BEIJING -- China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea until the end of the year, the Commerce Ministry announced Saturday, in a move that would cut off a major financial lifeline for Pyongyang and significantly enhance the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions.
Coal is North Korea's largest export item, and China's greatest point of leverage over the regime.
The ministry said the ban would go into force today and be effective until Dec. 31.
China said the move was designed to implement November's United Nations Security Council resolution that tightened sanctions against the regime after its latest nuclear test.
But experts said the move also reflected Beijing's frustration with North Korea over its recent missile test and the assassination of Kim Jong Un's half brother in Malaysia.
Kim Jong Nam had been hosted and protected by China for many years, and his slaying, if proved to be conducted on Pyongyang's orders, would be seen as a direct affront to Beijing, experts said.
China also has come under significant international pressure to do more to rein in North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, while analysts said President Xi Jinping has become increasingly irritated by Kim Jong Un's behavior.
North Korea is China's fourth-biggest supplier of coal. Although China announced in April that it would ban North Korean coal imports to comply with United Nations sanctions, it made exceptions for deliveries intended for the "people's well-being" and not connected to the North's missile programs.
In practice, that exception was the cover for coal to continue to flow across the border in huge quantities, with imports of nonlignite coal up 14.5 percent last year to 24.8 million tons.
But in a sign that Beijing's patience was running out, it rejected a coal shipment from North Korea worth about $1 million on Monday, the day after the test of an intermediate-range ballistic missile, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported.
China long has been reluctant to do anything that might threaten the stability of the North Korean regime out of fears that the reunification of the Korean peninsula could bring South Korea, an American ally that hosts U.S. troops, right up to its border.
But Pyongyang's unwillingness to consider China's interests has damaged trust between the long-standing allies, analysts said.
"China still places a premium on stability, but Xi Jinping is growing more and more frustrated with Kim Jong Un," said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, adding that the missile test and the assassination were seen as "serious offenses."
"Beijing took the assassination as a direct affront to China. Xi is less willing to tolerate these provocations," he said. "China is putting a squeeze on its economic lifeline to send a message to Pyongyang."
Wang Weimin, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs at Fudan University in Shanghai, said sympathy for North Korea's national security concerns had disappeared in Beijing, and "blood ties" between the countries had been broken, as it became clear that the regime could not be tamed.
"If we choose an ally that can't be tamed, we might become the biggest loser," he said. "That's why we are more and more strict with North Korea. Now self-interest is central. We won't pay attention to North Korea's interests anymore."
Information for this article was contributed by Jin Xin of The Washington Post.
A Section on 02/19/2017