China agrees Korea denuclearization
Seeking calm in Koreas
BEIJING, April 13, (Agencies): The United States and China agreed on Saturday to make a joint effort to push for the peaceful denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, following weeks of bellicose rhetoric from North Korea and rising tensions in northeast Asia.
US Secretary of State John Kerry met China’s top leaders in a bid to persuade them to exert pressure on North Korea, whose main diplomatic supporter is Beijing, to scale back its belligerence and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.
Before travelling to Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry had made no secret of his desire to see China take a more active stance towards North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.
Kerry and China’s top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, said both countries supported the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.
“We are able, the United States and China, to underscore our joint commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner,” Kerry told reporters, standing next to Yang at a state guesthouse in western Beijing.
“We agreed that this is critically important for the stability of the region and indeed for the world and for all of our nonproliferation efforts.”
But North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it described on Friday as its “treasured” guarantor of security.
Yang said China’s stance on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula was clear and consistent.
“We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation. To properly address the Korea nuclear issue serves the common interests of all parties. It is also the shared responsibility of all parties,” he said, speaking through an interpreter.
“China will work with other relevant parties, including the United States, to play a constructive role in promoting the six-party talks and balanced implementation of the goals set out in the Sept 19 joint statement of 2005.”
At a news conference in Seoul on Friday and in a US-South Korean joint statement issued on Saturday, Kerry signalled the US preference for diplomacy to end the tension, but stressed North Korea must take “meaningful” steps on denuclearization.
The United States and its allies believe the North violated the 2005 aid-for-denuclearization deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment programme that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based programme.
“It keeps sending more fighters, bombers and missile-defence ships to the waters of East Asia and carrying out massive military drills with Asian allies in a dramatic display of preemptive power,” it said.
Tensions
Chinese state television quoted Premier Li Keqiang as telling Kerry that rising tensions on the Korean peninsula were in nobody’s interests, in apparent reference to both Washington and Pyongyang to dial down the war of words.
Still, US officials believe China’s rhetoric on North Korea has begun to shift, pointing to a recent speech by China’s Xi in which — without referring explicitly to Pyongyang — he said no country “should be allowed to throw a region and even the whole world into chaos for selfish gain”.
Kerry’s visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new UN sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.
As the North’s main trading partner, financial backer and the closest thing it has to a diplomatic ally, China has a unique ability to use its leverage against the impoverished, isolated state, Kerry said in the South Korean capital, Seoul, on Friday before leav- ing for Beijing.
“Mr President, this is obviously a critical time with some very challenging issues — issues on the Korean peninsula, the challenge of Iran and nuclear weapons, Syria and the Middle East, and economies around the world that are in need of a boost,” Kerry told Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People.
Kerry said after the meeting that his talks with Xi were “constructive and forward-leaning”, though he did not elaborate.
Peace
Chinese state television quoted Premier Li Keqiang as telling Kerry that rising tensions on the Korean peninsula were in nobody’s interests. Foreign Minister Wang Yi called for peace, dialogue and denuclearization of the peninsula, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Kerry’s visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of shrill North Korean threats of war since the imposition of new UN sanctions in response to its third nuclear test in February.
North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it said on Friday were its “treasured” guarantor of security. Prepares As North Korea prepares a potential missile test and issues threats almost daily, the Obama administration on Saturday looked again for China to force its unruly neighbor to stand down.
It’s a strategy that has produced uneven results over decades of American diplomacy, during which Pyongyang has developed and tested nuclear weapons and repeatedly imperiled peace on the Korean peninsula.
But with only the counter-threat of overwhelming force to offer the North Koreans, the US has little choice but to rely on Beijing to de-escalate tensions in a peaceful manner.
But Beijing, which values stability in its region above all else, clearly has different priorities than Washington.
China’s greatest fear is the implosion of North Korea’s impoverished state and the resulting chaos that could cause, including possibly millions of refugees fleeing across the border into China.
For that reason, China has in many ways looked past North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric and activity, prioritizing the security of Kim’s regime — like his father’s and grandfather’s previously — over nuclear proliferation concerns.
“China’s main interest in North Korea is not denuclearization; it is ensuring that the North Korean government does not fall,” Asia expert John Pomfret wrote in a recent opinion piece.
“While Beijing might be exasperated with the Kim dynasty’s uncanny ability to wag China’s dog, China will support Pyongyang because the alternative, a North Korean collapse, is worse,” he wrote. “While many South Koreans fear the cost of unification with their brothers to the north, China opposes that even more stridently.”
China also remains deeply wary of any American military buildup in its backyard, suspicious that the containment effort toward North Korea may be part of the long-term US strategy to expand its influence in the region and even ring in fast-growing China with countries closer to Washington.
US officials say they’ve gone to great lengths to explain to China that the American objective in North Korea — at least in the short term — is not regime change.
While the US abhors the North’s human rights record, its regular provocations and military links with other international pariahs such as Iran, it has stressed over years of conversations with Beijing that pushing for North Korean denuclearization could reinforce stability.
In Seoul on Friday, Kerry said President Barack Obama had canceled a number of military exercises planned with South Korea. The message was directed as much to Pyongyang as Beijing that the US wasn’t seeking a military confrontation.