According to the New York Times, the White House is discussing plans to push a UN resolution that would essentially quarantine North Korea:
The Bush administration, facing a series of recent provocations from North Korea, is debating a plan to seek a United Nations resolution empowering all nations to intercept shipments in or out of the country that may contain nuclear materials or components, say senior administration officials and diplomats who have been briefed on the proposal.
The resolution envisioned by a growing number of senior administration officials would amount to a quarantine of North Korea, though, so far at least, President Bush’s aides are not using that word. It would enable the United States and other nations to intercept shipments in international waters off the Korean Peninsula and to force down aircraft for inspection.
But, said several American and Asian officials, the main purpose would be to give China political cover to police its border with North Korea, the country’s lifeline for food and oil. That border is now largely open for shipments of arms, drugs and counterfeit currencies, North Korea’s main source of hard currency.
Two years of six-nation negotiations with North Korea have proved fruitless so far. It is uncertain, however, that China and South Korea would go along with any plan to step up pressure. To ward off a confrontation with the North, the two nations have opposed taking the issue to the United Nations Security Council.
Hard to say which way South Korea will go with this. When the White House started throwing around the words “North Korea” and “Security Council” last week, Seoul was pretty quick to say it opposed handling North Korea in the UNSC at this juncture. Or did it? Anyway, with talk abuzz of a possible North Korean nuclear test in the works, Seoul sent another warning up North, so perhaps patience may be wearing thin.
Back to the quarantine. Frankly, I have my doubts over whether China would go along with something like this, and what’s more, you know North Korea won’t make it easy. Recalling how the North Koreans didn’t exactly give up meekly when the Australian Navy and Special Forces captured the drug runner Pong Su, the only way I’d imagine a North Korean plane carrying anything illicit would allow itself to be brought down is by being shot down, which, needless to say, might lead to a situation.
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Oh-oh Republicans, fiscal mismanagement and military spending all on top of accusations that the Reagan administration did something less than forthright and honest-you are sure to draw fire from Nora…
As far as declaring China a rogue state, isn’t it just common sense that China has to do something a little more diabolical than not bow to the US’s every whim and command before it gets slapped with that label. Think about what that would do to the label-make it useless. By that standard Germany and France would also have to be labeled as being rogue for not supporting the US invasion of Iraq. Siezing financial holdings is the nuclear option when it comes to international finance. Who will lend you money or invest in your country if they have to worry that they stand a chance of having the money confiscated by the government? If you ever go to Shanghai, go to the historical Pudong area and see the old colonial buildings the Chinese confiscated when the communists took over. It is my understanding they later sold them back to the same countries they were taken from when the country was reopened-always nice to have to pay for the same building twice. How long do you think it would take for China to reciprocate? My guess is less than 5 minutes of it reaching Wu’s ears. Tarrifs would be similar.
DPRK made it crystal clear that it wants to harm the U.S. and it is building a nuclear bomb and the delivery vehicle(missiles) for that purpose. DPRK is a terrorist nation.
China is helping DPRK to achieve that end by supplying oil to the terrorist regime. We use the Taliban rule, i.e. anybody helping the terrorists are the terrorists themselves. This gives the justification for the U.S. to take Chinese assets. I will do it in a New York minute.
” the only way I’d imagine a North Korean plane carrying anything illicit ”
I didn’t think they flew much at all beyond passenger flights in and out of Beijing. Not that I know much about the subject so someone kindly correct me, but I don’t think “flights” would be much an issue, its the cargo ships with cannons and self-destruction devices.
I have a theory on why there’s the mixed signal coming out of Seoul right now. I bet there’s a chasm happening between the presidency who’s deadly opposed to opposing North Korea in anyway, versus the foreign ministry lead by foreign minister Ban who’s a smart guy but who is hamstrung by irrational orders from the top. If Ban keeps it up and continues to defy the Blue House, watch him get the axe as well.
I seriously doubt China would go along with this which would render the whole thing pointless. Also North Korea has said many times they view sanctions as an act of war. A quarantine seems like sanctions to me.
For a quarantine to work, all flights by DPRK aircraft would have to be subject to inspection upon landing. So all countries who currently receive flights would have to cooperate.
