The Commerce Ministry of China on Monday issued an order banning imports of coal, iron-ore, lead-concentrates and ore, lead and sea-food from North Korea, effective from Tuesday.
This is as Beijing moves to implement United Nations sanctions announced earlier this month.
The UN sanctions must be implemented 30 days after the resolution was approved in a vote on Aug. 6.
Chinese government however warned the administration of Donald Trump not to split the international coalition over North Korea by provoking a trade war between China and the United States.
This is even as Trump is expected to sign an executive memorandum Monday afternoon instructing his top trade negotiator to launch an investigation into Chinese intellectual property violations, a move that could eventually result in severe trade penalties.
The move by the U.S. is seen by the Chinese as an attempt to put pressure on Beijing to act more strongly against North Korea and an attempt to blame China for not interfering in the Nuclear programme of North Korea.
“It is obviously improper to use one thing as a tool to imposing pressure on another thing,”
“There will be no winner from a trade war, it will be lose-lose,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference on Monday.
In an editorial, the state-owned China Daily newspaper said Trump was asking too much of China over North Korea.
Trump’s “transactional approach to foreign affairs” was unhelpful, it said, while “politicizing trade will only exacerbate the country’s economic woes, and poison the relationship between the two countries.
That won’t bring results when it comes to North Korea either, it argued.
