U.S. finally sanctions China over N. Korea missile program

FPI / August 1, 2024

Geostrategy-Direct

Geostrategy-Direct.com has for years frequently reported on how North Korea’s nuclear missiles threatening U.S. cities were built with Chinese technology, systems and components.

See, for example: North Korea fires 10th ICBM, 3 days after ‘strategic’ huddle in Beijing, December 19, 2023.

The U.S. Treasury Department on July 24 belatedly acknowledged this strategic travesty and imposed what are largely symbolic financial sanctions on Chinese companies and their executives for supplying missile- and space-related goods to North Korea.

The Biden administration’s move against the Chinese follows at least 12 years of public and internal reporting on Beijing’s support for North Korea’s large and growing arsenal of long-range missiles, China affairs specialist Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, and Geostrategy-Direct.com contributing editor noted.

“This is both an overdue warning and a stunning illustration of U.S. government dysfunction,” Fisher told security correspondent Bill Gertz in a Washington Times report.

It was in 2012 that U.S. intelligence satellites first detected China’s transfer of large, 16-wheel transporter-erector launchers now used for North Korean mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles and shown on state television. The mobile missile launchers were produced by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp., a large, state-owned missile manufacturer.

“Now, 13 years later the Treasury Department has at last tracked down the China-based support network for North Korea’s missiles, 13 years in which Pyongyang has developed and is now manufacturing ICBMs — the liquid fueled Hwasong-17 that could carry up to seven nuclear warheads, and the solid fuel Hwasong-18 that can carry three nuclear warheads,” Fisher said.

“Why have three administrations, and a very well-funded intelligence community, taken 13 years to begin to uncover the truth of China’s support for North Korean nuclear weapons that could kill millions of Americans, when it was revealed on North Korean state television over a decade ago?” Fisher added.

The sanctions announced by Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control block all property and funds of the North Korea-linked Chinese entities in the United States.

The sanctions are largely symbolic since most of the companies and people linked to the missile proliferation are unlikely to have assets in the United States.

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