Word: china
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...This tension stems mainly from the fact that China prefers North Korea to exist, even in its impoverished and infuriating current form, as opposed to what it sees as the other possibility: a unified Korean peninsula aligned with the U.S. Klingner says Beijing has for years feared a North Korean implosion, in the manner of the former East Germany's, because it would come with costs both economic (refugees crossing the Chinese border) and diplomatic (the loss of a buffer state in a region that, though stable, is inhabited by countries that really don't like one another much...
...North Korea has in the past made a habit of annoying China, its only ostensible ally in the world, what must Beijing be thinking now? For most of the past six years, China has been the host and chief promoter of the so-called six-party talks. Their explicit goal: to get North Korea to give up its nuclear-weapons program. When the North launched another long-range ballistic missile in early April, China helped promote the fig leaf at the U.N. Security Council that the rocket carried a communications satellite and thus might not be a direct violation...
...question everyone from President Barack Obama down is now asking - What does China want from Kim Jong Il? - isn't necessarily the right one. China's leaders have said that a nuclear North Korea is contrary to their "core interests." The more important question is: How much leverage does Beijing actually have over the North, and how much political will do the Chinese have to defend those core interests...
...Heritage Foundation and a former deputy chief for the Koreas in the CIA's analysis section, "the talk in both capitals about the other has often been pretty scathing." Even during the Cold War, Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il's father, would routinely play the Soviet Union and China off each other. But while China and North Korea have never been as close as the propaganda would have it, the two countries do have shared interests. It's how much weight to give those interests, relative to the costs of supporting Pyongyang internationally, that vexes China...
...Electric cars will require more powerful recharging stations than the standard wall outlets used to juice up bikes. But when four-wheeled technology becomes road-ready, it will find a willing customer base in China. "The Chinese have a hundred million people on electric bikes," says Jamerson. "That means a hundred million potential customers" for electric cars. When he worked at GM, which filed for bankruptcy on June 1, Jamerson said he once suggested the company give away an electric bike with every new car, just to get customers used to the idea of a means of transportation you plug...