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Strategies & Market Trends : China Warehouse- More Than Crockery -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RealMuLan who wrote (4508)	3/6/2005 7:36:38 PM
From: RealMuLan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6370

China slaps at U.S. on North Korea New Feature Language Tools What is this? English Definitions English->Spanish English->French English->German English->Italian English->Portuguese Powered by Ultralingua By Joseph Kahn The New York Times Monday, March 7, 2005 BEIJING Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing expressed doubt on Sunday that the United States had good intelligence about North Korea's nuclear program and said the onus for easing escalating tensions fell mainly on the United States and North Korea, not on China or other regional powers. . Li's assessment of North Korea, made during an extended press conference during China's annual legislative meeting, amounted to a double slap at the United States. Washington has repeatedly sounded the alarm about Pyongyang's nuclear efforts and pressed China, North Korea's only significant ally, to more actively seek a solution. . President George W. Bush sent a high-level envoy to Beijing last month to present fresh intelligence data that the Bush administration said showed that the North Korean nuclear program was more advanced than previously thought and that it had been selling nuclear materials around the world. . One task of the envoy, Michael Green, the top official handling Asian affairs at the National Security Council, was to dispel Chinese skepticism about the quality of American intelligence, Bush administration officials and Asian diplomats said. . But when asked by a Japanese journalist on Sunday to describe China's understanding of Pyongyang's nuclear program, including whether the country had produced nuclear fuel from enriched uranium as well as plutonium, Li answered pointedly and with a hint of sarcasm. . "Concerning whether North Korea already has nuclear weapons or anything about the question of uranium enrichment, I think that here you may know more than I do," Li said. "Or to put it another way, I definitely don't know any more than you do." . China has more economic and political leverage over North Korea than any other nation. But although Beijing has been the host of several rounds of multiparty talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear program, China has rejected Bush administration appeals to pressure North Korea to dismantle any existing nuclear bombs and its infrastructure for producing nuclear fuel. . Li's comments suggest that since the Bush administration accused North Korea of violating a bilateral agreement on its nuclear arms program more than three years ago, China has come no closer to accepting U.S. assertions that North Korea already has one or two plutonium-based nuclear bombs and is aggressively pursuing a second, less easily monitored method of producing nuclear fuel through enriching uranium. . China's reluctance to do more creates a dilemma for the Bush administration because Chinese support - or, at a minimum, acquiescence - is essential to any escalated international response, including United Nations sanctions, a trade embargo, or military action. . . The last round of so-called six-party talks, involving Japan, South Korea, and Russia as well as the United States, North Korea and China, broke off inconclusively last summer. Li said that the North Koreans, after having made contradictory statements about whether they would participate in the talks, had assured Beijing that they intended to press on. . "There is some news I can announce, which is that the North Korean side indicated that it remains willing to continue participating in the six-party talks and that the respective sides can demonstrate sufficient sincerity," he said. iht.com