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China gets tougher with North
Korea
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - China's newfound interest in urging
Pyongyang to go to the multilateral negotiating table
reflects its growing security concerns about possible US
recklessness in handling the North Korean nuclear
crisis, and alarm over military resurgence from
neighboring Japan.
China has obviously grown
irritated with its longtime communist ally.
This
year, North Korea became the first country to pull out
of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It kicked out
the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and
shut down United Nations (UN) surveillance cameras at
its Yongbyon nuclear facilities, which are capable of
producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
If
North Korea declares itself a nuclear power - it
admitted to having a secret nuclear weapons enrichment
program in October - China is worried that threat in the
region could then lead to a military arms race, possibly
resulting in the nuclearization of Japan, South Korea
and Taiwan, all of which are allies of the United
States. Beijing considers Taiwan a renegade province.
Already, Beijing is fretting over growing public
debate in Japan on how to upgrade its self-defense
forces to suit the country's pacifist constitution.
China is also genuinely concerned that after the
bombs stop falling in Baghdad, Washington will turn its
attention toward North Korea, which US President George
W Bush has included in his "axis of evil" along with
Iraq and Iran.
A spokesman for North Korea's
Foreign Ministry said on Sunday: "The United States is
seriously mistaken if it thinks the DPRK [Democratic
People's Republic of Korea - North Korea's name] will
accept the demand for disarming while watching one of
the three countries the US listed as part of an 'axis of
evil' already subject to barbarous military attack."
Among Beijing's many fears is the possibility
that Pyongyang's belligerent behavior might lead to US
military moves against the Yongbyon nuclear reactor -
even though Washington continues to claim that Iraq is
not North Korea, and that each situation requires a
unique solution.
The Bush administration has
refused Pyongyang's demand for bilateral talks, which it
argued would reward North Korea for its nuclear
brinkmanship. Pyongyang, for its part, has rejected a
multilateral forum, which Washington says would reflect
the fact that the crisis is as much a regional issue as
a bilateral one.
As the UN Security Council is
scheduled to meet on Wednesday for an initial round of
discussions on the North Korean issue, Pyongyang
insisted on the weekend that any action taken by the
council would be ignored by the regime.
Drawing
parallels between the Iraq situation and its own, the
Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang, whom the
state-run Korean Central News Agency did not name, said:
"The UNSC [United Nations Security Council] handling of
the nuclear issue on the peninsula itself is precisely a
prelude to war. The UNSC's discussion of the Iraqi issue
was misused by the US as an excuse for war."
The
UN Security Council has the power to punish nations for
violating international anti-proliferation treaties. For
example, it could impose economic sanctions on
Pyongyang. But North Korea has previously warned that
any sanctions imposed by the United Nations would be
considered a "declaration of war".
Fearing that
any UN sanctions might further isolate the Pyongyang
regime and push the peninsula to the brink of war, China
has until now resisted a council meeting. Last week,
however, the Chinese ambassador to the United Nations
said Beijing had agreed to hold initial consultations on
the issue.
"We hope that we could have good
coordination so hopefully we could accomplish
something," Chinese Ambassador Wang Yingfan said.
While Beijing may stick to its longtime
opposition to economic sanctions, indications are
emerging that China is also stepping up pressure on
North Korea. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer said last week that China was now making a
substantial effort to persuade North Korea to accept a
US demand for multi-nation regional talks.
Speaking from Washington, where he met Bush and
Vice President Dick Cheney during a two-day visit,
Downer provided a rare hint of behind-the-scenes
diplomatic negotiations between major players on the
issue in order to find a suitable security framework.
"There does seem to be now a clear sign that
China is making a substantial effort to persuade the
North Koreans, first of all to engage in multilateral
dialogue and secondly to exercise a greater degree of
restraint," Downer said.
A series of
developments over the past few weeks indicate that
Beijing is trying to build pressure on Pyongyang to stop
the escalation of nuclear tension on the Korean
Peninsula and seriously engage in dialogue.
According to diplomatic sources, Chinese
officials, including Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, have
been holding meetings with North Korean counterparts,
trying to persuade Pyongyang in earnest to stop
provoking the United States.
The message
emphasized is that if Pyongyang did not curtail its
provocative behavior, China might be forced to drop its
longstanding opposition to sanctions if North Korea's
nuclear development program formally comes to the UN
Security Council.
While the threat of sanctions
was only hinted at, Beijing made a point of its
seriousness by cutting off oil supplies to North Korean
for three days last month.
Diplomats say the
pipeline from the Daqing oilfields in northeastern China
to North Korea was temporarily shut down in early March
shortly after Pyongyang test-fired a missile into waters
between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Such
punishment on Beijing's side has been long urged by
Washington, and China has been increasingly criticized
for continuing oil and food supplies despite
then-president Jiang Zemin's discussions with Bush last
year.
China is North Korea's main source of
fuel, exporting an estimated 1 million tonnes of oil
each year to Pyongyang. Any halt in supplies would be a
severe blow to North Korea, where energy and food
shortages have left the population on the brink of a
humanitarian disaster.
Beijing cited "technical"
problems for the oil cutoff, but it also served as a
warning to Pyongyang in destabilizing regional security.
(Inter Press Service)
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