A bipartisan U.S. congressional panel suspects Beijing is not implementing sanctions on North Korea as hard as it did in the past. 

According to Bloomberg, the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission released an annual report Wednesday that said the Chinese government “appears to have already started to loosen enforcement of sanctions” on the North. 

Noting the two communist allies share a complicated relationship marked by pragmatic coordination and deep strategic mistrust, the report said it is unclear how the North’s military might respond to a Chinese intervention in a possible rapid flow of North Korean refugees in contingency. 

The panel also found no evidence that Chinese and U.S. military commanders have discussed the operational planning required for any contingency on the Korean Peninsula in the case of another Korean conflict.