China Playing Both Sides on N. Korea

China has recently joined with other countries in condemning North Korea for a failed missile launch earlier this month. It was a rare public rebuke of its internationally isolated ally, leading many to closely scrutinize whether Beijing’s policies toward Pyongyang are shifting.

This week U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said China has provided some assistance to North Korea’s missile program, possibly violating U.N. sanctions on the country.

Beijing has denied the allegations, but Panetta says that China must do more to bring North Korea to the negotiating table.

"We've made very clear to China that China has a responsibility here to make sure that North Korea -- if they want to improve the situation with their people, if they want to become a part of the international family, if they, in fact, want to deal with the terrible issues that are confronting North Korea, there's a way to do that," he said. "And China ought to be urging them to engage in those kinds of diplomatic negotiations. We thought we were making some progress and suddenly we're back at provocation."

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Two Koreas in Naval Conflict

SEOUL, Nov 10: Navies from the rival Koreas exchanged gunfire for the first time in seven years on Tuesday, damaging vessels on both sides and raising tension just days before US President Barack Obama travels to Asia.

North Korea has often used military action to force its way onto the agenda of major diplomatic events and has been seeking direct talks with Obama’s administration while alarming global powers by last week saying it had produced more arms-grade plutonium.

The United States will announce in the next few days whether it will start direct talks with North Korea, which could kick-start a fresh round of talks with regional powers on nuclear disarmament, a US official said earlier.

South Korea denounced what it said was an incursion by a North Korean patrol vessel into its territorial waters in the Yellow Sea that sparked a brief firefight near the spot where the two Koreas have had two deadly conflicts in the past decade.

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North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions

Saturday's threats made clear North Korea's refusal to back down from international calls to give up its nuclear ambitions in the wake of its April rocket launch and underground nuclear test last month.

The statement also raised concerns of a military skirmish.

"An attempted blockade of any kind by the U.S. and its followers will be regarded as an act of war and met with a decisive military response," the North said.

As a precaution, South Korea has dispatched hundreds more marines to two islands near a western maritime border with North Korea that was the scene of deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002, officials said Friday.

North Korea's acknowledgment that it has a uranium-enrichment program appears to confirm that it has a second source of bomb-making materials in addition to plutonium.

North Korea is believed to have about 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of plutonium, enough for half a dozen bombs, Yoon Deok-min, a professor at South Korea's state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said Saturday.

Reprocessing 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods stored at North Korea's Yongbyon complex could yield additional 18 to 22 pounds (8-10 kilograms) of plutonium - enough to make at least one more atomic bomb, he said.

More than a third of the spent fuel rods have been reprocessed and the rest of its plutonium will be weaponized, North Korea said Saturday.

Those moves would mark a significant step away from a disarmament pact between North Korea and five other nations in wake of its first nuclear test in 2006.

Under the deal, North Korea agreed to disable its main nuclear complex in Yongbyon north of Pyongyang in return for 1 million tons of fuel oil and other concessions. In June 2008, North Korea blew up the cooling tower there in a dramatic show of its commitment to denuclearization.
But disablement came to halt a month later as Pyongyang wrangled with Washington over how to verify its past atomic activities. The latest round of talks, in December, failed to push the process forward. The negotiations involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the U.S.
North Korea walked away from the talks in April after the Security Council condemned its April 5 rocket launch, seen by the U.S., Japan and others as a cover for a long-range missile test.

North Korea has said it will test another long-range missile and is suspected of preparing for a third nuclear test, but there is no evidence that either plan is imminent.

Washington had anticipated a strong North Korean response to the U.N. sanctions. Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, cautioned Friday that North Korea could react to the resolution with "further provocation."

"There's reason to believe they may respond in an irresponsible fashion to this," she told reporters.

Analyst Kim Yong-hyun of Seoul's Dongguk University said North Korea was sending a stern message to Washington before President Barack Obama sits down with South Korea's Lee Myung-bak for summit talks at the White House on Tuesday.

He said North Korea is engaging in a game of "chicken" with the U.S. that he predicted would eventually end in talks.


From here.

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer contributed to this report from the United Nations.