U.S. sanctions Chinese bank for helping North Korea finance nuke program

The murderers of Otto Warmbier are trying to develop the ability to murder much larger numbers of people, halfway around the world if possible. That takes money, and to date much of that money has come through China's Bank of Dandong. It's probably not going to topple the Bowl Cut Jr. regime all by itself, but today the Trump Administration is taking the first step to cut off the funds that make it possible for North Korea to seek nuclear weapons:

The U.S. Treasury Department said in an online notice published on Thursday the Bank of Dandong had served as a gateway for North Korea to access the U.S. financial system. Authorities said 17 percent of Dandong's customer transactions in the bank's U.S. accounts had ties to North Korea.

Anthony Ruggiero, a former senior Treasury official in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said the action against Bank of Dandong was the first time U.S. authorities had sought to punish a Chinese bank accused of helping North Korea. It would immediately cause Western firms to cut off any transactions with Bank of Dandong, he said. It may also cause financial institutions in Western Europe and the United States to further scrutinize whether their Chinese business could have links to North Korea. "The designation will make reputable Western banks ask questions about larger financial institutions in China," said Ruggiero, who is now a senior fellow at the non-profit Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Predictably, the Chinese communists aren't happy about the move, and what the U.S. to act only through the United Nations or via "bilateral cooperation" with the Chinese government.

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The Trump Administration has been growing increasingly frustrated with China over the slow pace of progress reining in the Norks, and the unilateral action against the Bank of Dandong appears to be the U.S.'s way of making it known that we're not going to wait forever while China dithers. If China insists on continuing to serve as North Korea's patron, then the Chinese have to be willing to bear as much responsibility as the Norks themselves for the actions they take. It doesn't really make sense anymore for China and North Korea to be "allies," if you can even use that word. It used to be based on the fact that they were both communist regimes. But the old era of communism is gone. There is no more Soviet Union seeking to spread communism across the globe, and China was never really part of the Soviet sphere even when it existed. Today, China and North Korea have very little in common apart from the way they both trample on human rights - and as bad as China is on that score, North Korea runs rings around them. China is a modern nation with a growing economy. It's a major player in global trade and finance. The "communism" practiced by its regime is more about political control and cronyism than economic command-and-control and centralization.

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North Korea is a backwards hellhole that serves as a veritable prison for its citizens, who live in constant fear of what the regime might do to them. There is no strategic reason for China to prop up a regime like this. And if their "alliance" with the Norks gives them some sort of leverage, and they're not willing to use it, then they can't very well complain when the United States gets tired of waiting and takes action on its own. I hope there's a lot more we're doing to topple the Kim regime, and I suspect there is - although for obvious reasons we can't know about it. But in the meantime, the action against the Bank of Dandong is an important step if only because it lets the rest of the world know we're not going to just sit around while they kinda sorta maybe think about doing something some day. The North Korea problem needs to be solved, once and for all, by whomever is willing to do it.