North Korea Said to Reject China's Bid on Nuclear Talks

WASHINGTON, April 8 - After two senior-level meetings between North Korean and Chinese leaders over the last two weeks to discuss the North's nuclear-weapons program, the Chinese have failed so far to persuade North Korea to rejoin nuclear disarmament talks, senior administration officials and diplomats said Friday.

As a result of the continuing deadlock, informal discussions have begun among the five parties to the talks on new, more aggressive strategies that could be used if and when it is decided that the talks have reached a dead end.

Among the steps being discussed, the administration officials and diplomats said, are increasing the frequency and intensity of United States and South Korean military exercises in the region. Even now, North Korea grows incensed with each exercise.

In addition, intelligence gathering operations and reconnaissance about the North would be increased in a manner that the North Korean government would be sure to notice, the officials said. And enforcement activities against North Koreans involved in drug trafficking and weapons smuggling, among other illegal activities, would be expanded, possibly including increased patrols that might lead to interceptions of North Korean ships. Two years ago, Australian authorities seized a North Korean ship carrying 110 pounds of heroin off Australia's southern coast.

No decision has been reached to step up the use of these tactics. For the past year and a half, under a program called the Proliferation Security Initiative, the five nations have declared themselves ready to intercept ships that may be carrying illicit cargo, but there has not been an actual interdiction recently.

Senior diplomats said the parties had agreed informally that they would continue holding out for North Korea's return to the talks until June, when a year will have passed since North Korea walked away.

American officials say they have set no deadlines for the North Koreans to return. But now, "there is a palpable sense of frustration," a senior administration official said.

China told the United States this week that North Korea had agreed in principle to return to the talks, " 'when the conditions are right' - the same they have been saying for months," the official said on Friday.

Also on Friday, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said, "We still do not have a clear commitment from the North Koreans to come back to the talks, or a date that they would come back to the talks."

All of the officials and diplomats said that at least for a few more weeks, they will continue pushing North Korea to return to the talks.

During her visit to Beijing on March 21, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed the Chinese to put pressure on North Korea. Since then, North Korea's prime minister, Pak Pong Ju, and the first vice foreign minister, Kang Sok Ju, have visited Beijing. Mr. Kang is in charge of the nuclear issue.

Several officials and diplomats noted that, while Mr. Pak was in Beijing last month, the Chinese government also agreed to grant North Korea significant new loan guarantees, though the details were not known.

Officials also pointed out that Chinese trade with North Korea has increased significantly over the last year. One Asian diplomat put the rate of increase at 40 percent.

Reports from the region suggest that China is still holding out a significant carrot for the North Koreans should they change their minds and return to the disarmament talks - a state visit by President Hu Jintao. It would be the first visit to Pyongyang by a Chinese leader since September 2000. However, Japan's Kyodo news agency, quoting diplomats in Beijing, reported that because Mr. Kang "took a tough attitude" during his meetings in Beijing, China was saying "it has become difficult" to schedule President Hu's visit.

On Tuesday, the head of North Korea's Parliament, Choe Thae Bok, said there was "no justification" for a return to the talks.

The North Korean government has called for a session of its rubber-stamp Parliament for next Monday. No one knows for certain what the Parliament will be asked to do, but given Mr. Choe's remark, some diplomats are speculating that it will be asked to ratify North Korea's decision not to return to the talks.

In the days since Mr. Pak's visit to Beijing, North Korea has issued several bellicose statements that have discouraged the five nations involved in the negotiations with the North - South Korea, Japan, China, Russia an the United States.

Agence France-Presse reported that in a speech on Friday, Kim Yon Chun, the North Korean Army chief of staff, said that Washington's "persistent hostile policy" would prompt the North to further "bolster its self-defensive nuclear deterrent."

North Korea regularly issues statements with conditions, demands or objections on a range of topics, and the senior State Department official said American policy now is to try not to respond to any of them.

On March 31, however, North Korea issued a new statement that caught everyone's attention.

"Now that the D.P.R.K. has become a full-fledged nuclear weapons state, the six-party talks should be disarmament talks where the participant countries negotiate the issue on an equal footing," the Foreign Ministry said, referring to North Korea by the initials of its formal name.

With that, the officials and diplomats said, North Korea seemed to be saying it should be regarded as a legitimate nuclear power on a par with the United States, Russia or China.

"From that, it would be very difficult to go back to the assumption that they unilaterally have to disarm," a diplomat from one of the five nations said. "This one could possibly change the whole basis of the negotiations."

Several diplomats and officials said they learned that even China was unpleasantly surprised by the new statement.

The senior State Department official said the United States found the statement "very unhelpful," but added "we're not quite sure what it really means."

