China-N. Korea Trade: Business as Usual

I didn’t get terribly excited about initial reports that China wouldn’t enforce 1718 in good faith, because I don’t frankly care much what they say, but rather, what they do.  Sounds like we have our answer, courtesy of the N.Y. Times:

Truckers carrying goods into North Korea across the sludge-colored Tumen River say inspections are unchanged on the Chinese side. Customs agents rarely open boxes here or at two other border crossings in this mountainous region, truckers and private transport companies say.

Nor are any fences visible, like the barrier under construction near China’s busiest border crossing at the city of Dandong. There were early reports that inspectors in Dandong were at least opening trucks for a look, but so far statistics and anecdotal reports in the Chinese news media indicate that, essentially, everything remains the same.

….

For now, at least, some truckers in this region say the only change in border inspections has come on the North Korean side, where customs agents are checking loads more carefully for items deemed contraband by Kim Jong-il’s government.

“We used to sit with North Koreans that we know and have a chat,” said Jiang Zhuchun, a trucker waiting to cross into North Korea on Tuesday afternoon. “But after the nuclear test, we are only allowed to sit alone in our trucks.

In other words, pretty much as I expected.  The closest we’ve been to effective U.N. action in at least a decade is already going the same way Iraq sanctions went — hamstrung by the flouting and cheating of Security Council members.