China resisted pressure yesterday from South Korea and Japan to censure North Korea publicly for the sinking of a warship, calling only for regional tensions over the incident to be defused.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama teamed up at the two-day summit to nudge Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) to declare Pyongyang responsible for the March sinking of the South Korean corvette.
However, Wen gave no sign China is ready to back UN Security Council action against its ally over the sinking, which cost 46 lives.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“The urgent task now is to defuse the impact of the Cheonan incident, change the tense situation and avoid clashes,” Wen told a joint press conference. “China will actively communicate with relevant parties and lead the situation to help promote peace and stability in the region, which fits our common and long-term interests best.”
However, that was the strongest language China has used yet to describe the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul announced reprisals including a trade cut-off after international investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the Cheonan. The North denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war.
In its latest response, Pyongyang’s official media said the North did not possess the type of small submarine allegedly used for the attack.
“Some say there is political instability in the region due to the Cheonan incident,” Lee told the summit yesterday, according to his senior spokesman Lee Dong-kwan. “We are not afraid of war, but we do not want war either. We have no intention to go to war.”
Wen has been cautious since arriving in South Korea on Friday. At a meeting with Lee that day, he said Beijing would, before determining its position, review the results of the international investigation into the Cheonan’s sinking, but would not protect whoever was responsible.
Lee told the press conference on the island of Jeju that he expects “wise cooperation” from neighboring countries in handling the disaster.
Hatoyama, whose government on Friday announced new sanctions against the North, said the three leaders agreed “that this is a serious issue related to peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”
South Korea, at least in public, appeared fairly satisfied with the outcome of the summit.
“The inclusion of those remarks on the Cheonan in the joint press announcement in itself has significance,” Lee’s senior spokesman said.
However, Paik Hak-soon, of the Sejong Institute think tank, said Wen’s comments “indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation.”
“There would be no point in taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance,” Paik said.
Hatoyama had promised to give Seoul his country’s “full support” when the case is referred to the council, his spokesman said.
He had also stated clearly that the resumption of six-party nuclear talks is unthinkable until the North offers a clear apology for attacking the Cheonan, South Korean officials said.
Meanwhile, in Pyongyang yesterday tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the main square for a rally condemning South Korea and the US.
Clapping and pumping their fists in the air, the protesters shouted anti-South Korean slogans, held signs and carried a huge portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, according to video footage from APTN in North Korea.
“Because of the South Korean war-loving, mad puppets and American invaders, the North and South relationship is being driven to a catastrophe,” Choi Yong-rim, secretary of the North Korean Workers Party in Pyongyang, told the crowd.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
RSS