The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, stated during a regular press briefing on Thursday, “China is faithfully fulfilling its due international obligations.” This statement was in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency about President Yoon Suk-yeol’s remarks that China is not enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea “at all.”

Mao added, “We hope that all parties clearly recognize the symptoms of the Korean Peninsula issue and administer the appropriate remedy for those symptoms.” She used a Chinese idiom “to catch fish by climbing a tree” (緣木求魚), which means that it is impossible to succeed in a task because the ends and the means are not aligned. This likely reflects Beijing’s position that dialogue is needed to resolve North Korea’s nuclear weapons program rather than economic sanctions.

Why It Matters

President Yoon Suk-yeol’s remark that China is not enforcing U.N. sanctions on North Korea “at all” was unusually blunt, reflecting his government’s more overt shift in its alignment with Washington. Yoon said that Seoul had “no choice” but to align itself with Washington because Beijing was not enforcing sanctions on North Korea. This comment came in response to a question from reporters about China’s displeasure regarding his recent state visit to the U.S. and the Washington Declaration. Beijing stated that the allies’ decision to deploy a U.S. nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine around South Korean waters “hurts the strategic interests of other countries” and claimed that it was a “source of tension” for the region.

Tensions between Seoul and Beijing have escalated following Yoon’s statements in a Reuters interview, in which he expressed South Korea’s opposition to any attempt to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by force. Further, he suggested that the Taiwan issue holds global significance, drawing parallels to North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Both nations have summoned each other’s ambassadors in response to these remarks.