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O 190400Z OCT 09
FM AMCONSUL SHENYANG
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8867
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC 0228
RHMFISS/COMUSKOREA J2 SEOUL KOR
RUEKJCS/DIA WASHDC 0171
RUCGEVC/JOINT STAFF WASHDC 0121
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHDC
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC 0180

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 SHENYANG 000183 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/K, EAP/CM, INR 
MOSCOW PASS TO VLADIVOSTOK 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: TEN YEARS AFTER KOREAN UNIFICATION 
TAGS: CH EAID ECON EFIN KN KS PARM PGOV PREL
SUBJECT: YANBIAN PRC ACADEMIC ON DPRK: NO WAY OUT, 
NORTH KOREANS WANT LOANS 
 
REF: 08 SHENYANG 185 
 
Classified By: Consul General Stephen B. Wickman.  Reasons 1.4(b/d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: According to a well-connected Chinese expert 
on DPRK issues, the international community missed its 
opportunity to negotiate away the North Korean nuclear 
program in 2006.  He questioned the U.S. "exit strategy" and 
inquired if the United States could stomach a nuclear and 
proliferating North Korea.  He said the North Koreans are 
most interested in receiving loans from multilateral 
development banks and that bilateral agreements, such as 
those struck during Premier Wen Jiabao's October 6 visit to 
Pyongyang, are less desirable.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (U) Consul General and ConGenOff traveled to Jilin 
Province's Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture October 15- 
18 to participate in the celebration of Yanbian University's 
60th anniversary.  Notable guests included former Sino- 
Korean State Ethnic Affairs Commission Chairman Li Dezhu, 
Vice Minister of Education Lu Xin, Jilin Province Party 
Secretary Wang Min, Kim Il-Sung University President Song 
Ja-rip, and the Director of the North Korean Academy of 
Social Sciences. 
 
YOU GUYS BLEW IT: DPRK WON'T DENUCLEARIZE NOW 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶3. (C) The Consul General met with Professor and Dean of 
Yanbian University's Northeast Asia Institute Jin Qiangyi on 
October 16 on the sidelines of the anniversary festivities 
during a short dinner that included Jin's colleague and the 
university's Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) Director.  Based 
on a lifetime of experience working with North Korean 
academic and governmental interlocutors, Jin said the 
international community had lost its brief opportunity to 
denuclearize North Korea, namely, the period before the DPRK 
detonated its first explosive device in 2006.  Prior to 
2006, the North Koreans were never quite sure they would be 
able to go nuclear and thus were still in a position to 
"bargain away what they didn't have" in exchange for aid and 
other inducements.  Now that the DPRK has nuclear status, 
it would be impossible for the North Koreans to voluntarily 
give up their programs. 
 
¶4. (C) Jin was also skeptical about the efficacy of UN 
sanctions and international action to prevent proliferation, 
on the one hand, and to reform the country, on the other. 
On proliferation, Jin predicted that it would impossible to 
stop the North Koreans from eventually transferring a 
nuclear device to another party if they wanted to.  He and 
Li Zhonglin, the Sino-Korean Economics Chief of Jin's 
institute, readily surmised that any DPRK use of nuclear 
weapons, in an offensive, defensive, or even accidental 
capacity would signal the destruction of the DPRK and the 
Kim Jong-il regime.  Even so, Jin doubted the United States 
could or would be willing to do anything substantial should 
the North Koreans manage to smuggle out any nuclear 
technology.  He also said that while China and other 
regional Northeast Asian member states may not see great 
immediate economic or political gains in dealing with North 
Korea, with the passage of time it would be unrealistic to 
expect they would avoid engaging in any self-interested 
trade and interaction with the DPRK. 
 
INTERNATIONAL MULTILATERAL LOANS FOR NORTH KOREA? 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶5. (C) On two separate occasions, Jin asked if the U.S. 
would block any World Bank and IMF loans to North Korean 
should something like ROK President Lee Myung-bak's "grand 
bargain" go forward.  Jin said he thought that the North 
Korean state, before and after Kim Jong-Il's succession, 
could indefinitely survive, pointing to the regime's ability 
to weather serious systemic shocks over the past 15 years. 
However, he did not think the DPRK was in a position to open 
up or reform in the current international environment of 
hostility, which encouraged the DPRK leadership to look 
inward.  Nor was Jin optimistic about the possibility for 
change in the near future. 
 
 
SHENYANG 00000183  002 OF 002 
 
 
KIM JONG-IL AND WEN JIABAO ACCORDS: DON'T BE FOOLED 
--------------------------------------------- ------ 
 
¶6. (C) The various agreements with the DPRK announced by Wen 
Jiabao evoked hardly a yawn and more than a little 
skepticism from our guests.  FAO Director Liu Mingzhu 
laughed when ConGenOff asked about the Rason port 
development proposals, saying "such proposals are made all 
of the time" and that it remained to be seen if any of these 
projects would ever come to fruition. 
 
¶7. (C) When Professor Li Zhonglin elaborated on the 
expulsion of the Chinese from Pier 3 in 2008 and the new 
deal to bring them back to Pier 1 (reftel) in exchange for 
Chinese funding to pave the road between Quanhe-Wonjongni 
Land Port and Rason, Jin pointedly asked Li where he had 
gotten this information.  Li said that the Hunchun City FAO 
had boasted to him earlier about the deal, prompting Jin to 
chuckle and say "of course that is what the Hunchun FAO 
wants you to believe."  Li agreed with Jin and said that he 
too found it unlikely that any of the Wen agreements would 
lead to anything, pointing to the Quanhe-Wonjongni Land Port 
bridge project as a prime example of North Korean delays and 
disinterest in Chinese investment. 
 
¶8. (C) Li said that the dilapidated 50-plus-year-old bridge 
spanning the Tumen River needed to be replaced immediately 
and that both the Chinese and North Korean authorities were 
aware of its precarious situation.  However, for the better 
part of the last decade, even after the Chinese offered to 
fund the vast majority of the bridge's replacement costs, 
the North Koreans have refused to act on any of the 
proposals. 
 
WICKMAN