Top > World > 2006 > October > 2006-10-25

China Denies North Korea Apologized

Beijing has publicly denied reports appearing in the Western media earlier this week that in a meeting with China?s ambassador to North Korea, the latter?s Kim Jong-il expressed regret for test-detonating a nuclear weapon against the wishes of his Chinese patrons. However, the People?s Republic has also announced that it believes no further tests are planned by Pyongyang, though previous Chinese statements that North Korea wouldn?t test a nuclear weapon in the first place were found to have been mistaken.

The apparently erroneous reports, which first appeared in South Korean media, are yet another set of mixed signals coming out of both the Korean Peninsula and Beijing. Following the North Korean nuclear test on October 9, China singled out North Korea for criticism and called the test ?brazen?, going further in other statements in using language traditionally reserved for all-out enemies of the Chinese. China approved of the Security Council?s passage of sanctions against North Korea, and then said it wouldn?t enforce them.

Washington, displeased with such news, brought pressure to bear on Beijing and the Chinese ? who despite their alliance with North Korea share often tense, bordering on antagonistic relations ? announced they would help enforce the sanctions in their own way. China fears both a nuclear North Korea, a possibly nuke-armed South Korea, a reunified Korean Peninsula under a democratic system, and the re-militarization of Japan, putting Beijing in the unenviable but nevertheless self-inflicted position of picking a poison mixed by itself.