China and Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States on Thursday that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea for its spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-2 and marked a first serious division among the five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N.’s most powerful body on a North Korea sanctions resolution.
A united Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding.
But China and Russia told the Security Council after the vote that they oppose more sanctions, stressing that what’s needed now is renewed dialogue between North Korea and the United States.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield expressed disappointment but not surprise at the vote, calling North Korea’s 23 ballistic missile launches this year, including six ICBMs after a five-year suspension, “a grave threat to international peace and security.”
“The world faces a clear and present danger from the DPRK,” she said, using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and citing its continued pursuit of weapons of mass destruction.
In the last sanctions resolution adopted by the council in December 2017, members committed to further restricting petroleum exports to North Korea if it conducted a ballistic missile launch capable of reaching intercontinental ranges.
Before the vote, Thomas-Greenfield urged the council to fulfill its commitment and act against the North’s ICBM launches and its escalating nuclear program.
China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun blamed the United States for not reciprocating North Korea’s “positive initiatives” during talks with the Trump administration in 2018 and 2019.
He said it’s the U.S.’ responsibility now to resume its dialogue with Pyongyang and find a political solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where the 1950-53 war between North Korea and South Korea stopped with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
“The situation and peninsula has developed to what it is today thanks primarily to the flip-flop of U.S. policies and failure to uphold the results of previous dialogues,” he said.
Faced with “persistent tension” on the Korean peninsula, Zhang said, “China has been calling on all parties to exercise calm and restraint and to desist from actions that could increase tension and lead to miscalculations.” He said North Korea faces the harshest sanctions regime and instead of imposing new sanctions China and Russia have proposed lifting some sanctions to improve the dire humanitarian situation of North Koreans.
Earlier, Zhang alluded to the U.S. “pivot to Asia” aimed at countering the rise of China as an economic and military power and America’s most significant competitor.