China makes moves to shut down North Korean firms

Beijing warned North Korean companies trading within Chinese borders on Thursday that it was time to wrap-up operations, as it took the first steps in implementing the most recent set of United Nations sanctions against Pyongyang.

Both North Korean and joint ventures between the two nations would be forced to close by early January 2018.

China, which had already banned textile trade and severely limited the flow of oil to North Korea, said its commerce ministry had set a self-imposed deadline of 120 days from the passing of the resolution to shut down any and all North Korean firms on its soil.

The UN Security Council, of which China is a veto-wielding member, unanimously passed fresh sanctions against the rogue nation on 11 September as a result of its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date.

While Beijing had historically been protective of its neighbour, it has grown to become more critical of its nuclear tests and heightened rhetoric over the course of 2017.

Earlier in the year, China drastically reduced its coal imports from North Korea and cut down on seafood and iron trade across the border, adding to the textile ban, leaving the hermit dictatorship without much of its foreign currency income and very little resources.

At a news briefing on Thursday, Lu Kang of China's foreign ministry said, "We are opposed to any war on the Korean peninsula.

"Sanctions and the promoting of talks are both the requirements of the UN Security Council. We should not overemphasise one aspect while ignoring the other," he concluded.