Right Wing Nut House

Judging by this article in the New York Times, China would appear to be the world’s #1 nuclear enabler for Kim Jong Il and the North Koreans:

China on Tuesday ruled out applying economic or political sanctions to pressure North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program, appearing to undercut a crucial element of the Bush administration’s evolving North Korea strategy. The announcement comes just as American intelligence agencies are trying to determine whether North Korea is preparing for a nuclear test.

Echoing President Bush’s public comments, the Chinese said in a briefing on Tuesday that they still hoped that talks with North Korea would succeed in disarming the country, even though it has boycotted those talks for 11 months.

Liu Jianchao, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, said Tuesday that China rejected suggestions that it should reduce oil or food shipments to North Korea, calling them part of its normal trade with its neighbor that should be separate from the nuclear problem. “The normal trade flow should not be linked up with the nuclear issue,” he said. “We oppose trying to address the problem through strong-arm tactics.”

Given that the mad bomber Kim won’t respond to anything but “strong arm tactics” it appears certain that China will oppose any move the US and Europe make to bring Kim to account before the United Nations.

And evidently, it’s isn’t just North Korea that China wishes to enable:

Chinese delegation head Zhang Yan said China “favors resolving the Iranian nuclear issue within the framework of the IAEA,” the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which verifies NPT safeguards.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Kislyak sounded the same note when he said “current negotiations and consultations” should resolve the Iranian crisis.

China enunciated what is expected to be a key theme at the month-long NPT conference when Zhang said that “the relation between non-proliferation and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy should be put in correct perspective” so that respect is paid to “the rights of non-nuclear-weapons states to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Like the group Al-Anon that counsels the loved ones of alcoholics in how not to be an enabler for their spouses sickness, someone should take China aside and perform an intervention on behalf of the rest of us who aren’t quite as sanguine at the prospect of the mad mullahs or the nutty NoKo’s getting their mitts on weapons of mass destruction.

One might ask what possesses Beijing to act this way?

China could veto any United Nations resolution, and if it was unwilling to enforce sanctions along its border, any efforts to isolate North Korea would be likely to fail. The World Food Program, citing statistics from the Chinese government, said China’s food aid to North Korea soared in the beginning of this year. By the organization’s estimate, China sent 146,000 tons of food to North Korea in the first three months of this year, compared with 165,000 tons for all of 2004.

In addition, Chinese delivery of coal and oil to their starving, bankrupt neighbors are up 20% this year over last year.

Another reason for China’s reluctance to stop the Iranians and North Koreans may be their shadowy involvement in Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan’s clandestine nuclear black market network:

Reacting to reports about the Khan nuclear network, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson urged Islamabad to undertake the investigations “properly” and bring them to a conclusion “quickly.” The Chinese preference for conducting investigations “properly” and ending them “quickly” reveals Beijing’s apprehensions over exposing the Chinese nuclear establishment’s long standing ties with Khan. His numerous visits to China’s nuclear installations over the last three decades and gains accrued to China’s weapons program from the Dutch centrifuge technology stolen by Khan in the mid-1970s are particularly sensitive issues for Beijing. A senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-e-Azam) told a Pakistani journalist in early February that “Chinese officials had expressed a desire for the proliferation inquiry to end quickly as they feared that Dr. Khan would publicly detail his network’s ‘China connection,’ thereby embarrassing a crucial ally that Pakistan considers a strategic counterweight to India.”

The Chinese enablers are playing with fire when it comes to allowing Kim to achieve his nuclear ambitions. Both South Korea and Japan are scared witless at the prospect of this lunatic having the bomb. Already Japan has made noises about increasing its defense capabilities, something unheard of in a country where the constitution is very restrictive of the defense establishment. China has voiced disapproval of this, as they remember what Japanese troops did in China 70 years ago and see any rearming by Japan as a direct threat to their security. But what is Japan to do? The madman has already test fired a missile over Japanese territory that landed in the Pacific Ocean. Besides looking into missile defense, Tokyo is seeking closer defense cooperation with the United States.

South Korea is a different matter as the US is not very popular there now and the yearning for reunification with the North grows steadily. President Roh Moo-hyun has his own political problems but has stated that the most desirable state of affairs would be a nuclear-free Korean peninsula. But any overt move by Kim to demonstrate his nuclear capability will inevitably draw the South Koreans closer to the United States.

If China makes good on its threat to block our sanctions effort in the United Nations against both North Korea and Iran, the US may have no alternative but to seek other means - including blockade or other military action - to get both Kim and the radioactive mullahs to give up their nuclear ambitions.