china has issued an invitation to North Korea for talks after their cautious vote with the UN to impose sanctions on their neighbor. China is the largest trade partner North Korea has and insists the only reason they voted for the motion was to try and force them into peaceful and progressive dialogue.
China's Foreign Minister hopes for dialogue
Wang Yi is cautioning North Korea to scale back their nuclear program and requested that they think very carefully about the provocative stance they have taken against the United States and South Korea, according to The Guardian.
Has China allied itself with South Korea through this vote?
China continues to insist this is the only path to further talks with their neighbor
South Korea has welcomed the move, hoping that it may open up a path to greater dialogue. None of the UN members want nuclear war and South Korea has taken a brave stance, considering the range of missiles stockpiling just over their common border. According to Al Jazeera, those missiles have a range of 300 to +10,000 kilometers. That is too far reaching for comfort for USA, Japan, China and certainly for South Korea.
North Korea is already threatening revenge according to CBS and there is no reason to doubt that they are serious
Good, bad or otherwise, North Korea must be concerned that China, their biggest trade partner, with the longest neighboring border, has raised their hand against them, albeit cautiously, to uphold the new sanctions imposed by the UN.
USA pressure on Chinese banks and businessmen, dealing with North Korea may also have influenced China's recent vote.
Whilst North Korea has never yet displayed any sense of rationality, it seems China is hoping that common sense, coupled with incoming sanctions pressure, will at least motivate their neighbor's leader to consider talks about talks.
Wang Yi met with North Korea's Foreign Minister yesterday in the Philippines but no information about those discussions has been forthcoming as yet.
The question has been asked; if China can have nuclear power, why can't North Korea? Immediate gut reaction to that proposal must surely be that China is a super power. It is a major global partner in trade and commerce and is led by a government concerned about her people and their upliftment.
They are not seeking to provoke a nuclear war. Can the same be said of their neighbor?
Interesting to note is that Hong Kong appears somewhat nonchalant about these developments. Their English newspaper, the South China Post did not even feature it on the front page of their online version yesterday. Indeed it would appear that Hong Kong is more engaged by the story of a dating scam than the threat of imminent nuclear fallout.
As far as nuclear fallout goes, according to ancient 1960's legends, the two safest places to live are Perth, Australia, giving a whole new meaning to the 'Packing for Perth' saying, and Harare, Zimbabwe. Could North Korea's nuclear capability finally renew Harare's value on the world scale?
