China's Communist Party adopted a secret plan in September to bolster the North Korean government with increased aid and military support, including new missiles, if Pyongyang halts further nuclear tests, according to an internal party document.
The document, labeled "top secret" and dated Sept. 15—12 days after North Korea's latest underground nuclear blast—outlines China's plan for dealing with the North Korean nuclear issue. It states China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing's public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean peninsula.
Chinese leaders also agreed to offer new assurances that the North Korean government will not be allowed to collapse, and that Beijing plans to apply sanctions "symbolically" to avoid punishing the regime of leader Kim Jong Un under a recent U.N. resolution requiring a halt to oil and gas shipments into North Korea.
Could that be true? The Chinese deny it is a real document. But they would regardless of the truth.
Has China decided that North Korea having a small nuclear arsenal is acceptable?
That would require China to accept America, Japan, and South Korea having anti-missile defenses to nullify a small North Korean nuclear arsenal.
And it would require nobody else going nuclear in response to North Korea's nuclear status.
Are those things possible?
Who will verify that North Korea doesn't expand their nuclear arsenal? Won't America, Japan, and South Korea build up anti-missile defenses just in case? And won't that expansion upset China which will worry that their smallish nuclear arsenal can be partially nullified?
How long will other states accept being non-nuclear targets when North Korea is nuclear?
Or does China see this as buying time to wait for North Korea to collapse or to buy time to prepare to invade or overthrow Kim's government? If so, this is "when near appear far" territory and the look on Kim Jong-Un's face when the Chinese blow falls will be priceless.
Heck, China may believe--rightly or wrongly--that with time that China can persuade North Korea to give up their nukes.
Or is China trying to limit North Korean nukes and verify their location in order to pass that information on to America to improve the odds that an American strike campaign narrowly focused on the nuclear infrastructure will work? And is Chinese aid to North Korea a way of trying to get North Korea to be passive in the face of the attacks rather than escalate on the belief that America is seeking regime change?
And who got the document out? Did China's government leak it? Did a foreign intelligence agency get it? Did a Chinese faction against the decision leak it? Is it just made up and there is no document?
I find it hard to believe that China thinks it makes sense to defend a nuclear North Korea, but I may be insufficiently imaginative to appreciate the Chinese view. I may be mirror imaging despite my awareness of that as a problem. It may be that it is impossible not to mirror image. Or just me.
Or maybe it is fake. But then who wants that type of information out there? Russia? North Korea?
This is surprising information. I just don't know who will be the most surprised when this crisis is resolved one way or the other.
UPDATE: Strategypage discusses the document and other things China.
Of note, they report that North Korea is believed to have as many as 20 nuclear weapons. I think this is the first time I read something like this. With the talk of North Korea not having long-range missiles yet, I wondered if this implied North Korea had shorter-range nukes already. Apparently they do.
The question is are Japan and South Korea too frightened of those weapons (and I don't blame them) to go along with an American-led strike; or are the weapons vulnerable enough and few enough that Japan and South Korea would rather run the risk of striking now, than waiting for North Korea's arsenal to grow.
And of course there is the question of whether America would strike North Korea despite Japanese and South Korean fears of shorter-range nukes in an effort to stop North Korea before they get longer range nukes.
