“North Korea’s state-run news agency on Thursday confirmed that Kim made a secretive trip to China on Monday through Wednesday, but carried no comments on the reported explosion.

China, which also confirmed Kim’s visit, is North Korea’s last major ally, and the countries’ ruling communist parties boast of close ties. But while China’s experiments with capitalism have transformed it into an economic dynamo, North Korea suffers chronic food shortages and depends on its larger neighbor for aid.

Kim met with President Hu Jintao and other Chinese leaders and agreed to “push ahead” with a peaceful resolution to the standoff over its nuclear weapons programs, the North’s official KCNA news agency and central television network reported earlier Thursday.

The broadcast added that Kim said his government “will continue to be patient and flexible and actively participate in the process of six-nation talks and contribute to making progress at the talks.”

The comments were likely to be encouraging to the United States and other countries, who want China to use its leverage as North Korea’s leading supplier of food and energy aid to get the country to disarm.”

I am just speechless at the sheer inanity of that statement. China has every interest in keeping us off balance in the region. If they can get us to expend resources providing protection money to NK to not develop nukes, like that idiotic Madeleine Halfbright and the Clinton administration would have us do, that’s a gift from heaven. Like beer at the Delta house, it don’t cost nothing.

China’s going to let NK’s leash out for as long as it benefits them to do so. Cheney’s just informed them that they better reel in their pooch before he let’s the big dogs loose.

that’s why Bush was an envoy rather than ambassador (ambassador implies diplomatic recognition, but envoy could be sent anywhere). He was most certainly in Beijing in the early 1970s, either during Nixon’s or Ford’s administration. Kissinger makes no mention of Bush in his book Diplomacy, but then Kissinger is not famous for giving credit to others. I wonder if anybody has a better source on what Bush Sr. did in Beijing?

That’s a deal China loves.

Laying down the law…yeah, right. Chinese patience and gamesmanship have paid off again.

And when the North Koreans do eventually export a nuke? “oh, so sorry, we have little control over those lunatics”. We can splutter about our ‘deal’ in a pile of radioactive ash…

Relying on the Chinese to take care of the North Korean nuclear program is a fool’s policy.

And, by the way, of what real interest is it to us to have China the only nuclear power in that region???

Unless my memory circuits are shorting, there would have been no US embassy in Peking during the Nixon visit, as we didn’t have diplomatic relations then! That’s why the visit was such a surprise when Nixon announced it on TV (1972? –I happened to watch that telecast, and can still remember how astonished I was).

I’m pretty sure Bush Sr was ambassador to China during the Ford administration? (Hmmm, maybe that was when he was CIA director. I don’t think he served long as either CIA director or ambassador to China — maybe a year in each position).

I don’t remember now what Bush Sr. did during the Carter administration — seems that since he was a prominent Repub he wouldn’t have been ambassador or CIA director then but who knows. Maybe a Bush Sr. Presidential library web site would have a timeline.

Old joke: President Nixon comes on TV and says “I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that our planes have stopped bombing Hanoi. The bad news is that they are on their way to Peking.”

Puzzlingly unfunny to anyone under 45 or so, unless they know about the “old” Nixon. “Tricky Dick” was his standard derogatory nickname — the first post above is the first time I’ve heard it applied to Dick Cheney.

Wasn’t George Bush Sr. the US ambassador (actually, envoy) to China right around the time of the Nixon visit? That would have been an educational experience, for sure. He may be passing tips to his son now…

Interestingly enough, the point you make about the Bush administration and Beijing speaking the same language is a good one — if you’ve ever taken a look at Chinese Foreign Ministry and Defense White Papers, they are remarkably realistic (in their appraisals of Chinese national interests). They are fully aware of the way national power influences relations between states. So yes, despite the fact that the U.S. does things they do not always like, at least there’s an understanding between the two as to how things work. Coincidentally, the Bush administration seems to enjoy the same sort of relationship with Russia’s rather hard-nosed President Putin.

I would have thought that between:
–State Dept types who argue for the status quo no matter what;
–horrified US lefties who see the US as responsible for all the world’s ills; and
–US businesses who are worried about their Asian investments;
that we would just go on “expressing grave concern”, as the NorKs keep building nukes, and as our intelligence services have to start figuring out whether or not they’re exporting fissile material to anyone with cash.

And of course any announcement of such a discovery (of NK exports of fissile material) will now be subject to political attack, by the Democrats at home and anti-Americans abroad, after the WMD debacle.

Tell me M (or anyone else)–do you think if ROK intelligence services discovered evidence of NorK export of fissile material — would they tell the CIA? For my part, I sure hope we’re not dependent on this.

With the crescendo of conventional car/truck/suicide bombings (and attempted ones) lately, in Europe and the Mideast, I figure it’s only a matter of time until we have a “radiological” one. (Did you notice the story a few days ago about the possible “chemical” bombing in Amman, supposedly averted by the Jordanians? I only know about it from the internet; it got almost no play on US cable TV news that I saw.)

A “plutonium” one (if it happens) will be particularly nasty.