Anju, May 18, 2012

SO FAR, NO NUKE TEST, and China is trying to take credit for that:

“China is unhappy … and urged North Korea not to conduct a nuclear test near Changbai Mountain,” said the source, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Assuming this isn’t all disinformation — after all, China has openly encouraged North Korea to conduct nuclear tests until now — there’s also the question of what “near Changbai Mountain” means (Changbai Mountain, also known as Paektu-San, is about 50 miles from the Mt. Mantap test site). While I’ve long suspected that China sees strategic benefits in having North Korea as a nuclear power, China probably also prefers that North Korea not test its nuke during presidential election campaigns in the U.S. and South Korea. Like President Obama, they would prefer to manage this issue out of the headlines for a few months, and then get right back to the status quo. I don’t share that preference. After all, delaying one nuke test is one thing; disarming North Korea is quite another. I’d rather see the North Koreans blast their way into the next presidential debate, and maybe even catalyze a consensus that a combination of poorly enforced sanctions and the Sisyphean pursuit of Agreed Framework III won’t get us there.

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WHAT’S CHINESE FOR “PUEBLO?” What I still don’t know about this story is whether the boat was in Chinese or North Korean waters. Chinese fishermen and the the North Korean government both have a history of interpreting nautical boundaries liberally. But to suggest that this will cause a rupture in Chinese-North Korean relations presupposes that China cares as much about a few of its citizens as it does about its strategic chess game. Two years ago, North Korean border guards killed three Chinese and wounded a fourth, and that didn’t lead to a rupture, either.
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THE WALL STREET JOURNAL on North Korea’s gulag.
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NORTH KOREA, WHICH WAS REMOVED FROM THE LIST of state sponsors of terrorism on October 11, 2008, has sent more death threats to human rights activists. Discuss among yourselves.
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PROGRESS: South Korea’s biggest labor union has switched allegiance from the Juche faction to the Trotskyite faction.