VISIT OF CHINESE ENVOY ECLIPSED BY MISSILE ISSUE

Liu Xiaoming meets South Korean counterpart to assess worrying situation and foster stability ahead of North’s plan to reopen nuclear test site

North Korea’s supposed plans to stage its first nuclear test since 2017 and the after-effects of such action are in focus this week following talks between South Korean officials and China’s new special envoy for the Korean peninsula, analysts said.

Liu Xiaoming, Special Representative of the Chinese Government on Korean Peninsula Affairs, yesterday held talks with his South Korean counterpart, Noh Kyu-duk, in Seoul.

In the meeting, Liu said Beijing was committed to playing a constructive role in resolving North Korea’s nuclear issue, according to South Korea’s foreign ministry.

Noh expressed concerns over the North’s recent missile tests and activities to restore its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, and asked Beijing to play a role to bring Pyongyang back to dialogue, the ministry said.

“The two sides agreed to continue close strategic communication between South Korea and China over Korean peninsula issues,” the ministry said.

Liu, previously the mainland’s high-profile envoy to Britain, is also expected to meet officials from the incoming administration of president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol.

The “legitimate and reasonable concerns of all parties” need to be acknowledged for there to be a political settlement on the peninsula, Liu told reporters.

“We call on all parties to stay cool-headed and exercise restraint, and we disapprove of actions by any party that could escalate tension,” he said in a summary of his remarks on Twitter.

“Concerns over the North’s new nuclear test and its aftermath are likely to be top [of the] agenda, with the South’s incoming government likely to seek China’ consent to tighten sanctions on the North if it pushes ahead with a seventh nuclear explosion,” said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst with the Asian Institute of Policy Studies.

Lee Sang-min, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defence Analyses (KIDA), noted that the talks were being held amid expectations that Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test – its seventh since 2006 – as early as this month.

The test, as many analysts have attested to, could involve a trial of miniaturised tactical nuclear warheads viewed as key to North Korea gaining an upper hand in any conflict that involves Western powers coming to the aid of Seoul, the analyst said.

Other weapons tests are likely to involve intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) that are designed to neutralise America’s nuclear umbrella over South Korea and eventually “decouple” the SeoulWashington alliance, Lee said.

Researchers from the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies in a report last week said commercial satellite images indicated that Pyongyang was moving ahead with plans for a fresh nuclear test and that activities at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Facility “should not be discounted as insignificant activity”.

The report said there had been construction of new buildings, movement of timber and an increase in equipment and supplies immediately outside a new entrance to a so-called “Tunnel 3” at the facility.

“Although some sources suggest the seventh nuclear test could occur between May and September … the date of a seventh nuclear test will undoubtedly depend exclusively upon the personal decision of [North Korea’s leader] Kim Jong-un,” the report’s authors said.

The current concerns about a nuclear test come more than a month after Pyongyang launched an ICBM – the first time it had done so in more than four years.

Pyongyang initially claimed the missile was its most formidable yet, but South Korean military officials later said the missile might have been the older Hawsong-15 rather than the new Hwasong-17.

That action triggered fresh rounds of international condemnation and US sanctions.

Still, the country’s leader Kim Jong-un has remained defiant, and in a parade last week, vowed to enhance the country’s nuclear force.

While there are hopes China may seek to rein in the North Korean leader, Go from the Asan Institute of Policy Studies, said expectations about Beijing having leverage over North Korea needed to be tempered with reality.

“China’s influence over the course of North Korea’s actions is not as great as many people in the West would like to believe and it would be hard for China to stop the North from pushing ahead with a fresh nuclear test,” he said.

In a series of talks with US officials in Washington last month, Liu voiced opposition to a US-led initiative to further punish Pyongyang over 13 weapons launches this year, warning it could be “adding fuel to the fire”.

Some analysts questioned why China and Russia were opposed to punitive sanctions that were similar to the United Nations Security Council resolutions they had assented to in 2016 and 2017, during a previous uptick in missile testing.

“It is self-contradictory for China to criticise international sanctions against the North that it supported earlier,” said Moon Seong-mook from the Institute for National Security Strategy. “China’s turnabout raises doubts it is seeking to use the North’s nuclear issue as leverage in dealing with the United States,” he said.

One issue likely to be a sticking point in the coming months, as the Yoon administration takes power, is whether Seoul should enhance its deployment of the US defence missile system known as Thaad (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence).

Beijing had vehemently objected to its deployment, and subsequently the outgoing government of President Moon Jae-in, in effect, promised Beijing that it would not increase the scale of the missile system.

Park Jin, the foreign minister nominee of the conservative president-elect Yoon’s incoming government, has decried the policy, accusing it of compromising national sovereignty.

In a report to the legislature on Saturday, Park had said that “issues that constrain the country’s security and sovereignty cannot be the agenda for discussion” with China.

The incoming foreign minister also said that security cooperation between Seoul, Washington and Japan was “more important than ever given that North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat has recently heightened”.

We call on all parties to stay cool-headed and exercise restraint, and we disapprove of actions by any party that could escalate tension LIU XIAOMING, SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT ON KOREAN PENINSULA AFFAIRS