Little China,N'Korea.... described: as lips are to teeth.”

North Korea has often been described as close to China “as lips are to teeth.”  

An example is China’s help with North Korea's nuclear program. China, as North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il's protector and life support system, helped to start his nuclear and missile programs. A congressional report on North Korea in 1999 stated that Pyongyang received most of its nuclear infrastructure from countries in the former Soviet Union, "but also has received equipment and know-how from China." MI 6 believes that Chinamay have provided North Korea with plutonium. “China has also provided some of its own nuclear scientists to work at North Korea’s Yongbyon’s own bomb-making plant.”[1]

“North Korea’s Communist regime now depends completely on China for food, fuel, and political support.”[2] Security experts describe Communist China, as North Korea’s "master" and "‘enabler,’ if not co-conspirator and participant" in crime.[3] “China’s most dangerous proliferation activity is the help it provides to North Korea’s long-range missile programs.” While pretending to moderate North Korea’s behavior on missiles and nuclear weapons development, “China was secretly boosting [their] missile program.”

In the CNN film Nuclear Terror the question is posed “Would [North Korea] sell nuclear material to terrorists?”

            Graham Allison, Harvard University professor and author of Nuclear Terrorism replied:  “Their cash crops are missiles which they supplied to everybody – Egypt to Iran, Iraq to Yemen. If you have money to pay, you can buy a missile from North Korea.”

            “Pyongyang netted some $60 million from missile and missile component sales to Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Such exports represent the single largest source of revenue for the Kim Jong-Il regime,” [a] South Korean study says.”[4]

The State Department's 1999 report on terrorism stated that North Korea had links with Osama bin Laden.[5] “According to a defector report…North Korea is training terrorists and has connections to other group’s not just bin Laden,” writes Timperlake. “North Korea, in partnership with the Chinese, have never hesitated to sell any weapon system they have ever developed.”[6]

  North Korea, was one of the three nations in U.S. President's George W. Bush's so-called "axis of evil", State of the Union speech in January 2002, because it is a major exporter of missile technology and equipment to the Middle East.

In December 2002 North Korea stunned the world by announcing it would re-start its previously abandoned nuclear reactors, creating speculation that it would use the waste by-product to make weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear warheads. Threatening the whole world with nuclear blackmail North Korea then asked UN weapons inspectors to leave the country.[7]

            “The North Koreans have one or two nuclear missiles that are capable of reaching the United States, CIA Director George Tenet told a Senate panel [in February 2003],”

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[1] Thomas, Gordon (7JAN03) America Prepares for Its Next War – With China, http://www.globe-intel.net/

[2] Timperlake, Edward & Triplett William C. (1999) Red Dragon Rising, Regnery                                              Publishing In.: page 178

[3] Triplett, William (2004) Rogue State: How a Nuclear North Korea Threatens America, Regnery Publishing, Washington

[4] MISSILE DEFENSE BRIEFING REPORT NO. 124 (November 3, 2003)

American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, DC

http://www.afpc.org

[5] U.S. Department of State, The Pattern of Global Terrorism: 1999 and The Pattern of Global Terrorism: 2000 .                 

[6] Triplett, William (2004) Rogue State: How a Nuclear North Korea Threatens America, Regnery Publishing, Washington: p. 175

[7] Salant, Jonathan D. & Goodman, Peter S. (30EC02) U.S. steps up pressure on North Korea, Ottawa Citizen