Washington, through a US congressional commission, tipped the press on Wednesday saying that China may have been easing out on enforcing sanctions on North Korea. The Treasury Department is said to provide updates on Chinese compliance within 180 days.
According to the VOA News, the congressional commission had begun to lax on the implementation of sanctions on North Korea in the latter part of 2018.
Beijing's waning effort, as stipulated in the report, may have been caused by the thawing in relations between China and North Korea as the latter began to improve its engagement with the United States, under the Trump administration, this year.
China's promise was to keep the sanctions intact until Pyongyang will finally get rid of its nuclear arsenal, an assurance the hermit kingdom once made with President Donald Trump this June.
However, it appears that the Xi Jinping administration will follow its own course of actions which may come in opposite with its Western rival.
As revealed via Channel News Asia, NoKor workers have started to return to their job posts in the northeastern region of China. The economic and tourism activity in the border towns has also been seen to rekindle.
Flights going in both directions have also resumed, meanwhile, the two neighbors have begun conducting high-profile official exchanges on the matters of economic and trade development.
The document from the commission went on to specify China's move to leave key lifelines in place for North Korea. Even more so, there were found to be evidence of bustling trading activity between the two Asian nations which were purportedly done via ship to ship transfers of goods coming from both parties.
The United Nations Security Council, with the United States in the lead, pushed for the implementation of such sanctions on North Korea in 2006 in its bid to curtail the Korean country from going further in its destructive weapons development programs.
China-NoKor Relationship
Beijing has shared a healthy relationship with Pyongyang, both in political and economic fronts. So much so that China actually accounts for 90 percent of NoKor's foreign trade. According to some claims, North Korea considers China as its only true friend.
Despite this, China has shown its support in the international effort to quell NoKor's ambition to amass nuclear weapons.
As cited in this official document from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , Chinese Foreign Minister Spokesperson Lu Kang reiterated and assured the White House that Beijing will continue to support the US and North Korea in their unified goal to free the Korean Peninsula from threats of nuclear attacks as well as the vision to establish peace and harmony within the Asian region.
