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I've posted this = report from China below the fold = in Comment form a few times, but now with North Korea really, really going down to CrazyTown, I figured it was time to put this little experience in Diary Form. NOTE RE Larry Madill's (linked above) Diary: I highly recommend Tarheel Dem's Comment/Analysis that's down in the Comment Thread].
Anyway, this very real and true-to-life story happened to me in July 2005, in the City of Anshan, China, not too awfully far from China's border with North Korea.
It doesn't go into military matters, but -- I believe -- reflects where China's "coming from". That this is only one man (out of 1.3 Billion Chinese) talking is acknowledged...
-- see update below --
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July 2005. I found myself in a car driving through the night in Northeastern China, not far from the border with North Korea.
I was part of a 5 person delegation visiting a town (well, "town" of 1.5 million in the city center, more than 3.5 million in the greater metropolitan/prefectural population) on a goodwill and economic development mission. I was not alone in the car. Besides the driver, I shared the car with a local official ("Jimmy"). We were coming back from a hot spring spa. That's a whole other story.
Anyway, in making conversation I said something like, "Say, we're not far from the boarder, are we?"
Jimmy said, "That's right. It's not very far from here."
I said, "Do you get many people over here from Korea?" [this was a loaded question; I'd read accounts].
Jimmy sighed, "Yes, it's a big problem. They come, but they won't go back. We wish they would go back, but they won't."
I empathized and said that we, too, in the U.S. had immigration issues that we were debating and working through. Then, to get the conversation going in a bit brighter direction, I said something like, "Well, I think that China can be very helpful to the United States and North Korea because right now we're very angry at each other, but China can be a good go-between" [a big deal, and role of great responsibility in Asia].
Jimmy said, "Thank you. But North Korea is very angry at us right now."
"Oh?" I said.
"Yes, they say that we are not Communist anymore. They say that we are Capitalist now, so they're very angry at us."
"Oh?"
"Yes, but we are not Capitalist. We are practical."
"Hmmm, do you hope that North Korea will become 'practical', too? Someday?"
"Yes. We hope they will become practical, too."
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In sum: China doesn't want this shit going on right now any more than we do.
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Now what exactly they plan to do about it I can't say. Stay tuned. Beijing's not going to do anything "over the top" to make Pyongyang "lose face", but China's going to put its foot down soon.
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UPDATE. Excerpt from Comment by "wu ming" in Thread below:
"china needs a war with north korea like a hole in the head. the government's gotta be furious with them right now, but they're not going to go all cowboy like the armchair types in the states like to say they'd do from a distance."
Bang-on.
BenGoshi
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