BEIJING: Cutting foreign revenue for Kim Jong-Un's isolated North Korea, China has ordered North Korean-owned businesses to close within 120 days of the UN Security Council's September 11 approval of latest sanctions. China is the North's main trading partner, making Beijing's cooperation essential to the success of sanctions aimed at stopping the North's pursuit of weapons technology. According to the Ministry of Commerce, all businesses from the corrupted nation must close soon.
North Korean companies operate restaurants and other similar businesses in China, helping provide NK with foreign currency. Labourers from the country work in Chinese factories. The Foreign Ministry of China appealed for dialogue, last week, to defuse the increasingly acrimonious dispute between the US government and Kim. Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, “The Korean Peninsula nuclear issue is related to regional peace and stability. Breaking the deadlock requires all relevant parties to show their sincerity.”
One of the five permanent Security Council members with power to veto, China supports the latest sanctions imposed by UN, however, it does not want to push North Korea too hard for fear that its government might collapse.
N Korea boosts defences
Meanwhile, North Korea has boosted defences on its east coast, after the North claimed that US President Trump had declared war and that it would shoot down US bombers flying near the peninsula. Tensions have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3, but the rhetoric has reached a new level in recent days with leaders on both sides exchanging threats and insults. North Korean foreign minister Ri Yong Ho said Trump's comments, in which the US president said Ri and leader Kim Jong-un “won't be around much longer” if they acted on their threats, amounted to a declaration of war and that Pyongyang had the right to take countermeasures.
