If you are wondering the real reason why China’s Premier Wen Jiabao went to North Korea, it had little to do with North Korea’s nuclear issue:

Yet if resource-hungry China hopes revived camaraderie will also grant it a large bite of North Korea’s massive untapped mineral wealth, analysts and diplomats warn, Beijing could be sorely disappointed.

North Korea’s mineral wealth is receiving close scrutiny, with South Kor­ea’s government this week valuing reserves at $6,000bn (€4,070bn, £3,670bn). Encouraged by data on metals, Goldman Sachs last month predicted the economy of a unified Korea could rival Japan’s by 2050.

Until the 1970s North Kor­ea was the wealthier half of the peninsula. Under communism it has supplied gold to the international bullion market. But poor technology and limited funds have in effect trapped most mineral re­serves, potential investors say.

Trade with China is growing, reaching $2.8bn last year from about $2bn in 2007. But military authorities in North Korea are perceived as hostile to the changes in society and infrastructure that foreign investment could bring.  [Financial Times Via Tom Coyner]

For those who get Tom Coyner’s Korea Economic Reader, he makes a good point that North Korea used to play off the Chinese against the Russians in order to keep the ruling regime afloat.  Now it appears the North Koreans are playing off the Chinese against the South Koreans to keep their regime afloat.  If South Korea doesn’t keep giving the North Koreans ridiculous amounts of aid then the South could worry that China is getting too much economically integrated with the North that it would make future unification impossible.