North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's recent visit to China and his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping raised concerns his diplomatic offensive might weaken international sanctions against his nuclear program. Now, such concerns have become reality.
According to a Radio Free Asia (RFA) report on Tuesday, North Korean laborers barred under U.N. sanctions from working abroad are moving back to China. The nonprofit broadcaster quoted an ethnic Korean as saying about 400 female North Korean workers were sent to Helong, a city in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, China's northeastern Jilin Province.
RFA also quoted a source in Dandong, a Chinese port city on the Yalu River across from North Korea, saying he saw buses carrying North Korean workers arrive from the North's Sinuiju on March 30.
The Voice of America (VOA) carried a similar report on Saturday. It quoted William Brown, an adjunct lecturer at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, saying it made sense Kim would go to China to beg for relief.
Brown, a former U.S. intelligence officer, said, “And it would also make sense that China would give him a little bit of relief.” The broadcaster added Brown thought Xi could have softened sanctions in return for Kim's agreement to halt ballistic missile or nuclear tests.
The reports have yet to be confirmed. But if they are true, China cannot avoid criticism for violating a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted in September 2017 right after the North's sixth nuclear test. The resolution prohibits companies from hiring North Korean workers. Another UNSC resolution, passed three months later, requires all North Korean workers overseas to return home within two years.
The problem does not stop here. Some domestic media reported China had shown signs of easing sanctions since Kim visited Beijing and met Xi in late March. Some North Korean-run restaurants in Dandong, which were closed due to international sanctions, have recently reopened. It was also reported the Chinese border city would soon lift an import ban on North Korean fishery products.
Some experts speculate one of the aims of Kim's China visit was to seek sanctions relief. If the speculation is true, it would deal a blow to U.S.-led efforts to maintain pressure on the North to give up its nuclear program. Weakening of sanctions will no doubt have negative implications for the April 27 inter-Korean summit and the Pyongyang-Washington summit due next month.
U.S. President Donald Trump believes sanctions have begun to bite, bringing Kim to the negotiating table. Trump has vowed to maintain maximum pressure to achieve the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the North. In this regard, China's sanctions relief for Pyongyang would inevitably disrupt the international community's united front against the North.
We urge Beijing to hold fast to sanctions against the North. China should not send the wrong signal to Pyongyang. Beijing must work with Seoul and Washington to make the Kim regime take the path toward denuclearization and peace.