How North Korea Managed to Defy Years of Sanctions
Matthew Brazil, a security consultant and former diplomat for the United States who investigated Chinese trade controls in the
1990s, said it was often impossible to get China to follow up on leads suggesting Chinese firms were violating restrictions.
Despite seven rounds of United Nations sanctions over the past 11 years, including a ban on "bulk cash" transfers, large avenues of trade remain open to North Korea, allowing it to earn foreign currency to sustain its economy
and finance its program to build a nuclear weapon that can strike the United States.
" he said, "it has never been willing to go all in." Many of China’s best-known companies have done business with North Korea even as they have sought customers
and investors in the United States or relied on American-made parts and materials. that Though China has taken helpful steps at times,
Mr. Brazil said the problem had persisted, and "any level of control of American electronics has completely collapsed
because this technology can be so easily shipped from China to North Korea." On AliExpress, an e-commerce platform run by the Chinese internet giant Alibaba, six of the nine shipping services list North Korea as a potential destination.
The United Nations Security Council did not impose sanctions until July 2006, when, after a series of missile
tests, it banned countries from selling material for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea.
Chinese tourism to North Korea is booming, said Cha Yong Hyok, whose company, Indprk,
takes groups by train to Pyongyang and will soon use new flights from Dandong.