ANALYSIS: North Korea standoff, WikiLeaks test China's diplomacy (corrected)

By Bill Smith Nov 30, 2010, 17:41 GMT

   Beijing - China hosted officials from North Korea and Japan Tuesday as it intensified diplomatic efforts to persuade five nations to hold urgent talks on North Korea's nuclear programme and its shelling of a South Korean island last week.

   Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi telephoned his German and Indonesian counterparts Tuesday to discuss North Korea amid negotiations between the 15 UN Security Council members on how to respond to Pyongyang's latest aggression and its recent revelation of a previously undisclosed uranium-enrichment facility.

   The flurry of Chinese diplomatic activity came amid potentially embarrassing leaks of US diplomatic cables that suggested some Chinese officials see North Korea as a 'spoilt child' and may even have considered the possibility of abandoning their long-term ally to allow unification with South Korea.

   China has tried since last week to drum up support for urgent discussions among the heads of six national delegations involved in stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear programme. The six-nation talks involve North Korea, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

   'If the international community does not move to take action, the strained situation on the [Korean] Peninsula may continue to escalate,' the official China Daily newspaper said Tuesday in a commentary that supported the government's position.

   But the United States and its key regional allies, South Korea and Japan, have rejected China's call for immediate talks and said North Korea must first prove its commitment to curbing its military aggression and halting its nuclear programmes.

   State Councilor Dai Bingguo spoke by telephone to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton late Sunday after meeting South Korean President Lee Myung Bak the same day.

   One of North Korea's top officials, Choe Thae Bok, was scheduled to begin a five-day visit to China Tuesday while Japan's chief negotiator at the six-party talks, Akitaka Saiki, arrived in Beijing Tuesday for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei.

   Adding to the pressure on Chinese diplomats, the latest US embassy cables released Monday by the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks contained several references to China's relations with North Korea, including one quoting a South Korean official as saying that Wu's continued responsibility for the six-nation talks was 'a very bad thing.'

   Another unidentified official quoted in a leaked cable dated February 22 from the US embassy in Seoul described Wu as a 'hardline nationalist' and an 'arrogant, Marx-spouting former Red Guard' who 'knows nothing about North Korea, nothing about non-proliferation and is hard to communicate with because he doesn't speak English.'

   More damaging than the personal attacks on Wu were quotes in the same cable from South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung Woo, who claimed over a lunch with the US ambassador that Chinese officials were privately considering the potential collapse of North Korea's Stalinist regime.

   Chun said he believed Chinese officials 'would be comfortable with a reunified Korea controlled by Seoul and anchored to the United States in a 'benign alliance' - as long as Korea was not hostile towards China.'

   A leaked cable dated April 30, 2009, from the US embassy in Beijing contained more damaging material for Chinese diplomats.

   Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei was quoted as saying North Korea was acting like a 'spoilt child' by trying to get the attention of the 'adult,' the United States, and draw it into bilateral talks.

   Chinese leaders have often voiced support for Korean unification in principle, so long as it is not enforced on the North.

   But China appeared unmoved by Western calls for it to use its economic and diplomatic power to pressure North Korea into curbing its military aggression and resuming international dialogue.

   It does not accept that the blame for last week's shelling lies solely with North Korea.

   'Judging by the antagonistic phrases they are using, it seems the two Koreas are inching ever closer to the brink of war,' the China Daily commentary said.

   'The US needs to understand that [South Korea] made mistakes in this incident by shooting first into disputed waters,' said Shen Dingli, an international relations specialist at Fudan University in Shanghai. According to South Korea, however, North Korea fired first.

   'The US should also maximize cooperation with China rather than narrowing the space for such cooperation,' Shen said Tuesday on the Chinese government wesbite www.china.org.cn.

   'Responsible stakeholders should work together to ease tension, and put in place mechanisms to minimize the chances of a rerun of such dangerous episodes,' Shen said of last week's shelling.