Sanctions against North Korea have not been effective

Bill Gertz:

As the US ratchets up pressure on China to do more to help rein in North Korea, a UN report shows how Pyongyang uses technology smugglers and financial institutions to develop missiles and nuclear weapons. China figures prominently in the report.

UN members have imposed an array of trade sanctions on North Korea after it violated UN Security Council rulings to halt its testing of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

However, an eight-member UN panel said North Korea is intensifying such tests and that UN member states are not doing enough to enforce the sanctions.

North Korea “is flouting sanctions through trade in prohibited goods, with evasion techniques that are increasing in scale, scope and sophistication,” the panel’s report dated Feb. 28 says.

The report cites Chinese components and European parts acquired through China that were recovered from the debris of a North Korean missile launch. They included what the report described as an electromagnetic interference filter for a camera, pressure transmitters, and ball bearings traced to Russia.

While the report did not say what function the transmitters and filter performed, the transmitters were manufactured in China and sold to a Beijing-based company that then sold them to Beijing Xinjianteng Century Technical Technology.
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There is much more.

North Korea is more like a RICO operation than a country, so it is not surprising that it would take evasive action to secure parts for its weapons.  China, for its own good, needs to crack down on the illegal exports to North Korea.  Russia is another country that appears to have few inhibitions when supplying arms to rogue states.