Those with long memories—that go back, say, three months—will remember the last time the U.S. Treasury Department tried to bend an Axis of Evil member to its will through targeted financial sanctions. Failure was the outcome. Now the United States is trying for a do-over with Iran and, though the techniques—particularly for handling China—may be... Read More

A propos the Patriot Act Section 311 investigation against Banco Delta Asia in Macau that caused so much heartburn for the Six Party Agreement, I described an apparent worldwide campaign of financial warfare against North Korea and wrote : Well, speculate no more. Reuters delivers a crate of smoking guns in its reporting on another... Read More

Recent news reports concerning the gentle treatment of A. Q. Khan—acknowledged mastermind of the world’s most extensive proliferation network for nuclear weapons technology—bring home the point that U.S. nuclear policy is a tangle of contradictions. We ignore a proliferator like Pakistan, reward a defiant nuclear program like India’s with a legitimizing treaty, and go hammer-and-tongs... Read More

McClatchy did a big feature on the little bank in Macau, Banco Delta Asia. Stanley Au, the bank’s principal stockholder, is adamant about getting his bank back. The US Treasury is resisting, not a surprise, since the bank’s “potential for recidivism� under Au’s leadership was the rather lame justification for not giving Banco Delta Asia... Read More

A relatively obscure advisory on the Department of the Treasury website offers evidence of the hardliners’ determination to implement a financial blockade of North Korea in 2005-2006. On December 13,2005, two months after the Patriot Act Section 311 investigation against BDA was announced, Treasury issued an advisory entitled Guidance to Financial Institutions on the Provision... Read More

Via Arms Control Wonk , the Russians are also offering to step up and handle North Korea’s $25 million if... To me, this is no more—or less—than the Russians weighing in on the side of the State Department and pushing the Bush administration to override whatever objections raised by the Treasury Department and/or hardliners and... Read More

From Kevin Hall, Bank owner disputes money-laundering allegations, McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau, May 17, 2007: The full texts of the petition from Delta Asia Group and Stanley Au’s supporting personal statement to the U.S. Treasury Department requesting that its rule against Banco Delta Asia be rescinded, and an analysis of the key points involved, can... Read More

As sharp-eyed reader David pointed out, the owners of Banco Delta Asia group are petitioning the Treasury Department to rescind its final rule against BDA. In a China Matters exclusive, I’ve obtained and posted the files for Delta Asia Group’s petition and the personal statement of DAG’s largest shareholder, Stanley Au. Au’s petition, in particular,... Read More

From the May 3 Financial Times: So it looks like the lump sum approach is going ahead, no doubt to the chagrin of Bush administration hardliners who hoped to force North Korean account holders to present themselves (if they could or dared) to withdraw their funds in person with a suitcase. And I’m not surprised... Read More

Do you know whom the North Koreans can blame for the whole BDA mess? John Kerry! According to a superb March 18 backgrounder by McClatchy’s Kevin Hall, Treasury's Patriot Act power goes too far, critics say, we learn: Section 311 of the Patriot Act, which was the basis for Treasury’s action against BDA, essentially allows... Read More