hankyoreh

Wu Dawei

On the afternoon of Feb. 2, Wu Dawei, China’s special representative for Korean Peninsula affairs and the chair of the six-party talks, paid a surprise visit to Pyongyang, amid growing indications that North Korea could soon be launching a long-range rocket. Wu’s visit is thought to be an attempt to prevent North Korea from launching the rocket and to pave the way for negotiation and dialogue that can ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

During the regular briefing by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson on Jan. 28, the Chinese government called on relevant countries to “refrain from extreme measures and to avoid continuing the vicious cycle of tensions.”

But late in the evening of Feb. 2 and in the early morning of Feb. 3, it came out that North Korea had notified UN bodies, including the International Maritime Organization, about its plans to launch a terrestrial observation satellite called Gwangmyeongseong.

The timing is peculiar. Will China be able to convince North Korea to delay or cancel its plans to launch the satellite?

For now, the leading view among experts is that North Korea is very likely to go ahead with the launch. However, some think that deliberations with China could lead North Korea to abruptly cancel its launch plans.

“North Korea’s strategy seems to be trying to make the rocket launch a fait accompli, after concluding that the Chinese government had sent Wu Dawei to Pyongyang to talk them out of it,” said Jeong Se-hyun, former Minister of Unification of South Korea and current standing representative of the Korea Peace Forum.

“The Chinese government apparently had not been specifically notified about North Korea’s launch plans by the time that Wu Dawei reached North Korea,” said a diplomatic source in Beijing who is well-versed in North Korean affairs.

“I think there is a high likelihood of North Korea launching a satellite in order to bolster internal support for the Kim Jong-un regime and to increase the sense of security,” said Jia Qingguo, Associate Dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, in a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh.

“Wu arrived in Pyongyang, and just a few hours later, North Korea’s plans to launch a rocket were released. This must have really angered not only Wu but also the Chinese government,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor at Renmin University. “I don’t think that Wu is going to get anything out of his visit to the North.”

Other analysts take a different view, however.

“Depending on how deliberations between North Korea and China go, the North’s plans to launch a long-range rocket could be used as a bargaining chip in negotiations,” said one former senior South Korean official.

As grounds for this conclusion, the official pointed to changes in the circumstances on the Korean Peninsula following North Korea’s fourth nuclear weapons test and the intricate diplomatic maneuverings by North Korea, the US, China and Russia before Wu’s visit to the North.

On Jan. 28, Choi Sun-hee, deputy director of North Korea’s foreign ministry and deputy envoy to the six-party talks, visited China, while the North’s Vice Foreign Minister Pak Myong-guk visited Russia on the same day. On Jan. 28 and Jan. 29, Wu held a conference with Sung Kim, who is the US State Department’s Special Representative for North Korea policy as well as the US’s special envoy to the six-party talks.

“We have to conclude that there were deliberations between North Korea, China and Russia about Pyongyang’s plans to launch a satellite, and that Wu headed to Pyongyang after these deliberations,” the former official said.

As overt attempts by South Korea, the US, and Japan to pressure North Korea and check China are clarifying the battle lines between those three countries on one side and China and Russia on the other, it would be difficult for North Korea to blithely ignore the fact that pushing ahead with a rocket launch will narrow China and Russia’s options, some analysts think.

The question is whether Wu brought enough leverage to the negotiating table to convince Pyongyang to cancel its planned rocket launch.

“If Wu brought an agenda that the US prepared or a ‘present’ that the Chinese government prepared on its own, he might be able to lead the North Koreans to drop their rocket launch plans,” said a former senior South Korean official.

“Practically speaking, chances are virtually nil that the US government offered an agenda for negotiations. Whether the Chinese government came up with a present good enough to win over North Korea is something we won’t know until Wu gets back from North Korea,” the official added.

Wu is planning to return to Beijing on Feb. 4.

By Lee Je-hun, staff reporter, and Seong Yeon-cheol, Beijing correspondent

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]