Posted on 04/04/2013 9:58:10 AM PDT by HenryArmitage
BEIJING - Pyongyang has allegedly asked Beijing to send them an envoy in order to improve their soured relations, but Beijing turned it down, seen as a warning regarding the regime’s recent warmongering rhetoric.
Multiple sources in Beijing told the JoongAng Ilbo on Tuesday that “North Korea asked China to send a high-ranking envoy at the deputy-ministerial-level, but China rejected it.
“China said ‘if they want an envoy, North Korea should send their envoy [to China] first,’” the source said.
However, the North hasn’t sent an envoy to Beijing so far, the sources said.
If they do, China is likely to pressure them to stop saber-rattling and return to the six-party talks.
Since the communist allies established diplomatic ties in 1949, they have exchanged high-level envoys, at the deputy-minister level, once or twice a year.
However, since Li Jianguo, a member of the Politburo of China, visited North Korea on Nov. 29, 2012, there has been no high-level meeting between the two countries.
It is the second time for the two countries to suspend high-level interaction over several months.
In 1992, when South Korea and China established diplomatic relations, the two allies were disconnected for some months as well.
The sources said China tried to send Wu Dawei, the special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs, to Pyongyang, and urge them to scrap nuclear test plans, but North Korea reportedly rejected the envoy.
China also planned to send a ministerial-level envoy to North Korea in the wake of the regime’s Feb. 12 nuclear weapons test, but it was also turned down.
In March, Beijing also tried to send Li Zhaoxing, the former Chinese Foreign Minister, to the regime and stop further provocations, but Pyongyang also refused it.
Frustrated by the repeated refusals, China finally joined the UN Security Council’s adoption of a resolution to impose tougher sanctions on Pyongyang, and the bilateral relations between the two allies, which have been “a friendship in blood,” have deteriorated.
By [heejin@joongang.co.kr]
NK could send Obama. He’s good at bowing.
Jimmy Carter, the brother of Billy is available.
Our joint exercise Foal Eagle ends about 30 April, so look for more and more extreme antics by NK until then.
No ammunition has been released to NK ground units.
Somethings cooking on the China-NK border, a Chinese fighter penetrated NK airspace and overflew most of the border on 21 March. However, most of the Chinese ground units that moved to the border, have pulled back to their garrisons.
China delivered no crude to NK in February or March, for the first time in 39 months, looks like a pressure play.
If NK starts up their mothballed reactors, it would take many years to produce weapons plutonium, no threat there. NK only has enough plutonium for about 6 weapons and their blast yields to date have been very weak.
One thing of note, all the NK war posturing to date has been made by civil, government officials, not the NK military officials.
When NK has done that in the past, it has allowed NK deniability and an easy way to walk backwards as they can claim that the government was just preparing the people for martial law.
Any information about what that NK satellite is all about? Anything radioactive on board?
I’d compare it to the plant in “Little Shop of Horrors,” which plant indeed gets out of control. The difference, of course, is that China ain’t helpless to deal with it. They should have gotten tougher with their little doggie a lonnnng time ago, however.
It’s time to lance this boil of a regime. Trouble is, the boil now has (or appears to have) nuclear weapons, on top of the chemical weapons it has long had and the massive conventional arsenal it never lacked. Can the USA cooperate with the ROK, China and probably Japan to conduct a massive operation to oust the Kim Klan, and replace with some sort of multi-lateral provisional government (like 1945 Berlin), all with a minimum of death and destruction?
Great detailed information, thanks!
Meanwhile the secret mole tunnels of communication between the puppet NK and its master puppeteer China remain hidden from sight.
More Kabuki Theater from the PRC.
like the parent with the worst behaved kid on the block.
“China unhappy with their pet?”
Thats the problem with a junkyard dog. They will turn on you.
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