主题：读书笔记：小布什回忆六方会谈 -- 鹦鹉

China, South Korea, Russia, and Japan to present a united front against the regime.

The key to multilateral diplomacy with North Korea was China, which had close ties to its fellow communist nation. The challenge was that China and the United States had different interests on the Korean Peninsula. The Chinese wanted stability; we wanted freedom. They were worried about refugees flowing across the border; we were worried about starvation and human rights. But there was one area where we agreed: It was not in either of our interests to let

Kim Jong-il have a nuclear weapon.

In October 2002, I invited President

Jiang Zemin of China to the ranch in Crawford. I brought up North Korea. “This is a threat not only to the United States, but also to China,” I said. I urged him to join us in confronting Kim diplomatically. “The United States and China have different kinds of influence over North Korea. Ours is mostly negative, while yours is positive. If we combine together, we would make an impressive team.”

President Jiang was respectful, but he told me North Korea was my problem, not his. “Exercising influence over North Korea is very complicated,” he said.

After a few months with no progress, I tried a different argument. In January 2003, I told President Jiang that if North Korea’s nuclear weapons program continued, I would not be able to stop Japan—China’s historic rival in Asia—from developing its own nuclear weapons. “You and I are in a position to work together to make certain that a nuclear arms race does not begin,” I said. In February, I went one step further. I told President Jiang that if we could not solve the problem diplomatically, I would have to consider a military strike against North Korea.

The first meeting of the

Six-Party Talks took place six months later in Beijing. For the first time, North Korean officials sat down at the table and saw representatives of China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States looking back at them. Progress was gradual. I spent hours on the phone with our partners, reminding them of the stakes and the need to maintain a united front.