China has well-ordered North Korean companies in the country to shut down by January of the upcoming year as it applies UN sanctions imposed following Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test, the commerce ministry said on Thursday. The ministry said the companies, including joint ventures with Chinese firms, have 120 days to close from the date the United Nations resolution was adopted, September 11. The announcement comes days after China confirmed that it will apply another major part of the sanctions: a limit on exports of refined petroleum products to North Korea starting October 1 and a ban on textiles from its neighbor.

China's application of UN sanctions is particularly biting for North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang's main ally and trading partner, responsible for around 90 percent of the outsider nation's commerce.
The US has pressed China to use its economic leverage to strong-arm North Korea into giving up its nuclear ambitions. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will visit Beijing this weekend for talks with China's top representative Yang Jiechi, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi.

Tillerson will discuss the North Korean nuclear tensions, trade issues and President Donald Trump's planned trip to China in November, the US State Department said. Trump's tour will also take in regional allies Japan and South Korea. Washington has alternated between criticising and praising Beijing's role in the North Korea crisis, on the one hand welcoming its support for new sanctions but also insisting it must do more to rein in its unruly neighbor.

For its part, China has called on both Trump and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Un to tone down their increasingly bellicose rhetoric and instead try to begin peace talks. "We are opposed to any war on the Korean peninsula, and the international community will never allow a battle push people into the void of sadness," foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing. "Sanctions and the promoting of talks are both the requirements of the UN Security Council. We should not overemphasize one aspect while ignoring the other,"

While China has imposed sanctions on its renegade neighbor, it wants to avoid precipitating the regime's downfall over fears that its collapse could send an arrival of refugees across its border and place the US army at its doorstep.

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