Does DPRK have its own national airline? If so, anybody have any idea how many aircraft, what type (Soviet?), what routes they fly? Post above suggests they go to Beijing, how about Moscow? Are there any long-range direct flights to “neutrals” (such as India)?
What other airlines (if any) fly in/out of DPRK? I assume PRC does, anyone else?
How about long range military transport aircraft?
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....rforce.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/.....ipment.htm
If a DPRK military transport plane took off and flew to some place like Pakistan on an unannounced flight, while transiting Chinese airspace, I don’t see how any quarantine could be enforced, even if such a flight was detected. PRC and Pakistan could deny the existence of such a flight, confident that there would be no negative ramifications for their denial.
That’s probably how nuclear materials/ technology were moved in the past.
quarantine won’t work because china and sk will not play.
how about talking directly to the north koreans? now that’s an idea, no? bush not a man of principle since he’s already killed over a hundred thousand people during his tenure.
I believe Bush is trying to talk directly to North Korea in the same multilateral format that everyone was clamoring for him to use with the Iraqis. The North Koreans are the ones who don’t want to go to the six party talks not the Americans.
I disagree. Bush is strugling to do something other than say we are trying to talk to them. He has sold himself as a President of action and one that is determined to make the world free from terrorism and to spread democracy (what ever that means) but yet has proven himself COMPLETELY incompetent when it comes to dealing with NK, a country which by all accounts, we are pretty certain has the desire, the capability and a stock pile (be it large or small) of WMD. The claims that Iraq had them using that as a pretext to invade and to this day, none have been found nor is it likely that they ever will be, have proven to be false (and I would argue intentionaly misleading at best). China will not cooperate and I do not see anything that the US has that we could offer China as an incentive to get them to. SK is a bit of a wild card, they want to see the nukes issue resolved peacefully, under their leadership if possible (after all DJ got the first NPP given to a Korean for meeting JI, imagine what Roh would get if he successfuly cut a deal with JI to get the nukes off the peninsula). Besides, quarantine is generally considered an act of war and while it is somewhat doubtful that NK has the resources to launch an all out attack on the South, the probability that they have enough of something that would cause horrible loss of life either here on the peninsula or in Japan is significant enough to make China, Sk and Japan not want there to be a quarantine. Of course NK doesn’t want to talk-why would they. It is Bush’s balls in the fire, not JI’s. The real issue here is that Bush has been incapable of dealing with Asia (I would argue half the people in his own country as well as the rest of the world) and as a result, there is no one that wants to work with him to resolve this issue. The Japanese might be willing to if he concedes that Tokdo is theirs (I can see him doing this if he thinks it will get him what he wants, not that any consession on his part matters…) but that is about it.
I don’t think the planes or ships have to be registered to North Korea. North Koreans very often use foreign ships rented in Chinese ports by their state security agents and planes sent by the vendor or buyer countries. Those ships and planes used by the North traverse Chinese skies and waters, not to mention highways (the North Koreans used trucks to send missile parts to Pakistan several years back). China is crucial if the quarantine is to work.
This quaratine may be an easier pill to swallow for the Chinese, unlike the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI). PSI was aimed at any and all countries transfering sensitive materiel or weapons to “rogue” states. Certainly, China would’ve been a victim since Chinese defense firms share active business relations with numerous Middle Eastern governments.
It sounds like this UN resolution would be aimed solely at trade involving North Korea and wouldn’t hurt Chinese trade with the Mullahs. In principle, it’s also not an embargo aimed at strangling North Korea’s economy, as trade of other type of products wouldn’t be impinged.
I’d say it certainly puts pressure on China to show its true colors solely regarding North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and nothing else.
As long as we call it a quarantine and not a blockade, it’s all good. Reminds me of another dictatorship that had missiles aimed at us a few decades ago.
nathaniel wrote:
Also North Korea has said many times they view sanctions as an act of war. A quarantine seems like sanctions to me.
we’re talking north korea: everything is an act of war to them.
“China will not cooperate and I do not see anything that the US has that we could offer China as an incentive to get them to.”
