China warns about North Korea

How curious that China would choose to warn the world about a major uptick in the number of nuclear weapons held by their neighbor and only friend in the world.  China supplies the majority of oil and trade with North Korea and probably has more influence over that country than any other.  The CIA World Factbook says that China accounted for 67.2% of North Korea's exports and 61.6% of imports in 2011. Since then, they probably account for more.  Why would they need to warn the world about what North Korea is doing?  

China uses North Korea as a stalking horse for international crises which it can then observe, without being the cause of the trouble.  North Korea has threatened to launch a nuclear weapon on a long range missle capable of hitting the U.S., but we often forget that members of the Chinese military have twice done the same thing.  It didn't get much of a reaction out of us either time.  But coverage in the Wall Street Journal today [ Jeremy Page and Jay Solomon, China Warns North Korean Threat Rising, ]

indicates the U.S. believes North Korea gave nuclear technology to Syria, and could give more to other countries.  Republicans, and no doubt others, are looking at the deal with Iran saying the deal looks a lot like the one put together by the Clinton administration in 1994 to slow down the development of weapons by North Korea.  What it really did was give them cover to continue their weapons programs.  

The problem is the same in North Korea as it is in Iran - verification.  North Korea is a black hole when it comes to verifying much of anything and Iran is not far behind.  We know Iran will not follow an agreement to stop weapons development but would be glad to accept a lessening of sanctions in exchange for inspection of some of the known sites building their weapons.  They will never show them all to anyone.  

What that doesn't say, however, is why is China telling us about North Korea's nuclear arssenal and it's plans for futher weapons?  Maybe they are trying to tell us that the deal with Iran will not work any better than the one with North Korea.  They know they can control North Korea but will never have the same leverage over Iran.  Killing the ageement will not stop the Iranians from continuing development, but it might give us reasons to start thinking about other ways to do it.  Maybe I am giving the Chinese too much credit, but somehow, I don't think so.