Tag: China

This week the ROK Defense Minister stated for the first time openly that South Korea should consider the deployment of the THAAD missile defense system:

Defense Minister Han Min-koo has echoed the need to consider the deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense(THAAD) battery to the Korean Peninsula.

Appearing on a local television program late Monday, Han said that the deployment of THAAD to South Korea must be reviewed from a national security angle.

This is the first time that Han has openly debated over the missile interception system, fueling speculation that South Korea and the U.S. could open talks over the deployment in the coming weeks.  [KBS World Radio]

Here is how the Chinese responded this week to the increased speculation of Seoul considering the deployment of THAAD to Korea:

In an editorial Wednesday, Chinese state-media, the Global Times, claimed that the deployment of THAAD to the Korean Peninsula would hurt trust between Seoul and Beijing.

If anything is hurting trust between the two countries it is the Chinese allowing the Kim regime to continuously threaten South Korea with nuclear weapons, missiles and other deadly provocations with no consequences from Beijing.  The Chinese could build trust and likely stop the deployment of THAAD if they implemented the sanctions the US has been asking for in response to North Korea’s continuous provocations.

It looks like the Chinese are attempting to stop the expected North Korean rocket launch by sending an envoy to North Korea which was likely prompted by reports that the ROK was considering deploying the THAAD missile defense system to Korea:

China’s top nuclear envoy made a surprise visit to North Korea on Tuesday, a news report said, amid rising tensions over the North’s fourth nuclear test last month.

Wu Dawei, China’s top delegate to the long-stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program, flew into Pyongyang in the afternoon, Japan’s Kyodo News agency reported.

China is currently under international pressure to exert its leverage on North Korea to make sure Pyongyang ends its nuclear program.

Wu is expected to meet with North Korean officials over the Jan. 6 nuclear test, which Pyongyang claims was a successful detonation of a hydrogen bomb.

The test has raised security tensions in the region to a new high, with the U.N. Security Council pushing to adopt another sanctions resolution against Pyongyang.

South Korea appears to be inching closer to introducing an advanced U.S. missile defense system to counter the threats posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

Until the Chinese government changes its mind that a nuclear North Korea is a less a threat than a destabilized North Korea they are going to continue to stop harsh sanctions against the Kim regime.  This ultimately only encourages the Kim regime to advance their nuclear and missile programs and commit further provocations:

Apart from the more hard-line thinkers in Washington, virtually no one wants to have to deal with what might happen if concerted international action were to actually destabilize Kim Jong Un’s regime, however strongly they may feel about its human rights record, authoritarian government and militantly defiant attitude toward Washington, Tokyo, Seoul and anyone else it sees as a threat.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry ran into that wall this week during talks in Beijing with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. After meeting for more than four hours Wednesday, Kerry expressed his frustration with what the United States sees as China’s failure to do more to rein in Pyongyang, noting that “more significant and impactful sanctions were put in place against Iran, which did not have a nuclear weapon than against North Korea, which does.”

“All nations, particularly those who seek a global leadership role, or have a global leadership role, have a responsibility to deal with this threat,” Kerry said.

In response, Wang said China, which is North Korea’s most important ally, chief trading partner and a key source of economic assistance, agreed on the need for a new U.N. resolution. But he suggested Beijing would not support new penalties even though it condemned the Jan. 6 test.

“Sanctions are not an end in themselves,” Wang said bluntly. “The new resolution should not provoke new tension in the situation, still less destabilize the Korean Peninsula.”  [Associated Press]

You can read more at the link.

https://twitter.com/freekorea_us/status/693434661138206720

Government officials attend a ceremony at a port in Gunsan, southwest of Seoul, on Jan. 29, 2016, for the first rice export to China. The first shipment of 30 tons will leave the port next month for Shanghai, where they will be marketed at Lotte Market outlets. South Korea has been working for the last seven years to have rice exported to the neighboring country, hindered by quarantine requirements. (Yonhap)

If the North Koreans move forward their rocket test this would give Seoul additional political cover to move forward with the deployment of THAAD to Korea which the Chinese have been against.  If seems that if the Chinese are so concerned about the deployment of THAAD they should do more to control their North Korean allies:

Deployment of the United States’ advanced missile defense system, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, in South Korea will be helpful in defending the country from North Korean threats, but the country has no plans to announce any decision on the matter in the near future, a defense official said Friday.