Sure there’s something the US could do. Boycott Chinese economy. But that won’t happen because the US, like S.Korea, heavily depend on China economically.
does china really not care if north korea goes nuclear? are communist ties more important than making sure japan and south korea don’t feel a need to go nuclear?
NK going nuclear is kind of like a man who has a wife and the wife’s sister-in-laws all get new hand bags, lets say. The husband couldn’t care less if they carry their belongings around in a plastic Emart bag or in a gucci purse but is forced sooner or latter to spend the money to get his wife a nice bag just to keep up-again not something he really cares about and not something that he sees as posing a threat but a nusance to be sure.
As far as boycotting the Chinese economy-that couldn’t happen even with the most anti-communist administration imaginable and it would never happen with a business friendly Republican administration. The fact of the matter is that the two economies are too interdependant for that to be a real option. The businesses that have either direct operations or purchase materials and products from Chinese companies would make sure that there is a regime change ASAP. Besides, don’t you think those same products wwould still come through Taiwan, Hong Kong or even Korea adding a middle man? Political suicide-even Bush can see that.
perhaps the US is also looking at China, not just NK. if they impose trade sanctions on NK, but china doesn’t comply, then the US could use that as justification to impose some trade restrictions on china……and i’m sure that they would find ways to make these trade restrictions benificial in the domestic economy and politics, such as restrictions that aren’t allowed under trade agreements etc. could be interesting.
“Does china really not care if north korea goes nuclear? are communist ties more important than making sure japan and south korea don?€™t feel a need to go nuclear?”
Somebody posted a few threads back about the NE Asia “6-ring circus” (my paraphrase, from memory, of the intent of his remark). US, Japan, ROK, Taiwan, DPRK, PRC. I suppose 7, if you want to include Russia.
They say that in astronomy the prior calculation of the orbital mechanics of multiple bodies (3 or more) is ultimately an insoluble problem. But one can certainly observe what happens (ideally from a safe distance), and it seems clear to me from the pattern of PRC behavior over the last several years that it suits PRC to have the DPRK go nuclear, as a way to keep US distracted and divided ref Taiwan. But of course this is now driving US and Japan closer (but US and ROK are drifting further apart).
I think PRC and DPRK take it for granted that US, ROK, Japan are so committed to NPT that neither ROK or Japan will go nuclear. The question then becomes just when do the PRC and/or DPRK make a mistake and push that proposition far.
So does Bush really mean what he says, Noolji? Aye, there’s the rub. If he is really a ruthless killer as you so delight in portraying him, you ought to be really fearful that he will make a mistake (either before, or after, the PRC and/or DPRK make a mistake). And if that’s so, why won’t you join me in arguing for a US withdrawl from Korea? (I suppose because you’re waiting for 2009, when presumably all will presumably become sweetness and light again between US and DPRK, toasts in Pyongyang and all that jazz).
I think the unwritten assumption by many in Asia (and the US too) is that Bush (and his potential successors too) will go on saying indefinitely that the DPRK nuke problem is intolerable, but then not really do anything substantive about it. As happens so often in politics and national affairs, that certainly looks to be the safest course of action. (Certainly this was Clinton’s modus operandi).
The problem becomes an “8-body” one though (at least for the US)when Iran gets their nukes operational. Maybe even a 9-body, if a sudden drastic change occurs in Pakistan. As time goes on, such an occurrence (or some other unexpected development) seems more and more likely; things just won’t remain static.
Which is why I favor US ground withdrawl and ROK to receive operational control of its own nuclear weapons from US — and Japan too. As the columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote a while back, it’s time for the PRC to share the nightmare.
Chances of this happening are nil right now of course, but the situation has to be countered eventually (if it really is “intolerable” — it is to me, but I just don’t know what it is to US politicians, be they Democratic or Republican).
We argue about this stuff here but I suppose deep down inside people everywhere don’t really believe anything bad will ever happen — since nothing has for so long. My problem is that I have too active an imagination; I can still remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when an unexpected but potentially world-shaking event happened.
Oh no, you say, not another speech about Sept 11. No, I’m actually referring to whatever night of January of 1991 it was(18th?) — the one when Saddam launched his first missiles on Israel.
