Posted on 05/17/2018 12:05:29 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
China urges North Korea to proceed with Donald Trump summit
China has urged its ally North Korea to proceed with a historic summit between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and US president Donald Trump amid threats from Pyongyang to scrap the meeting.
Foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the sides should ensure the meeting runs as planned and yields “substantial outcomes”.
Mr Kim and Mr Trump are due to meet in Singapore on June 12, but Pyongyang has threatened to withdraw, saying it has no interest in a “one-sided” affair meant to pressure it into abandoning its nuclear weapons.
Mr Lu said the meeting was crucial to reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and maintaining regional peace and stability.
The North’s warning came hours after it abruptly cancelled a high-level meeting with South Korea, in protest over US-South Korean military exercises.
(Excerpt) Read more at scotsman.com ...
China has Kim by the short hairs. A cessation of Sino-North Korean trade would collapse the regime in a month, at most. If Xi tells Kim to show up, he will.
China has a huge problem with debt run up by the provinces. You’d think with the trade imbalance they have that the nation would be rolling cash but that is not so. Xi is a snake, but he can do the math for the budget. He may be tired of bankrolling the NORKS
“China has a huge problem with debt run up by the provinces. You’d think with the trade imbalance they have that the nation would be rolling cash but that is not so.”
“You gotta wonder how much provincial debt is the result of unfunded central government mandates.”
Most of it is graft, corruption, and theft.
the People's Bank of China published a report that looked at corruption monitoring and how corrupt officials transfer assets overseas. The report quotes statistics based on research by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: 18,000 Communist Party and government officials, public-security members, judicial cadres, agents of state institutions and senior-management individuals of state-owned enterprises have fled China since 1990. Also missing is about $120 billion.
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2079756,00.html
The only real snag I can see is the possibility of a military coup that erases Kim and opts to try to hold on to the bitter end - and it would likley result in the final breaking of the Norks' back.
Sounds like “Rocket Man” has been reading Trump’s book...”The Art of the Deal”.
Trump should call his bluff, and say, “OK, I agree.”. Call off all planning for the event, and double up on the joint military exercises with SK. The L’il Dictator thinks Trump is seeking the Nobel and wants to stop him on it. Meanwhile, Trump could care less about an award that Obama gained for nothing, as it means nothing.
L’il Kim is in the loser’s seat, no matter what he decides to do. Sure, he’ll lose his little kingdom, as he knows it, but he has everything to gain for his people. Little things, like, food, fuel, healthcare, etc.
Yep, Trump needs to call his bluff for about another six months.
Yes and I’m quite sure China’s message to NK was a bit stronger then a suggestion.
North Korea’s commercial information technology (IT) industry has operated overseas, largely unnoticed, for decades. It sells a range of products and services including website and app development, administrative and business management software, IT security software, and biometric identification software for law enforcement applications. Its global network includes a myriad of front companies, intermediaries, and foreign partnerships. Yet despite the attention currently paid to North Korea’s overseas revenue streams and its offensive activities in cyberspace, the spotlight has yet to illuminate the money-spinning North Korean IT firms whose offerings seem to have found their way into corporate supply chains and potentially even Western-allied law enforcement agencies. Drawing upon extensive open-source investigations by the authors, this paper examines several nodes in North Korea-linked IT networks and considers the implications for current and future policy efforts to stem North Korean revenue and mitigate the cyber-security threats the country poses.
North Korea’s activity in the IT sector is likely to continue to pose an underappreciated cybersecurity threat. At present, it seems that many affected clients have unwittingly engaged North Koreans. While the level of access Pyongyang may have into their customers’ systems and data depends upon the services rendered, there is demonstrated potential for North Korea to exploit these relationships for its cyber activities. As long as North Korea’s IT sector remains in the shadows, Pyongyang’s concerning sale of such goods and services will likely continue unabated. https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/op36-the-shadow-sector.pdf
There is rumor going around in S. Korea. It says that IT project from a big corporation is subcontracted to a software firm, which subcontracts it to another one. This chain continues. Eventually, the chain extends to a Chinese subcontractor, who finally subcontracts it to “N. Koreans.” So it could be N. Korean coders who make at least part of software for a big S. Korean corporation. While the veracity of this rumor can’t be confirmed, it is entirely feasible. It is also said that this is how N. Korean farm and fish product make their way to S. Korea. They could pass through Chinese intermediaries to the hands of S. Korean buyers.
I see it the same way. Li’ll Kim puffing up his chest for his people to show how he tamed the American dog and brought it slinking to the negotiations table.
But the deal is already done for the most part. And f’ing it up now will bring down even more pain.
What if NK has no more nuclear weapons or program? What if these statements are a bluff for a pretend hand.
Yes, and add this https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3653615/posts?page=17#17
China, and many others, make the mistake of assuming that Kim is a rational, psychologically balanced human being. He isn’t.
p
Sure they do....for public consumption. Behind the scenes, Kim doesn’t make a move without Chinese approval.
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