China Looms Over Response to Blast Test by North Korea - NYTimes.com - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...north-korea-nuclear-test.html
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At the United Nations, the desire to impose ever harsher sanctions on North Korea to try to curb its development of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles has long stalled in the face of Chinese opposition
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They include banning specific, high-tech items used in the nuclear program, like epoxy paste for centrifuges; limiting or outlawing some banking transactions; and a far more stringent inspection of ships bound to and from North Korea.
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“If we had the kind of product listing and focus on financial flows and interdiction on North Korea that we placed on Iran, we would not be in this spot,”
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But the sanctions in place are almost exclusively focused on nuclear and ballistic missile activity.
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One nuclear test will not make China’s new administration decide to ‘abandon North Korea,’ but it will definitely worsen China-North Korea relations
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there is little chance that the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will move quickly to change the nation’s long-held policy of propping up the walled-off government that has long served as a buffer against closer intrusion by the United States on the Korean Peninsula.
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Chinese military strategists adhere to the doctrine that they cannot afford to abandon their ally, no matter how bad its behavior, analysts here say.
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Indeed, relations between the two countries are conducted largely between the two parties rather than between the two foreign ministries, the more normal diplomatic channel.
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China will almost certainly join the United States in supporting tougher sanctions over Tuesday’s test, accompanied by sterner reprimands from Beijing against its recalcitrant ally in Pyongyang, which ignored Chinese entreaties not to take provocative actions.
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With Hu out of the picture, the administration is intent on determining whether Xi Jinping will prove more attentive to U.S. security concerns
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China’s calculations will be crucial to what happens at the Security Council, where the policy has always been to pursue unanimity over toughness; it is considered far better to get all members on board to send a message to North Korea rather than have China abstain or worse, veto.
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“Threatening a missile-capable warhead with a successful third nuclear test gives the United States, South Korea and Japan good reason to step up their regional ballistic missile defense capabilities,” said Siegfried S. Hecker,
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Some experts say it needs to keep up the tough talk, even if it understands that its efforts at the Security Council may not do much to limit the North’s capabilities.
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Now experts say the North may be simply trying to wait the United States out, hoping it will eventually recognize its program as it did Pakistan’s.
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As the world’s powers struggle to refine their policies, North Korea continues to make technological advances. A long-range rocket test in December has been judged by outside experts to have been a success after many failures.
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“It moves the question of North Korea as a nuclear contender from ‘if’ to ‘when,’ ” said one senior Obama administration official. “The ‘when’ may still be years away, but at least now it is in sight.”