China tightens the pressure on North Korea

CHINA finally pledged to increase sanctions against North Korea yesterday, amid worsening tensions over Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.

Beijing announced that it would refuse to buy iron and lead ore and seafood from North Korea. A ban on coal imports is already in place. The North conducts 90 per cent of its trade with China and sanctions could cost it £800million a year.

Although it backed UN sanctions imposed earlier this month, China has been accused of failing to do enough to respond to the intercontinental ballistic missile tests mounted by Kim Jong-un’s dictatorship and its threatening rhetoric. But Beijing changed its stance yesterday as North Korea announced that any war could ‘only be turned into a nuclear war’.

And during a visit to South Korea, General Joseph Dunford, the US’s highest-ranking military officer, said America was ready ‘to use the full range of military capabilities to defend our allies and the US homeland’.