U.S. position on North Korea is the biggest obstacle to progress

[0007]

A high-ranking Chinese diplomat says the U.S. position on North
Korea is the biggest obstacle to progress in resolving a standoff
over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.


http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=07D97E91-25C8-4EA5-901455600C6502E0

modre...........

[berry]

1. The Chinese diplomat is right--I'm glad he said it.

I think the US was "pleased" with the talks because they thought they were getting all the other countries to side with the US against N Korea. This is one small indication that at least China isn't fooled. The US's intrasigence is obvious--it has refused to compromise on any point (even stupid little ones).

I couldn't understand why the US wouldn't give in and let some talks be bilateral. Now I see that the plan was to hold multilateral talks in which the US controlled everybody except N Korea, thus isolating N Korea even more. It's a bullying tactic, and maybe it isn't working. I do hope others speak out as well--in Russia and S Korea.

[Muddleoftheroad]

2. What would YOU have the U.S. do?

nt

[Aidoneus]

4. not break agreements?

just crazy enough that it might get us somewhere.......

[berry]

8. Yes, keeping our promises is a good start.

We did not keep our promises wrt the 1994 agreed framework--dragging our feet on the reactors that were promised. We also resort to threats that would terrify any country. We don't seem to care about negotiations, or even the nuclear stuff. What has been clearly stated in many places is that we want regime change. And we're going to push and squeeze and do whatever it takes to make N Korea collapse. We may actually succeed. But what's the plan then? Or, as in Iraq, there's no plan? S Korea sees the folly in this, if the US doesn't.

This ploy is used over and over. Claim that the "enemy" can't be negotiated with because they can't be trusted. This then becomes the excuse/justification for attack. If you give up on negotiation in world affairs, you are making the world a very much more dangerous place.

Your response, Aidoneus, is the only one that doesn't assume the N Koreans (or the Chinese) are evil for having their own interests to protect. I'm getting very tired of the apparent willingness of many even here on DU to push to (or over) the brink of war in Korea. This is REALLY crazy thinking--just like PNAC.

[kodi]

5. not give china more influence for starters

look, we demanded that china get involved in dealing with NK. that alone is god damned stupid, especially when the NKs wanted bilateral talks, not multilateral talks.

by doing so we are increasingly beholden to china for its efforts on the korean pennensula, and have relinguished the bargining chips with china in affairs elsewhere, like pakistan, taiwan and trade issues. even yesterday the chinese dissed the US by stating that the value of the yuan will continue to be tied to the dollar. need it be mentioned that china has a $500BILLION trade surplus with the US and that foreign investment in china now exceeds that of foreign investment in america?

this hurts US influence and trade and china is effectively fomenting problems by their proxies to get the US to deliver concessions to the chinese if the chinese intercede.

i cannot believe how damned stupid the americans are. have we forgotten what china did two years ago when they held an american air force plane, scores of american air force personal and demanded 20 million dollars for their return?

the americans are playing foreign policy like tic tac toe, the chinese are playing Go and are in it for the long haul.

50 years hence, our grandchildren will wonder what the hell happened when the chinese rule the world.

even richard nixon, in 1984 in an op-ed piece in the washington post warned us that in the late 21st century china would be the world's only super-super power, and we are playing right into their hands with our bozo diplomacy that looks to the next quarterly statment instead of the next quarter century.

[Bandit]

12. Maybe when you start the conversation off by calling them evil

You cause some hinderance to future negotiations.

[Muddleoftheroad]

13. Honestly

They aren't? How many millions are starving because of Kim Il Jong's ambitions? How many political prisoners does he hold?

[Aidoneus]

14. how much of that can be attributed to him?

Looking at the purely natural side of the equation, the land of northern Korea is only around 20% cultivable as farming land, and much of what was there was wrecked in the floodings of the mid-90s followed by droughts of the late 90s. That is leaving out altogether whatever state involvement there is on the matter.

[bearfartinthewoods]

3. can you define the two sides of the disagreement?

i'm pretty sure the US position is that we don't want NK to have and sell nuclear weapons.

now ...who is saying they do want NK to have and sell nuclear weapons.

the reason we don't want bilateral talks is because the NK's have this nasty habit of saying one thing to us during the meetings and the opposite to the rest of the world after the meetings.

we have no desire to control any other of the parties involved. we feel, or at least many thinking people feel that the other party's have as much or more to loose if NK goes nuke than we do thus they should be part of the solution. at the very least, they can hear
the shit NK is spreading first hand.

[tom_paine]

6. Two important points to remember here

1) China has it's own axe to grind...it's own agenda. Let us not forget that China is a Communist Oligarchy and is in many ways much worse Totalitarianism/Liberty/Free Speech-wise than Imperial Amerika. Yes yes I know that the Busheviks are rushing to catch us up in the Tyranny category, but I don't believe that's happened yet.

