US, Asian allies go it alone on North Korean sanctions as China, Russia block UN moves

Aaron Arnold, senior associate fellow at UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute, said even if the three nations imposed sanctions on Chinese firms, they were likely to be limited in scope and scale. “I would not expect to see sanctions imposed against Chinese state-owned enterprises,” Arnold said. “It is important to remember that Japan and South Korea have different economic relationships to China than the United States.”