Anybody else remember that CBS news (Dan Rather) reported immediately that Israeli chemical defense teams had detected nerve gas around the impact areas? And that Israeli aircraft were in the air? My personal estimate at that moment was that we’d soon be seeing Israeli nukes airbursting over the Iraqi western desert, to suppress the Scud launch areas (assuming the Israelis didn’t choose to retalitate by nuking Baghdad).
Turned out it was just Dan Rather “being himself”, the report was mistaken. But the memory lingers….
Abraham Lincoln has made his second appearance on this blog as a possible early version of a “Bush war criminal”, as Nooji might call him. So, I might as well mention old Honest Abe once again. At the beginning of the US civil war he suspended habeas corpus, a privilege authorized to the government by the US constitution but never before used in the history of the Republic (nor since if I’m not mistaken).
Strenous objections to this were made by individual US Congressmen (US Congress was not in session) and Supreme Court justices. To which Lincoln replied that a large portion of the country was in rebellion, and were all the provisions of the constitution to go unenforced excepting this one?
Seems to me this same logic applies to NPT. Time for the US to send an unmistakable signal, by publicly making a proposal to Japan and ROK that they also announce their withdrawal from the NPT. Diplomatically “cutting the Gordian knot” in a manner of speaking. (”Militarily” cutting it would consist of an actual execution of an ROK and/or Japan crash “Manhattan project”, or the actual transfer of operational control of a couple dozen US nuclear weapons).
This is why I’d personally welcome an actual NorK nuclear test (assuming it’s done on their own territory of course). With the thought that this would help to make the nightmare clearer to all.
But then again, maybe even a NorK test wouldn’t be enough to push the US government and its allies in NE Asia to action; there’s that multiple-body prediction problem again.
The South Korean “leaders” are completely useless for putting any pressure on N.K., they don’t even protest when the norks kill their soldiers. In fact, they tell the dead soldiers’ families to keep quiet: http://english.chosun.com/w21d.....50039.html
The U.S. has been holding back out of deference to S.K., now it should do what it needs to.
Rowan,
I like your scenario. Raise some tariff on those cheap Chinese imports to revive some U.S. industries and possibly create jobs. Some may argue that the retaliation from China may actually diminish jobs in the U.S. Who knows for sure? We can always relax the tariff if it doesn’t work.
One more thing to add. China holds about 40% of the U.S. treasury bills (national debt). Greenspan recently warned once again the U.S. has too much debt. Is that any surprise? With Iraqi war, I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. goes bankrupt tomorrow. The republicans must be hiding the deficit as they did in Reagan administration.
If China does not cooperate with the U.S., the U.S. can designate China as a rogue nation and take its assets in the U.S. Wouldn’t that be fun? I like social security to pay me double when I get to be old enough to receive the payment.
It seems that Bush doesn’t have any good options here and yet all the Bush-haters keep saying he’s doing nothing. What is it you would suggest he do? I agree with Paul that the Americans should just pull out all troops and let the Koreans sort it all out themselves. Would this solve everything? No, but it would get the US out of a sticky situation that looks like little more than a losing proposition.
Why not pull out all troops and put them in Okinawa and Guam so as to keep a presence in Asia, and just let the others work things out, since nobody but the Japanese seem to want to work with the US to solve this problem. It just seems to me that the Americans don’t have alot of good options here.
Assuming that much of what the Chinese govt puts out is baseless lies, I cannot ascertain exactly how much for the figure I keep seeing in looking into it is that in 2004, the foreign direct investment in PRC topped out at around 50 billion dollars. A large portion of that belongs to US businesses and that is just for 2004 and does not reflect investment from previous years. Do you really think US businesses will be okay with walking away from that money? I don’t. As for the taliban analogy, I would liken them to raising a pitbul for fighting. It is alright for a while (like when those people were fighting against the Soviet invaders back in the late 70’s-early 80’s) but things can quickly change if the dog turns on its master, it has to be put down. Here is the thing: putting down a crazed dog is one thing, ignoring the fact that the US helped create the taliban and now that it fits the current administration’s agenda, they are now the same as terrorists. I would not argue for a moment that the taliban needed to be gotten rid of but the situation is not that that simple. The same can be said of what happened in El Salvador, Panama and many other countries around the world. My issue is why do we have to pay to create a problem that we then have to pay to solve with doubtful results. Why not investing in developing a real relationship with the Chinese and working with them together to develop a mutually beneficial NE Asia. Surely, a unified, capitalistic Korea could only be a good thing as a trading partner for China. As it is now, SK is a large investor in China. With a unified Korea, I think that the removal of US troops would be welcomed by all parties. Surely there is a smarter, more effective way of dealing with this problem than freezing all Chinese assets in the US. The US would loose much more than the Chinese would.
