How North Korea Managed to Defy Years of Sanctions<br />Matthew Brazil, a security consultant and former diplomat for the United States who investigated Chinese trade controls in the<br />1990s, said it was often impossible to get China to follow up on leads suggesting Chinese firms were violating restrictions.<br />Despite seven rounds of United Nations sanctions over the past 11 years, including a ban on "bulk cash" transfers, large avenues of trade remain open to North Korea, allowing it to earn foreign currency to sustain its economy<br />and finance its program to build a nuclear weapon that can strike the United States.<br />" he said, "it has never been willing to go all in." Many of China’s best-known companies have done business with North Korea even as they have sought customers<br />and investors in the United States or relied on American-made parts and materials. that Though China has taken helpful steps at times,<br />Mr. Brazil said the problem had persisted, and "any level of control of American electronics has completely collapsed<br />because this technology can be so easily shipped from China to North Korea." On AliExpress, an e-commerce platform run by the Chinese internet giant Alibaba, six of the nine shipping services list North Korea as a potential destination.<br />The United Nations Security Council did not impose sanctions until July 2006, when, after a series of missile<br />tests, it banned countries from selling material for missiles or weapons of mass destruction to North Korea.<br />Chinese tourism to North Korea is booming, said Cha Yong Hyok, whose company, Indprk,<br />takes groups by train to Pyongyang and will soon use new flights from Dandong.
