CHINA/FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The Trump administration’s top sanctions envoy pressed China in high-level meetings this week to deliver on commitments to expel North Korean agents helping finance Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Sigal Mandelker, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, urged Chinese officials in Beijing to comply with obligations under United Nations sanctions to oust what the U.S. calls North Korean “financial facilitators.”
Ms. Mandelker declined to say how many North Koreans she asked be expelled. The U.S. has identified more than two dozen North Koreans as currently or previously based in China and linked to North Korea’s banks or weapons programs. She said she stressed ‘the importance of expelling those individuals’ and suggested that failure to act could make Chinese banks targets for future sanctions… China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Chinese government has repeatedly said it strictly enforces U.N. resolutions, though opposes unilateral U.S. sanctions.
China is North Korea’s biggest trade partner, aid donor and investor, and getting Beijing to curtail, if not cut, those ties is central to the Trump administration’s strategy for stopping Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.”
-Jeremy Page and Ian Talley, “Top U.S. Sanctions Envoy Presses China to Expel North Korean Agents,” The Wall Street Journal online, Jan. 24, 2018 05:08am