China has decided to try the stick instead of the carrot with Kim Jong-un. But the tactic of “get back to that table and finish your carrots, young man,” might not work after letting the temperamental dictator have all the cookies he wanted before dinner got started.

A Saturday session of the UN Security Council resulted in an actual unanimous vote on sanctions.

The US led resolution passed by the SC on N. Korea will be a loss of 1/3 of their exports = over $1 billion in hard currency #ANewDayAtTheUN pic.twitter.com/gnursgwfCV

— Nikki Haley (@nikkihaley) August 5, 2017

Just completed call with President Moon of South Korea. Very happy and impressed with 15-0 United Nations vote on North Korea sanctions.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 7, 2017

Unanimous, meaning that Russia and China actually agreed to these new sanctions.

But China wants to be the good cop in addition to being the bad cop, so their foreign minister tried being firm when talking to North Korea’s foreign minister.

China’s foreign minister on Sunday urged North Korea to halt its missile and nuclear testing, one day after China and Russia joined with the United States in a unanimous U.N. Security Council vote approving the toughest economic sanctions yet against the increasingly isolated regime.

“Do not violate the U.N.’s decision or provoke international society’s goodwill by conducting missile launching or nuclear tests,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned.

Wang and his North Korean counterpart, Ri Yong Ho, met at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ meeting of foreign ministers in Manila. Wang said he pressed Ri to abide by U.N. resolutions and also lobbied for resumption of the six-party talks that would include both Koreas, the U.S., Japan, China and Russia. The talks were initiated in Beijing in August 2003, but have been stalled since December 2008, with North Korea formally dropping out in April 2009.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said last week the U.S. was willing to talk with Pyongyang — if the North agrees to abandon its quest for nuclear weapons.

And that’s a pretty big “if.” Kim Jong-un isn’t going to want to head back for talks when he’s just been slapped with sanctions – unanimously – by the Security Council. Were the sanctions necessary? Absolutely. And it is a GOOD thing that China and Russia are finally pulling their heads out of the sand to at least acknowledge that Kim Jong-un needs a reality check. But China is going to have to make up it’s mind if it wants to be good cop or bad cop. It can’t do both after enabling North Korea to get to this point.