Canada Sends Military Aircraft to Japan to Monitor North Korea Sanctions

A Canadian CP-140 Aurora on the tarmac at the Italian naval air station in Sigonella, Italy, in this undated photo. Murray Brewster/The Canadian Press

A Canadian military aircraft was deployed to Japan on April 6 to assist in countering North Korea’s illicit maritime activities that are banned under the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions.

Canada’s defense ministry said the aircraft will monitor for “suspected maritime sanctions evasion activities, in particular ship-to-ship transfers of fuel and other commodities banned by the UNSC” for six weeks.

The CP-140 Aurora aircraft consists of 40 personnel. It is a long-range patrol aircraft with a range of 4,598 miles and is equipped with advanced sensors, according to the ministry.

Canadia also deployed the Halifax-class frigate HMCS Montreal and the CH-148 cyclone helicopter to support the monitoring mission and the country’s ongoing naval forward presence operation in the Indo-Pacific.

“The Indo-Pacific region is crucial to global security—and through Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, we will continue to strengthen our partnerships with our friends in the region,” Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand said in a statement.

“Together, we are promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific and protecting the international rules that keep us all safe,” Anand said while referring to Japan as “one of Canada’s most important defense partners” in the region.

The United Nations has imposed a series of sanctions against North Korea since 2006 over the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile tests. In 2017, the UNSC restricted North Korea’s import of refined petroleum products, setting a cap of 500,000 barrels per year.

The council said that U.N. member states shall “seize, inspect, and freeze (impound) any vessel” in their ports and territorial waters if they have “reasonable grounds” to believe that the vessel was involved in illicit activity prohibited under the U.N. resolution.

However, the United States said last year that North Korea has deliberately evaded the sanctions “through elaborate black-market networks across the region and clandestine ship-to-ship transfers.”

North Korea Evades Sanctions With China’s Help

According to a 2020 UNSC report, North Korea began “a substantial sand-export operation” to China in May 2019, “with over 100 illicit shipments of sand” originating in North Korea. These shipments involved 1 million tons of sand and were worth at least $22 million.

North Korea’s coal export also increased in 2019 despite the international ban, with 3.7 million tons of coal exported between January and August 2019, estimated to be worth $370 million, the report said.

The U.N. stated that at least 2.8 million tons of coal were transferred from North Korea to China’s local barges via ship-to-ship transfers.

Ships are moored next to the West Sea Barrage, a system of dams, lock chambers, and sluices that close off the Taedong River from the Yellow Sea, in Nampo, North Korea, on Feb. 7, 2019. Carl Court/Getty Images

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a London-based defense and security think tank, published a report in 2020 analyzing satellite photos, commercial vessel information, and ships’ automatic identification system (AIS), which emits a location signal that can be picked up by satellites and radio equipment to prevent collisions at sea.

“A large fleet of North Korean cargo ships continues to deliver coal to China in contravention of U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, in what appears to be a large-scale, coordinated effort to evade sanctions imposed on the country over its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs,” the report concludes.

According to the report, North Korean vessels would load coal and other resources—likely sanctioned commodities—before sailing to Chinese waters around the Zhoushan Islands, an archipelago part of coastal China’s Zhejiang Province. Those shipments were likely meant for Chinese shipping terminals, the report said.

Zhoushan is one of China’s naval bases. It houses the East Sea Fleet, with destroyers, frigates, and corvettes stationed there. The islands are also home to facilities operated by the China Coast Guard, the China Maritime Safety Administration, and the Zhoushan Port Authority, according to the report.

Despite such a heavy military presence, the think tank found that based on satellite images, North Korean ships weren’t stopped or detained—even when the ships were transmitting fraudulent AIS signals to disguise themselves.

Frank Fang contributed to this report.