The United States imposed new sanctions Jan. 15 on seven companies from China, Iran, and North Korea, barring them from trading with U.S. companies or government agencies for two years. The sanctions, along with those related to the Abdul Qadeer Khan network, represented the last of nearly 300 such punishments related to unconventional weapons and missile proliferation that were doled out during the Bush administration's eight-year tenure. (See ACT, October 2008.)
Notice of the actions was published in the Federal Register Feb. 2 and singled out two Chinese entities, Dalian Sunny Industries and Bellamax; two Iranian industries, Shahid Bakeri and Shahid Hemmat Industrial Groups; and three North Korean companies Korea Mining and Development Corporation, Moksong Trading Corporation, and Sino-Ki.
The action will not likely affect the companies directly because past sanctions have barred them from trading with U.S. entities until present. Nonetheless, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson protested the sanctions on the Chinese businesses Feb. 3, claiming that they could hurt future prospects for economic cooperation with the United States.
Dalian Sunny Industries, also known as LIMMT Economic and Trade Company Ltd., has traded with Iranian companies in the past; and this relationship was responsible for the sanctions placed on it under Executive Order 13382, issued in June 2005. The order, which "blocks the property of specially designated [weapons of mass destruction] proliferators and members of their support networks," provides the basis for the sanctions on all seven entities and is administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
A June 2006 press release from the Treasury Department said that Dalian Sunny Industries and other Chinese firms had given "financial, material, technological or other support for, or goods or services in support of the Aerospace Industries Organization, the Shahid Bakeri Industrial Group and/or the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group."
The Shahid Bakeri and Shahid Hemmat Industrial Groups are subsidiaries of Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization, a group that is itself "a subsidiary of the Iranian Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, and is the overall manager and coordinator of Iran's missile program," according to the Treasury Department. (See ACT, July/August 2007.)
The Iranian entities have had their international assets frozen since December 2006 under UN Resolution 1737 for activities related to Iran's ballistic missile program.