China Is Actually Helping the United States with North Korea

China claims negotiations are the only viable solution to North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons program.

The UN sanctions target North Korean exports of seafood, textiles and coal, and limit its imports of oil.

China and the United States will hold their first social and people-to-people dialogue on September 28 in Washington D.C.

Trump’s first official visit to China is expected to take place in November.

China has always been considered North Korea’s main trading partner, and also it diplomatic protector, but went along with the latest penalties out of growing frustration with the government of leader Kim Jong-un.

In recent months, apart from imposing sanctions on the North, the United States has also targeted Chinese companies, such as the Bank of Dandong, which have been instrumental in supporting business across the North Korean border. An experienced trader who handles coal from North Korea said his 5,000-tonne cargo was allowed through customs last month after being stuck at a Chinese port for six months.

The often hard relations between the world’s greatest powers, China and the United States, appear to be improving again as the pair work to resolve the North Korea nuclear stand-off.

China must stop its myopic approach to the nuclear conundrum prioritizing its national interests even in the face of the imminent danger from North Korea.

The sanctions complement two other packages of penalties approved unanimously by the 15-member United Nations Security Council this summer, as well as earlier USA sanctions. Beijing announced Thursday that it ordered joint ventures between China and North Korea to shut down within the next 120 days. President Moon Jae-in on Thursday (September 28) urged North Korea to give up its nuclear program during a speech held on South Korea’s 69th Armed Forces Day.

Moon Jae-in, in a speech to mark South Korea’s Armed Forces Day, said he would push for the South to move more quickly to retake wartime operational control of its military from its USA ally. “The urgency with which China takes it is going to be key to any successful economic pressure campaign”.

“I’m kind of concerned about accidents of some kind that might happen”, she said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

By highlighting the possibility of a potential military clash on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea may be trying to create a distraction as it works behind the scenes to advance its nuclear weapons development, said Du Hyeogn Cha, a visiting scholar at Seoul’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies.