North Korean Cargo Ship Turned Away From Rizhao, China Following New Sanctions

It didn't take long for South Korea and China's new round of sanctions against North Korea, to be put to the test.

The news agency Reuters reported Tuesday that the North Korean general cargo ship Grand Karo was turned away from a Chinese port in Rizhao last week after appearing on a list of 31 maritime vessels newly banned by China's Ministry of Transport.

The UN Security Council approved the new sanctions last week, which include blacklisting any vessel that has docked in a North Korean port for the last 180 days. And according to a joint statement released to the New York Times earlier in the week, this is only the beginning.


"We will expand financial sanctions related to North Korea, including 38 North Korean individuals and 24 entities responsible for developing weapons of mass destruction, and two individuals and six entities of third countries that have indirectly supported the North," the statement read.

The South Korean government also added the Taiwanese company Royal Team Corporation and Thai company Mariner's Shipping & Trading to the list of organizations that were barred along with two individuals, one from Singapore and one from Taiwan who reportedly run a shipping firm and a trading company.

"All this has been very bad for us, very bad for trade," one employee of Mariner's Shipping & Trading told the New York Times.

19 of the 31 newly banned ships apparently have their automatic identification tracking systems turned off. While one vessel, the Hui Chon, is currently docked in Russian's Far East port town Vostochny, local officials can reportedly not be reached due to the national holiday of March 8.

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