China is more concerned about regime meltdown in North Korea than its development of nuclear weapons and is unlikely to cave in to US calls to cut oil supplies and exercise more "robust diplomacy," according to analysts.
"There is no question that China fears instability and regime change in North Korea more than it fears nuclear weapons," said Brad Glosserman, a North Asia expert at the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum, a foreign policy research institute.
"China wants North Korea as a buffer state, it wants [North Korea leader] Kim Jong-il in power. They know him and they know he is not the threat the US makes him out to be. The big question would be who would take Kim's place. There are still people in North Korea worse than Kim, someone without his restraint," he said.
The US is pressuring China to push its Stalinist neighbor harder. Washington is counting on China, North Korea's closest ally, to persuade it back to the negotiations that also include Russia, Japan and South and which collapsed last June after three sessions.
Pyongyang has cited alleged US intentions to topple its government as its primary reason for pulling out of the talks and on February 10 announced that it possesses nuclear weapons. But so far Beijing has resisted any punitive actions, rebuffing a US request to cut oil supplies to the insular and unpredictable Marxist state.
David Zweig, a political analyst at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said this stance would likely continue. Like Glosserman, he agrees that collapse of the Kim dictatorship, which could be precipitated by sanctions, would be a disaster that China was not willing to let happen.
"A meltdown of the regime is of more concern that developing nuclear weapons. They are afraid of any scenario that would precipitate collapse. It could easily cause millions of refugees to flood over the border into China, South Korea could take over North Korea, US troops could be on China's border," he said.
Beijing's reluctance to act, however, would all change if North Korea carried out a nuclear test, said Lee Dong-bok, a Seoul-based security expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"Down the road, when the time comes, China has in mind the possibility of imposing certain sanctions -- suspending oil supplies, grain supplies and deploying its military to seal the border," he said.
"If there's a nuclear test, China will take this very seriously and it would move to the next stage of its policy, perhaps sanctions. There's a very big chance that China would also agree to bring the matter to the Security Council," he said.
The US has suggested this. North Korea said it would be an act of war. On Wednesday, Thomas Schieffer, the US ambassador to Japan, was quoted as confirming North Korea had begun preparations for a nuclear weapons test after months of bellicose declarations. North Korea is estimated to have as many as eight nuclear weapons, but has never tested one so far.
Despite deflecting US pressure, Zweig said there was a clique in China who felt the government was being short-sighted.
"While many fear regime change, others in China feel the government is being short-sighted and a nuclear-armed North Korea could easily become a foe rather than a friend down the line. And all the time China is treading water, North Korea is moving forward in its nuclear programs," he said, adding that China was banking on North Korea not carrying out a nuclear test, and contrary to beliefs did not have as much leverage as given credit, limiting the extent of its strong-arm tactics.
"The bottom line really is that Beijing doesn't have that leverage, and the degree to which it does have leverage is such that it can't afford to use it or it we will lose it," he said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS