China Hints at Shift on Ship-Sinking Stance
MAY 28, 2010,
Chinese Premier Wen, left, with South Korean President Lee, greet flag-waving children ahead of a meeting Friday that ran an hour longer than expected and covered the Cheonan issue.
By EVAN RAMSTAD
SEOULChinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered the first hint that Beijing could begin shifting from weeks of fence-sitting over the sinking of a South Korean warship, telling South Korea's leader that China won't prevent penalties for whoever is responsible for the deadly incident.
.Mr. Wen's comments Friday, related by South Korean officials, stopped well short of conceding the involvement of China's longtime ally North Korea. Seoul has concluded that Pyongyang sank its patrol boat Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 South Korean sailors. Beijing's failure to accept that finding has angered officials and the public in South Korea.
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..In a summit meeting in Seoul, Mr. Wen told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak that China will investigate the sinking and said, without naming North Korea, that Beijing "will not protect anyone." The two men discussed the Cheonan matter at the presidential Blue House a day ahead of a three-way summit meeting that will also include Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.
The United Nations, meanwhile, is preparing to accuse North Korea of using "shell companies," "false description of goods" and doctored manifests to hide its continued involvement in nuclear and ballistic missile activities in Iran, Syria and Myanmar, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to an unpublished U.N. report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
The report, ordered last year and conducted by a panel of U.N. experts, analyzed cases of North Korean weapons shipments seized recently in the United Arab Emirates and Thailand. It said the U.N. should study these violations further and urged nations to give "special attention" to "inhibit such activities."
"We remain concerned that the DPRK continues to engage in illicit arms transactions, particularly because there is strong evidence that the revenue from these transactions in turn fuels their illicit nuclear and proliferation programs," a Western diplomat said.
Mr. Wen's comments still leave China maneuvering room. China's state-run news agency reported on the meeting but didn't mention Mr. Wen's statement that China wouldn't protect anyone. Still, the comments move Beijing beyond its previous stance that it is assessing the Cheonan incident and that all sides should show restraint.
China is North Korea's biggest international supporter and its position following South Korea's allegations has been closely scrutinized. U.S. officials, after meetings in Beijing this week, said they expected China to move cautiously toward saying that the North is responsible.
Also Friday, North Korea made its highest-level accusation that South Korea had fabricated its charges against the North, the Associated Press reported. North Korea has made similar statements before, but Friday's response came at a rare news conference held by the National Defense Commission, North's most powerful organ, chaired by authoritarian leader Kim Jong Il.
"The South Korean puppet regime's faked sinking of the Cheonan has created a very serious situation on the Korean peninsula, pushing it toward the brink of war," the agency quoted Maj. Gen. Pak Rim Su, director of the commission's department of policy, as telling the conference.
In Seoul, Messrs. Lee and Wen were originally scheduled to meet for 30 minutes, but they continued talking for more than an hour and a half. Mr. Lee explained some of the reasons South Korea believes North Korea is responsible.
"China has been consistent in an effort to achieve peace and security on the Korean peninsula, and we oppose and condemn any action to destroy them," Lee Dong-kwan, Mr. Lee's spokesman, quoted Mr. Wen as saying. The premier, he said, added: "The Chinese government will decide on this issue in an objective and fair way after assessing what's right and what's wrong."
The summit meetingand the one with Mr. Hatoyama this weekendwas planned before the sinking, but the issue has become a major one for the three countries. They worked with Russia and the U.S. for years to persuade Mr. Kim to halt the country's pursuit of nuclear weapons and open up economically.
Mr. Lee hoped to persuade Mr. Wen to support South Korea's effort to seek penalties against North Korea at the U.N. Security Council, where China, one of five permanent members, has the power to veto actions.
Japanese officials said they would support Seoul's stance on the sinking, though they didn't expect the issue to dominate the three-way summit, which will take place Saturday and Sunday on South Korea's Jeju Island.
"We believe the three countries have the same goal on how to stabilize the situation in North Korea," a Japanese official said in Tokyo.
Also on the agenda for the three-way meeting are the international economic scene, the prospect for a trilateral free-trade agreement and encouraging student exchanges between the countries.
Separately, South Korea on Friday signaled a way to ease the tension with North Korea that grew after its formal accusation last week and imposition of penalties this week.
A senior government official said the South will reconsider its plan to blast messages across the inter-Korean border via banks of loudspeakers if North Korea apologizes for the sinking or at least responds with something more reasonable than its typical bombastic statements.
Of all the penalties South Korea said it would impose on the North for sinking the Cheonan warship, North Korea has most sharply criticized the South's plan to reactivate Cold War-style propaganda blasts across the border, also known as the Demilitarized Zone. Pyongyang even said it might shut down the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the biggest economic project between the two countries.
"If North Korea changes their behavior and tries to apologize and give us some responsible responses, in that case we can reconsider or reduce some bilateral measures against North Korea," said the senior South Korean government official, speaking on condition of anonymity to a small group of reporters.
North Korea is seen as unlikely to apologize, and instead has sought an apology from Mr. Lee for "escalating confrontation."
But South Korea's leaders were encouraged, the official said, when North Korea announced retaliatory measures Tuesday that didn't include closing the industrial complex. He added North Korea may use the complex as a bargaining chip and, in the worst case, take hostage the South Koreans who work there.
"In that case, we also have to use the military and extreme measures to rescue those hostages," the official said. "We conveyed that message to North Korea already. They know this is a very dangerous option for them."
He said South Korean leaders believed that a close reading of North Korea retaliation statement showed they were "very calm" and "careful." "North Korea also has very careful judgment and tried not to really upgrade this situation to an uncontrollable military conflict," the official said.
Joe Lauria at the United Nations, Yoree Koh in Tokyo, Jaeyeon Woo in Seoul and Jason Dean in Beijing contributed to this article.
China Hints at Shift on Ship-Sinking Stance - WSJ.com