It has been predicted that North Korea will solve the upcoming food crisis with the assistance of China, because North Korea authorities requested food aid from China and also because China is supposed to aid North Korea with diesel oil, which is used for agricultural tractors.
Yazhou Zhoukan, a Chinese newsweekly, foresaw on the 20th that North Korea may turn to its traditional blood ally China, due to the rising price of rice, the stalemate in the Six Party Talks, and the launching of the new pragmatic South Korean conservative administration.
According to Yazhou Zhoukan, Chinese Ambassador to North Korea Liu Xiaoming conferred on March 14th with Lee Yong Nam, the new Minister of Foreign Trade, over the continued trade relations between China and North Korea and during the meeting received a request for food aid.
The newsweekly reported that North Korea’s Vice Foreign Minister, Kim Kye Gwan, visited Beijing to ask the Chinese government for food aid on April 9, right after the Singapore Meeting with Christopher Hill.
Yazhou Zhoukan also relayed that China Food and Beverage Online (21food.com) confirmed through a March report on the trends in food markets that China exported 30,100 tons of corn, which is 12 times last year’s amount and 20,000 tons of rice, 1.9 times higher than 2007, in January and February of this year alone.
It reported that the Ministry of Commerce of China confirmed that a public corporation that deals with diesel oil, chosen through restrictive bidding, will send it to North Korea in advance of plowing a rice paddy around May.
However, it was foreseen that the international rice price is rising by over 30% these days and that grain production may decrease due to the spring drought in the northern region and heavy snow in the central southern region of China. Therefore, according to the Hong Kong newsweekly, it would be difficult to support large-scale food exports or food aid to North Korea.
Yazhou Zhoukan analyzed that China decided to aid North Korea with rice and oil because an extreme crisis caused by a North Korean food shortage might negatively influence the Beijing Olympics in August
