Posted on 10/10/2006 12:31:51 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China cancels troop leave at N. Korea border-report
10 Oct 2006 02:31:03 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Ben Blanchard
DANDONG, China, Oct 10 (Reuters) - China has cancelled leave for troops along at least part of the border with North Korea, a mainland-controlled Hong Kong newspaper reported on Tuesday, a day after the North announced a nuclear test.
The Wen Wei Po said Chinese People's Liberation Army troops ranged along the border in northeast China's Jilin province "have had leave totally cancelled" and some forces were conducting "anti-chemical" training exercises.
But trains between the two countries appeared to be running as normal.
Officials and businessmen in Dandong, a bustling Chinese border city that looks across the Yalu River to North Korea, told Reuters on Monday that traffic across a bridge between the two countries would halt on Tuesday except for special official cars.
A customs official said the main customs posts on North Korea's border with China would shut to most traffic on Tuesday, restricting one of the isolated North's key portals to the outside world.
It was unclear whether the moves were prompted by Pyongyang's reported nuclear test on Monday and the strikingly sharp condemnation it drew from China, its longtime partner and aid-provider.
Beijing condemned the test as "brazen" and Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the North and other powers against escalating the crisis.
In a phone call with U.S. President George W. Bush, Hu warned North Korea "not to take any more actions that may worsen the situation", according to the official Xinhua news agency.
But Hu, who was feted as a friend of North Korea when he visited late last year, said there was still room for negotiations to end North Korea's nuclear weapons ambitions.
"China has consistently advocated denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and opposed nuclear proliferation, arguing for peaceful settlement of the Korean nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation," Hu said.
China's 1,400-km (870-mile) border with impoverished North Korea is guarded by troops on both sides.
The two communist neighbours are long-time allies, and in past years one of the Chinese troops' main tasks has been stopping North Korean refugees crossing into China, where they seek work or asylum in other countries.
Chinese commentators left no mistake that North Korea's nuclear announcement had badly bruised relations.
"North Korea's holding of a nuclear test has offended China and put China in a very awkward diplomatic spot," Xu Guangyu of the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association told Ta Kung Pao, a Beijing-backed Hong Kong paper, on Tuesday.
Ping!
Ping!
Those are anti-nuclear-fallout exercises--not chemical exercises. China seeks to stop any invasion of North Korea from the USA and allies (just as it did when massing troops on the North Korea border in the past). China is already working against efforts for sanctions.
China may pay dearly for its support for a nuclear North Korea
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1716681/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1716677/posts
The North Koreans commies do not pull stunts such as this nuclear one without the Red Chinese giving them the okay.
Rottweiler feels that its master is more interested in scaring the hell out of his neighbor than reining on his bad behaviors. Time for Rottweiler to jerk around its master.:)
Well, one possible reason could be that China has spent billions getting ready to put on a big show for the 2008 Olympics and really are upset at Mini-Me for possibly messing that up.
Time will tell.
I still believe Kim Ill Dung does not stage such a dangerous event without first checking in with North Korea's Chicom overlords, as well as his pal Putin.
Thanks to the appeasing former Clinton Dem White House, North Korea, key player in the Axis of Evil, is now officially in the nuclear weapons club, thus it's only a matter of time prior to Iran's Islamic madmen announcing to the world they too are about to test a nuke (thanks, in part, to Moscow for the nuke fuel).
Bingo, right on target.
Problem is North Korean is an ungrateful hand puppet if you ask me. Did you know in North Korean schools, they teach that Kim Sung Il was the one who bravely save the North Korea from the "Evil" West. They make no mention of Chinese or Russian aid, just the fact that one man made a difference.
And if you've read Kim Jung Il's "Biography" which is a must read in Nkorea, you'd be suprised that it talks about the world revolving around him. (figure of speech of course)
There are a number of ways of looking at this. I look at it in a historical context. The last time there was overt warfare on the Korean Peninsula, the US fought the PLA at the Yalu, retreated then fought back to the DMZ.
An anecdote. I was in the PRC a while back and watched a movie about the Korean War. It was an interesting perspective to say the least. When Americans wonder why some Chinese have a certain world view, and think war is inevitable, they don't understand this perspective. Most Americans do not think much about that war, the Forgotten War. The PRC, on the other hand, still thinks quite a bit about it - with swelling pride.
I concur.
Give the "ALREADY POSTED HERE" garbage (not my first choice) a rest OK???
The Western attitude towards history is that the sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the sons. The Chinese view seems to be - what is the point of history, if not to transmit grudges from one generation to the next? The Westerner takes a look at Japanese WWII atrocities and see an example of man's inhumanity to man. The Chinese see the same atrocities as an instance of the intrinsic evil of the Japanese race (based on the Chinese definition of race, which incorporates, in the pre-war fashion, the concept of nationality).
Truer words cannot be written.
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