Posted on 10/12/2006 8:41:03 PM PDT by FairOpinion
After North Korea's nuclear bomb test, the People's Republic of China insists that "punishment should not be the purpose" of any response. Maybe the problem isn't North Korea, but China.
There's another, more ominous reason for China's reluctance to help: The country is responsible for much of the proliferation of nuclear technology to terrorist states in recent years. That includes its main client, North Korea.
As the State Department noted in a 2003 report, "Chinese state-owned corporations have engaged in transfer activities with Pakistan, Iran, North Korea and Libya that are clearly contrary to China's commitments to the U.S."
China signed agreements with the U.S. in 1992, 1994, 1998, 2000 and 2002 to halt shipments of nuclear and missile technology to rogue nations. It broke each one in what can only be called a cynical game that its government still plays with the West.
Where did Khan and Pakistan get that know-how? From China. And where did North Korea get the missile technology it bartered with Khan? Also from China. Thus, a picture emerges of a China not at the periphery of WMD proliferation, but at its center.
China plays the same game with Iran — trading nuclear technology for oil — though it denies such an arrangement.
The Chinese need to be pulled aside and told: No more sales of nuclear technology to rogue states, or their $250 billion in exports to the U.S. may be threatened. That ought to move talks along.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It's time to give China an ultimatum and stick to it.
Yes, but it will never happen. I think both parties are to the point where they like to declare victory where none exists. Its all spin, spin, spin with no substance. And that increasing includes the GWOT. I have noticed this trend breaking out all over society as I get older. Its a disease really.
It begins in Beijing.... Runs through Moscow, and ends in Pyongyang.
This is a really good editorial. Nobody talks about China's role in all these axes of evil but there it is, right there blocking the road every time. Yeah, yank their trade provisions.
I wonder if anyone has thought of this.
China helps NK get weapons.
China winks at the US to infer that China will support punishment of NK.
Then pulls the rug out from under Bush at the last moment, as they appear to be doing.
Bush left looking totally ineffective. Face lost in the Orient, where face is everything.
As for cutting off trade with China, it will never ever happen short of war. All of the big corporations that bought Congress have either factories over there or sources for goods they import. They will not stand for it.
I have said for several years that we will never have a war with China. The big guys (and I am a strong believer in capitalism, just not a believer in the international corporations who have no home and no loyalty to anyone) will never allow our air force to bomb their investment in China.
Yeah, right. I can see it now...
"Stop loaning us money, right this second!!!"
"Don't you DARE call our notes!!!"
"If you for one minute think you can blow our CPI by denying us cheap consumer goods, we'll, we'll, we'll..."
I just noticed this article:
Is China Disrupting U.S. Satellites?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1718478/posts
Defense News, a trade newspaper, last week cited unnamed U.S. officials contending China has actually used lasers on several occasions over the past few years to test an ability to blind U.S. satellites.
“China not only has the capability, but has exercised it,” the publication reported Sept. 25.
Asked this week to respond to the assertions contained in the Defense News article, Cartwright said he would not address specifics “because it might lead our adversaries to speculate about our capabilities.”
Nonsense. Talk, talk,talk,blah,blah,bla.
No, the answer is allow South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to develop nukes and arm themselves. That would get China's attention and they'd pull the rug out from under North Korea.
Exactly.
I once had a very obnoxious customer who was also very very wealthy.
When he got mad, he would rant " Don't you know the Golden Rule?"
"He who has the gold rules."
"i've got the gold and I rule".
Like it or not, he was right.
That along with the fact that the people who bought Congress all have huge investments in China of one kind or another, we can't do anything except drop the big one and we will never do that because of SK.
Disagree there. NK has two light water reactors we helped them build that are the principle source of their fissile material. We built those reactors on the stipulation that they would not use them to build nuclear weapons. The quite apparent violation of that agreement is causus belli for us to deny them any remaining production capability.
That they have wasted an estimated half of their inventory on these last tests makes such measures all the more attractive.
Not having been educated in the necessary disciplines, I would assume as a layman that the US is not the only country with the know how to complete those installations.
Is that incorrect?
If that is all we have to do, surely we are not idiot enough to complete the job?
Or are we.
Even the old Soviet Union wasn't this stupid - giving away the nuclear genie to client states. The Russians knew it could come back to bite them.
China has a Muslim minority and has borders with Islamic states. Can they really be certain that they will always be immune from nuclear terrorism just because they provided the know-how?
All China has to do is look at the appreciation Muslims show America for helping Muslims in the Balkans, the Horn of Africa, and the Near East.
If this is just to poke America in the eye, then China's plans are incredibly short-sighted. They are truly playing with fire.
I agree with your comment, 100%! I'm not holding my breath but it's time that we gave China and Russia a reality check.
True, but they're effectively ours to blow up because they blew the deal.
If that is all we have to do, surely we are not idiot enough to complete the job?
You misunderstand me. They're up and running because Clinton chipped in to help. That's how NK got the fissile material for the weapons they just set off. They have enough left for at most four more.
Best we forcibly halt production, now.
Actually, in this alone, the Chinese are right.
Punishment is not the purpose of sanctions, it is the means to an end, not an end in itself.
But, in the seeking of those ends, punishment must be meted out, and the meted out rigorously, relentlessly, unflinchingly, and forever - or until there is the desired changes made by the DPRK.
Shhh! Kitten.
Not so loud. Everyone wants to ignore the Axes of Evil and make no connection to our war on global terrorism to China, Russia, all the Middle-East oil countries and Islamic extremist organizations or the many other members of the UN, (France,Germany,etc.) who are clearly participating in documented actively against us.
They only want us to act like North Korea is a "bad boy" who we need to be more diplomatic with.
Oh yeah. And it's really all the doing of Cowboy Bush, Cheney and rich oil companies along with Halliburton.
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