Posted by
Dawnsblood on Wednesday, October 04, 2006 5:27:57 PM
I would think that this is
A Bad Thing:
WHILE the rest of the world looks to Beijing to stop North Korea from
exploding a nuclear bomb, a leading Chinese analyst says it is too late
-- China cannot act without doing worse harm to its own interests.
"Basically, our country's work of persuasion with the (Democratic
People's Republic of Korea) in the 12 years that the DPRK developed its
nuclear program had been a failure," writes highly regarded Shen
Dingli, of Shanghai's Fudan University.
"The DPRK considers its national interests to be greater than its
relations with China," Mr Shen says in his remarkably frank commentary,
published in a newspaper of the official China Youth League and
circulated yesterday by a North Korea-focused think tank, the Nautilus
Institute.
If the Chinese are publicly admitting this it means that they really can not or will not stop the Norks. That also means that the biggest arrow suddenly disappeared from our quiver. In a nutshell, the ball is back in our court. How badly does the Bush Administration want to stop them from becoming a nuclear power and if we don't stop them, what is the chance Japan/South Korea/Taiwan will follow suite? The US and it's allies don't have a lot of time to make these decisions. Is 43 up to the job? We will know soon enough.
H/T
Austin Bay