hankyoreh

Wang Yi

The Chinese government sent a strong message calling for restraint from Seoul amid signs of an increasingly hard line in the wake of North Korea’s fourth nuclear test.

Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi resorted to euphemism in a 70-minute telephone conversation with South Korean counterpart Yun Byung-se on Dec. 8, but the message was clear. No telephone conversation had taken place between South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Chinese President Xi Jinping as of Dec. 10.

“There have been several complications with the North Korean nuclear issue, but China has consistently held to three principles: denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, guarding the peninsula’s peace and stability, and resolving the issue peacefully through dialogue,” Wang told Yun in the conversation on the evening of Dec. 8.

Wang’s reference to three principles is no new development. Indeed, it has become something of a habitual response for Beijing when the topic of North Korea’s nuclear program arises.

But the key message it aimed to send Seoul lay elsewhere.

“These three principles are all interconnected, and not one of them can be omitted. We need to be pursuing a return to the negotiation track on the nuclear issue,” Wang said.

His message about “not omitting” any of the principles communicates two message to South Korea. The first is that it should seek a resolution through dialogue and negotiation alongside discussions of sanctions at the United Nations Security Council level, for example by resuming the six-party talks framework. The second is that Seoul’s recent decision to resume loudspeaker broadcasts to North Korea does not help to “guard the peninsula’s peace and stability,” since it could potentially trigger an inter-Korean military confrontation or clash.

For all its packaging in diplomatic rhetoric, the message was a very strong one. Indeed, a senior South Korean government official commented on Dec. 10 that Wang had “made a very strong statement with his talk about ‘not omitting any one [of the three principles].’”

Wang’s remarks also read as Beijing’s affirmation that it is not wholly on board with Yun’s previous calls to “see to it that North Korea pays the price” and “showing the international community’s commitment through action.”

Previously, Chinese special representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs and chief six-party talks representative Wu Dawei emphasized an “appropriate response” in answer to calls from his South Korean counterpart, Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs Hwang Joon-kook, for a “stronger response than in the past” during a telephone conversation on Dec. 8. Yun and Wang also reached an agreement to hold discussions between their respective senior six-party talks representatives in the near future - an apparent response to demands from China.

Beijing also showed signs of dodging discussions with Seoul, in a marked contrast with the Park Geun-hye administration’s endeavor to step up cooperation on sanctions in the wake of the nuclear test. During a Dec. 7 appearance before the National Assembly’s National Defense Committee, Minister of National Defense Han Min-koo said Seoul was “attempting to contact China’s Minister of Defense over the hotline between the South Korean and Chinese ministries.” As of the afternoon Dec. 10, no contact had been made. Instead, the Blue House has merely reiterated that it is attempting to establish cooperation with Beijing over various channels, including dialogue with President Xi Jinping.

Disconcerting as it is for the Park administration, Beijing’s response appears to stem from its own strategic determinations about the situation on the peninsula.

“China does not want to promote instability in the North Korean regime and allow tensions to escalate to the point where inter-Korean relations become unpredictable,” said Peking University professor Jin Jingyi in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

“It isn’t about to go the way the US or South Korea wants [with stern sanctions against North Korea],” Jin affirmed.

A source at one Chinese state think tank, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that “none of the official responses to date from the Chinese government have gone beyond the level of the sanctions in the wake of North Korea’s third nuclear test.”

“It’s not in China’s national interest simply to pursue sanctions of the kind the US is calling for. If strong sanctions did end up resulting in the North Korean regime collapsing, that massive flood of refugees is going to pour into China, not where the barbed-wire fences are in South Korea,” the source added.

“China is still in no position to ignore North Korea’s geopolitical value.”

Meanwhile, there is a tendency within China to accuse the US of using the North Korean nuclear issue as an excuse to interfere with the Northeast Asian political situation and counter or contain China’s power.

By Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent

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