Word: jong
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...North Korea's unexpected long-range missile launch, the Chinese government quietly sent a senior envoy, former foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan, to Pyongyang to express Beijing's displeasure. Tang cooled his heels for a couple of days, before finally meeting - briefly, diplomatic sources have said - with leader Kim Jong Il. Just three months later, in October 2006, North Korea again defied the world and tested a nuclear bomb for the first time...
...question everyone from President Barack Obama on down is now asking - What does Beijing want from Kim Jong Il? - isn't necessarily the right one. Beijing has said in no uncertain terms that a nuclear North Korea is contrary to the "core interests" of the People's Republic of China. The more important questions are (and have been all along): How much leverage does Beijing actually have over the North to begin with, and how much political will do the Chinese have to defend their "core interests" when it comes to North Korea...
...change. North Korea is already the world's most isolated country. The only thing that would meaningfully "deepen" that isolation would be for China to shut down trade entirely across its border - something Beijing has never given any indication that it's prepared to do. The idea that Kim Jong Il's regime even cares if the nation's isolation "deepens" is dubious at best. As for the U.N., it met in emergency session just after the long-range missile launch in April and gently tightened sanctions that were already having no demonstrable effect on North Korea's behavior...
...during the Bush years. But Beijing may be coming to the reluctant conclusion, if it hasn't already, that North Korea means what it says: it intends to be a state armed with nuclear weapons, whether the rest of the world likes it or not. (See pictures of Kim Jong...
...that perhaps, on the question of nukes, it simply can't be bribed? North Korean leaders have long cited the year 2012 as being particularly significant for their country. It will mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the nation's founder and Kim Jong Il's father and predecessor. Jong Il, now 67 and ailing after suffering a stroke last summer, is thought to be arranging a succession now; foreign intelligence analysts believe he wants to pass power onto to his youngest son, 26-year-old Kim Jong Un, with Kim's trusted brother...