China and Russia Try Lifting North Korea Sanctions They Helped Install, but It’s Already Too Late

It was all too predictable the pair would come to regret facilitating the Empire

Trump who was too much of a coward to put any concessions on the table in Hanoi is blowing up the Korean nuclear freeze. Russia and China are trying to save the freeze, by doing Trump should have done, and remove the very top layer of UNSC sanctions declared in 2017. As the Russians correctly point out Pyongyand should be rewarded for its willingness to talk and to limit and downscale its nuclear capabilities.

Of course, the effort was doomed from the start. US has veto power in the UNSC, so this is an illusion. In fact, as things stand the US and its Western European poodles won’t even let the Russian Chinese-backed proposal be voted on.

I said at the time that Moscow and Beijing would come to regret these sanctions and that is exactly what has happened. By voting them in at the UNSC, the two handed over all control of the situation to the US, made themselves complicit in the Empire’s war on North Korean civilians, and rewarded the US for its role in the Korean nuclear crisis.

I said at the time it made no sense for Russia and China which asserted at the time that US and North Korea were both guilty of intransigence and of escalating the situation to then help pass sanctions only on North Korea and hand over the key of when they could be lifted to the United States. That was an incredibly henious act, and at is hypocritical of the two to now feign concern for the humanitarian situation in North Korea, or the fate of the nuclear talks.

Reuters:

China and Russia on Monday proposed the U.N. Security Council lift a ban on North Korea exporting statues, seafood and textiles, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters, in a move Russia said is aimed at encouraging talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

The draft also called for a ban to be lifted on North Koreans working abroad and the termination of a 2017 requirement for all such workers to be repatriated by next week. The draft would also exempt inter-Korean rail and road cooperation projects from U.N. sanctions.

It was not immediately clear when or if the draft resolution could be put to a vote in the 15-member Security Council. A resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.

“We’re not rushing things,” Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told Reuters, adding that negotiations with council members would begin on Tuesday. He said the sanctions they had proposed lifting were “not directly related to the North Korea nuclear program, this is a humanitarian issue.”

A U.S. State Department official said now was not the time for the Security Council to consider lifting sanctions on North Korea as the country was “threatening to conduct an escalated provocation, refusing to meet to discuss denuclearization, and continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”

The sanctions on industries that Russia and China have proposed lifting earned North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars and were put in place in 2016 and 2017 to try and cut off funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

The United States, Britain and France have insisted that no U.N. sanctions should be lifted until North Korea gives up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Pyongyang has been subject to U.N. sanctions because of those programs since 2006.

“On North Korea, as in the past, it’s very important that the council maintains unity,” German U.N. Ambassador Christoph Heusgen said on Monday.

Concerns were growing internationally that North Korea could resume nuclear or long-range missile testing – suspended since 2017 – because denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have stalled. [Despite’ Pyongyang’s willingness to make concessions.]

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump have met three times since June 2018, but no progress toward has been made and Kim has given Trump until the end of 2019 to show flexibility. North Korea’s U.N. envoy declared this month, however, that denuclearization was off the table.

The State Department official said Trump remained committed to making progress using diplomacy.

Nebenzia said the draft resolution was aimed at encouraging talks between the United States and North Korea. “That’s the whole idea, we don’t do this resolution in spite, we really want to facilitate,” he added.

The draft welcomes “the continuation of the dialogue between the United States and the DPRK at all levels, aimed at establishing new US-DPRK relations, building mutual confidence and joining efforts to build a lasting and stable peace on the Korean Peninsula in a staged and synchronized manner.” DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

It also calls the so-called six-party talks between North Korea, South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan to be resumed or the launching of “multilateral consultations in any other similar format, with the goal of facilitating a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue.”

Russia and China have long said the Security Council should reward Pyongyang after Kim pledged in 2018 to work toward denuclearization.

At a council meeting on North Korea last week – called by the United States – China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said sanctions should be adjusted to “head off a dramatic reversal” of the situation.

The draft resolution circulated to the Security Council by Russia and China said the sanctions would be terminated “with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population.”

A sudden concern for the humanitarian situation is nice, but it was Moscow and Beijing who placed the future of the North Korean people in the hands of the cruel, pigheaded, and utterly remorseless American foreign policy makers, and they knew what they were doing at the time.

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14 Comments
  1. John Mason says

    Sometimes the Chinese and Russians are not too bright. NK should tell the UN that if the sanctions are not lifted immediately then they will start WW3 and the US, SK with Japan will be their first targets.

    1. FilastinHuratan says

      NK does not have that statement, the OUTLAW, psychopath-run, blackmailing, sanctioning, belligerent, rogue empire-in-decline already knows it, which is why it has not undertaken any military actions against NK, Trump’s bigger nuclear knob notwithstanding.

