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TOKYO — China shipped missile-launch vehicles to North Korea last year in breach of U.N. resolutions but was never rebuked because the United States did not want to embarrass Beijing, a Japanese newspaper reported June 13.
Beijing denied the report, which is based on Japanese government sources and is the most strident of recent claims that China has been involved in helping to arm its wayward ally, after earlier claims Beijing supplied technology.
Four giant trucks capable of transporting and launching ballistic missiles were exported by a Chinese firm last August, Asahi Shimbun reported.
The vehicles were likely those on display at the huge military display in April marking the centenary of the birth of the state’s founder Kim Il Sung, according to Asahi Shimbun.
The sale of weapons systems to Pyongyang is banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions aimed at containing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
But at Washington’s urging, Tokyo and Seoul have avoided confronting Beijing in a bid to keep North Korea’s patron onside in the international effort to tamp down tensions on the peninsula, the paper reported.
Top Japanese government spokesman Osamu Fujimura declined to confirm the report, saying it was “a matter of intelligence.”
Speaking in general terms, he added: “If Japan obtains information about any violation of the UNSC resolution, the government will address the matter in cooperation with concerned nations.”
Asked about the claim, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing: “China has been strictly implementing relevant Security Council resolutions and its own laws and regulations on non-proliferation export control. Chinese companies did not export items that are banned by relevant Security Council resolutions or Chinese laws and regulations.”
Asked whether China may have exported the vehicles through companies from third countries, Liu refused to comment further.
Japanese government papers reveal four 16-wheel vehicles were transported aboard a Cambodian-registered ship, which was tracked by spy satellites leaving Shanghai on Aug. 1 and arriving at Nampho, in western North Korea, three days later, Asahi Shimbun reported.
The vessel then moved on to Osaka, where the Japanese coast guard conducted an on-board inspection and discovered documents detailing the export of the vehicles, issued by an agent in Shanghai, according to the report.
A report was passed on to the Japanese government’s intelligence office, the report said.
According to the report, four WS-51200 transport vehicles with a length of about 70 feet, or 21 meters, were exported by a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp., which is affiliated to the Chinese military.
Vehicles of this kind are used in China to transport ballistic missiles and the 16-wheeler 51200 model was likely developed to transport the Dongfeng 31 intercontinental ballistic missile, the report said.
Japan, South Korea and the U.S. agreed the shipment was a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, which bans the export of weapons to North Korea, the paper said.
Washington raised the issue with Beijing in April, the paper reported.
Chinese officials acknowledged the export had taken place but said the vehicles were for civilian purposes, including the transportation of timber.
Two months ago the United States said it believed China’s assurances that it was abiding by sanctions on North Korea after charges that Beijing supplied missile launcher technology.
“China has provided repeated assurances that it’s complying fully with both Resolution 1718 as well as 1874. We’re not presently aware of any U.N. probe into this matter,” U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters then. “I think we take them at their word.”
