We’ll see.  The red dragon has a tendency to say one thing publicly and manipulate another thing privately.  However, the baseline for China to take the role of Big Panda is the reception of Secretary Rex Tillerson’s “Four No” remarks on North Korea during his State Department briefing.

TILLERSON”S FOUR NO’S: The United States does not seek •regime change, •the collapse of the regime, •an accelerated reunification of the peninsula or •an excuse to send the U.S. military into North Korea.

So long as the ‘four-no’s’ remain visible and discussed in the international dialogue, the options for China are to comply or to be called out as a deceiving enabler.  The economic consequences for China to break the sanctions are looming and severely consequential.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China will pay the biggest price from the new United Nations sanctions against North Korea because of its close economic relationship with the country, but will always enforce the resolutions, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

The United Nations Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday that could slash its $3 billion annual export revenue by a third.
Speaking at a regional security forum in Manila on Monday, Wang said the new resolution showed China and the international community’s opposition to North Korea’s continued missile tests, the foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Owing to China’s traditional economic ties with North Korea, it will mainly be China paying the price for implementing the resolution,” the statement cited Wang as saying.
“But in order to protect the international non-proliferation system and regional peace and stability, China will as before fully and strictly properly implement the entire contents of the relevant resolution.”
China has repeatedly said it is committed to enforcing increasingly tough U.N. resolutions on North Korea, though it has also said what it terms “normal” trade and ordinary North Koreans should not be affected.
The latest U.N. resolution bans North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood. It also prohibits countries from increasing the numbers of North Korean laborers currently working abroad, bans new joint ventures with North Korea and any new investment in current joint ventures.
Wang said that apart from the new sanctions, the resolution also made clear that the six party talks process, a stalled dialogue mechanism with North Korea that also includes Russia and Japan, should be restarted.
That was promise that all Security Council members made, including China, Russia and the United States, and which ought to be carried out, Wang added. (read more)

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