« SCO Update | Main | Not Completely Accurate »
June 30, 2003
Good Beginning
China's calling for a nuke-free nut zone North Korea.
"China hopes to see a nuclear weapons-free Korean peninsula which enjoys lasting peace and stability," Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told reporters after meeting European Union (news - web sites) officials and the bloc's outgoing president Greece.
"It is important to address the security concerns of a certain country but should there be disagreements or even conflicts between certain countries the only way to solve them is through dialogue in a peaceful manner," he said.
Interesting diplomatic language there. Perhaps we're being taken a bit more seriously now?
Zhaoxing, a former ambassador to the United States, said a first round of talks in Beijing in April between North Korea, the United States and China were positive but more needed to be done.
"The Chinese government has made persistent efforts ... and the Beijing talks represented a good beginning. But they were only a good beginning," said Zhaoxing.
Well ya know what they say, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. And looks like China's started walking.
Posted by Rita at June 30, 2003 06:21 PM
Comments
Stop using your intelligence and think about it . . . notice that China is within range. It suits their best interest to have North Korea nuke free...
Posted by: Tony at June 30, 2003 08:42 PM
Rita,
Don't take it entirely at face value, the loonies in the DPRK claim that they want the same thing, a nuke-free peninsula, because they claim to not already have one (they're convinced that the US has massive stockpiles of tactical nukes just lying around the ROK).
It could be that the Chinese are just parroting the same thing; you can never be sure with them.
Cheers,
Posted by: Paul Jané at June 30, 2003 10:27 PM
I read his comment as saying that China wanted continued talks, and that they don't want NK to be our next target....kinda like please don't shoot my ho, I can get her under control.
Whether they actually will or not remains to be seen. I suspect they will, as China has enough problems without being drawn into a war against us in NK again. While it's helpful for them to have NK to bug us, it's in no one's interests for that nutcase to actually have nukes....there's no way to guarantee against whom he would use them. A perennial problem with psycho dictators.
Posted by: Rita at July 1, 2003 06:22 AM
...please don't shoot my ho...
Hehehehe, well put...
Posted by: Paul Jané at July 1, 2003 07:51 PM