The official said he was quite upset when he first learned of the new position but added, "one of my rules is always to apply what I call the North Korean discount to these statements," meaning they may not always be as serious as they seem.

WASHINGTON, April 8 - The Bush administration, seeking to ease recent tensions with China over its military actions, has agreed with the Beijing government to set up a series of regular high-level talks on human rights, political and military issues, the State Department said Friday.

The talks would be headed on the American side by Robert B. Zoellick, the deputy secretary of state.

Mr. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said details of the talks, including the timing and format of the discussions, remained to be worked out but that the talks were suggested by China last year and worked out during Ms. Rice's visit last month.

North Korea tells China to freek off? Not a clever move. You know all China has to do is open its borders to North Koreans and the hellhole of Kim Il Jung would collapse within days. (like East Germany, once Hungary opened its borders).

So the answer is to rattle sabers at them?
It is too late for that.
Lil Kim says he's got a .45 and ain't afraid to use it.

Slap lather pard, "fill yor hand" as an old cowboy once said.

This is all a shadow puppet show. China can turn out the lights in North Korea any day they want. DPRK is an useful proxy when China wants to increase tensions and divert attention away for other matters like its stance on Taiwan. North Korea is also useful in supplying terrorists and proliferating trouble for western democracies while China has plausible deniability.

China's over-riding strategic goal is to achieve Regional dominance in Asia. This will require the relative reduction of U.S. influence in that area, and the economic and military might to hold both the U.S. and Japan in check there at some point in the future. To the extent that a rogue-but-allied North Korea can somehow help China achieve its aims, it seems to me that China would be inclined to "say and appear to do" the right things in front of the West, but in reality would not do anything forceful against North Korea unless they really had to and unless doing so would further their aim for achieving Regional dominance. In some ways North Korea still serves the same purposes for China that it served during the Korean War when it was truly China that saved NK's bacon in the war against the U.S.

Re #6

in reality would not do anything forceful against North Korea unless they really had to and unless doing so would further their aim for achieving Regional dominance.

Chinese wait and see if "Bush the Madman" would come out, ready to unload. The unloading can be either that America itself tries to finish off N. Korean regime, or that America let Japan become a full military power( even nuclear power.) If they think he would, then they will kill Kim Jong-il regime themselves in no time.

I agree with your analysis of China's strategic goals of achieving dominance in Asia, but I disagree that support of North Korea can help them attain those goals.

On the contrary, their support of North Korea is a distinct disability.

But, if China were to reach a deal with South Korea along lines something like this: We'll pull the pin on North Korea, open the borders to refugees, and cut off fuel and other aid to North Korea, and we will support Korean reunification on terms decided by Seoul. Seoul, for its part, will negotiate the rapid departure of American troops from Korean soil once South Korea has achieved sovereignity over the north.

In this scenario, China and a reunified Korea reestablish their historically close alliance. Japan and its ally, the United States, is excluded, and Korean is placed in the eternal debt of China. China would be virtually beatified by the Koreans if they took such steps. It would solidify their position in North East Asia for two generations, minimum.

Re #8

Well, that is a reasonable scenario to many people. However, in my opinion, current S. Korean government would not accept any solution which includes the fall of current N. Korean regime. Because the S. Korean left has invested over many years too much political capital in Juche N. Korea to back out.

That is my assessment based on their past behaviors.

I agree that the Roh Moo-hyun government is completely invested in the survival of the Kim dynasty in the north.

But, I sense that the Korean people are becoming ever more disillusioned with Roh's erratic, ineffective, and even bizarre style of governance.

There could be an emergence of a new conservatism in the next presidential election, and a long overdue end to the failed "sunshine" policy.

Re #10

Yes. There is a new conservative force emerging, which has a shade of Neocon in America. Because many of them used to be hardcore leftists in their youth. So called "New Right" movement.

In a way, the current political turmoil are weeding out pro-North left and RINO's in conservative circles. The recent path of Roh's foreign policy truly floored many people who are concerned. It could cause a serious crisis, which will doom the whole left.

Re #11

Besides, the new conservatives are not so keen on China as many leftists do. The only reason leftists are favorable to China is because they hate America.

They themselves used to compare S. Korea-U.S. alliance with the relationship of Ming China and Chosun Kingdom(the Korean dynasty which fell in 1910,) bitching about overbearing China and claiming how its behavior is so similar to American behavior now. Well, now that such a comparison became inconvenient, they dropped that argument quietly.

RE: "North Koreans involved in drug trafficking and weapons smuggling"

Topic of discussion tonight on another NK thread.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1380238/posts?page=16#16

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