China Agrees: N. Korea Is Counterfeiting U.S. Dollars, Laundering Proceeds in Chinese Banks

I can’t quite figure what to make of this:

A three-month investigation by China of accusations that North Korea used a Macau bank to launder gains from currency forgery has confirmed the suspicions, Korean diplomatic sources said Wednesday. The revelation comes amid reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il is on a spur-of-the-moment trip to China, which some speculate may be linked to the finding.
. . . .

[Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister] Wu [Dawei] also met with his North Korean counterpart Kim Kye-gwan to inform him in person that China believes Pyongyang cannot escape culpability for its illegal actions, the diplomats said. They quoted Kim as promising to look into the matter and take appropriate steps “if they are true. The U.S. believes nothing short of a full confession and a verifiable end to the dollar forgery will do.

I can only speculate that some extraordinary form of pressure–perhaps some of our veiled threats to sanction the Bank of China and other Chinese banks–forced the Chinese to react. Another possibility is that China is getting tired of finding counterfeit bills in its cash registers and casino pits. A third is that this is just Chinese disinformation, designed to show that China really is putting pressure on North Korea rather than doing everything it can to get WMD’s into the hands of rogue states, thus diverting U.S. attention from containing Chinese ambitions in the Pacific.

The timing, given Kim Jong Il’s present visit to China, is interesting.