Senators pressed the State Department Wednesday about what more the U.S. can do to get China to pressure North Korea to end its nuclear testing, noting that testing has continued despite current sanctions.
The U.S., as well as the international community, has levied sanctions against North Korea, including this week against a Chinese firm with ties to North Korea. But that still has not stopped North Korean nuclear tests, the most recent of which was this month.
“It has had a major economic impact on North Korea, there’s no question about that. But it hasn’t worked,” Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing. “North Korea continues to accumulate enriched materials, it continues to nuclearize weapons, it continues to develop delivery systems that could threaten not only the region, but the United States.”
Daniel Fried, the State Department’s coordinator for sanctions policy, said the administration is working to end North Korea’s exportation of coal, most of which goes to China. He also said he “wouldn’t argue” with the assertion that the administration is “aggressively” investigating more Chinese firms doing business with North Korea.
“It would also be useful if Chinese banks and companies understood that increasingly dealing with North Korean companies, especially those that are sanctioned, is going to be risky, [and] frankly, not worth it. The best sanctions are those that do not have to be applied because the credible threat of sanctions acts as a deterrent,” Fried said.
He declined to talk about the number of pending investigations in an unclassified setting, simply saying that there are “a lot of them.”
“We are in a forward-leaning mode,” he said.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., slammed the officials for refusing to talk specifically about six Chinese banks with ties to North Korea that were named in a public Center for Advanced Defense Studies report. Only one of those was targeted in the most recent round of sanctions this week.
“They’re out there in this report, they’re named. Everyone knows what these companies are, it’s not a mystery,” Rubio said. “That’s absurd. This is a report that’s out there for the world to see.”
Sen. Corey Gardner, R-Colo., also called for continued U.S. show-of-force actions, like the recent U.S. bomber flights over South Korea, and for a quicker implementation of the terminal high altitude area defense anti-missile system on the Korean peninsula.
