Turn off the oil tap, China urged
Trump asks Xi to get serious with North Korea after latest ICBM test
New York: The United States has urged China to cut off crude oil shipments to North Korea and pressed all countries to isolate Kim Jong-un’s regime by severing all diplomatic and trade ties.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that North Korea’s latest test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) “demands that countries further isolate the Kim regime”.
During a phone conversation, US President Donald Trump asked President Xi Jinping to cut off China’s crude oil supplies to North Korea, a move that would deal a crippling blow to North Korea’s economy.
Trump told the Chinese leader “that we have come to the point that China must cut off the oil from North Korea,” Haley said.
“That would be a pivotal step in the world’s effort to stop this international pariah.”
Haley also called “on all nations to cut off all ties with North Korea” and said the Security Council should take away North Korea’s voting rights at the United Nations.
The council was meeting at the request of the United States, Japan and South Korea to consider next steps after three rounds of sanctions adopted in the past year failed to push North Korea to change course.
Haley said the ICBM launch had raised the threat of war.
“The dictator of North Korea made a choice that brings the world closer to war, not farther from it,” she said.
“If war comes, make no mistake: The North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.”
Pyongyang on Wednesday tested its third ICBM – which it claimed was capable of striking anywhere in the United States – snapping a two-month pause in missile launches.
The missile was more sophisticated than any previously tested, state media said.
“The ICBM Hwasong-15 type weaponry system is an intercontinental ballistic rocket tipped with a super-large heavy warhead which is capable of striking the whole mainland of the US,” the North’s official news agency KCNA said.
Pyongyang said the missile reached an alti- tude of 4,475km and splashed down 950km from its launch site.
At least one Western expert said the missile’s lofted trajectory suggested an actual range of 13,000km – enough to hit all major US cities.
China, meanwhile, has gone along with a series of punitive UN measures against its Cold War-era ally, but it has resisted calls to shut the “Sino-DPRK Friendship Oil Pipeline”.
Washington had already sought an oil embargo after North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test in September, but faced resistance from China and Russia.
Instead, the United States settled for UN sanctions that limited exports of refined petroleum products to North Korea.
So why is China so reluctant to completely cut off the steady flow of petroleum into North Korea’s fuel tanks?
How much does China export? No one really knows. China has not published data on its oil exports to the North since 2014.
The US Energy Information Administration estimates that the country consumes only a small amount: around 15,000 barrels a day.
The majority of that likely comes from China. According to UN customs data, China sent 6,000 barrels a day of oil products to North Korea in 2016.
Where does it go? Crude oil flows across the Yalu River from the Chinese city of Dandong to the Sinuiju oil depot in North Korea through the 30km Sino-DPRK Friendship Oil Pipeline.
The pipeline went into operation in 1975 with a capacity of three million tonnes per year, but China National Petroleum Corporation said in 2015 that annual capacity stood at 520,000 tonnes.
The majority of that oil, if not all of it, is used by the military and Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programme, according to Wang Peng, a Korea expert at China’s Charhar Institute.
“I suppose there would be nothing left after the troops are finished. I don’t think ordinary people can take a share,” Wang said.