Even better than a unified capitalist Korea for China would be to simply take over North Korea, which is what the Chinese government is in the process of laying the groundwork for with the Northeast Asia history project and a big recent influx of aid (”investment”) into the North. They’ll have minerals to exploit, a captive workforce that will labor for less even than the Chinese, and lots of cheap real estate.
lettuce leaf wrote:
the Chinese government is in the process of laying the groundwork for with the Northeast Asia history project and a big recent influx of aid (?€?investment?€?) into the North
i have heard rumblings that roh’s lame efforts to cozy up to china are aimed at preventing that.
‘just seems to me us has no good options here..’
well, then the question is, which option out of the bad options is the best option? speak directly to north korea, that’s the best option. bush say he’s got to stand on principal, but this is a man who brought about the deaths of over a hundred thousand members of his own species, he’s going to be talking about principals? he used lies to start a war. he’s locked up americans who have no right to legal council, and under his administration, we see the us using torture.
this man is not a man of principle; he’s an agent for the radical right like ann coulter and sean hannity. bush can sit down and talk to the north koreans. maybe if he talked to them, we could resolve the issue and see north korea become a member of the world community and thus allow us to devote our resources to fighting al qaida.
******
china will not play ball here. it’s not in their interest to do so. north korea provides a good buffer for the middle kingdom in that the us can’t go there. it’s china’s own dmz minus the ‘d’. why in the hell would the changs give that up?
the bush supporters have so strongly criticized clinton’s deal with the north that they cannot now do essentially the same thing (sit down with the north, make a deal to give them what they need, and hope they comply). it would be pragmatic but he would lose lots of support on his right flank.
i don’t want to say he lacks principles on this. he is abiding by one clear principle: giving north korea anything is like rewarding them for bad behavior. we tried it once and it didn’t work; we won’t try that again.
of course that limits his options, but i don’t want to say he’s lacking principles here.
“north korea provides a good buffer for the middle kingdom” Yeah, especially when China controls it directly, which is what they are preparing to do as the current regime implodes.
Blockade is dangerous and unnecessary. Neither Russia nor China will join, and most of the NK trade goes through the railway links with those two countries. Their planes fly over the Chinese and Russian air space, too. I do not also think that talk about blockade is a good diplomacy. Threats must be credible, and now people within the beltway are talking of things which will require a lot of effort but will have zero result. Sort of making oneself a laughing stock in the eyes of Pyongyang, do not you find?
re China. Countries do not annex other countries (I mane, internationally recognized countries with a UN seat) these days. Period. Nothing like it has happenned since, I assume, 1945 or so. Taiwan is a different issue, because of its peculiar standing, so it might be swallowed by China. But not North Korea. BUT takeover might have other form, an installation of a friendly/puppet (precise description depends on one’s individual political taste) government in Pyongyang. The great powers do such things frequently. So, North Korea remains a separate state, but with a new reformist pro-Chinese government. Chinese are probabaly considering something like this. I personally believe that such a plan will create more more problems than it can possible solve. I hope people in Beijing understand this as well…
I fail to see what kind of positive resolution would come from direct talks between North Korea and the US. They had a deal before, which the Norks secretly ignored. What future deal is going to be any better? How many deals are they going to sign before someone finally says, ‘Gee, I guess we really can’t trust KJI to keep his word’? Another deal will very likely be worth less than the paper it’s written on.
I just don’t think it’s worth it for Bush to go one-on-one because the US will likely end up paying lots of money and get nothing out of the deal. That’s why I say withdraw the troops and let Asians work this out themselves.
