Facing a tough US stance on North Korea's nuclear ambitions, growing pressure for UN action and increasingly threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang, a nervous China has kicked into diplomatic high gear.
North Korea's closest neighbor, oldest ally and the country that best understands its hyper-secretive, totalitarian ways is keen to get Washington and Pyongyang talking, diplomats say.
Beijing has dispatched top envoys to Washington and Moscow, stepped up contacts with Pyongyang and stopped a North Korean ship. Today, President Hu Jintao (
China's goal -- to broker a second round of talks to follow those hosted in Beijing in April seeking a peaceful solution to the nine-month-old crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions.
One Western diplomat in Beijing said China was worried the crisis was deteriorating.
"China feels the US does not have a good understanding of the DPRK," the diplomat said, referring to North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The second nuclear dispute involving North Korea in a decade erupted last October with what US officials said was Pyongyang's admission that it had a covert atomic arms program.
North Korea has since quit the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and threatened to start making nuclear bombs.
The North Korean threats -- and US resistance to dealing with Pyongyang without Asian help -- pushed an ordinarily passive China to launch its most robust diplomatic drive in years.
Last week, Beijing sent its North Korea point man, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, to Washington. Wang, who helped make the April talks happen, will be close at hand during Roh's visit.
"The Chinese, like the South Koreans, are desperate that the negotiations go forward," a senior diplomat in Beijing said.
Qi Baoliang, with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, summed up China's approach: "Whatever is done just needs to be of benefit to resolving the problem."
A key element of Wang's diplomatic mission was to urge Washington to hold off US-proposed steps to tighten the screws on Pyongyang, including plans to stop North Korean vessels to search them for missiles or missile parts, diplomats said.
"They believe that this will draw a line in the sand," the second diplomat said of the move to pressure Pyongyang to end its missile trade worth about US$600 million a year.
"They need it to live. A blockade is a direct action against the survival of the regime," he added.
North Korea says sanctions mean war. China wants a nuclear-free peninsula.
But it also fears the collapse of North Korea could send refugees flooding across the border and mean US troops on its border and a shock to its economy.
Beijing hopes to preempt US unilateral action.
"China realizes that Bush can make things happen and one-sided action might negatively affect peace on the peninsula, and that can backfire on China," said Professor Moon Heung-ho of Hanyang University in Seoul.
China has also cautiously ratcheted up its "North Korea work." Last week it dispatched savvy Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo (
And China has said it is in frequent contact with North Koreans "at all levels." One diplomat said the Chinese were now meeting North Koreans several times a week.
Beijing's efforts do not stop at diplomacy.
In a subtle move, China announced via the English-language service of its official Xinhua news agency last week the release of a North Korean coal freighter that had been detained over a business dispute with a Singaporean firm and released only after the North Koreans paid 6.6 million yuan (US$797,300) bail.
Wu Xingjiang, of the Ningbo Maritime Court, which detained the North Korean ship, said the court merely handled a business dispute "in line with international maritime procedural law."
But the unprecedented seizure of the boat and release of the report on state-run Xinhua should be read as a signal to Pyongyang -- "especially given the context of talk of blockades," the second diplomat said.
In March, China briefly cut off vital oil shipments to energy-starved North Korea, citing technical problems. Analysts said that move helped prod North Korea to join the April talks.
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