Report: China spotted trading with North Korea in violation of international sanctions

A Japanese P-3 Orion maritime patrol plane spotted a large Chinese vessel conducting ship-to-ship transfers with a North Korean vessel on May 19th, allegedly sending goods to North Korea.

Despite this, China has publically stated that it is fully invested in enforcing U.N. sanctioning laws, as North Korea has had sanctions placed against it after refusing to back down from its nuclear program. Reuters is also reporting that over a dozen ships have been blacklisted by the U.N. for breaking oil and coal embargos against North Korea. 

If true, what does this mean? It basically means that one of the biggest nations in the world — with a military second only to ours — is openly sending “don’t you forget about me” gifts to a country that has repeatedly threatened to bomb us, even if they can’t seem to build a rocket to do so. Yet. 

Having said that, perhaps North Korea having nukes isn’t such a bad thing (hear me out!) if all they’re doing with it is building an insurance policy against getting attacked (I don’t outright agree with that theory, but it’s still worth keeping in the brain-basket nonetheless). While not the most popular way to ensure your own national security, there’s no denying that the U.S. is somewhat hypocritical in denying other countries the right to build nukes while openly talking about building more nukes at home. 

Just a thought: maybe we shouldn’t conduct America’s foreign policy based on the lyrics to a Denis Leary song (NSFW, unless you work somewhere super cool).