North Korea doesn' t have a whole lot of longtime friends on the world stage. In fact, as Pyongyang looks beyond its borders, it is likely to find only
North Korea doesn’t have a whole lot of longtime friends on the world stage. In fact, as Pyongyang looks beyond its borders, it is likely to find only one world power ready to regularly defend its interests and actions in high-level international negotiations: China, its next-door neighbor, most important trading partner and staunch ally.
Yet that did not dissuade the North’s state-run news agency from releasing a rare broadside against Beijing on Wednesday, admonishing China by name for exacerbating tensions on the Korean Peninsula .
“One must clearly understand that the DPRK’s line of access to nukes for the existence and development of the country can neither be changed nor shaken, ” reads a commentary attributed to someone named Kim Chol, using an abbreviation for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, “and that the DPRK will never beg for the maintenance of friendship with China, risking its nuclear program which is as precious as its own life, no matter how valuable the friendship is.”
The commentary specifically targeted the People’s Daily and the Global Times — two Chinese publications that Kim says are “widely known as media speaking for the official stand of the Chinese party and government” — for recent stories that have been critical of North Korea’s nuclear program.
The Korean Central News Agency commentary decried the critical articles as “just a wanton violation of the independent and legitimate rights, dignity and supreme interests of the DPRK and, furthermore, constitutes an undisguised threat to an honest-minded neighboring country which has a long history and tradition of friendship.
