Washington —

According to diplomatic sources, North Korea operates more than 50 restaurants employing North Korean citizens in more than 10 Chinese cities in violation of United Nations sanctions.

The North Korean regime uses much of the wages its workers earn abroad to fund its nuclear and missile programs.

The source, who asked not to be named because the person was not authorized to speak to the media, provided VOA’s Korean service with the Korean and Chinese names of the restaurants and their addresses in China.

The U.N. panel of experts overseeing enforcement of sanctions against North Korea is expected to include the list in a report scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, the sources said.

Asked about the VOA Korean findings, the United States called on all United Nations member states to impose sanctions on North Korea.

“Under Security Council Resolution 2397, all United Nations member states are obligated to repatriate North Korean nationals who earn income within their jurisdiction, subject to certain exceptions,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said. North Korea represents the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which The official name of the country.

“Income generated by North Korean workers overseas is used to fund North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs,” the spokesperson continued in an email to VOA’s Korea Service on Tuesday.

adopted by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2397 In 2017, all member states were given until December 2019 to repatriate North Korean workers. The bill was adopted in response to North Korea’s November 2017 launch of the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile.

It would be the first time a U.N. expert panel report has included a list of North Korean restaurants in China since a December 2019 deadline, although the panel said Publish a report listing North Korean restaurants Nine months before that.

Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA’s Korean service on Monday that he was “not aware of the specific situation.”

He continued in the email, “China has been conscientiously implementing the relevant resolutions of the Security Council. These resolutions are not just sanctions, but also emphasize the importance of dialogue.”

“We oppose a selective, sanctions-only approach without appropriate emphasis on promoting dialogue,” he added.

“China allowed them to work within its borders five years after the United Nations imposed a deadline to repatriate them,” said Joshua Stanton, a Washington lawyer who helped draft the U.S. Sanctions and Policy Enforcement Act in 2016. This is further evidenced by the fact that it is added to an already extensive dossier of evidence demonstrating flagrant violations of the sanctions it voted for in the Security Council.”

Stanton told VOA via email on Wednesday that North Korea uses its overseas restaurants as a “front to launder money from forced labor, cybercrime and other illegal activities.”

The regime also sends young North Korean women to work long hours in restaurants abroad and then confiscates most or all of their wages, he said.

The list includes seven North Korean restaurants in Beijing and seven North Korean restaurants in Shanghai.

There are 17 in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, which borders North Korea.

Dandong, about 12 kilometers (7.45 miles) from the North Korean city of Sinuiju, has the second-largest concentration of North Korean restaurants on the list. Sinuiju is located near the China-North Korea Friendship Bridge connecting the two countries.

Aaron Arnold, a former member of the UN expert panel on North Korea sanctions and now a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a security think tank in London, told VOA Korean that China and North Korea may have violated other UN sanctions. sanctions. He spoke to VOA’s Korean service via email on Wednesday.

Arnold said if the restaurants were considered a joint venture, it would violate Resolution 2270, which prohibits the establishment of new entities with North Korea. He went on to say that if these restaurants have bank accounts in China, they are also violating Resolution 1874.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 2375The bill passed in 2017 bans all joint ventures, including existing ones with North Korea.

“If Chinese banks knowingly or negligently launder money and do not face subpoenas, investigations, special measures and secondary sanctions as a result, then our own government is also to blame,” Stanton said.

Secondary sanctions are those that target foreign entities and individuals, such as Chinese banks that do business with sanctioned entities, individuals and countries such as North Korea.

Arnold said the presence of North Korean restaurants in China was “yet another example of China failing to meet its sanctions obligations.”

North Korea has also operated restaurants in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand in the past. Since the sanctions and the COVID-19 pandemic, some have closed while others have remained open.