China unruffled over North Korean launch
By Antoaneta Bezlova
BEIJING - Amid signs of mounting tensions on the Korean Peninsula over
Pyongyang's nuclear and weapons programs, China has remained calm and seems
reluctant to use strong words of criticism for its neighbor and long-time
communist ally.
Beijing hosted North Korea's Premier Kim Yong-Il last week, a visit which came
in the middle of an escalating row between the international community and
Pyongyang over its plans to launch what it claims is an experimental satellite
but that the United States and South Korea maintain is a ballistic missile
test.
Regional powers have warned the launch will trigger international sanctions
that could lead to the collapse of the stagnant North
Korean economy and further destabilize the volatile state. But Beijing has
retained its poise and continues to urge Pyongyang to cooperate with efforts to
resume stalled international talks on dismantling its nuclear programs.
"We hope that relevant parties can consider the whole situation, appropriately
resolve their differences and promote the progress of the six-party talks,"
Chinese President Hu Jintao told the visiting North Korean leader.
Kim was on a five-day visit that began on March 17 which both sides had
promoted as part of celebrations for the 60th anniversary of diplomatic
relations being established between the two nations.
In 2006, Beijing departed from its normal restraint in dealing with North Korea
when it accused Pyongyang of "flagrantly" conducting a nuclear test, in
defiance of international opinion.
North Korea, which in that year also unsuccessfully fired a long-range missile,
is banned from engaging in any ballistic missile activity under a United
Nations Security Council resolution.
This time, however, Beijing has been reserved because it believes that with a
new US administration in the White House, the North's provocations are nothing
more than testing the waters, according to experts.
"The position of the North has been consistent and has not changed," said Su
Hao, an expert at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing. "But [US President
Barack] Obama's policy towards the North is still unclear and this uncertainty
weighs on the prospects of the six-party talks."
North Korea is seeking US recognition, along with massive economic aid and the
dissolution of US-South Korea military alliance. The US has 28,500 troops in
South Korea.
China is the initiator and the chair of the six-nation nuclear negotiations,
which includes the US, North and South Korea, Japan and Russia. Under a
landmark deal reached in 2007, the North agreed to dismantle its nuclear
programs in exchange for energy aid and diplomatic concessions.
But the talks broke down in December amid frictions over verification of the
disarmament process. Last week, Pyongyang rejected US food shipments and asked
aid groups to leave North Korea by the end of the month.
Air force colonel and military analyst Dai Xu sees the escalation in tensions
on the Korean Peninsula as a "display of muscle" before the next round of
talks.
"Both sides are trying to test each other so that when they sit together for
the next round of negotiations they can have better bargaining chips," he wrote
in an opinion piece published in China Business News on March 12.
"No matter how alarming the situation on the peninsula may appear, it will not
escalate into an armed conflict. It is all about putting on a false show of
strength,'' the analyst wrote.
This month, the US and South Korea launched a massive joint military exercise,
involving 26,000 US troops, up to 50,000 South Korean soldiers and a US
aircraft carrier. North Korea denounced the drills, saying they "serve as a
prelude to an invasion against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
[DPRK]''.
In protest of the military exercises, Pyongyang cut off its last military
communications channel with Seoul and ordered its troops to be ready for a war
against the US and South Korea. It also warned of "merciless retaliatory blows"
on the US and South Korean troops in case of an invasion.
Last week, the North reasserted its right to launch a satellite in space,
saying Russia, Iran, India and many other countries have been pursuing peaceful
space programs, according to the country's official Korean Central News Agency.
But Washington has warned that if the rocket turns out to be a ballistic
missile fired at the US, it would have few qualms about shooting it down.
"If we felt the North Koreans were going to shoot a ballistic missile at us
today, I'm comfortable that we would have an effective system that would meet
that need," Air Force General Victor "Gene" Renuart told a Congressional
hearing on March 17.
As North Korea's biggest benefactor and its staunchest ally, China has been
asked to pressurize Pyongyang to call off the rocket launch and return to the
negotiating table.
But this year is an awkward time for China to exert pressure on its neighbor.
The Chinese leadership is celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of
the communist republic and the anniversary coincides with the 60th anniversary
of diplomatic relations between China and North Korea.
Pyongyang was only the second country after the former Soviet Union to
recognize communist China. The two communist countries developed a keen
ideological friendship and China deployed a huge army to fight alongside North
Korea in the Korean War in the early 1950s.
Even as China abandoned a Stalinist economy for market reforms in the late
1970s, Beijing has remained Pyongyang's most important ally, particularly since
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reaffirmed the lasting alliance, telling the North
Korean premier on March 18 that China was willing to strengthen friendly
cooperation.
"China is willing to strengthen communication and coordination between the two
sides on major international and local issues," he said, according to Chinese
state television.
The North Korean premier's visit came before the South's top nuclear
negotiator, Wi Sung-lac, visit to Beijing on March 24-25 to discuss the launch
and stalled nuclear talks, according to the Associated Press.
Wi Sung-lac, who last week met with Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi
Nakasone, will meet China's Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei on Tuesday to
discuss steps to counter the launch before visiting officials in the US.
North Korea has announced that it will close two aviation routes in the
five-day period the launch is expected in early April, with links from the
North to the Russian port city of Vladivostok and to Japan to be closed for
five hours from 11 am daily, according to statement from the South's Ministry
of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.
Two female Western journalists - Euna Lee, a Korean-American, and Laura Ling, a
Chinese-American - seized by North Korean troops at the Chinese border last
week have most likely been sent to Pyongyang for questioning, according to the
South's Yonhap news agency. (See
Dangerous deadlines in North Korea, Asia Times Online, March 20.)
According to a terse dispatch from the Korean Central News Agency: "A competent
organ is now investigating the case."
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