Salahuddin
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Peter Alford, Tokyo correspondent
05oct06
WHILE the rest of the world looks to Beijing to stop North Korea from exploding a nuclear bomb, a leading Chinese analyst says it is too late - China cannot act without doing worse harm to its own interests.
"Basically, our country's work of persuasion with the (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in the 12 years that the DPRK developed its nuclear program had been a failure," writes highly regarded Shen Dingli, of Shanghai's Fudan University.
"The DPRK considers its national interests to be greater than its relations with China," Mr Shen says in his remarkably frank commentary, published in a newspaper of the official China Youth League and circulated yesterday by a North Korea-focused think tank, the Nautilus Institute.
Respected as probably the most independent-minded of China's foreign relations experts, Mr Shen's judgment that nothing can be done to stop Pyongyang becoming a fully fledged nuclear state deepened the grim mood in other capitals yesterday.
China, the US, Japan, South Korea and the UN launched frantic diplomacy in response to Tuesday night's announcement that North Korea would stage its first nuclear explosion because of an "extreme threat of nuclear war and sanctions" from the Americans.
China confirmed yesterday that President Hu Jintao would meet Japan's tough-talking new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, on Sunday in a summit that now has a sharp edge of urgency.
Mr Abe yesterday repeated the demand that North Korea halt nuclear test preparations and promised: "Japan will work with the US, China South Korean and other countries concerned to respond to this situation."
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's office announced yesterday that he would meet Mr Abe on Monday then fly to Beijing for a meeting with Mr Hu the following Friday.
There was speculation yesterday that Kim Jong-il's isolated regime might choose either the day of Mr Abe's Beijing meeting or of his fence-mending visit to Seoul for its nuclear test.
All three leaders meetings next week are planned to focus urgently on means of getting Mr Kim's officials back into six-party negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to disband its nuclear weapons programs.
South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said yesterday his Government feared "a high possibility of a nuclear test if the efforts to resume the six-party talks end in failure".
South Korea and China yesterday redoubled their efforts to persuade Washington to agree to separate, bilateral talks with the Kim regime, in order to secure its agreement to return to the six-party discussions it has boycotted since November.
In the UN Security Council, China resisted a condemnatory statement against Pyongyang's test threat because, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya said, "if the six-party talks cannot do anything about it, I don't think the council is in a position (to do anything)".
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though supporting the six-party process, continued to reject bilateral talks.
However, many experts, including Fudan University's Mr Shen, now argue the six-party talks are no longer the issue.
In Mr Shen's analysis, North Korea now believes it needs to test a bomb because that will unmistakably demonstrate its nuclear capability which, in turn, will deter the US from any attack.
Mr Shen argues that the North Koreans are prepared to weather deeper trade and financial sanctions from the US, Japan and other Western countries because they believe that ultimately, the Americans will have to accept their nuclear-state status, as happened with India and Pakistan.
Though China and the other neighbours are committed to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, Beijing can do little to prevent North Korea pursuing that logic unless it imposes harsh sanctions that risk forcing Mr Kim's regime to go to war - or collapse.
The economic and security chaos accompanying a regime collapse is the most feared scenario in Beijing and Seoul.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20527132,00.html
05oct06
WHILE the rest of the world looks to Beijing to stop North Korea from exploding a nuclear bomb, a leading Chinese analyst says it is too late - China cannot act without doing worse harm to its own interests.
"Basically, our country's work of persuasion with the (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in the 12 years that the DPRK developed its nuclear program had been a failure," writes highly regarded Shen Dingli, of Shanghai's Fudan University.
"The DPRK considers its national interests to be greater than its relations with China," Mr Shen says in his remarkably frank commentary, published in a newspaper of the official China Youth League and circulated yesterday by a North Korea-focused think tank, the Nautilus Institute.
Respected as probably the most independent-minded of China's foreign relations experts, Mr Shen's judgment that nothing can be done to stop Pyongyang becoming a fully fledged nuclear state deepened the grim mood in other capitals yesterday.
China, the US, Japan, South Korea and the UN launched frantic diplomacy in response to Tuesday night's announcement that North Korea would stage its first nuclear explosion because of an "extreme threat of nuclear war and sanctions" from the Americans.
China confirmed yesterday that President Hu Jintao would meet Japan's tough-talking new Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, on Sunday in a summit that now has a sharp edge of urgency.
Mr Abe yesterday repeated the demand that North Korea halt nuclear test preparations and promised: "Japan will work with the US, China South Korean and other countries concerned to respond to this situation."
South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun's office announced yesterday that he would meet Mr Abe on Monday then fly to Beijing for a meeting with Mr Hu the following Friday.
There was speculation yesterday that Kim Jong-il's isolated regime might choose either the day of Mr Abe's Beijing meeting or of his fence-mending visit to Seoul for its nuclear test.
All three leaders meetings next week are planned to focus urgently on means of getting Mr Kim's officials back into six-party negotiations aimed at persuading North Korea to disband its nuclear weapons programs.
South Korean Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok said yesterday his Government feared "a high possibility of a nuclear test if the efforts to resume the six-party talks end in failure".
South Korea and China yesterday redoubled their efforts to persuade Washington to agree to separate, bilateral talks with the Kim regime, in order to secure its agreement to return to the six-party discussions it has boycotted since November.
In the UN Security Council, China resisted a condemnatory statement against Pyongyang's test threat because, Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya said, "if the six-party talks cannot do anything about it, I don't think the council is in a position (to do anything)".
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though supporting the six-party process, continued to reject bilateral talks.
However, many experts, including Fudan University's Mr Shen, now argue the six-party talks are no longer the issue.
In Mr Shen's analysis, North Korea now believes it needs to test a bomb because that will unmistakably demonstrate its nuclear capability which, in turn, will deter the US from any attack.
Mr Shen argues that the North Koreans are prepared to weather deeper trade and financial sanctions from the US, Japan and other Western countries because they believe that ultimately, the Americans will have to accept their nuclear-state status, as happened with India and Pakistan.
Though China and the other neighbours are committed to a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, Beijing can do little to prevent North Korea pursuing that logic unless it imposes harsh sanctions that risk forcing Mr Kim's regime to go to war - or collapse.
The economic and security chaos accompanying a regime collapse is the most feared scenario in Beijing and Seoul.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,20527132,00.html