  2. Ricky Miller says

    China and Russia should ignore the UNSC imposed sanctions and move along. Guest workers from North Korea should remain employed in Russia and China and oil and textile trade can and should resume by rail. If anyone says anything either ignore them, issue blanket denials or my favorite; explain that unilateral U.S. withdraw from the JCPOA and the UNSC resolution codifying it set a precedent to be followed. In the future all UNSC resolutions should be written in a way that employs time or term limits and continued votes should be required to maintain the sanctions, not the default position that they exist forever until voted on for cancellation.

    1. CHUCKMAN says

      As easy and satisfying as that may seem, it is unrealistic and potentially dangerous.

      Russia and China both recognize the legitimacy of the UN’s institutions. They need to stand by the integrity of them just to counter the United States’ powerful tendencies today.

      Trump, as is the case with so many international organizations – OPCW, WTO, ICC, ICJ, UNESCO – works to discredit and even destroy their integrity. The United States now owes the UN over a billion dollars in back dues.

      The United States hangs onto much of its role at the UN, but only because it sees gains and prestige at times. The moment that it does not, the UN will wither from American rejection.

      Trump’s core supporters do tend all to be genuine UN-haters. Parts of the United States still see the UN as a money-wasting big conspiracy against American values and Patriotism. And that’s not even a slight exaggeration of the views of tens of millions of Americans.

      Russia and China made an error in the past Security Council vote regarding North Korea, for reasons they thought adequate at the time, but it is one they will just have to live with.

      1. Ricky Miller says

        But they are not going to live with it. In future months I’m sure we’ll hear from MSM and FUKUS security and foreign ministry types all about how North Korean guest workers are still employed by the thousands in both Russia and China. Also, multiple times a night large freight trains roll into North Korea from regions starting out in Russia and China. They’re not carrying widgets. Russia and China are already going their own way here which is why North Korea’s economy hasn’t collapsed.

      2. Mary E says

        Absolutely they do not HAVE TO live with it! They should and could
        just go ahead with their Belt and Road right into North Korea and remove their sanctions against that beleagured country.
        The US is NOT the be all end all of the world and the sooner we all adjust our minds to that theory, the better off we shall all be.

      3. DarkEyes says

        UN Corp. have no integrity. It is a hugh lobby Club, controlled and steered by the Big Companies. They decide what is going to happen and what is to be carried out under UN Corp. flag.

        Mr Trump made a wise decision not to sign the hoax Climate Change treaty.
        Mr Trump knows what UN Corp is and do. He is right to get rid of this association.

        Since foundation of UN Corp. after WWII (a dream project of also Roosevelt) the number of local wars increased.
        Zio Israhell is allowed to steal Palestinian land from 1948 up till today and is allowed to genocide the Palestinians.
        Zio Israell doing its own thing without UN and let US Military American Boys and Girls do the dirty work for her.
        For a Greater Israel the crypto-jews destroyed half of Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine. It is not sure yet about the destruction of the Pacific Ocean by Fukushima in Japan.

        The jewish MEPs have been chosen in the EU Parliament.
        The next target will be Poland, in the middle of Europe.

        I do fully agree with the “UN Charter”. But that is something different.

    2. JNDillard says

      Ricky, I have read a number of your comments and I am now following you. If you have not already, I recommend you take a look at a number of other sources I follow besides Southfront, Checkpoint Asia, and Russian Insider. These are Caitlin Johnstone and Aaron Maté’s Greyzone. Also Information Clearing House. Thanks for your perceptive contributions.

  3. thomas malthaus says

    If Messrs. Putin and Kim were in great disagreement, they may not have met earlier this year.

    I don’t believe everything I read, which is to say, I think relations are better than what’s propagated here.

    One day soon, a DPRK and/or Chinese test missile launch may get too close for Washington’s comfort.

    1. Mary E says

      I agree and with the rail system about to come to fruition for N Korea via China, it will have a boost that it needs dearly. Putting the aggressor US in the position of defense-
      true defense – would be a lovely sight!!

  4. Jozo Magoc says

    Russia and China should back step from the resolution against DPRK , as the ziomongrel Swamp Trump back pedalled from the JCPOA treaty with Iran! Kol Nidre!!!

  5. Mary E says

    Here is another example of the US turning the screws on an already sanctioned state.
    Russia and China should just lift those sanctions and encourage other countries to do the same..with those two countries alone doing it would help the North Koreans get a leg up on their economy. The totally evil and unrelenting US is just that and nothing more…
    it loves war in any form for any reason.So,don’t expect them to do anything good, just or honest … ever. And let us not forget what the US did to N Korea in the Korean War: not only devastated the military and its installations, but demolished their rice paddies where they got their main sustenance, the dams that held drinking water and water for agriculture… and their electrical grid
    The North Koreans will not forget and we as international citizens should not either!!

  6. JustPassingThrough says

    Of course, that’s assuming one knows what is going on behind closed doors.

  7. Terje M says

    This was so obviously going to happen, especially after the example of Iraq 1991-2003, which was starved and tortured for more than a decade by the US/UK veto against lifting sanctions, despite every other country wanting to ease them.

    Even if they supported measures, why oh why couldn’t China or Russia have insisted on the sanctions having time limits, say they needed to be reconfirmed by the UN every 5 years?!

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