China limits oil trade to North Korea and bans textile trade

[Warpy]

Source: BBC

China has moved to limit North Korea's oil supply and will stop buying textiles from the politically isolated nation, it said on Saturday.

China is North Korea's most important trading partner, and one of its only sources of hard currency.

The ban on textiles trade will hurt Pyongyang's income, while China's oil exports are the country's main source of petroleum products.

The tougher stance follows North Korea's latest nuclear test this month.

Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41370722

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This is the first time I've seen China apply anything but verbal cautions to NK.

Now the ball is in our court, Dump needs a muzzle.

[groundloop]

1. Gee, China managed to do all that without any name calling

45*'s petulant little rants and name calling are a YUUUGGE embarrassment, sad that China is far better at dealing with international crisis that the "leader of the free world".

[Bayard]

2. Rump will take credit for this

After all, he said China should do their part.

[metalbot]

5. If it works, I'm willing to give him credit

North Korea is the only "I inherited a mess!" statement that Trump makes that I can agree with. We've tried stern diplomacy. We've tried bribery. We've tried soft diplomacy.

If we are able to disarm N Korea or to topple the Kim dynasty on his watch, I'm fully prepared to give him credit for it. I don't care if it's China that does the deed or not, this may be a case where people being worried that the president of the US is a senile madman works in our favor.

There are, of course, alternative outcomes from his behavior that result in millions of deaths, and I think he would be in line for the full blame there as well.

[Nitram]

3. Apparently China is turning a blind eye to Chinese companies that are trading with N. Korea secretly

Good for Chinese profits. Bad for sanctions.

[Warpy]

4. The trade ban was announced last night

So you know this exactly HOW?

You might give them a week, at least, for the last orders to be delivered and the ban take effect.

Transparent.

[Nitram]

6. It has been ongoing and there is no evidence China has taken any steps to address the issue.

NPR had a good story on the issue, and more than one Korea hand expressed doubt that China would crack down on Chinese black market dealers. Transparent?

[Warpy]

7. No link?

It was announced last night. I had a link.

[Nitram]

8. My but you are prickly today. Here are a couple of links

I am only presenting an informed but alternate view of the likelihood of getting China's full cooperation. Does that ruffle you feathers, warpy? Transparent enough for you?

One is right to be skeptical about how strongly China will fulfill their pledge because we've seen that kind of pledges before and backed off. For example, the Bank of China cut off its engagement with North Korea back in 2005, 2006, but went back to dealing with North Korea.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/21/552708231/china-cuts-off-bank-business-with-north-korea-as-trump-announces-new-sanctions

...markets in North Korea are confident that sanctions won't be enforced in a way that will disrupt them, reflecting a belief that China is not really going to clamp down on them.
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/18/551756364/fuel-shortages-and-the-north-korean-economy-explained

[Warpy]

9. Thank you. Was that so hard?

My link covered petroleum exports and a complete ban on textile imports, the combination of which will effectively cut of NK's access to hard currency. This is a very big deal.

The banking sanctions annouced a couple of days earlier are not quite the same. And yes, NK has been chronically short of fuel (one reason they have mass transit instead of cars) because they haven't had the hard currency to pay for it.

These are the first actual sanctions I can remember.

[Nitram]

10. I don't mind a civil request for a link. You are a bit too snide for my taste.

If you actually read both articles I linked to, you might have found that they describe the difficulty of knowing whether China is cracking down on Chinese companies who willing to conduct blackmarket trade in any commodity N. Korea needs.