Updated: China Steps It Up

Updated: Got my hopes up too soon, I see. China says its relations with North Korea remain normal after last week’s nuclear test.

Original: Finally, we are hearing news of China taking an initiative in North Korea’s nuclear issue. This surely is a significant development (from yesterday’s headlines):

China suspended government exchanges with North Korea after Kim Jong-Il’s regime last week tested a nuclear device and fired short-range missiles, Yonhap News said. China has halted plans to send officials to North Korea and won’t accept visits from there either, Yonhap said today, citing unidentified diplomatic sources in Beijing. China’s foreign ministry didn’t respond to a faxed request for comment. South Korean government spokesman Lim Jung Taek said he couldn’t confirm or deny the report.

The move, if confirmed, would be the strongest reaction yet to North Korea’s actions by its biggest ally and trading partner. China accounts for almost three-fourths of North Korea’s foreign trade, and can cut off shipments to the impoverished country of food, fuel and luxury goods. [Bloomberg]

This could be the dagger for North Korea if it’s true. We’ve already mentioned before on this blog the impact China has on the DPRK.

4 Responses

  1. well, i think that at least it’s a good sign that the worthless UN is taking time to come out with an official statement or list.

    it sounds like they are actually working on something instead of Russia and China constantly vetoing on everything related to KJI and then coming out with a worthless ‘statement of condemnation’.

    i truly hope he finally ran out of get out of jail free cards.

    i love the financial squeeze ideas. let the elites stop receiving their omegas and hennessy.

  2. “China could topple the North Korean regime tomorrow if it wanted to,” Anne Rosenbaum, Slate.

  3. i don’t think that all is too well with China and NK, which is great, finally.

    http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20090602-145670.html

    it’s like when i worked for a total dotcom startup with that company’s dreams to get bought out or IPO by the bigger dotcoms. it was only 6 months old and up to 14 full time people in the late 90’s.

    we were all working hard and trying to cut corners, save money, waiting to hopefully make that big payoff, etc., etc.

    so i volunteered to just use my own personal laptop instead of getting a company one.

    our consultant/lawyer advised, if we wanted to be bought up or IPO like a real company you need to act like a real company. a real company would have an expenditure fund that was properly forecasted to pay for hardware, etc. etc.

    i think if china wants to truly be a global leader, they finally need to step up. do something 100%, not just half ass.

    they are not the de facto leader just because they buy up every countries’ bonds.