UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to adopt tougher sanctions against North Korea, reflecting closer cooperation between the United States and China on a longstanding dispute.
The 15-member Council approved a draft resolution, negotiated for weeks by U.S. and Chinese officials, that called for inspecting all cargo going in and out of the country, banning all weapons trade and expanding the list of individuals facing sanctions.
Diplomats said the resolution contained the most stringent measures yet to undermine the North's ability to raise money and secure technology and other resources for its nuclear weapons program. Much depends, however, on whether China — North Korea's leading trade partner and diplomatic shield — will enforce it.
Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., called the resolution "comprehensive, robust and unyielding," and said enforcement must be as well.
The Council has sought to hobble North Korea's nuclear weapons program before, but the country has repeatedly flouted those measures. In January, it conducted its fourth nuclear test and launched a rocket in February, even as diplomats were negotiating the current resolution.
The measure's toughest component would require all countries to inspect all cargo passing through their territory to or from North Korea. In the past, inspections were required only if there was reasonable suspicion that shipments contained banned items.
The resolution would expand the list of banned goods to include luxury watches, Jet Skis and snowmobiles worth more than $2,000. Kim Jong Un, North Korea's ruler, has been known to use such items to curry favor with fellow members of the country's elite.
It would also require countries to expel North Korean diplomats accused of carrying out illicit activities. It would prohibit North Korea from sending its martial arts experts to train police officers in foreign countries, as a U.N. panel recently accused Pyongyang of doing in Uganda.
Significant loopholes remain, however. North Korea would still be able to buy oil and sell its coal and iron ore, as long as it was not used to finance the country's nuclear weapons program — an activity that would be difficult to prove.
Although prices have fallen in recent years, minerals still account for 53 percent of North Korea's $2.5 billion in exports to China, its chief supplier of oil.
The White House hailed the resolution on Wednesday.
"We commend the work of the Security Council in sending a strong message to Pyongyang," said Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary. "North Korea must abandon these dangerous programs and choose the better path for its people."
The measure is the result of a narrow, diplomatic convergence between the United States and China. Beijing has repeatedly said it opposes Pyongyang's development of a nuclear weapons arsenal, and China publicly rebuked the North on Wednesday for carrying out nuclear tests this year in "defiance" of international prohibitions.
China signaled that it sees the resolution as spurring peace talks soon.
Beijing has long been loath to draw attention to Pyongyang's human rights abuses, which the U.N. has painstakingly documented and which Washington has sought to emphasize.
The new sanctions resolution is not explicitly aimed at human rights violations, though Power sought to make that connection in her remarks to the Council.
Referring to widespread malnutrition, Power accused North Korea on Wednesday of caring more about growing its nuclear weapons program than "growing its children."
The Chinese ambassador, Liu Jieyi, said the measure, which emerged after weeks of closed-door negotiations between Chinese and U.S. diplomats, cited the North's Jan. 6 and Feb. 7 tests, carried out in violation of previous resolutions.
But he also sounded a skeptical note about the effectiveness of sanctions, and used the occasion to criticize a U.S. proposal to deploy a missile shield in South Korea.
"Sanctions are not an end to themselves and the Security Council cannot fundamentally resolve the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula," Liu said. "Today's resolution should be a new starting point and a paving stone for the political settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula."
The Russian ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, echoed China's opposition to the missile shield and warned that the sanctions not be used to "choke off the North Korean economy."
Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Secretary General, said in a statement: "This firm response by the Security Council should put an end to the cycle of provocation and lead to the resumption of dialogue in accordance with the unified view of the international community."
Analysts noted that previous sanctions were hampered because of a lack of vigorous enforcement by member states and the North's ingenious ways of circumventing them. The Council does not punish countries that aid North Korea's illicit trade or that fail to put sanctions in effect.
When it met last month, a U.N. panel of experts overseeing the start of sanctions against Kim's government concluded that widespread violations had continued and that many countries, including several Council members, had fallen short in carrying out the measures.
The same concern overshadows the latest resolution.
China's agreement to limit imports of North Korean coal and iron ore came with a condition: that it should be demonstrated that such imports would support the North's illicit weapons programs.
By determining whether a shipment of coal from North Korea was for "livelihood purposes," China can maintain leverage it hopes to use to bring the North back to talks, but not to push it to the point of disintegration, South Korean analysts said.
It is also up to China to control a booming network of trade and smuggling across its 870-mile border with North Korea. The cross-border transactions have become a lifeline for the impoverished North Korean people, but most of them are also run directly by — or involve kickbacks to — Communist Party and military officials, according to the analysts.
North Korea has also often relied on companies or fronts based in China to export missile parts and other illicit goods and to import sensitive technology.