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China is said to be ready to sink billions of dollars into North Korea's badly battered economy as it works to persuade Pyongyang to return to stalled denuclearization negotiations, the Associated Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 12).
The Yonhap News Agency reported that after talks with the North's state-owned Korea Taepung International Investment Group, multiple official Chinese banks and other multinational firms were close to an agreement to spend billions constructing private residences, harbors and railroads in the Stalinist state. Chinese financial institutions would supply more than 60 percent of the $10 billion infusion, according to the report.
Last week, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il was reported to have reaffirmed to a visiting Chinese official earlier pledges in support of Korean Peninsula denuclearization. Kim then sent his chief nuclear envoy to Beijing for discussions on how to restart the six-party talks that involve China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the United States.
Requests for comment from China's Finance Ministry were not met yesterday.
South Korea's main intelligence agency disputed the validity of the report.
"We see the report on the $10 billion investment as 'not true,'" said a National Intelligence Service spokesman (Hyung-Jin Kim, Associated Press I/Google News, Feb. 15).
The U.S. State Department said Friday it has not observed any indications that Pyongyang is prepared to return to nuclear disarmament negotiations in the immediate future, Yonhap reported.
"We certainly would like to see such as a sign," spokesman P.J. Crowley said. "I'm not aware that we've seen one at this point."
Crowley said Washington has no plans to receive the North's top nuclear negotiatior, Kim Kye Gwan, for a new round of direct talks on reopening the six-party process. A report last week stated that Kim intended to travel to the United States for meetings.
"There's no discussion that we're having with North Korea about a visit at this point," Crowley said. "We don't rule out other meetings, but we believe firmly that the next meeting that U.S. representatives and others should have with North Korea is through a formal six-party meeting" (Hwang Doo-hyong, Yonhap News Agency, Feb. 13).
Formal talks were last held in December 2008. Since leaving negotiations, Pyongyang has reversed course on shuttering its nuclear operations by reopening a plutonium processing facility and detonating a second nuclear device.
Anonymous diplomatic sources told South Korea's Dong-a Ilbo newspaper that Pyongyang was pressing to send its nuclear envoy to the United States in March, though Kim does not have a U.S. visa to visit, AP reported Saturday (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press II/Google News, Feb. 13).
The North's reclusive and absolute ruler celebrated his 68th birthday today amid widespread foreign speculation about his poor health and what his death would mean for North Korean stability, AP reported.
North Korea in recent years has reportedly spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on traditional health treatments for Kim, who was widely believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008.
South Korea-based think tank analyst Cheong Seong-chang said a "very credible" source told him that Kim is on kidney dialysis.
Cheong said Kim has had to speed up succession efforts because of his poor health. He is suspected to have chosen his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as his successor (Kwang-Tae Kim, Associated Press III/Seattle Times, Feb. 16).