North Korea just lost a very big ally.
On Saturday, China said that it was suspending all imports of coal from North Korea as part of its effort to implement United Nations Security Council sanctions aimed at stopping the country’s nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile program.
The ban, according to a statement posted on the website of the Chinese Commerce Ministry, takes effect on today and will last until the end of the year. While China will hardly suffer material adverse impacts, Chinese trade - and aid - have long been a vital economic crutch for North Korea, and the decision strips North Korea of one of its most important sources of foreign currency.
The ban comes six days after the North Korean test of a ballistic missile that the Security Council condemned as a violation of its resolutions that prohibited the country from developing and testing ballistic missile technology. In the test, - which took place during a dinner between Japan's Prime Minister and Donald Trump - North Korea claimed that it had successfully launched a new type of nuclear-capable missile. It said its intermediate-range Pukguksong-2 missile used a solid-fuel technology that American experts say will make it harder to detect missile attacks from the North.
According to the NYT, China's decision has the potential to cripple North Korea's already moribund economy: coal accounts for 34-40% of North Korean exports in the past several years, and almost all of it was shipped to China, according to South Korean government estimates. As Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul confirms, coal sales accounted for more than 50 percent of North Korea’s exports to China last year, and about a fifth of its total trade. China had previously bought coal under exemptions that allowed trade for “livelihood” purposes. China’s Ministry of Commerce didn’t respond to faxed questions outside office hours.
“Of course they may have methods to replace the damage, but just by looking at the size of the loss, that’s a pretty big blow,” Yang said.
“The Chinese are getting more frustrated with North Korea,” Eurasia Group President Ian Bremmer said in an interview at the same conference. “They clearly don’t feel that they have a lot of influence and they’re worried that the U.S. under Trump is going to blame China as opposed to continuing a multilateral process.”
At the same time as China announce the coal import bank, Chinese officials said that pushing North Korea into a corner won’t work as Kim’s regime will keep developing its nuclear capability until it feels safe. Instead, it’s time to restart talks and “break the negative cycle on the nuclear issue,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in a statement on Sunday after meeting South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se at a security meeting in Munich.
With the international community enforcing sanctions on North Korea after a series of nuclear tests, China now accounts for more than 90 percent of its total trade, according to Bloomberg data.
The question on everyone's lips, but which few dare to ask in public, is whether Kim Jong-Un, pressed into a corner, will - after years of posturing with his ballistic missile tests, finally launch a rocket into one of the neighboring nations. Trump’s administration has said it will deploy the missile defense system this year in South Korea and back Japan “100 percent” in moves to deter North Korea.
Since it may have no choice but to test out this defense system in the very near future, one hopes that any North Korean "desperation" launches are safely brought down.
Just a day before his 65th birthday, Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin has died of an “apparent” heart attack.
Early reports say he passed out at his desk at the Russian Mission to the UN on East 67th Street in Manhattan around 9:30 a.m. this morning. Churkin was rushed to the hospital where he could not be revived. He was pronounced dead at 10:55 a.m.
The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed Churkin “unexpectedly died” but provided no further details confirming exactly how he died. Western mainstream outlets are reporting “apparent heart attack” and an unnamed law enforcement official reportedly told CNN it was “cardiac arrest” with no further details.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is reportedly “deeply upset” at Churkin’s sudden and unexpected passing.
And suddenly everyone thinks we’re living in a James Bond movie.
Then again, there is the fact that a security officer was found dead with facial and head wounds inside the Russian Consulate in NYC on election day…
Don’t forget another Russian Ambassador was shot dead in Turkey in front of everyone in a truly unbelievable terrorist attack back in December…
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