China hails historic inter-Korean summit
US understands Beijing’s vital role in peninsula peace: expert
China hailed the agreement reached by the North and South Korean leaders after their historic summit on Friday, and experts said the details of the denuclearization would be the core of the planned summit between the US and North Korea.
China welcomes and congratulates the two Koreas for reaching an agreement on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and permanent peace on Friday, and hopes the relevant countries can maintain the trend of dialogue to push the political solution of the issue, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said after the summit.
“We hope that the relevant parties will maintain the momentum for dialogue and work together to promote the denuclearization of the peninsula and the political settlement of the peninsula issue. China stands ready to continue to play its positive role to this end,” he noted.
“The two leaders solemnly declared before the 80 million people of our nation and the entire world that there will be no more war on the Korean Peninsula and a new age of peace has opened,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said in a joint declaration signed at the end of their bilateral meeting in Panmunjom, a border village dividing the two Koreas.
“The South and the North affirmed their mutual goal of realizing a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula through complete denuclearization,” read the released statement.
South Korean experts reached by the Global Times on Friday said they were excited upon hearing the joint statement. Lee Sang-man, a professor at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Eastern Studies, told the Global Times that he cried when he saw Kim walk across the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) on Friday morning.
Hwang Jae-ho, dean of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies’ Division of International Studies, told the Global Times that the people-to-people exchanges and military talks noted in the declaration are within his expectations. And setting a joint liaison office in the Gaeseong region implies that the two sides may speed up economic cooperation.
Hwang said that solving the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue lies in settling the disputes between North Korea and the US. Some major problems still need to be left to the planned summit between North Korea and the US.
However, some Chinese experts said that the new declaration did not involve too many details on the denuclearization issue, which may disappoint the US and Japan.
“The US may not reopen multilateral talks unless it sees North Korea’s actual move on denuclearization,” said Da Zhigang, director of the Heilongjiang Provincial Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Northeast Asian Studies.
The agreement meets the expectations of the international community, and further details on how to realize this goal will be left to the planned summit between Kim and Donald Trump, said Cheng Xiaohe, an associate professor at the Renmin University of China’s School of International Studies.
“The agreement also shows Pyongyang’s honest aspiration on denuclearization, but remains far from the CVID [complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization],” Cheng said.
The declaration doesn’t include the words “verifiable and irreversible” in mentioning the denuclearization, so these questions might be discussed between the US and North Korea, Cheng noted.
Moon will visit Washington next month to meet Trump ahead of the planned meeting between the latter and Kim, South Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.
Multilateral talks
The Panmunjom Declaration also included a statement about multilateral talks between China, the US and the two Koreas, to turn the armistice that temporarily end the Korean War into permanent peace.
As to China’s role in the peace process, Hwang said that the US understands China’s importance on the Korean Peninsula issue and any peace mechanism without China would be vulnerable.
A better situation would be that China and the US support the inter-Korean summit and the summit talks between North Korea and the US, and then the four-party talks, Hwang said.
China was the signatory of the armistice, so without China’s participation, the two Koreas and the US cannot real- ize the transition from the armistice to a peace agreement, and the end of the war, Cheng said. “If China is excluded, the mutual trust between China and these countries on the denuclearization of the peninsula will be damaged.”
Witnessing history Global Times reporters watched the live broadcast of the meeting at the Korea International Exhibition Center in Goyang, South Korea.
The press center burst into applause when the two leaders shook hands and talked while standing on their respective side of the border marked by a raised, foot-wide concrete line on Friday morning.
An announcement over the intercom at the press center said that “this is the moment, the world is waiting.”
More applause erupted when the two leaders raised their hands and hugged each other after signing the joint declaration.
“We do not feel North Koreans and South Koreans are one people since the Korean Peninsula is under a state of war. But when I saw Kim walk across the MDL and held Moon’s hand, I got the feeling that we are brothers! The threat of war disappeared and a peaceful atmosphere descended,” Song Ho-young, a South Korean reporter, told the Global Times.
“The Korean Peninsula has been experiencing a lingering shadow of war for the past months, but all of a sudden, the situation improved. Situations that we have never thought could happen may soon be realized,” Sing Yeongnan, a Seoul resident, told the Global Times.
Sing said that she wants to visit the North if it’s open to the South.