“Our government will consider every measure to prepare against North Korea’s missile threats,” the Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said.

“If U.S. Forces Korea deploys THAAD, it will help our national security and defense,” Kim said.

The official government stance signals the U.S. move to deploy the THAAD system inside the USFK is gaining momentum in South Korea.

It also marks a step forward from the country’s more cautious stance in the past that South Korea will weigh the THAAD issue in accordance with national security interests.

Earlier in the day, the U.S.-based Wall Street Journal reported the U.S. could announce next week or so that the two countries are in negotiations over the THAAD system.  [Yonhap]

You can read more at the link.

China firm against sanctions-only approach toward North Koreahttps://t.co/hWZ52sJACS

— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) January 27, 2016

U.S. to ask China to ban oil exports to North Korea, report says https://t.co/FknBvjYSLH

— Elizabeth Shim (@GlobalAsianista) January 22, 2016

It appears that the US and South Korea has finally come to the conclusion that the country they need to be negotiating with to halt the Kim regime’s nuclear program is not North Korea, but instead China:

Since President Park Geun-hye expressed skepticism over the efficacy of the long-stalled six-party talks and called for five-party talks — excluding North Korea — last Friday, the allies and China seem to be split with Beijing in favor of keeping the six-party format intact.

The talks involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia have not been held since late 2008. Park thus proposed exploring “various and creative ways” including holding the five-party talks to tackle the North’s nuclear conundrum, her aides said.

Washington has offered support for Park’s proposal for the five-party talks, while Beijing urged the early resumption of the six-party talks that it has hosted — a move that observers say displayed its disapproval of the five-way formula.

“The United States supports President Park’s call for a five-party meeting. We believe coordination with the other parties would be a useful step in our ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula through credible and authentic negotiations,” a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Seoul said in a statement to the local media.  [Korea Herald]

You can read the rest at the link.

A couple of interesting Op-eds have been published recently.  The first op-ed published on CNN includes Joshua Stanton a ROK Drop favorite that blogs over at One Free Korea.  The op-ed emphasizes two key points

The only way to change this equation is to persuade Pyongyang that its regime preservation is dependent on reform and disarmament.

Washington may achieve this with a two-pronged strategy targeting Pyongyang’s systemic vulnerabilities: First, block the Kim Jong Un regime’s offshore hard currency reserves and income with financial sanctions, including secondary sanctions against its foreign enablers. This would significantly diminish, if not altogether deny, Kim the means to pay his military, security forces and elites that repress the North Korean public.

Second, delegitimize Kim’s rule in the eyes of his people and the world by engaging them through broadcasting and other information operations directed at the North Korean people, reinforced by a sustained diplomatic campaign to demand accountability for the regime’s crimes against humanity.  [CNN]

Here is probably the most important paragraph of the op-ed:

Through each of Pyongyang’s previous nuclear and long-range missile tests, U.S. policymakers have harbored the illusion that Beijing’s patience with Pyongyang must have finally run out.

But all Beijing has done so far is demonstrate a disingenuous pattern of diplomatic ambidexterity. China will not solve the North Korea problem for the United States until China sees the Kim regime as a financial liability, a threat to its own security or a threat to stability along its own border.

The Kim regime knows that they can survive any sanctions as long as the Chinese continue to believe that regime stability is in their strategic interests.  This is why they continue to conduct provocations like the latest nuclear test despite Chinese objections because they know they can get away with it.  China’s strategic interests in regards to North Korea much shift before any real change in North Korea can occur.