Has George Bush Finally Put the Fear of God in Kim Jong Il?
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il thinks his government could collapse if the United States continues to impose financial sanctions against the country, diplomatic sources close to the six-way talks on North Korea’s nuclear program told Kyodo News on Saturday.
The sources said Kim made the remarks when Chinese President Hu Jintao asked him at their meeting in Beijing last month to drop the lifting of the sanctions as a condition for Pyongyang to return to the stalled six-party talks, which involve China, North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States.
This also tells us something about Kim Jong Il’s purpose in visting Beijing recently: to persuade China to put the U.S. measures into the six-party agenda. Apparenty, counterfeiting was too much for even China to stomach. That must have been due, in no small part, to what U.S. sanctions did to Banco Delta Asia.
China has almost always turned a blind eye toward North Korea’s illicit activities unless said activities are in any way disadvantageous or embarassing to China. This is most likely another example resulting from recent U.S. government presentation of evidence of NK counterfeiting. With the so-called ‘cat out of the bag’, China’s hand was forced to denounce the activity – more so that the sanctions target one of its own financial institutions; Banco Delta Asia.