By Park Si-soo
The trade volume between China and North Korea has fallen by 59 percent this year from a year earlier, a Chinese newspaper reported Friday.
The sharp fall was credited with China’s compliance with international sanctions against the nuclear-armed North, China’s state paper Global Times reported.
According to Beijing's customs office, Chinese exports to North Korea totaled $1.6 billion, from January to September 2018, down 59.2 percent from the previous year.
Li Kuiwen, a spokesman for the customs office, was quoted as saying $144.6 million worth of North Korea imports into China also fell 90.1 percent from January to September.
The data came at a time when North Korea is denying the impact that sanctions have had on its economy.
"Place sanctions on us for 10 years, even 100 years," Korean Workers' Party newspaper Rodong Sinmun said Friday in an article titled, "This is the spirit of high-class pride and self-reliance."
"The enemy is using the blockade of murderous sanctions as a method of last resort, for fear of the complete collapse of their policy of crushing Korea with military power," the Rodong stated.
The paper added that North Korea will gradually overcome sanctions to emerge as "the most powerful nation" and as a "socialist Shangri-La.”
The paper also charged "the enemy" of placing sanctions on technology.
"Our response is to develop our style of breakthroughs in state-of-the-art technologies," the Rodong stated.