Wiki leaks but does Wiki clarify? China ready to dump North Korea, or not
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The flurry of secret diplomatic cables being posted this week by WikiLeaks has dominated front pages around the world.
Five newspapers—the New York Times, El Pais, Der Spiegel , Le Monde and the Guardian—got first crack at the cables and e-mails. They have shaped the public’s perception of American statecraft.
But that doesn’t mean the news outlets necessarily agree. The sharpest rift in the ongoing series of stories came when the Times and Guardian both reported on North Korea’s relationship with its chief sponsor and lonely ally, China.
The two papers relied on the same leaked cable but came to remarkably different conclusions. The Guardian declared China “ready to abandon North Korea,” while the Times expressed only uncertainty about the crucial alliance.
David E. Sanger, the Times’ chief Washington correspondent and a veteran of six years in Asia, noted how many previous predictions about the demise of the oppressive Korean regime have been wrong. He wrote that “talk of the North’s collapse may be rooted more in hope than in any real strategy.”
The Guardian’s report by Simon Tisdall, a foreign affairs columnist, relies greatly on the lone WikiLeaks memo.
When I asked Sanger about the divergence of the two newspapers’ reports, he e-mailed back: “China is a big place, with a variety of opinions. In my reading of the diplomats’ reports back to Washington, we don’t yet have any evidence that China’s top leaders believe the liabilities of dealing with its longtime ally now outweigh the strategic benefits of maintaining the status quo.’’
Other American newspapers appeared to be following the Times’ more measured approach. The Los Angeles Times’ Barbara Demick, a veteran North Korea watcher, reported Wednesday that the speculation of a split ‘amounts to little more than dinner party chatter that reflects outdated opinion or wishful thinking.’
Roy Gutman, foreign editor for McClatchy Newspapers, noted that the North Korea-China rift disclosure came from two unknown Chinese officials, speaking to a South Korean official, who in turn spoke to the U.S. ambassador to South Korea.
Said Gutman: “It’s not possible to judge the degree of solidity of this thing.’
To read more about WikiLeaks click here.
--James Rainey
