Category: China

As I expected, it appears the Chinese want the North Koreans to start a provocation cycle in hopes of politically damaging the Trump administration:

Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special representative for North Korea, apparently failed to meet with North Korean officials during his visit to Beijing Friday and was expected to depart for home yesterday night.

Biegun touched down in Beijing Thursday for a two-day trip, and there was speculation he may meet North Korean officials there amid stalled denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang. But Yonhap reported that Biegun appeared not to have met anyone from the North.

Neither Beijing nor Washington made any official announcement on Biegun’s Chinese visit as of 8 p.m. press time Friday, but Biegun is known to have stressed to Chinese officials that it was crucial to keep maximum pressure on the Pyongyang regime and asked for help in bringing the North back to the dialogue table.

While Biegun was visiting China, the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm him as deputy secretary of state on Thursday, and with that, he became the second-highest individual in the State Department after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

Mr. Biegun obviously understands the only one with enough leverage to get North Korea back to the negotiating table is China. Good luck with that:

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun is set to ask senior Chinese government officials for China’s help to restart the stalled denuclearization talks between Washington and Pyongyang, a senior ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) lawmaker said.

“Biegun used his high-profile meetings with senior Seoul officials as an opportunity to highlight U.S. readiness to apply quite flexible and inventive ways to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table. He is likely to convey these ideas he discussed with South Korean officials to Chinese officials. Simply, Biegun would ask China for Beijing’s help to resume the denuclearization talks,” the lawmaker who is involved with the matter told The Korea Times, Wednesday.

The State Department announced the U.S. envoy for the North will visit Beijing on Thursday and Friday after China and Russia proposed lifting some United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on the North. The department said Biegun will discuss “the need to maintain international unity on North Korea” when he meets with Chinese officials.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but it seems North Korean provocations is actually in China’s interest and probably encouraging the upcoming provocation cycle.

With the USFK cost sharing negotiations currently stalemated, the Chinese may see an opportunity to further drive a wedge between the US-ROK alliance by bringing up the THAAD issue again:

A few hours after Beijing’s announcement that South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha agreed with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to continue to deal properly with the THAAD issue, Seoul’s foreign ministry confirmed the matter was touched on during their talks.

“Regarding the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) issue, yes, the foreign ministers had sessions on the matter,” an official said. Before the announcement, Seoul’s foreign ministry did not respond to questions regarding the specifics of key discussion topics touched upon during the talks.

Speculations are that Seoul maintained “silence” over the THAAD issue because President Moon Jae-in wants help from China to advance his “peace initiatives” on the Korean Peninsula. 

Also, with next year’s general elections looming, Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) want to patch things up by ending China’s retaliation against South Korean industries following the country’s decision to deploy the radar system. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This number is actually down sharply because this same institute had previously said China was responsible for about 70% of the pollution in South Korea. This makes me wonder if the ROK government is trying to down play China pollution in order to justify more stringent domestic anti-pollution measures?:

Around 32 percent of ultrafine dust in South Korea can be attributed to China, a piece of joint research by South Korea, China and Japan showed Wednesday, as fine dust pollution continues to be a regional environmental headache.

An average of 51.2 percent of ultrafine dust in South Korea comes from domestic factors and 32.1 percent and 2 percent, respectively, stem from China and Japan, according to a summary of the joint study released by South Korea’s National Institute of Environmental Research.

The remaining 14.7 percent were due to other factors.

The study, the first of its kind, was conducted in major cities of the three countries, including South Korea’s Seoul, Daejeon and Busan.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but what do people think the Korean reaction would be if Japan was dumping as much air pollution over the Korean peninsula that China is?

This is the biggest protest I have seen yet by Koreans against China despite all the provocations made by them against the ROK:

Some 30 Korean university students supporting the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement rallied against the Chinese government’s crackdown on Hong Kong protesters Tuesday in front of the Chinese Embassy in Myeong-dong, central Seoul.

A coalition of six groups composed of mostly Korean university students stood nearly 30 meters (98 feet) away from the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday morning and read out a joint statement calling on Beijing to stop its “hard-line crackdown” on “peaceful Hong Kong protesters.” 

The students also took issue with a formal statement that the Chinese Embassy released last Friday, accusing the embassy and the Chinese government of “denigrating” the Hong Kong movement by backing Chinese students in Korea who tore down pro-Hong Kong banners and posters hung by Korean students on school campuses.

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link, but the Chinese embassy literally sponsored Chinese thugs to go and beat up Koreans in Seoul back in 2008 who were protesting in support of Tibet. If that did not draw a strong backlash the fact that Chinese students are tearing down banners and roughing up Korean students won’t either.

This is a bit surprising to see considering how China was disinvited to the last RIMPAC exercise. However, this is a disaster relief exercise which the U.S. military is signaling should be something everyone is involved in:

 An opening ceremony will be held Monday on Hawaii island for a military exercise with China that will involve about 100 People’s Liberation Army soldiers training alongside U.S. Army counterparts.

That comes after Adm. Phil Davidson, head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, spoke on Veterans Day at Punchbowl cemetery about the “rules-based international order” that followed U.S. victory in the Pacific in World War II, and China’s attempts to usurp it.

Those American standards “are even more important today,” Davidson said, “as malicious actors like the Communist Party of China seek to redefine the international order through corruption, malign cyber activities, intellectual property theft, restriction of individual liberties, military coercion and the direct attempts to override other nations’ sovereignty.”

China was invited into the prestigious Rim of the Pacific maritime exercises in Hawaii in 2014 and 2016 — the drills are held every two years — but it wasn’t allowed to participate in 2018.

China sent a spy ship to monitor the event anyway in 2018. The rising Asian power is not likely to take part in the summer 2020 RIMPAC, either.

“China has not been involved in the planning process,” which is nearing its midpoint, said Cmdr. John Fage, a spokesman for the Navy’s 3rd Fleet in San Diego, which plans the exercise.

In recent years, the U.S. government has been more strident than ever in condemning China as a revisionist power and has taken steps to interdict Chinese espionage and influence. A bitter trade war has added to the tension.

So it makes the dwindling military-to-military exercises such as the “disaster management exchange” planned through Nov. 26 on the Big Island stand out that much more as the exception to the growing rule.

U.S. Army Pacific said the exchange with the People’s Liberation Army is part of its “Pacific Resilience” program, a series of exercises that ensures the U.S. “is prepared to assist our global partners in the event of a major disaster.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I am sure these Chinese students realize they can beat down Koreans with no consequences like we saw during the Olympic Torch protests back in 2008. Back in 2008 the Chinese Embassy in Seoul actually directed the protests which makes me wonder if they are encouraging the behavior of these Chinese students as well?:

Tensions are escalating on university campuses here between Korean students supporting the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and Chinese students studying here who oppose them, citing Beijing’s “One China” doctrine.

There is concerns that the conflict could lead to emotional responses by both sides, with some students seriously worrying about physical clashes. School authorities are also paying close attention to the tension as Chinese students account for the largest portion of foreign students at colleges in Korea.

On Wednesday, dozens of Korean and Chinese students at Hanyang University in Seoul scuffled over the setting up of a “Lennon wall” and posting of messages supporting the Hong Kong protests by the former.

Fifty Chinese exchange students and 10 Korean students clashed. The exchange students said the Korean students were “interfering with domestic affairs,” and the Hong Kong protests were “nothing to do with Koreans.” The Koreans refuted this, saying that they had the right to freedom of speech on the issue, according to witnesses.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but can you imagine what the reaction would be if Japanese students did something like this? There would be mass protests and hate directed towards Japan, yet once again you don’t see this happen with China.