China secretly planned to provide North Korea with increased aid and missiles in exchange for Pyongyang to halt any future nuclear tests, according to a secret document obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The “Top Secret” document obtained by the Free Beacon, from a person who had ties to Chinese intelligence and security communities, details a plan to deal with North Korea’s nuclear threat by allowing them to keep their nuclear arsenal, despite having a public stance that calls for denuclearizing North Korea. The document calls into question whether there is opposition to supreme leader Xi Jinping in the Chinese government.
The plan includes providing aid to North Korea and only applying “symbolic” United Nations sanctions that are aimed at limiting oil and gas shipments into North Korea.
The document is dated Sept. 15, 2017, just days after North Korea conducted an underground nuclear test.
A directive ordered the Chinese Liaison Department to provide an increase in “daily life and infrastructure building” and a 15-percent increase in funds for North Korea in 2018. Aid would then be increased by more than 10 percent each year until 2023.
Former U.S. State Department intelligence official John Tkacik told the Free Beacon that if the document was confirmed, it may be “evidence that China has no real commitment to pressuring North Korea to give up nuclear weapons, and indeed sees North Korean nuclear arms as an additional strategic threat to the United States, one that China can claim no influence over.”
“Reading between the lines, it is clear that China views North Korea as giving it leverage with the U.S., so long as the U.S. believes that China is doing all it can do,” Tkacik added.
“The document bears the seal of the General Office of the Communist Party Central Committee, the office in charge of administrative affairs. Copies were sent to the administrative offices of the National People’s Congress, State Council and Central Military Commission,” the Free Beacon reported. The document could not be independently verified by The Washington Free Beacon.
Last week, President Donald Trump tweeted from West Palm Beach, Florida, that China was “caught RED HANDED” allowing oil shipments to reach North Korean ports, which is a direct violation of U.N. sanctions on North Korean imports of oil, this after satellite images were captured of the transfer.
The tweet read: “Caught RED HANDED – very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”
Caught RED HANDED – very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2017
“I have been soft on China because the only thing more important to me than trade is war,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Times last week.
“Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal,” he said. “If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do.”
“They have to help us much more,” Trump said, of China. “We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China.”
In response to calls to ban banking business with North Korea, the ban would “only apply to state-owned banks controlled by the central government and some regional banks,” according to the document.
China would also offer military technology, including “more advanced mid- and short-range ballistic missiles, cluster munitions, [et cetera], assisting in strengthening Korea’s ability to maintain stability, according to the stability maintenance experience of our country and Korean characteristics,” according to the top secret document.
“Currently, there is no issue for our country to forcefully ask [North] Korea to immediately and completely give up its nuclear weapons,” to document read. “Instead, we ask Korea to maintain restraint and after some years when the conditions are ripe, to apply gradual reforms and eventually meet the requirement of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.”
China would also increase trade with North Korea to improve the North Korean living standard.
“To greatly promote increasing trade with Korea to ensure the normal operation of the Korean government and raise the living standard of the Korean people. As for products under international sanctions such as crude oil products (except for the related products clearly defined as related to nuclear tests), under the condition of fully ensuring domestic demand of Korea, we will only make a symbolic handling or punishment,” the document read.
“After closing down Korean businesses in China according to the terms of the Resolution, our country will not for the moment restrict Korea from entrusting qualified Chinese agencies from trade with Korea or conducting related trade activities via third countries (region),” the document added.
The document directs the Liaison Department to “seriously warn the Korean authorities not to overdo things on the nuclear issue.”
“Currently, there is no issue for our country to forcefully ask Korea to immediately and completely give up its nuclear weapons,” the document reads. “Instead, we ask Korea to maintain restraint and after some years when the conditions are ripe, to apply gradual reforms and eventually meet the requirement of denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula. If Korea insists on acting arbitrarily, our country will further assess it and unilaterally impose specific punitive measures against Korean senior leaders and their family members.”
The document states that China and Russia would be responsible for mediating to keep the peace on the Korean Peninsula.
“According to the current deployment of world forces and the geographic position of the Korean Peninsula, to prevent the collapse of the Korean government and the possible direct military confrontation with western hostile forces led by the United States on the Korean Peninsula caused by these issues, our country, Russia and other countries will have to resort to all the effective measures such as diplomatic mediation and military diversion to firmly ensure the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and to prevent ‘chaos and war,’ which is also the common position held firmly by our country, Russia and others,” the report read.
The directive says that North Korean provocations with repeated nuclear tests is “becoming unbearably heavy.”
“Currently Korea will not have to immediately give up its nuclear weapons, that so long as Korea promises not to continue conducting new nuclear tests and immediately puts those promises into action, our country will immediately increase economic, trade and military assistance to Korea,” the report read.
