ANALYSIS: China impassive to global condemnation of North Korea

By Bill Smith Nov 26, 2010, 12:08 GMT

Beijing - 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.

Chinese officials and state media have offered only muted criticism after North Korean troops shelled South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island Tuesday, killing four people.

The Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry said the facts of the firing still 'need to be confirmed' while some Chinese commentators blamed the escalation on US and South Korean policies.

On the same day that North Korean shells landed in South Korea, Chinese officials were in Pyongyang to sign another trade and economic cooperation agreement, apparently signalling Beijing's business-as-usual attitude.

The Global Times, a newspaper under the Chinese Communist Party's People's Daily group, said calls by the United States and other nations for China to pressure North Korea reflected a 'paradoxical attitude towards the role they expect China to play on the Korean Peninsula.'

'On one hand, they wish China to side with them pressing the North; meanwhile, they want China to exert special influence over Pyongyang,' the newspaper said in an editorial.

The newspaper reiterated China's 'core' principle of maintaining stability on the Korean Peninsula.

'The relationship between China and North Korea cannot go against this principle, and it applies to the Sino-South Korean relationship too,' it said.

China, which shares a 1,400-kilometre border with North Korea, has plenty of reasons for wanting Kim Jong Il's regime to remain in power.

It is concerned about a potential flood of refugees if North Korea suffers more famine or instability.

But a greater worry for China's rulers is the potential effect of the fall of the ruling Korean Workers Party on the strategic balance in East Asia.

After Tuesday's shelling, Premier Wen Jiabao urged the resumption of China-facilitated talks involving North Korea, the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia on Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

As part of those talks, North Korea signed a statement of intent to end its main nuclear weapons programme in 2005, but Pyongyang has dragged its feet in implementing the agreement.

In a reflection of the division among the six nations, the Global Times editorial on North Korea said US and South Korean media were 'full of strong sentiment against China.'

Some analysts have detected a cooling in China's relationship with North Korea, especially since Pyongyang tested nuclear weapons.

But China remains North Korea's biggest trading partner and still provides an undeclared quantity of food and energy aid to its famine-hit, impoverished neighbour.

China and North Korea have held a flurry of diplomatic exchanges in recent weeks, several of them marking their alliance in the 1950-53 Korean War.

When the Korean Workers Party celebrated its 65th anniversary last month, China's Zhou Yongkang was the guest of honour, standing next to Kim on the podium to watch a military parade.

Representing the Chinese party's nine-member Politburo Standing Committee, Zhou was also the first foreign leader reported to have met Kim Jong Un, the son and heir apparent of Kim Jong Il.

Chinese President and Communist Party leader Hu Jintao sent a congratulatory message telling Kim Jong Il that China 'makes it an unswerving policy to continuously strengthen and develop bilateral friendly and cooperative ties,' Chinese state media said.

Hu has waited patiently in recent years as Kim Jong Il, who visited China twice this year, repeatedly promised to promote economic reform and trade with China.

But the 'growing interactions' between China and North Korea are mainly 'out of respective security concerns,' Huang Youfu, a Korean expert at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, told the official China Daily.

North Korea 'is crucial in China's peripheral diplomacy as the US is more deeply involved in Asian affairs and has strengthened its alliance with Japan and [South Korea],' Huang said.

In a speech in Beijing to mark the 60th anniversary of the two nations' Korean War alliance, Vice President Xi Jinping said Chinese troops had joined 'a great and just war for safeguarding peace and resisting aggression.'

'The Chinese people will never forget the friendship, established in battle, with the DPRK's [Democratic People's Republic of Korea's] people and army,' said Xi, who was expected to succeed Hu as party leader in 2012.

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