"Had China not intervened in the Korean War in the 1950s, sending its own forces in to fight U.S. forces, North Korea would not exist today --- and all of the Korean peninsula would be free and democratic..."
While true, this statement is absolutely irrelevant to today's situation. The China of Hu Jintao is *not* the China of Mao Zedong, nor does the current Chinese government bear responsibility for the aid Mao offered to North Korea. People should not be held liable for the sins of their fathers or their political predecessors.
The lag of Chinese support for countermeasures to Kim Jong Il's blatant misbehavior is unfortunate, and I agree that pressure should be exerted to at least make sure the current Chinese government does not interfere with U. S. and Western efforts to restrain Kim's dictatorship. However, we should be careful to not demonize the Chinese while doing so; China is steadily becoming a free-market country, and its government is socialist in name only. It is still repressive in some areas (especially individual political expression), but this has improved and will improve with time. Most importantly, its government is reasonable to deal with -- unlike that of Kim Jong Il.
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Agreed.
While I sympathize with the premise, the author is incredibly naive and simplistic in his approach.
Nations act in their own interest and that doesn't always coincide with ours.
Which explains its pressure on Yahoo and similar to help them root out folks who use the internet to tell the truth about China. As well as its continued persecution of Christians.
Not to mention Falun Gong, or the extreme secrecy about Avian Flu.
Cheers!
The chicoms are the biggest proliferators of nukes and other weapons on the planet. Their economy is shot through with corruption. They have the power to punish anyone at any time, and they do so. They enable the "leaders" in sudan, nigeria, iran, etc. to continue on while thee people suffer. Wake up, already!
There are many political prisoners in forced labor camps that might disagree with you.
Exactly what does being a free-market regime have to do with the Korean issue. Even if China was a democratic country that was supporting N. Korea, the measures to be taken don't change. The fact is N. Korea is a threat to regional stability and anyone blocking measures to contain and neutralize it is not acting in the region's and American's interests. So no matter who it is, they have to be made to understand the magnitude of the problem whether we do it through diplomatic pressure or economic boycott, that would depend on how forthcoming China is.