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China and Russia to eventually ease restrictions on North Korea

China and Russia submit proposal to ease UN sanctions on North Korea: sources

Draft sent to UN Security Council cites DPRK’s lack of nuclear and long-range missile tests in recent years

Chad O'Carroll October 30, 2021

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Image: Cancillería Argentina via Wikimedia Commons (April 28, 2017) | The U.N. Security Council

China and Russia submitted a draft proposal to U.N. Security Council nations on Friday calling for the relaxation of North Korea-related sanctions, citing the absence of nuclear and long-range missile testing by Pyongyang since 2017, multiple informed sources told NK News.

The draft proposal is the first one the two countries have put forward to weaken UNSC sanctions on the DPRK since Dec. 2019. The number of sanctions on North Korea snowballed significantly during its major nuclear and missile tests in 2017. 

The proposal comes amid South Korea-led efforts to get the U.S. and other nations to sign off on a formal declaration to end the Korean War before the end of Moon Jae-in’s presidency next year.

The suggested sanctions relief largely mirror China and Russia’s Dec. 2019 proposals, which the two countries never officially submitted to the UNSC due to U.S. disinterest, sources said.

In particular, the package argues for the relief of sanctions targeting North Korea’s civilian sector, according to sources. These include rules forbidding the sale to North Korea of civilian sector commodities such as equipment for construction, heating, railroads, domestic appliances, tools and computers, an informed source said.

The draft proposal follows a long absence of North Korean long-range missile and nuclear weapons testing and includes language surrounding contemporary hot topics like the end-of-war declaration and inter-Korean relations. But another informed source said the other permanent members of the UNSC are unlikely to sign off on the joint China-Russia proposal.

• In full: China and Russia’s Dec. 2019 pitch for North Korea sanctions relief at the UN

North Korea’s recent missile firings, including submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and train-launched ballistic missile tests, means the proposal is unlikely to get past Washington and Paris in particular, sources said. The tests contravene U.N. sanctions that call for the suspension of DPRK ballistic missile tests.

“The sectors on which the Chinese and Russians seem to be seeking an easing of sanctions look like the ones where sanctions would need to be relaxed in order to implement the ROK-DPRK Panmunjom and Pyongyang agreements of 2018,” said John Everard, the U.K.’s former ambassador to the DPRK. 

“I wonder whether they are trying to split the ROK from the U.S.,” he said, adding that the timing of the PRC and Russian proposal suggests it could be “linked to the ROK election campaign.”

Everard agreed the proposal is unlikely to go far.

“True, the DPRK has not recently tested either an ICBM or a nuclear device, but it has tested several other weapons,” he said.  “I don’t think there’s any appetite for easing sanctions.”

The proposal comes after China’s ambassador to the U.N. urged the UNSC to relax North Korean sanctions in October, after his U.S. counterpart called for more rigid enforcement of the existing sanctions regime.

“It has always been China’s view that we should also address the humanitarian dimension caused by the sanctions imposed by the Security Council. We [have] seen negative impact because of the sanctions,” Zhang Jun said in October.

Zhang indicated at the time that Beijing and Moscow had “tabled a draft of the resolution,” without specifying which resolution or when it was put together. Pyongyang’s SLBM test on Oct. 19 appears to have delayed the proposal’s submission.

Kim Heung-kyu, director of the U.S.-China Policy Institute at Ajou University, told NK News in October that Beijing was likely more interested in using the then-rumored proposal to signal support to Pyongyang than in addressing humanitarian concerns.

“It’s a fairly safe way for China to show its efforts to North Korea while implicitly expressing to them ‘you too should cooperate in our national interests,’” Kim said. “Both South Korea and the U.S. government already support the provision of humanitarian aid to North Korea.”

NK Kim Jong Un has lost a lot of weight

 And he's looking much fitter than for a long time. He's there for the long term, I think. The family is beset by a range of cardiac and liver dyscrasies, but I think modern science and a good diet and exercise will see him through the next 30 years, still in power there.

Returning to this blog at end of October. Lots of News about North Asia.

Returning to this blog at end of October. Lots of News about North Asia. See you then.

Big Day in Melbourne...So, Melbourne, wow. Hard Lockdown on the Projects low-income housing commission 20 storey towers...over 3,000 folk and quite a very few hundred with more than a passing attachment to ice, heroin, hybrid ganga, and grog...etc and only holding usually a maximum of 2 days supply...and No one gets out...or in...for 7-10 days. Strict. All locked down with police on each level...500 police on each shift 24 hours a day...for 7-10 days. Meals and services delivered by...police. Big City, Big Problems. I expect that there may be quite a few fire alarms going off at night, and maybe even a few real fires as the 'cooking' goes wrong. Whoosh.

I don't think we are facing a Hitleresque future, Barbara. I'm not an American, so my views of both Trump and Biden are a foreigner's views. As long as the USA moves out of Asia, Asia will be pretty happy and will have a better healthier and richer future. North Asia is the only important place on Earth for the future survival of everyone and, so far, everyone is very careful about it, as they should be. As for inside America, well, i don't think the Lives Matter thing means anything and is just all a knee-jerk reaction to the Virus mostly. It is about the difficulty people have with change. Who is to blame? There must be someone to blame! The more advanced societies will deal with the Virus in the best way, mostly. The ones who don't have Universal Health insurance etc will suffer a lot more which may lead some governments to think that maybe a Universal Health insurance, based upon, say, a 1 or 4 percent tax would be better for most. You can still have Private Insurance on top of that for folk who wish to pay for orthopaedic massages and kombutcha tea and nicer rooms whilst they are living and dying, if you like. Putin wishes to remain in power, of course he does. Trump wishes to remain in power, of course he does. Mr Xie, the same. Of course. This is human nature. It is hard to remove human nature from the political world. None of them are sprouting War! as the answer to the problems associated with change due to a Virus. You will always get Mad Bastards of the Far Right no matter what is happening, and you'll get the same bunch of neo-Christian retards, but i don't see anyone with the gall and psychotic view of Hitler in this mix. Things will be okay as time goes by. Things won't be as good for America, still, the numbers of those suffering from poverty etc world wide will still be falling at a faster rate than they ever have, as they are now, and things will be basically okay, even for Americans.

answer to a white racist rant: I'm not proud to be white caucasian Australian, but I guess I was fortunate to be one in terms of living pretty easy, always working class, although at 67 years of age not actually owning anything..as is the norm. I'm not proud of my country, I think its really awful... a disgrace to humanity...yet a fortunate island compared to a few. My wife, who is very mainland Chinese, is very very pro Trump. I don't understand why, but I do love her just the same. She knows that she married a white Australian communist who supports very much the great job of the Chinese Communist party, but loves me anyway. I'm not proud to be white, I just am white. I'm not proud to have Irish/English forbears, although I do like Irish music, even though the dancing is just plain silly... and , like everyone else, as individuals, this is all just a passing parade over which we have no power at all and we'll all be dead within a few or 8 decades, and me much sooner, so why get so upset? True, I get upset whenever I see the current Australian flag, yes, it does make me nauseous and does bring a chunk of vomit to the back of my throat, as I despise it, and I'd never stand up for it and I'd kill myself with a cricket bat before I stood up for the cunt of a thing...and I'd never ever fight for that flag or its symbolism or for what this scum country is in ethical and moral values, and I pretty well despise those who have...because of the betrayal built into the double-cross Sassenach/English flag in the sinister corner of it, but, still, there it is. Still flying. Fortunate to be Australian, true, in some ways, but not proud.