China has launched a major disinformation campaign about its relationship with belligerent, nuclear-armed North Korea. Officials, diplomats, think tank intellectuals and state media journalists are telling anyone worth telling that Beijing has limited influence on Pyongyang.
Baloney.
The secretive Stalinist state of North Korea's deranged Dear Leader, Kim Jong-il, is utterly dependent on China. North Korea is China's vassal. Beijing supplies a third of North Korea's total food donations, and as much as 70 to 90 percent of its fuel aid. China is also North Korea's number-one trading partner. Sino-North Korean trade rose 14 percent in 2005, to a record of more than $1.5 billion.
North Korea's other sources of economic aid are drying up. Japan, which was North Korea's second-largest trading partner until 2001, has cut its trade and imposed sanctions on Pyongyang; and South Korea suspended its sizable food aid after North Korea defied international warnings and test-fired seven missiles on July 4.
China could end Kim's missile threats--and the Kimist regime--in a heartbeat. Instead, China protects and supports the regime, balancing a need to appear "responsible" in international eyes with an appreciation for North Korea's continued usefulness as both a buffer state separating China from American forces in South Korea and a vicious attack dog against America and Japan.
Should the attack dog (and the comparison is admittedly insulting to dogs) be brought to heel, it would be seen by China as a major victory for the United States. Worse, a truly contained North Korea could cause the collapse of the Kimist regime, resulting in an all-democratic Korean peninsula--an anathema for China.
The emergence of a united, democratic Korea, coupled with the continued survival of self-ruled, democratic Taiwan, would contribute significantly to Chinese fears of encirclement by the US.
In a related development, China is also trying to downplay its alliance with Iran in anticipation of Tehran turning down Western incentives to halt its disputed uranium enrichment program. The party line: China has no leverage over the oil-rich Islamist nation; but Russia does; so the road to Tehran passes through Moscow, not Beijing.
