This is a big news, if true.
Ping!
It's a real bitch when your pet rat turns around and bites the hand that feeds it....
"The most irritating result is that N. Korea's nuclear weapons may be in effect aimed at China."
Eh, not sure I believe this part.
Crap. The little twerp may be smarter than we all thought.
I don't believe it. If true, China would not admit something like that.
China's man in PyongYang ought to check to see if his bribe money is legal tender.
Russia considers their tails covered and feels they are now free to covertly transport such armaments or the technology to build them as the world is inclined to believe that N. Korea has already produced said armament on it's own. Russia establishes a new client for nuclear technology without directly exposing itself as the provider of said technology. Maybe N. Korea keeps them or sells them to other rogue nations? Their money is still good...
OK, more coffee...
Yet here is another aspect to this. China has the upcoming Olympics to be concerned about. They are pouring loads of national resources into this effort as a showcase for what the nation and the Communist party has achieved. Having a nuclear power lead by a madman on their border simply isn't good for tourism. It could savagely curtail their efforts towards the end of complete and total failure to even get certain major nations to compete or show up, whether they are friendly or not.
Russia might not mind this at all. China is a rival empire, an allie at times, but no less a rival for the most part. So maybe China has a far larger stake in a nuclear N. Korea than they appear to display. This can't be a good thing for China. They can't even convince Kim-illin' to return Chinese trains loaded with relief and supplies some of the time. The N. Koreans keep the trains and use them for state commerce, stating that the trains are part of the relief. Makes the Chinese look very, very weak.
N. Korea's ace in the hole? 20 million starving refugees who would likely storm over the Northern border like ravaging locusts should any internal weakness or along the border be evident. Wouldn't be prudent, no sir. Can't have that happen when you're trying to put on a good face for all the world to see. It would be a humanitarian crisis of unbelievable proportion. Oh, and now the N. Koreans have nukes, too.
Not good for China. Not good for neighboring nations/states that feel they now require nukes in order to maintain a balance of power. China suddenly finds itself within a building nuclear arms race against nations who previously didn't consider them necessary. Particularly Japan.
The Russians sit back and laugh...
Sorry y'all, but the South Park "Urinal Duke" episode really got me on the "conspiracy line" of thought this morning...
How about we agree to give China N.Korea if they leave Taiwan alone.
Nice story... too bad it's BS.
I read 20 times a day that North Korea is a puppet of China. All the really smart posters say so. Well, I mean, the ones that write a line or two about North Korea being a puppet of China, but don't offer any analysis or understanding of the situation. They write it all the time, so they must be right, right?
Either that, or Kim Jong Il is just annother cunning, backstabbing tyrant who doesn't care what he has to do in order to remain in power. If that's the case, then it would be in his interest to intimidate China in the same way he's intimidating everyone else. The CCP has a lot to lose, and are deathly afraid of serious threats to Chinese stability or economic progress. That would mean that China would much rather block sanctions and pay what in effect is tribute, rather than do the right thing, when it may come at a steep cost.
The DPRK realizes that they're not dealing with Mao Zedong, but a pack of penny pinching bureaucrats. Intimidation a much more effective a tool against a committee of pencil pushers who don't want to rock the boat, than it is a powerful, egotistical revolutionary fighter. China is not in a desperate situation, but North Korea is. That fact makes it in the interest of China to do whatever they can to keep North Korea afloat, because if it collapses, China will have to clean up the mess.
That mess could involve a failed state on their border, with millions of refugees, loose WMDs, marauding former North Korean military units looking for food, and eventually, U.S./USFK forces parked on the Yalu/Heilongjiang river. (That's about a day and a half of M1A1 tank driving to Beijing, closer than Kuwait City is to Baghdad.)
But, North Korea is a puppet of China. I read it here on FR, so it must be true.
Yes, big news...if true. But are we supposed to think, Oh, poor China! They were duped! (Nonsense.) This is more Chinese cover your rump and play both ends against the middle time.
I don't believe it for a minute...China knows exactly what's going on.
Let's just keep in mind that everything North Korea is doing now is designed to keep Jong-Il in power. It is all for the Kim family mafia/dictatorship.
They don't really care what China wants or doesn't want. All that matters is keeping the Kim family in power. Sometimes that matches up with what China wants and Chinese interests. Sometimes it doesn't.
Sorry Tiger, I think this is dis-information coming out of China's state security apparatus; attempting to reinforce the geopolitical spin that China is really honestly working with U.S. and S.Korea on this issue. I don't buy it.
Some could end up there by acident if N Kor launches its missiles. Fortunately most of what is in range is Manchuria so it wouldn't matter much.