Posted on 10/08/2006 8:43:01 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
The Sunday Times October 08, 2006
China on alert over a nuclear neighbour
Michael Sheridan, North Korean/Chinese border
THE North Korean refugee had one request for her captors before the young Chinese soldiers led her back across the steel-girdered bridge on the Yalu River that divides two “socialist allies”.
“She asked for a comb and some water because she said that if she was going to die she could not face going to heaven looking as dirty and dishevelled as this,” recounted a relative of one soldier who was there.
What happened next is testimony to the rising disgust in Chinese military ranks as Beijing posts more troops to the border amid a crisis with North Korea over its regime’s plan to stage a nuclear test.
The soldiers, who later told family members of the incident, marched the woman, who was about 30, to the mid-point of the bridge. North Korean guards were waiting. They signed papers for receipt of the woman, who kept her dignity until that moment. Then, in front of the Chinese troops, one seized her and another speared her hand — the soft part between thumb and forefinger — with the point of a sharpened steel cable, which he twisted into a leash.
“She screamed just like a pig when we kill it at home in the village,” the soldier later told his relative. “Then they dragged her away.”
Such stories are circulating widely among Chinese on the border, where wild rumours of an American attack on nuclear test sites have spread fears of a Chernobyl-type cloud of radiation and sparked indignation at the North Koreans. “I’ve heard it a hundred times over that when we send back a group they stab each one with steel cable, loop it under the collarbone and out again, and yoke them together like animals,” said an army veteran with relatives in service.
As international tensions over North Korea have soared, China has deployed extra combat units of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to man the border from the Yalu River in the south to the Tumen River near Russia - evidently fearing the risk of chaos and collapse.
The troop trains were rolling even on the Chinese mid-autumn festival on Friday. Civilian traffic on a main line was halted to allow one train to pass, with carriages jammed with glum soldiers in camouflage uniforms and flat cars carrying olive-green military vehicles.
And while a few off-duty men strolled with their sweethearts under the full moon along the banks of the Yalu, others watched from outposts at the silent, darkened shores of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“All visits by Chinese have recently been stopped,” said a local official. “They gave us no reason for it.”
The bomb test could come as early as today, the eighth anniversary of Kim Jong-il’s ascent to the top of the North Korean Workers’ party and one day before South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon, seeks election as secretary-general of the United Nations.
Last Friday, North Korea’s traditional allies, Russia and China, joined in a UN security council warning that a weapons test - likely to be in a disused mine 6,000ft underground in Shijung district near the Chinese border -would attract “universal condemnation”. It has put the Chinese under maximum pressure to restrain Kim. Japan’s new prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is due in Beijing today to urge on the effort and the leader of South Korea is coming to make the same plea on Monday.
China’s dilemma is that its ruling elites are still bound to those of North Korea by a like-minded political authoritarianism. President Hu Jintao has even praised North Korea for keeping to its Stalinist politics, a view he may be repenting now that Kim has brought China to the brink of a nuclear crisis.
Beijing’s main fear is that if Kim tests a bomb - the CIA believes he has enough plutonium for four; other US experts think more - then Japan will feel it has no choice but to acquire its own atomic arsenal. That would destroy the balance of power in northeast Asia that has kept the peace since the end of the second world war.
China’s secondary fear is that if Kim’s regime collapses, hundreds of thousands of desperate, hungry North Koreans, some armed, will flood across its border to sow unrest and instability.
The Chinese regularly round up small groups of escapees. But uncounted thousands have slipped into the towns and villages inhabited by ethnic Koreans in the border provinces, building gleaming new towers and labouring in fields of fat corn.
China’s prosperity lures the poverty-stricken but has failed to convince North Korea’s leaders to deviate from their course of rigid state control.
“Why are they poor?” asked a local official, who was drinking heavily in a bar at festival time. “Because that gangster Kim Jong-il spends all the money on nuclear weapons!” Several Chinese soldiers have died in clashes with rogue North Korean soldiers who have crossed the border, shot up buildings and, in one case, robbed a bank with their AK-47s.
A PLA platoon leader was killed last year while catching five North Koreans who had attacked a hotel, robbed guests and kidnapped the manager, according to state media. Shots were fired yesterday as five North Korean troops crossed into the southern side of the demilitarised zone that separates the two countries.
The Chinese authorities are also irate over an influx of counterfeit US dollar bills and vast quantities of fake Viagra from North Korea. Some 50,000 Chinese gamblers a year are estimated to cross the other way to squander their money, much of it suspected to be the fruits of official corruption, in a North Korean casino.
The sense that Kim’s regime is losing control lies behind the Chinese military buildup. But some South Korean MPs fear China could grab territory from the north in the event of a collapse.
north korea had been chinese territoty for about 600 years by BC 440 orso.
the region to the north of DATONG river belonged to china until the 15th century.
so it is somewhat leistimate for china to claim N.K. from historical perspective.
but of course,china now surely is not ready to take over N.K,which would make chinese koreans' enemy forever.
all china want is to get rid of crazy Kim
so you american made a blunder by giving up CHIANG KAI SHEK.
i am from mainland china and repected Chiang Kai Shek very much..although he is still scolded by CPC for his anti-communism deeds,most chinese people contempt CPC's lies on sino-japanese war and think Chiang is a real hero of chinese people who saved china from the japanese imperialism.
if u american had supported Chiang and let china escape from mao,maybe china would be americans' closest and most powerful ally now.many problem,such N.K,would not exist at all.
several billion dollar would had saved Chiang Kai shek and helped he win chinese civil war.
but u american did not.so u now have to spend trillions of dollars to meet the challenge of commuist china.
you american deserve what you have done.
you american deserve what you have done.
You guys are about to step on your cranks something fierce if you think you can take the US now.
Interesting. If you have a ping list running please add me to it.
no,macarthure's idea was stupid ,which only could arouse WW III.
the only chance for ur american would had kept china as close ally was to support Chiang to win chinese civil war.
but ur american obviously lost the chance and made a communist monster instead of a powerful ally.
We supported Chang with hundreds of millions of dollars. Don't blame America because China allowed itself to be taken over by communists.
"You should stop viewing us as gods"
LOL.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
ah,have i complaint about china poor fate because communism?
no,i just have pointed out that ur amercian blunder that make a powerful rivals for urself.
however communism brought suffer to chinese people ,china has experienced the hardest age and now china is on the right way to be a global power.it is unneccesry for us chinese to complaint and say" shit here,shit there'everyday.we are fine.
but chinese rise as ur rival ,instead of ur ally, of couse is a ur headache.
so u american blunder during 1945-1949 is not our problem ,but u amricans' problem.
We are not the ones who have been living under communist rule for 60 years, so it is not our blunder. It is China's blunder.
Maybe so. The US has never spoken with one voice. There are always differing opinions within the Gov't. Some in Gov't supported Mao and some still do. Others supported Chiang Kai Shek and still do. Time passes and most are not old enough to remember the events of the day first hand so all they know is what the books say, or what their grandfather says if he talks anymore. I know an American who was in China during WW II and managed a wing of bombers that flew every day toward the Japanese in the east, a war hero as much as most. He refused to debate Mao versus Chiang Kai Shek, but he is still very Liberal, a college professor, perhaps communist although he won't talk about that either.
I don't trust the ChiComs one bit on this. They are trying to play good cop/bad cop.
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