China "backs Korean unification"
It was always assumed that the Chinese would be very unhappy at the prospects of united Korean peninsula. (This would of course be a Korea united under the government of the South). The main reason for China to oppose such an outcome was that it would place US troops (the United States has some 30,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea) across the Yalu river from China. Al Jazeera reports on findings from Wikileaks:
The latest documents released by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks on Tuesday detail conversations between US officials and Chinese diplomats, as well as a senior South Korean official's discussion with his Chinese counterparts.
Cheng Guoping, the Chinese ambassador to Kazakhstan, was reported to have told Richard Hoagland, the US ambassador, that "China hopes for peaceful reunification in the long-term, but he expects the two countries to remain separate in the short-term".
