| ::crackle crackle:: "Kim? Kim? I'm sorry, I must be in a bad cell." ::crackle crackle:: "And now we're going into a tunn..." |
CHINA'S relationship with its former satellite North Korea is unravelling fast, underlined by reports yesterday that the People's Bank of China has frozen all North Korea's accounts. South Korean parliamentarian Park Jin said he had learned on a visit to Washington that through its action the Chinese central bank had responded to persistent North Korean counterfeiting of its currency, the yuan. A spokesman for the People's Bank of China yesterday declined to deny Mr Park's claim, saying, however, that the bank had not yet issued a statement confirming the claim. Mr Park's account helps explain why China did not respond directly to the US's imposition of sanctions on Banco Delta Asia in Macau, a Chinese special administrative region. Washington, which froze $32million worth of accounts at the bank, accused North Korea of circulating counterfeit US dollars printed in North Korea, which has long used Macau as its principal international financial contact point. Indeed, Mr Park said China was working alongside the US to track and smash North Korea's counterfeiting operations.
It is 10 days since the UN Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1695 -- drafted chiefly by China -- responding to North Korea's launch of seven missiles by blocking the shipment of materials Pyongyang might use for the construction of missiles or nuclear weapons, demanding that it suspend its missile program and urging that it return without pre-conditions to the six-party talks -- with China, the US, South Korea, Russia and Japan.