It seems like people in South Korea may finally be seeing how two faced China is, it just took a change in the ROK Presidential administration to confirm it:
Residents of Seongju County, North Gyeongsang Province, protest President Moon Jae-in’s order to consult with the U.S. over the temporary deployment of four more launchers of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery to a golf course in the country where two launchers have already been installed, during a press conference in front of the Ministry of National Defense in Yongsan, Seoul, Monday. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk
China is remaining low key over North Korea’s purported successful test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Friday, while criticizing South Korea for its decision to deploy additional U.S. anti-missile launchers to deter Pyongyang’s military threats.
This is part of China’s “two-faced” policy of embracing North Korea as a buffer zone against U.S. military power and bullying South Korea to bring discord to the Seoul-Washington alliance, analysts said Monday.
China apparently toned down its rhetoric, turning a deaf ear to the international community’s condemnation of Pyongyang’s missile launch late Friday night.
It only asked North Korea to “observe the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions and suspend activities that can heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula.” (……..)
On the contrary, Beijing has intensified its protest against the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in South Korea, after Seoul decided to install four additional launchers of the system temporarily in addition to the two that are in operation.
On Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry expressed “grave concerns” over the Moon Jae-in administration’s decision to deploy the additional THAAD launchers.
Saying it “firmly opposes” THAAD, the ministry said the U.S. missile shield “seriously” damages the balance of power in the region while violating China’s national interest. It has urged both Seoul and Washington to suspend the THAAD deployment and withdraw related equipment. (…..)
“China’s long-term goal is to weaken the U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region, and North Korea’s progress in ICBM technology serves its purpose,” said Yang Uk, a senior research fellow at the Korea Defense and Security Forum. “This is because Washington, jointly with Seoul and Tokyo, will have to spend extra time and money against Pyongyang’s ICBMs while Beijing can go ahead with its plan to flex its muscles in the region. It’s no wonder China did not criticize Pyongyang as harshly as it did Seoul.”
“Under these circumstances, I must say China is colluding with North Korea and is being negligent in its duty as a permanent member of the UNSC,” a researcher at the Sejong Institute said on condition of anonymity. [Korea Times]
You can read more at the link, but you have to love the claim from China that THAAD harms their national interests. North Korean ICBMs do much more to harm the ROK and the United States’ national interests which China clearly does not care about.
Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong speaks during a forum held by the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry held on Jeju Island on July 22, 2017. (Yonhap)
China’s top envoy to South Korea called Saturday for a solution to quickly end a monthslong diplomatic row over the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea.
Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong said the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system had a “serious impact” on the mutual trust between the two countries, calling it “the biggest hurdle” for the development of bilateral relations.
“Many South Koreans say Beijing is retaliating against Seoul. But exchange and cooperation between countries call for political common ground, and we need to quickly find ways to resolve the issue,” Qiu said in a business forum in South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju.
China has imposed restrictions on South Korean imports and banned the sale of group tour packages to its neighbor in protest of the U.S. missile system in South Korea.
Seoul and Washington said the missile system is only meant to counter North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats. But China has repeatedly pressed South Korea to withdraw the THAAD system out of concern that the deployment could hurt Beijing’s security interests. [Yonhap]
I think this should end the pipe dream anyone may still be holding that China would put real pressure on the Kim regime to end their nuclear and missile programs:
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not his country that was threatening North Korea and the answer to the problems did not lie with Beijing.
Mr Geng said: “Recently, certain people, talking about the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, have been exaggerating and giving prominence to the so-called ‘China responsibility theory’.
“I think this either shows lack of a full, correct knowledge of the issue, or there are ulterior motives for it, trying to shift responsibility.”
The spokesman reiterated that China had been making a concerted effort to play a constructive role in the conflict.
He added: “Asking others to do work, but doing nothing themselves is not OK. Being stabbed in the back is really not OK.” [Daily Express]
Here is an interesting historical analysis of the Chinese, Russian, and North Korean relationship during the early years of the Kim Il-sung regime. This historical analysis does have some interesting parallels on why the Chinese government continues to support the Kim Jong-un regime today:
From left to right: Mao Zedong, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Anastas Mikoyan, Mikhail Suslov, Kim Il-sung, V Shiroky, and Enver Khohgha, At the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, 1957.
