Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang on Wednesday said, “We consistently oppose any country adopting unilateral sanctions based on its own domestic laws and regulations and the wrong method of exercising long-arm jurisdiction.”

Sanctions on 13 companies were triggered after U.S. President Donald Trump designated North Korea a state-sponsor of terrorism. Among the targeted companies was Dongyuan Industrial, which the U.S. Treasury Department said was working with front companies “for weapons of mass destruction-related North Korean organisations.”

Dongyuan was also sanctioned for exporting more than $28 million in goods including items linked to nuclear reactors to North Korea. The Treasury added that three companies alone had engaged in more than $750 million worth of business with the Hermit Kingdom, which involved computers, iron and coal.

Generally speaking, these new sanctions ban companies from using U.S.-linked bank accounts and they prevent foreign firms from doing business with such organizations.

The latest round of sanctions places a strain on what appeared to be a cooling of Sino-American relations. During President Trump’s recent visit to Asia, he urged his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and other leaders to take stronger efforts at curtailing North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Trump even said Xi was working hard on that front. But China remains North Korea’s biggest trading partner, and some analysts believe Washington’s latest move on Chinese companies — even those with suspected ties to terror– may cause Beijing to step back.

“Trump will continue to use trade and investment issues to pressure China on North Korea,” says Shou Huisheng, a researcher with Tsinghua University’s National Strategy Institute, in an interview with the South China Morning Post. “It is a very easy-to-use tactic for Trump, which may help him address the North Korean issue, but at the cost of failing to solve the root causes of the US-China trade imbalance.”

Still, Trump’s latest efforts may ultimately set the stage for a massive internal blow to the North Korean regime, whether China is behind it or not.

China’s state-run media announced that Song Tao, head of Beijing’s International Liaison Department, will visit Pyongyang on Friday. According to the New China News Agency, Song will “inform” North Korean officials about the recent 19th party Congress, a major political conclave that saw Chinese President Xi Jinping assume another five years in power.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang during a regular briefing on Wednesday declined to comment on weather Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions will be on the agenda. However, he said Tao will “exchange views on major issues of common concern.”

China is the North’s biggest trading partner, covering 90% of the Hermit Kingdom’s trade volume. But in recent months, China has taken a tougher stance on the nuclear-weapons armed country. Recently, China announced it will coal exports from North Korea and cut ties with banks operating there.

President Trump on Sunday Tweeted  that Xi said he “is upping the sanctions” and working “very hard” to curtail North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Since February, the North has tested 15 missiles. Meanwhile, it’s leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly threatened the U.S., raising fears that the country is bent on mounting nuclear warheads on missiles capable of striking the continental U.S.

China has also agreed to support the United Nations Security Council’s latest round of sanctions which could slash $1 billion from North Korea’s export revenue.

“The optimistic spin is that Donald Trump got through to the Chinese, and maybe the Chinese are taking this seriously — they’re going to send somebody to Pyongyang to talk about coming around on the nuclear program,” said Robert Kelly, associate professor in political science at South Korea’s Pusan National University, in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.  “But it’s probably more information sharing — the North Koreans want to know what’s going on.”

The new facility, expected to be in operation by 2020, is set to simulate flight speeds at 12 kilometers per second. A vessel traveling at such speed from China can reach the U.S. in 14 minutes.

The ground structure is meant to help scientists detect potential flaws and find solutions before actual test flights of new hypersonic vehicles commence.

“It will boost the engineering application of hyper-sonic technology, mostly in military sectors, by duplicating the environment of extreme hyper-sonic flights, so problems can be discovered and solved on the ground,” said Zhao Wei, a senior scientist working on the project, in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

Hyper-sonic speed is defined as traveling at least Mach 5 or five times the speed of sound. In March, China conducted seven successful test flights of its hyper-sonic glider WU-14, which travels at speeds between Mach 5 and Mach 10.

Currently, the title for most powerful wind tunnel stands with the United States. The LENX-X facility in Buffalo, New York, simulates speeds of up to 10 kilometers per second or Mach 30.

“China and the US have started a hyper-sonic race,” said Wu Dafang, professor at the school of aeronautic science and engineering at Beihang University in Beijing, in an interview with the South China Morning Post.

But they’re not the only ones with horses in the race. Russia, India and Australia have also tested early prototypes of the WU-14, which could be used to deliver nuclear-armed missiles.

Wu—who has helped develop hyper-sonic cruise missiles, a near space vehicle and other weapons under wraps for the People’s Liberation Army— says existing wind tunnels in mainland China have already helped solidify the success of its hypersonic weapons.

“We had a frank exchange here in China on maritime security issues and the South China Sea,” Tillerson told reporters during President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing on Thursday.” The U.S. position remains unchanged.”

He added, “We insist on upholding freedom of navigation, that claimants be consistent with international law and that claimants should stop construction and militarization of outposts in order to maximize prospects for successful diplomacy.”

China lays claim to virtually the entire area— a strategic waterway through which more than $3 trillion in trade passes through each year, and spotted with islands housing oil and gas fields. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also lay claims to parts of the South China Sea. In the past, China has caught the eye of the international community for creating artificial islands in the region and increasing its military presence there.

