Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun daily says that China’s oil supply to North Korea appears to have increased.
 
The daily said on Sunday that freight trains traveling from the oil storage facility in Dandong to the Daqing oil field operated once a day when the United Nations sanctions against the North were imposed, but the number increased to two to three times a day from late June.
 
The paper speculated that the change reflects China’s concerns that the Kim Jong-un regime might become unstable under continued international sanctions following the North’s missile launches and nuclear tests.
 
It added that there are some views that the Chinese are imposing pressure on South Korea and the United States over the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery on the Korean Peninsula.
 
Sources in China and North Korea estimate that if China continues its oil supply to the North at the current pace, China’s total oil supply to Pyongyang for this year will surpass 500-thousand tons, the annual average of previous years.
 
The paper said that Beijing might have increased the oil supply at the request of the North’s Workers’ Party Vice Chairman Ri Su-yong, who visited China in May.