So let's get a grip people. Just because a Chinese diplomat said it doens't mean he isn't bullshit and spinning his own agenda

which leads me to my second point:

2) Just because Imperial Amerika is sinking towards evil corruption that doesn't mean that the other nations have become anymore "good" (such as that term is relative to Liberty/Free Speech/Egalitarianism).

[kodi]

7. many ways? in what way are they not?

it escapes me that anyone considers china a friend to the US. we only used the china card in '72 to hurt the ruskies.

china is bad juju. any comparisons with that evil regime vis a vis equality of political systems with the US is proof of mental illness.

i am a scoop jackson democrat, who hates the communists for what they do whenever they take control of a country, viz., kill off all their opponents. my dad still carries the scars of his times fighting them in korea.

in the long run, economically and politically its them or us and i cant for the life of me understand what brain cancer infects people who think that they will become nice guys simply by allowing a little free marketism into their totalitarian regime.

i wish i was simply a racist against the Han people, but it is not that at all. the chinese culture and political system scares the hell out of me for the long run because the chinese have proven thru history to be patient and have conquered eventually all who oppose them. they have 1/5 of all the people on the planet and will be able to nuke the entire US within a few years. when that happens they will make the soviet union look like pikers. every nation that borders them has fought wars with them, hate them and fear them and all the west does is dump money and technical know-how there to make a quick buck. i am afraid it is already too late and that by 2100 they will rule the planet.

[Solon]

9. Demonizing an entire nation does not help.

Look, the Chinese government is one of the worst in the world, and it is the proverbial "Sleeping Dragon" that the U.S. can only dream of. However the Chinese can no more rule the world no more than the U.S. can. No matter how hard either may try, both will fail. What pisses me off is the damn trade aggreements we made with them. Political prisoners in China make "God bless America" mugs for U.S. Consumers. Anyone see the irony there? Not only do they take away manufacturing jobs here in this country, but exploit thier own people to do so. Its slavery, for a country who is a "worker's paradise" hypocracy in the extreme. Think of those damn Merril-Lynch commercials, a slap in the face of every human being with a concern for Human Rights the world over.

[kodi]

10. you think i would feel this way if china was a democracy?

of course i would not. please reconsider putting your own spin on what i said.

the a priori condition, which i stated clearly was that china was a totaliarian state.

we are in 100% agreeemnt about the trade issues and human rights, but the reality is that china is not a democracy and it doesn't seem like its going to be one into the far future, and with its economic, military, and nuclear powers rising to challenge the US and the west in general, i consider such a government (not the han people) a threat to the entire world.

it appears lenin was right, capitalism will lend the tools to its own destruction.

if the west had dumped money into the old soviet union like we have in china over the last decade, communists would still be running the kremlin.

[LoneStarLiberal]

11. Bargaining and Bluster

The North Koreans are some very tough negotiating partners. They know what we want and we have enough uncertainty about their position that they know we will not rule out them going 1950 on South Korea again. The element of instability is a chip they play very, very well...and have done so time and time again.

On our side of things, Bolton's comments were nothing more than an attempt to inject some uncertainty into the North Koreans about our position. Were they stupid? Definitely stupid-sounding. The timing and content all indicate they were delivered precisely to try and shake up the North Koreans going into the negotiations.

In any negotiations with us, the North Koreans have two advantages that neither the Clinton or Bush administrations could solve: A stunningly large, mobilized, and poised military on the DMZ and a sort of collective jingoism reinforced by five decades of national brainwashing under the concept of Juche.

[berry]

15. Maybe I could buy that (and I guess I do believe that speech was

carefully planned for some effect)--but everything the US is doing is making negotiation impossible. Sure the N Koreans are difficult, but Bolton's speech shocked and horrified the South Koreans too. Not all, I know--there's a strong fundy Xian, rabid anti-communist element there too. But most S Koreans (including the present admin) believe that N Korea can be negotiated with. They are willing to be patient. The US is not. There is zero evidence that the US is listening to the South Koreans, and they increasingly don't trust us.

As to the paronoia and the million-man army--the US has threatened N Korea all along. The US had nukes in S Korea for almost 30 years, pointed right at N Korea. Whatever we may think, that is an excuse to be afraid of the US. So now, when they have shown an unprecedented willingness to compromise and negotiate, the US wants to hold out for total collapse of the regime--which could cause chaos that the S Koreans, for sure, want to avoid.

Yes, it's a terrible regime, and there are very serious human rights issues to address. But as we should have seen in Iraq, war is not the answer. Not when there are still other avenues to explore.

I recommend reading some of the papers by the taskforce on Korea organized by Selig Harrison. His paper and Bruce Cumings' are both helpful (all are good):
http://www.ciponline.org/asia/taskforce.htm