to lose face, which is incredibly important in that part of the world. (They cannot just support the USA, especially as the Americans bombed their embassy in Belgrade to save the Balkan Muzlims.)

But then the shut down of NK businesses began, which says a lot more about China than some shaky military strategy that would leave NK as an ineffective military ally against the  dreadful imperialist West that buys all China's products.

The fact is that China is a capitalist country, albeit one that is under a dictatorship of one party, benevolent in most ways and not under any illusions about where their prosperity comes from.

The Chinese leadership may want Taiwan; that would extend their military reach well beyond the current range, but the collapse of NK would make no appreciable difference to the strategic situation.

The NK junta and the Castro Cubans, and the dimwits in Venezuela are not serious players in military or economic terms. They are cold war anachronisms, and I seriously doubt the new China would back any of them.

issuevoter wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 10:08pm:



Yes, you're right.

Lord Herbert wrote on Oct 5^th, 2017 at 8:25am:


.. they did not call that being 'fired' - it was called retirement.....

Auggie wrote on Oct 4^th, 2017 at 9:44pm:


In the US where they are shop-owners by the hundreds, they come out firing from behind the counter whenever the local Negroes try to hold them up.

I'd much rather it went to South Korea. I expect the locals feel the same way. Germany managed it pretty well. An expanding China is going to cause all sorts of problems.