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| Korea | |
| Beijing weighs up, then rejects, invasion of N Korea | |
| 2003-07-08 | |
| EFL China asked its military to study a quick intervention in North Korea but decided that its relationship with the United States was more important than propping up the Stalinist state, with which it shares a border. A source in Beijing said the study for a pre-emptive Chinese invasion was ordered by a Chinese Communist Party working group formed in late February under the country's senior leader, Hu Jintao. The result of the study was negative. The People's Liberation Army concluded that although the Chinese-North Korean border was only lightly defended, the Chinese lacked the logistical capability of racing to the demilitarised zone facing South Korea. Kind of falls into the good news/bad news category. "That this kind of thing is being considered in China tells us about the gravity with which this is being regarded in Beijing," said a senior Western diplomat closely following the crisis. The source said the Chinese working group took the view that China's economic interests in keeping regional stability and co-operative relations with the US far outweighed its strategic stake in North Korea. Moreover, it is now confident that Korean nationalism would see the Americans off, should the peninsula be reunified under the Seoul Government. Hey China, you help us by taking down North Korea and giving it to South Korea, we'd be more than happy to leave. China's role in bringing about a resolution to the nuclear brinkmanship in the Korean peninsula is vital, and its preparedness to accept a democratic, capitalist and unified Korea on its border is a substantial development that will please the West. A reunited, peaceful Korea would be a good trading partner for them. Plus, the cost to Korea of rebuilding the North would help the Chinese to pass them economically, they see what happened to Germany. But China is yet to be persuaded about other initiatives from the West to curb North Korea's nuclear threat. Most notably, it has yet to back a co-ordinated multinational effort to intercept North Korean vessels and aircraft transporting nuclear material, weapons of mass destruction, missiles and related technologies. The so-called Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) holds its second meeting in Brisbane today, with senior defence and foreign affairs officials from 11 countries taking part. The PSI favours participating countries intercepting North Korean and other suspect vessels in their own waters as a first step. But a multinational force roaming international waters could evolve over time, perhaps with United Nations approval. Denying overflight rights for suspicious North Korean aircraft is also a main item on the agenda, with "robust" action to force them down among the options outlined last week by John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control. The PSI is anxious for China to come on board, and Mr Bolton has had discussions with Chinese officials about the "selective interdiction" plan. But North Korea experts in China warn that a proposed naval blockade to prevent North Korean exports of missiles and other weapons of mass destruction will face kamikaze-type attacks from a desperate regime. They'd go even more nuts. The annual $A900 million earned from missile sales is the main source of hard currency for Pyongyang, far exceeding other sources such as remittances from ethnic Koreans in Japan. Analysts in Beijing are taking seriously Pyongyang's warnings that it would consider interceptions of its ships and aircraft an act of war and strike back. But Mr Bolton dismissed this threat. "The North Koreans are filled with bluster," he said before leaving Washington for Brisbane.
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| Posted by:Steve |