Tag: China

I have always said that the Kim regime is not going to feel the real effect of sanctions until the Chinese banks are sanctioned. Hopefully this is a sign of the U.S. government more aggressively going after Chinese banks:

The U.S. government has charged 28 North Korean and five Chinese individuals with facilitating more than $2.5 billion in illegal payments for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile program as part of a clandestine global network operating from countries including China, Russia, Libya and Thailand.

In a 50-page federal indictment unsealed Thursday in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department accused the individuals of acting as agents of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, in what officials say is the largest North Korean sanctions violations case charged by the U.S.

Working for the FTB — which is North Korea’s primary foreign currency bank and under sanctions for facilitating nuclear proliferation — the agents allegedly set up more than 250 front companies and covert bank branches around the world to mask payments transiting the U.S. financial system, including through several Chinese banks and for equipment from Chinese telecommunications giants Huawei Technologies Co. and ZTE Corp., according to charging documents. (…….)

The massive enforcement action comes as United Nations experts have detailed North Korea’s widespread evasion of sanctions by using agents of state-owned and other banks overseas to facilitate a global web of illicit oil, arms and coal deals to bring in foreign currency. The efforts have been augmented through offshore, ship-to-ship transfers, large-scalecryptocurrency hacks and ransomware attacks.

Washington Post

A ROK Drop favorite Joshua Stanton from One Free Korea is quoted in the article:

“This adds to the already overwhelming evidence that China’s government is willfully assisting Kim Jong Un in his violations of North Korea sanctions,” said Joshua Stanton, a lawyer who helped write the 2016 law that strengthened North Korea sanctions.

“I’ll believe it’s ‘maximum pressure’ when those banks begin to face nine- and ten-digit penalties, like the ones President (Barack) Obama imposed on European banks that broke Iran sanctions,” Stanton said, and has advised House and Senate staffers on North Korea sanctions law.

According to the article no one is in custody because assuredly the North Koreans and Chinese won’t hand these people over. However, already $63 million in assets have been seized.

Maybe the politics of the coronavirus is finally causing our government to take real action against Chinese banks?

Here is some apparent blowback on the WHO which could effect South Korea:

A group of senior U.S Congress members has asked Korea, among 55 countries, to support Taiwan joining the World Health Organization (WHO) despite China’s opposition. 

Analysts said Friday this may test Korea again in its attempts to strike a balance between the U.S. and China, following the heightened Washington-Beijing standoff over the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but I would be surprised if the Moon administration supports this. I would think they would try to filibuster the idea and wait for it to go away without having to make a decision on it.

Here is a long, but interesting read from Australia’s Daily Telegraph about a leaked document supposedly prepared by western governments about the possibility of the coronavirus being unintentionally released from the Wuhan lab:

China deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an “assault on international transparency’’ that cost tens of thousands of lives, according to a dossier prepared by concerned Western governments on the COVID-19 contagion.

The 15-page research document, obtained by The Saturday Telegraph, lays the foundation for the case of negligence being mounted against China.

It states that to the “endangerment of other countries” the Chinese government covered-up news of the virus by silencing or “disappearing” doctors who spoke out, destroying evidence of it in laboratories and refusing to provide live samples to international scientists who were working on a vaccine.

Daily Telegraph

You can read more at the link, but even though there is no direct evidence yet that it was unintentionally released from the lab, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing that way laid out in the article. Unfortunately it appears that circumstantial evidence is only relevant depending on ones politics.

It is very hard to determine what is really going on in North Korea based off of all these anonymously sourced reports; so recommend caution about drawing any definitive conclusions:

China sent a team that included health-care experts to North Korea to advise on the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.

The move comes amid reports that Kim was in critical condition after undergoing cardiovascular surgery. U.S. officials said Monday they were told Kim’s condition was critical after the surgery, though they were unsure of his current health. President Donald Trump on Thursday cast doubt on the report about the North Korean leader.

Bloomberg

You can read more at the link.