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But since China signed up to the U.N.'s toughest sanctions against North Korea yet in March, after Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test, the daily caravan of trucks rumbling over Dandong's iron bridge from the North has slowed to a trickle.
My question is:How to explain "yet" in the paragraph cited from Time above? Does it mean "again"? But I can't find any record shows that China had done this to North Korea before. Thank you!
If you look at the definition of yet, you can see that it means:
Up until the present or a specified or implied time; by now or then.
In the case of your example sentence, yet is part of the larger phrase:
toughest sanctions against North Korea yet
Simply meaning
toughest sanctions to have ever been placed on North Korea
The original sentence's word order is a little confusing.
But since China signed up to the U.N.'s toughest sanctions against North Korea yet in March...
Let's move "in March" and reposition "yet".
But since China signed up in March to the UN's toughest sanctions yet against North Korea...
These are the "toughest sanctions yet" or "the toughest sanctions to date".
Yet modifies "toughest" (or the predicate that they are the toughest). These sanctions are the toughest yet, the toughest to date.