The Obama Administration responded to these efforts by sending U.S. warships to conduct freedom of navigation patrols—a move stepped up by President Trump.

The thorny issue is likely to come up as Trump completes his five-nation tour across Asia. He’s set to take part in two regional summits in Vietnam and the Philippines. The latter recently sued China over their claims to the South China Sea. Their view was backed by an international arbitration court. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday he will ask China to come clean with its true intentions in the South China Sea, even though he’s typically brushed the issue aside during his past sixteen months in office.

But according to China’s Foreign Ministry, Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping have expressed a commitment to maintaining peace on the South China Sea.

“Both sides support the protection of freedom of navigation and overflight for all countries, in accordance with international law,” it said in a statement. “The United States has angered China with freedom of navigation patrols close to Chinese-controlled islands in the South China Sea, which have been continued by the Trump administration.”

A wind turbine installation vessel, developed in China for use near its coasts, is sparking new hope that the dominant party in a six-way maritime sovereignty dispute will share technology. But analysts warn Beijing seldom brings in outsiders. The Chinese government has a wide technological lead in the South China Sea sovereignty dispute with Taiwan and…

After what U.S. officials said was several months of deliberation among President Donald Trump’s national security team, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently took a rather strident tone towards China in a major speech that came just weeks before Trump’s first state visit to China. “The United States seeks constructive relations with China, but we will…

China and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have held their largest-ever joint maritime rescue exercise, signalling a lull in South China Sea tensions. The drill on Tuesday simulated a collision between a Chinese passenger ship and a Cambodian cargo vessel off south China’s Guangdong province. It involved about 1,000 rescuers aboard 20…

“I applaud China for breaking off all banking relationships with North Korea, something that people would have thought unthinkable even two months ago,” Trump said. “I want to thank President Xi.”

For years, China has remained North Korea’s largest trading partner and virtually its only military ally. Beijing’s banks and financial institutions elsewhere have served as a lifeline for the nuclear armed “Hermit Kingdom”– often characterized by a burgeoning military and an impoverished populace.

The Treasury Department recently announced new sanctions on eight North Korean banks, 26 people in China, and three other countries the Trump administration says have been funneling money to the dictatorship.

Speaking before the Rose Garden, Trump called upon the nations of the world to band together against the nuclear threat of North Korea.

“North Korean nuclear weapons and missile development threaten the entire world with unthinkable loss of life,” Trump said. “All nations must act now to ensure the regime’s complete denuclearization.” That has been the diplomatic Holy Grail which none of the former real-estate mogul’s predecessors have ever found.

But, Trump says change is coming.

Beyond tougher sanctions imposed on Pyongyang by the UN within the last two months, the U.S. is also pressuring nations to isolate themselves from North Korea even if its severing the slightest of trade, banking and diplomatic ties.

“I appreciate the United Nations Security Council voting twice, unanimously — 15 to nothing, twice — to adopt hard-hitting resolutions against North Korea,” Trump said Tuesday. “I have recently issued tough new sanctions against those who do business with this outlaw regime. And I applaud China’s latest action to restrict its trade with North Korea.”

Washington’s base will actually be a neighbor of sorts to its Chinese counterpart occupying the same port city. The Xinhua news agency reports Beijing’s base will “assist China’s contribution to peace and stability both in Africa and worldwide.”

In fact, the People’s Liberation Army will have a lot of work to do. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said the base will be supporting anti-piracy efforts in the region, engaging in “humanitarian rescue” missions and contributing to “Djibouti’s economic and social development.”

The addition of the base follows a series of economic and social relations between China and parts of Africa.

NPR’s Gregory Warner notes that “Africa, as a whole, I think has been demanding that China become more of a long-term partner. And China’s been responding to that, showing that it’s not just here to build roads and airports, but it’s building jobs, building security.

“So we see a number of uncharacteristic moves by China in the last few years — first, dispatching a battalion of peacekeepers to a conflict in South Sudan. We see a tremendous investment in media on continent to tell that China story to Africans and more exchange programs for African students and engineers to go to China, something that the West used to offer but has decreased since Sept. 11.”

In addition, China is moving forward with other foreign investments, not the least of which is its proposed modern-day Silk Road or the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. The first link to that belt came in the form of a transcontinental railroad linking China with Europe.

Last year, the State Department then led by John Kerry decided to hand China a waiver to stay in Tier II for showing some improvement. But this year, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson decided China won’t get another “get-out-of-jail free card.”

Among a list of reasons he bumped China out, Tillerson said the government “has not taken serious steps to end its own complicity in trafficking, including forced laborers from North Korea that are located in China.”

The report accused China of being the source of several forms of trafficking including forced labor, forced begging, sex trafficking and trafficking of people from outside countries into China.

The U.S.’s move comes amid a shaking of Sino-American relations. In recent weeks, President Donald Trump seemed to lose patience with China after he announced that efforts to encourage China to take a tougher stance on nuclear-armed North Korea have “not worked out.” And his recent meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi probably didn’t raise many smiles among the Communist Party leadership.