China on Friday denied reports it had been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions, after US President Donald Trump said he was unhappy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.
China on Thursday blocked a US effort at the United Nations to blacklist six foreign-flagged ships - five of which were mainland-China- or Hong Kong-owned - that Washington believes had engaged in illicit trade with North Korea, a UN Security Council diplomat said.
Trump said on Twitter on Thursday that China had been "caught RED HANDED" allowing oil into North Korea and that would prevent "a friendly solution" to the crisis over Pyongyang's development of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.
In a subsequent New York Times interview, Trump explicitly tied his administration's trade policy with China, North Korea's neighbour and lone major ally, to cooperation in resolving the North Korea standoff. "I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war," he said. "If they're helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that's what I've been doing. But when oil is going in, I'm not happy about that."
South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper this week quoted South Korean government sources as saying that US spy satellites had detected Chinese ships transferring oil to North Korean vessels about 30 times since October.
US officials have not confirmed details of this report but a US State Department official said Washington had evidence that vessels from several countries, including China, had engaged in transhipping oil products and coal.
Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, two senior Western European security sources told Reuters, providing another economic lifeline to Pyongyang.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters she had noted recent media reports, including suggestions a Chinese vessel was suspected of transporting oil to a North Korean vessel on Oct. 19. "In reality, the ship in question has, since August, not docked at a Chinese port and there is no record of it entering or leaving a Chinese port," Hua said, adding that the reports "did not accord with facts."
"China has always implemented UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to North Korea in their entirety and fulfils its international obligations. We never allow Chinese companies and citizens to violate the resolutions," Hua said.
"If, through investigation, it's confirmed there are violations of the UN Security Council resolutions, China will deal with them seriously in accordance with laws and regulations." South Korea said on Friday that in late November it seized a Hong Kong-flagged ship, the Lighthouse Winmore, suspected of transferring oil to North Korea. The ship's registered manager, Lighthouse Ship Management, is in the Chinese port of Guangzhou.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry official said the ship transferred as much as 600 tons to the North Korea-flagged Sam Jong 2 on Oct. 19 in international waters between China and the Korean peninsula, on the order of its Taiwan-based charterer, Billions Bunker Group Corp.
Taiwan's presidential office said the firm was not incorporated in Taiwan and China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said she did not have any information about the matter. Both ships were among 10 vessels the United States proposed that the UN Security Council should blacklist for illicit trade with North Korea, documents seen by Reuters this month showed.
Of those ships, three were listed earlier this month as Hong Kong-owned and two as mainland-China-owned, sailing under flags of convenience. "China blocked six of the proposed vessels," a UN Security Council diplomat said. "Four of the vessels were designated yesterday." Three of the ships designated were North Korean, while the other was the Panama-registered Billions No. 18. Earlier this month, the latter ship was listed as Taiwan-owned.
The other ships were the Xin Sheng Hai; the Yu Yuan; the Glory Hope 1 (also known as Orient Shenyu), and the Kai Xiang. The Trump administration has led a drive to step up global sanctions on North Korea and the UN Security Council last week unanimously imposed new sanctions in response to Pyongyang's Nov. 29 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).