China applies its own maximum pressure policy on North Korea

TOKYO — As the U.S.-North Korea summit looms, President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure policy on North Korea may be working — thanks to China.

Beijing appears to have gone well beyond U.N. sanctions on its unruly neighbor, reducing its total imports from North Korea in the first two months this year by 78.5 and 86.1 percent in value — a decline that began in late 2017, according to the latest trade data from China. Its exports to the North also dropped by 33 percent to 34 percent both months.

The figures suggest that instead of being sidelined while North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his surprising diplomatic overtures to Seoul and Washington, China’s sustained game of hardball on trade with Pyongyang going back at least five months may have been the decisive factor in forcing Kim’s hand.

Trade with China is absolutely crucial to North Korea’s survival.

It accounts for the largest share of the North’s dealings with the outside world and provides a lifeline to many of the necessities Pyongyang relies on to keep its nation fed and its economy from breaking down. Estimates vary, but it is believed that roughly half of all transactions in the North Korean economy are made in foreign currencies, with the Chinese yuan being the most common.

That gives Beijing tremendous leverage, though for political and national security reasons it has generally been reluctant to exert too much pressure on Pyongyang.

That reluctance is clearly wearing thin.

The statistics need to be taken with a dose of caution. Neither country is known for its commitment to transparency. Even so, more specific data reveal an even tougher, targeted crackdown, according to Alex Wolf, a senior emerging markets economist with Aberdeen Standard Investments:

— China’s exports of refined petroleum have collapsed over the past five months — to an annual rate of less than 4 percent of what it exported last year. With the pace on a downward trend, he believes, total exports could actually fall further.

— North Korean steel imports from China have also collapsed

as you want, for as long as you want.”

He also hand-builds entire personalized sets with props to display during each service, and grieving families can bring in props that reflect how their loved one lived their life.

“We had a young lady who was killed in a car accident in north Arkansas, young girl, and we knew that she liked chicken fingers and she liked chocolate gravy, so we had that set up. She also loved Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and so I went and bought a case of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and we had a big macaroni and cheese display. She was also in a sorority, so we did a sorority set for her, and she liked to shop, so we did a shoe shopping set up,” Arledge said.

Other sets he has built include a kitchen, bowling alleys, garage sales, a workshop, and a boat, and he has incorporated everything from kayaks, John Deere tractors, fishing, fire trucks, gardens, beach scenes, golfing, ATVs and motorcycles into services.

“The sets we use are to enhance and spotlight areas of the person’s journey through life. Each station tells about how that person enjoyed that particular event. We incorporate each set with items that the family may bring in order to make the set more detailed and personalized,” Arledge said.

He recalled a service for a man who loved to grill hamburgers.

“He loved to cook hamburgers, so we cooked hamburgers. We set up a picnic for the family, cut up tomatoes and lettuce, had all this cheese and I cooked the burgers on the grill out back and had everything set up for the family like a picnic when they came in and it was just overwhelming, how much they loved it,” he said.

One man whose service was held at Caruth-Hale was in the business of cooking barbecue, and the funeral home incorporated the smell of smoked meat into his service, a gesture that his family noticed immediately.

Another man loved chicken and dumplings while he was alive, so Arledge and his team went to Cracker Barrel and purchased a big tray of chicken and dumplings to set up at his service, and the family was able to have one last meal with their loved one.

Possibly the best thing about the added personalization is that it’s completely free of charge, Arledge said, adding that the family doesn’t have to do anything. The funeral home takes care of everything.

“Every person that has a service here gets this. It doesn’t matter if you spend $1,000 or $1 million, they get the same thing. It doesn’t matter if you have five friends at your service or 5,000, we don’t care. That has nothing to do with anything,” he said.

The chapel now has large projection screens on the walls in order to display photos, movies or themes. Arledge said if he can run it through his computer, he can put it on the wall during a service.

“It’s about you coming here and saying goodbye to your loved one. Our whole platform for what we do is about helping you in your recovery, and the way we do that is by sparking memories and telling stories and seeing things. It’s a glimpse into their life. This isn’t a business of trying to sell caskets. People beat the funeral business up for so long, for so many years, saying that we’re just out to get money. We’re not. Everybody here is passionate about what we do. We want to help people in their recovery and that’s what we’re all about. From the first time we meet you and pick up your loved one until we say goodbye, and after, we want to make sure you’re OK,” Arledge said.

“When people say, ‘How can you be in such a morbid business?’ It’s not morbid. We want to share your life. When you do it from that side, it’s not morbid at all. There’s two kinds of funeral homes: the life funeral homes and the death funeral homes. The death funeral home is morbid and they focus on the death and that’s all they do. The life funeral home says, ‘Hey, this person was great, let’s show their life. Let’s tell their story.’ That’s what we do. We’re storytellers.”