China is losing nothing by patronizing North Korea. The impoverished regime is not only a diplomatic joker in the deck for China, but also a hidden gold mine that nobody else in the region dares to exploit.
According to an official source in Beijing, North Korea's export of iron ore to China increased twenty times between 2000 and 2004. The ever insatiable economic powerhouse has found that its difficult child in the east possesses many materials the country badly needs. Trains full of coal, copper, lead and other raw materials are now moving out of North Korea every day. In return, China sells consumer goods Kim Jong Il, North Korea's dictator, wants. The North Korean leader even listens to Chinese experts on how to make socialist countries richer.
When it comes to North Korea's bad behaviors, the patron China is in a win-win situation. Always insisting on the importance of talks -- something Japan has never disagreed with -- China can easily put itself in a mediator's chair. If Japan and the United States push too hard, China can make them look like bullies. Its occasional envoys to Pyongyang may tell Kim and his cronies to behave modestly, but they never compel the dictator to abandon his nuclear and other dangerous ambitions. On top of it, the naughty boy can even embarrass and annoy the U.S. and Japan by showing off its capabilities of destructive weapons.
Although the U.S. and Japan know that China will be never forceful, they just have to ask Beijing to press more. If China continues to condone such behaviors, the country will risk looking on matters of international security as it does on issues of human rights.
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