But for all the frustration, North Korea is an important piece on Beijing’s diplomatic board. If played incorrectly, it could backfire on China to the detriment of its bid for global leadership. Bringing Kim to his knees on behalf of the international community does nothing to advance Xi’s vision of a China-centered order in East Asia.
This is not new. Beijing has played this game before—most disastrously in 1956, when then North Korean leader Kim Il Sung brutally purged his political opponents suspected of ties to China and the Soviet Union. Moscow and Beijing intervened on their behalf, but Kim outplayed his allies with Machiavellian guile.
The crisis was also a turning point for China’s relations with North Korea. It was in 1956 that Beijing realized it had to go easy on Pyongyang, despite Kim’s maddening obstinacy, because the alternative was to surrender the country to the Soviet influence. As difficult as Kim was, he kept his distance from Moscow, and he could be an important ally in Beijing’s bid for leadership in the socialist bloc. Overnight, North Korea became an issue in China’s relationship with the Soviet Union, much as today it complicates China’s relationship with the United States. [China File]
Here is some interesting dialogue between Chinese premier Mao Zedong and the Soviets based off of records released from the Soviet archives:
Mao agreed with Mikoyan that there were serious problems in Pyongyang. Himself a ruthless dictator, Mao claimed Kim, who “still does the Stalin thing,” appalled him. “He brooks no word of disagreement and kills all who tries to oppose him,” Mao said.
But he claimed that China had no influence on the North Koreans. “This time we have to mainly rely on you,” he told Mikoyan. “They won’t listen to China!” Mikoyan retorted that Moscow’s leverage was hardly any better, but Mao disagreed: “They won’t listen to China 100 percent of the time. They won’t listen to you 70 percent of the time.”
Mikoyan said he simply did not understand why Kim was acting this way. Mao knew why: “He is afraid that our two parties are digging under the wall [of his house].”
And Mao, sensing, rightly or wrongly, that Moscow was plotting Kim’s ouster, warned the Soviet envoy they should not try to topple him. The Chinese leader opposed the Soviet practice of overthrowing recalcitrant tyrants. Nor did he think Kim’s regime was as bad as the Soviets claimed. After all, Mao’s own regime was not exactly democratic either. If he helped bring down Kim’s house, he would set a precedent that could one day be used against him.
There was another reason for Mao’s hesitation. He was beginning to challenge Moscow for leadership in the socialist camp. He accused the Soviets of arrogance, and of trying to impose their will on other countries. Much as he feared letting Kim get away with brutalities would lead to North Korea’s collapse, he did not want the Soviets to use him as a proxy.
You look at what is happening today and you see the parallel that the Chinese do not want the Kim regime toppled and have continued to oppose attempts by the US to impose its will on other countries around the world to include North Korea.
It is worth reading the whole article at the link.
Here is what Senior Colonel Zhou Bo from China’s Ministry of National Defense had to say about the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) contact with North Korea:
What sort of relations does the Chinese military have with its North Korean counterparts? Are you in regular contact with them?
No not at all. We have zero contact with them right now.
Why is that the case when China – at least some officials – refer to North Korea as neighbours, sometimes even as a good neighbour? So you have no contact with the military of a close neighbour?
No, currently we do not have any contact or ties with the DPRK militarily. In the past we did, we had a lot of contact and exchanges. I think this reflect a kind of change in our relationship for the reasons known to all.
China and DPRK are definitely neighbors, and we fought a war on Korean soil a long, long time ago. But what I would say is China is right now united with the international community to seriously honour UN resolutions, and we hope we eventually may find a solution to these problems. [Channel News Asia]
I find it hard to believe they have no contact with North Korea. So there is no PLA defense attache at the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang?
I can’t understand why anyone is surprised by the synchronization of China and Russia’s North Korea strategy? China and Russia have long had the common goal of weakening the United States’ commitment to alliances in Northeast Asia:
The proposal, and the strategic alignment between the two one-time rivals, raised some eyebrows amongst regional watchers. Russia has often backed China in U.N. Security Council negotiations, but during the Obama administration it was far less engaged on North Korea than China was. Xi’s government, meanwhile, had appeared prepared to begin taking a more assertive stance on the reclusive nation.