It is true that the North Koreans did not live up to their side of the 1994 deal.
Neither did the Americans. They did not institute diplomatic relations, as they promised; they did not take North Korea off the terrorist state list, as they promised; they did not provide all the fuel oil they were supposed to; and they probably still targeted North Korea with nuclear weapons, though they promised not to.
My point is not that the Americans are worse than the North Koreans. I would much rather live in Vermont (always my favorite state) than Hambyongbukdo. It’s just that the deal was never lived up to by either side.
The North Koreans have no intention of ever going back to the 6 Party talks.
Will the Americans quarantine the North? Well, as everyone has pointed out, it will only work if the South Koreans and the Chinese go along, and they probably (almost certainly) won’t unless there is a nuclear test, and maybe not even then.
Will the Americans do it anyway? I don’t know.
Will the North Koreans respond violently? Possibly. Not with a full scale assault, but perhaps a missile aimed at Osan, or some other such place.
What then?
Basically both sides didn’t and don’t trust each other at all. I just don’t see much point in the US doing the trusting, as I don’t think it will get them anywhere. Even if the US signed another deal and totally honored it and didn’t undermine it in any way, I still don’t believe for a second that the Norks would honor their side of the deal. Look at the South. They gave millions in ‘aid’ and what benefits have they seen? I guess they could say that at least the North hasn’t collapsed and haven’t nuked us or attacked. I don’t think the US has to play that game of paying huge amounts of cash for meagre and doubtful gains. Again, what benefits will they see from going to a one-on-one format, or even in the 6 country format? Don’t get me wrong, I hope the 6 party talks do happen, but I’m not hopeful that they’ll be productive in terms of stopping Nork nukes.
Bluejeans, as you point out, the Norks will never go back to the table. I believe you’re right. So what options do the Yanks have? A quarantine won’t work, and the US is unlikely to get much help from the South or China, so I still don’t see any clear options (positive ones). That’s why I suggest getting out and forming a strategic perimeter in Guam and Japan.
Even a partial quarantine might not be a bad idea. It would be very difficult for the US to get everyone on board especially China. But even if it was at a minimum only an excuse for Japan to quarantine North Korea along with a navel blockade of the open seas, it would put some serious pressure on North Korea. It would take away a lot of the hard currency ( which a lot comes from Japan) they so desperately need to pay for things like oil from China. China might not go along with the quarantine but they are not going to float North Korea millions of barrels of oil either.
North Korea will talk about going to war just like they do every other week but at the end of the day they know that they can?€™t start anything because that would mean starting a war they cannot win. Just like the US can’t start a war that is going to be VERY messy with little benefit. It just might force North Korea back to the six party talks.
I WOULD say that Bush lacks principles. He has offered on numerous occasions to give NK as close to a non-agression pact as he can with out having to put it through congress if they will first give up the nukes. I think that is more than Clinton offered them-not to say that that deal turned out well. Bluejeans is right, niether side kept their side of the bargain and in that light you begrudgingly can’t blame NK for going back on their word.
Here is the thing about the way Bush has dealt with NK that is so offensive: he attacks Iraq claiming they have WMD when I think it was a well known fact they did not. NK, for all Bush’s talk of being tough, has continued to do exactly as they please and flaunt the fact that they DO have WMD-where is the action? Tough talk that can’t be backed up with action is worse than action that fails because it takes the credibility away and no, I am not refering to any credibility we may ever want with NK, I am refering to the other countries who have a vested interest in peace in the region. Lets not talk the talk if we can’t walk the walk-that is all I am saying.
Lettuce Leaf and lankov,
China already owns NK. It has set up a puppet, or reinstated the Russian puppet maybe the correct description, in NK right after the Korean War.
Bush is not going to talk to NK, a peon. The real dealing has to done with China. China can tell KJI to give up the nuke and allow the inspectors back in, in a New York minute by simply lifting a phone.
But China wants something in return. Maybe Tawain. China started the NK nuke crisis. China continues to play the same card(it may be China’s only card, short of direct confrontation) to the hilt.
If China cannot get Taiwan, then it may ask for the following things instead.
