South Korea and the United States are rushing to mete out strong unilateral sanctions on North Korea, stepping up pressure on China to move toward tougher U.N. Security Council sanctions against the rogue state for its nuclear and missile provocations.

Following Seoul’s surprise decision on Feb. 8 to shut down the Gaeseong industrial complex, the United States Congress approved a package of stringent sanctions against the North with unusual swiftness.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act of 2016 -- the toughest bill ever introduced to Congress to punish the communist state -- in a 408-2 vote on Friday, only two days after the Senate voted unanimously to approve the bill.

The legislation, which is expected to go into effect shortly, is intended to cut off funding for the North’s nuclear and missile programs. So it would not only levy mandatory sanctions on North Korean officials and companies engaged in the development of nuclear bombs and missiles. Under a secondary boycott, it would also slap sanctions on companies in third countries that do business with the North that contributes to its weapons programs.

The bill also requires imposing sanctions on companies that import coal, graphite and other mineral resources from the North, if the proceeds from the transactions are used to support the North’s illicit activities. 

On top of that, it targets the North’s cyberattacks, human rights abuses, and an array of other illicit activities, including the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goods as well as narcotics trafficking.

The bill, if implemented as written, would inflict real pain on North Korea, as the banking restrictions did in 2007. At the time, the U.S. Treasury Department ordered American financial institutions to cut links with a Macau-based bank called Banco Delta Asia, which was accused of handling North Korean funds.

The legislation requires the treasury secretary to determine whether the North is a “primary money laundering concern.” Such a designation would allow Washington to impose the BDA-style sanctions on financial institutions in third countries, if they are found to have helped North Korea finance nuclear and missile programs.

Curiously, Washington has never labeled North Korea a primary money laundering concern, despite its extensive involvement in laundering money earned from diverse illicit activities.

The main reason is that State Department officials have thus far tried to resolve the issue of the North’s nuclear weapons program through negotiations. The tough sanctions bill approved last week speaks for a shift in Washington’s policy.

The legislation targets not just the Pyongyang regime. The inclusion of a secondary boycott reflects Washington’s intention to pressure China into acting more resolutely against the North.

Pressure on Beijing comes not just from outside but from within. The Global Times, a newspaper published by China’s ruling Communist Party, recently warned of growing calls at home to put pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

Noting that “a growing number of Chinese, both elites and the general public, regard North Korea as China’s burden rather than an old friend,” the paper points out that “changes in public opinion are altering the external environment of China’s policy on North Korea and can be converted into pressure that pushes the Chinese government to ramp up sanctions against Pyongyang.”

It rightly warned that “the more China’s policy departs from public opinion, the more political cost it has to pay.”

The Beijing government should act on the warning from the Global Times and take the stringent U.S. sanctions legislation seriously.