WASHINGTON: US lawmakers introduced legislation to broaden sanctions against North Korea by imposing stiffer punishments on foreign companies doing business with Pyongyang, a measure that could impact mostly on Chinese firms.
‘In the wake of the state-sponsored cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, the bipartisan legislation targets North Korea’s access to the hard currency and other goods that help keep the regime in power,’ said the bill’s co-sponsor, US Republican Representative Ed Royce.
‘Additionally, it presses the Administration to use all available tools to impose sanctions against North Korea and on countries and companies that assist North Korea in bolstering its nuclear weapons program,’ Royce, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said in a statement.
The vast majority of North Korea’s business dealings are with neighboring China, which bought 90 per cent of the isolated country’s exports in 2013, according to data compiled by South Korea’s International Trade Association.
The bill responds to concern in Congress about last year’s cyber attack on Sony Pictures, which was blamed on Pyongyang, as well as what lawmakers see as the international failure to rein in the reclusive state’s nuclear weapons program.
The measure is co-sponsored by Republicans and Democrats, including the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Royce, and Democrat Eliot Engel.
A similar bill is likely in the US Senate. It is expected to enjoy strong bipartisan support in both chambers.
The bill would authorize US officials to freeze assets held in the United States of those found to have direct ties to illicit North Korean activities like its nuclear program, as well as those that do business with North Korea, providing its government with hard currency.
It would also target banks that facilitate North Korean proliferation, smuggling, money laundering, and human rights abuses, and target people who helped in the cyber attacks against the United States, Royce said.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, said frequent sanctions would not help resolve the North Korean issue.
Gareth Johnson, owner of China-based Young Pioneer Tours, which takes tourists into North Korea, criticised the bill.
‘Whilst we personally do not hold any accounts in the US, this is obviously not a great move … (This) will just create a siege mentality when those of us involved in the country are trying to open things further.’ (PTI)
