【英国每日电讯博客】North Korea is China's problem

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North Korea is China's problem
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/05/29/north_korea_is_chinas_problem

Posted By: Daniel Hannan at May 29, 2009 at 11:43:22

It's a funny old world. We invaded Iraq (which denied having a nuclear weapons programme), but humour North Korea (which boasts of having one). Indeed, by attacking Iraq - which, everyone now accepts, was a pretty paltry foe - we made it harder to act against states which genuinely do menace our interests and our allies.

Don't get me wrong: I opposed the conquest of Iraq, and I certainly don't see any British interest in biffing North Korea which is not, by any definition, within our sphere of influence. It is, however, in China's. Why, I wonder, does Peking tolerate on its frontier a state every bit as dangerous and unstable as the enriched uranium and plutonium with which it is arming itself?

The Chinese are forever extolling the virtues of non-intervention. They justify their support for the Sudanese, Zimbabwean and Burmese dictatorships on grounds that it is not for them to tell another sovereign nation how to order its affairs. But this non-interventionism stuff is flexibly applied closer to home. Over the years, almost every contiguous state has felt Chinese pressure - sometimes of a direct and military nature: Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Mongolia and, yes, Korea. This time, China has the opportunity to earn its place within the comity of nations while at the same time advancing its own interests. That, surely, is worth more than Communist solidarity.

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