The recalibration serves a common goal that regional experts say is central to both Russian and Chinese foreign policy — loosening American alliances around the globe.
Former diplomats are split over the significance of the sudden chumminess. Robert Gallucci, the chief U.S. negotiator during the North Korean nuclear crisis of 1994, called it “unsettling” but “not catastrophic in any way.” He characterized the surprise sync as two nations seizing an opportunity to undercut the U.S.-Japan-South Korea alliance — not a herald of a new era of coordinated policy against the United States.
But some regional policy experts fear that a united Sino-Russian front on North Korea could make it more difficult for the U.S. to rein in Pyongyang’s burgeoning nuclear program.
“The fact that Moscow and Beijing are using virtually identical language and are very united at this time I think will provide great comfort to Kim Jong Un,” said David Pressman, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for political affairs who now works at the Boies Schiller Flexner law firm. [The Hill]
You can read more at the link, but as I had previously mentioned this whole approach plays into the slow motion surrender of South Korea to North Korean hegemony and the end of the US-ROK alliance. Is it any wonder why China and Russia continue to enable the Kim regime?
North Korea is getting money and the parts to build their nuclear weapons and missiles from somewhere. Going after the Kim regime’s money network and part suppliers is something that the US can unilaterally do, but has not aggressively pursued because many of the front companies assisting the Kim regime are based in China. It appears the Trump administration has now lost patience with the Chinese government and may start aggressively targeting these Chinese companies and the banks assisting them:
U.S. authorities have tried to seize millions of dollars associated with several companies that deal with North Korea, including the country’s military, from eight large international banks, according to court filings made public on Thursday.
The effort was revealed two days after North Korea tested a long-range missile capable of reaching Alaska, ratcheting up tensions with the United States and adding to worries about North Korea leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear weapons plans.
Thursday’s filings show that Chief Judge Beryl Howell of the federal court in Washington, D.C. on May 22 granted U.S. prosecutors’ applications for “damming” seizure warrants against Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Mellon Corp, Citigroup Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Standard Chartered Plc and Wells Fargo & Co.
Prosecutors believe the banks have processed more than $700 million of “prohibited” transactions on behalf of entities tied to North Korea since 2009, including the period after Donald Trump was elected U.S. president, the filings show.
Some of the transactions were processed for Dandong Zhicheng Metallic Material Co and four affiliated “front” companies that prosecutors said tried to evade sanctions through transactions that would benefit North Korean entities, “including the North Korea military and North Korea weapons programs,” according to the filings. [Reuters]
You can read more at the link, but for the Kim regime $700 million is a lot of money. Long time ROK Heads may remember how much the Kim regime got worked up when $25 million was seized from the Macau Bank, Banco Delta Asia. This seizure caused the Kim regime to actually come to the bargaining table and make some major concessions to get their money back.
This was all predictable, but President Trump is right that he had to at least try:
President Donald Trump expressed frustration with China on Wednesday for failing to do more to cut off support to North Korea and exert pressure to curb its nuclear pursuits.
North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile test this week demonstrated a dangerous new reach for weapons it hopes to top with nuclear warheads one day. The launch is spurring U.S. demands for global action to counter the threat.
Since he entered the White House, Trump has talked about confronting Pyongyang and pushing China to increase pressure on the North, but neither strategy has produced fast results. Trump had expressed optimism after his first meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping that the two would work together to curb North Korea’s nuclear program.
Moments before he departed for Poland, Trump chastised China on Twitter.
“Trade between China and North Korea grew almost 40% in the first quarter,” the president tweeted. “So much for China working with us – but we had to give it a try!”
In his initial response to the launch on Monday evening, Trump urged China on Twitter to “put a heavy move on North Korea and end this nonsense once and for all!” But he also said it was “hard to believe” that South Korea and Japan, the two U.S. treaty allies most at risk from North Korea, would “put up with this much longer.” [Stars & Stripes]
