Word: kim
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...toned-down wording may be a sign of Beijing's ambivalence about how tough to get with Kim, but few doubt its sincerity in wanting to defuse this crisis. Last week, for example, China tried to negotiate with Pyongyang independently, dispatching a Deputy Premier and assistant foreign minister to Pyongyang. "China's really trying," said Hill, who is U.S. President George W. Bush's point man on the North Korea nuclear issue. "We're trying. Everyone is trying except, unfortunately, the D.P.R.K." (North Korea officially calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea...
...fact that they have an alliance on paper," says Michael Green, who was senior director for Asian affairs for the Bush White House's National Security Council and met with Chinese officials to talk about nuclear proliferation issues in 2004 and 2005. One of Beijing's concerns is that Kim's nuclear belligerence will encourage China's ancient rival Japan to increase the role of its military or seek nuclear weapons of its own. "The Chinese leadership considers North Korea an albatross," says Green, now at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies...
...Beijing is reluctant to take a harder line, partly because it can neither control Kim nor predict how he will react. Pyongyang in the past has made veiled threats that it would attack South Korea if sanctions were imposed. Following the passage of the U.N. resolution on Saturday, North Korea said through its U.N. representative that it "totally rejects" the measure...
...Beijing will almost certainly stick to its long-standing policy of economic engagement with North Korea, in the hope that it can wean Kim from nukes and bring him closer to the international community. China, along with South Korea and the U.S., have been urging Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks, the multilateral forum created to negotiate an end to North Korea's nuclear program. Pyongyang's delegates walked out of the last round of talks in November, vowing not to return unless the U.S. lifts a freeze on North Korean assets at a Macau bank. That freeze...
...long run, the failure to find a meaningful deterrent for North Korean provocations may mean Kim will become bolder in his stunts, which are geared to extort maximum aid from the countries threatened by his saber rattling. Jing Huang, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington says he thinks China's patience may be wearing thin. "This missile crisis will be the beginning of the end," Huang predicts. "It is forcing Beijing to see [that] the consequences of North Korea's actions are all bad for China." Says Green: "I think China is going to exert far more...