1) Complete troop withdrawal from SK and the promise that the U.S. will never set foot again in Korean peninsula.
2) The complete U.S. troop withdrawal from Japan.
Since (1) is being done by SK, China may push for (2) as the trade item for the NK nuke.
Yes, virtual wonderer, my libertarian/isolationist tendencies are showing in wanting to get the US out of Korea. I still think getting out and forming a perimeter might be a good idea, but I don’t mean that the US should just get out and wash it’s hands of the place. The US still could work out a number of behind the scenes deals with china and others to squeeze the Norks in various ways.
A lot of people are suggesting that China controls North Korea, they don’t. China is as fed up with them as the Americans are but they don’t have much ability to control them. They can cut off aid, but that will ead to instability there and massive refugee flows, somethign they don’t want. I go to school in DC and have recently heard talks by a number of people who deal wth the DPRK from CIA people to NGO people and all of them say the same things, off teh record Chinese diplomats say have little control over the DPRK and see its behavior as counter productive. They are more intersted in forming bertter economic ties withthe West then they are defending the North’s stupid positions.
You are being fooled by the inscrutable Chinese. They like to play both sides, i.e. they have two faces.
One smiling face that tells you they like everybody to get along and the other face that wants to eat up Taiwan even if it results in many deaths.
Do you think the Chinese are stupid enough just to pull out of NK in 1953 after so many of Chinese troops died there? Just let Kim rule NK. Do you think China is like the U.S.? Just let NKs rule NK? No way, my drook.
Before YongChun explosion, KJI got a call from Hu to show up in Beijing. He hurriedly loaded his gifts and women into his train and ran all the way to Beijing. Maybe his gifts did not please the Chinese bosses. He got an unpleasant surprise on the way back home.
KJI is a puppet of Hu. The West does not know it; this is the main reason China can play NK nuke game.
My favorite line, “That?€™s why I say withdraw the troops and let Asians work this out themselves.”
Isn’t this what Chamberlain said about the Germans and the Poles?
If the “Asians” work this out by themselves, here are the end results:
China/S Korea collude to do nothing
N Korea becomes the leading promoter of the “islamic” bomb.
At this point, I guess we should say, “I say we withdraw our entanglements in the Middeast and let the arabs, shiites, sunnis, kurds, turks, and israelis to work it out themselves.”
Ahh… only if Saudi Arabia was a part of Texas…
Nobody here has mentioned that one of the main sources of North Korean income has been Japan, in particular the several hundred thousand DPRK citizens that have grown up in Japan but send money to North Korea regularly. The vast majority of them believe they are just sending money to help their families, but in reality the funds have been stolen by the government for years, and only recently has the North Korean-Japanese community realized that they were being played for saps.
While the US may be considering an embargo of North Korea, Japan is already half-way to implementing one, and one that would have a very serious effect on the economy of the DPRK.
“You are being fooled by the inscrutable Chinese. They like to play both sides, i.e. they have two faces.
One smiling face that tells you they like everybody to get along and the other face that wants to eat up Taiwan even if it results in many deaths.”
I’d also like to point out that baduk is continuing his tradition of popping off bizarre Orientalist cliches. Thanks for the image of China morphing into a giant face and swallowing up Taiwan though-if anyone wants to illustrate that please send me a copy.
I haven’t been reading this blog long enough to know if that’s a tradition, but yes, certainly that would be an Orientalist clich?? even older and more racist than Nihonjinron.
Snow,
America’s principal aims as far as Far East is concerned are as follows:
1. Ensure security of the United States by keeping the peace in the Pacific region. This is done through an alliance with Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/etc. (there is a mirror version called NATO to keep the peace in the Atlantic region.)
2. Stop nuclear/missile proliferation.
and somewhere down #137 on the list, promote human rights.
Now. You think that there is something that US can provide which will make China comply to America’s wishes–which is principally, stop sending aid to NK and to enforce a blockade on NK. What can POSSIBLY US offer to China to get these goodies? Well, probably only two things I can think of. 1. Hand over Taiwan. 2. Sever alliance with Japan.
We might as well search for the lost pieces of Voltron and defeat Zarkan the evil mastermind behind Kim Jong Il.
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