Asia-Pacific

Chinese ships accused of breaking sanctions on North Korea

Alleged illegal oil transfers raise questions over Beijing enforcement of UN resolutions

Oil tanks in a suburb of Dandong, China, on the border with North Korea. The UN Security Council lowered the cap on North Korean oil products imports from two million to 500,000 barrels for next year. Photograph: Kyodo News via Getty Images

Charles Clover
Wed Dec 27 2017 - 15:05

Chinese vessels are secretly trading oil products with North Korea in violation of United Nations sanctions, diplomats have confirmed.

The news is likely to embarrass China and raise questions about its record of enforcing sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programmes.

Diplomats from an Asian country confirmed information published this week in the South Korean press that such trade persists despite US sanctions.

Last month the US treasury published satellite photos of ships linked to each other at sea, apparently trading oil. Chosun, the prominent South Korean newspaper, on Tuesday cited people within South Korea's government saying 30 such hookups had been spotted by spy satellites since October.

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The clandestine oil trade apparently started soon after new sanctions capped the amount of oil products North Korea was allowed to import.

UN Security Council resolution 2,375, passed in September after the Kim Jong-un regime’s latest nuclear test, limited North Korean imports to 500,000 barrels between October and December, and two million barrels in total next year. It also specifically forbade ship-to-ship transfers of banned goods destined for North Korea.

Cap lowered

But on Friday, in response to the regime’s latest missile test in November, the oil products cap was lowered to 500,000 barrels for next year.

In November, Chinese customs data showed no exports of oil products to North Korea.

China has long urged a softer approach to North Korea, focusing on dialogue and not sanctions, which it says could create a humanitarian crisis on its border. But Beijing faces constant pressure from Washington and its allies in the region to get tougher on Pyongyang.

The US treasury last month placed a number of North Korean and Chinese shipping and trading companies and 20 ships on a sanctions list.

Beijing on Wednesday sought to play down the reports. Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters in Beijing that while she was not aware of the Chosun article, only ships that had specifically been targeted with sanctions could be construed to be violating them.

“I want to ask you if these ships are on the list of the UN Security Council,” she said. “If they are not on the list, then how can we be sure that they are violating Security Council resolutions? If there is solid evidence that Chinese persons have violated the Security Council resolution, then we will deal with this according to the law.”

One western diplomat said that while it appeared that regional authorities in China could be involved in the illicit oil trade with North Korea, China’s central government might not have known.

“My guess is that local governments might be involved in this on some level, but the central government wouldn’t know,” he said.

Earlier this year residents of Pyongyang saw gasoline prices rise three times, possibly due to government efforts to stockpile fuel, only to fall back in the summer and autumn. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017

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