China’s military chief arrived in Seoul yesterday for talks with senior South Korean officials amid rising tensions over North Korea’s planned rocket launch.
General Chen Bingde (陳炳德), chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army, met South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee ahead of talks with his counterpart Kim Tae-young, the Joint Chiefs of Staff office said.
Seoul’s call for “a positive role and efforts by the Chinese military to help address inter-Korean tensions” was on the agenda, it said in a statement.
North Korea says it will launch a communications satellite between April 4 and April 8.
South Korea, the US and Japan have denounced what they see as a disguised long-range missile test. They say a launch for any purpose would breach a UN Security Council resolution passed after the North’s missile and nuclear tests in 2006.
A joint chiefs spokesman said the rocket issue was on the agenda but refused to elaborate.
“We plan to relay to the Chinese delegation our demand that North Korea heed international warnings and halt its preparations for the launch,” an unidentified Seoul defense official told Yonhap news agency.
“China is the closest country to North Korea. Its comments carry weight, and we hope it can more actively pressure Pyongyang,” the official said.
China, a traditional ally and major aid donor for North Korea as well as a permanent UN Security Council member, has not publicly urged it to halt the launch.
The North on Tuesday warned that six-party nuclear disarmament talks would collapse if new UN sanctions were imposed to punish the launch. The forum groups the US, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas and China.
South Korea’s chief envoy to the talks,Wi Sung-lac, returned yesterday from a meeting in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Wu Dawei (武大偉), on possible “countermeasures” after any launch.
Wi, quoted by Yonhap, indicated there was no agreement yet on a response.
In related news, Japan may order its military to prepare to shoot down a North Korean rocket if it threatens to hit the country, media reports said yesterday, ahead of a ministerial meeting to discuss the plan.
Tokyo, which has developed a missile defense system with the US, has warned it will shoot down any object — a missile or any debris — if it threatens to hit Japanese territory.
North Korea says it would regard a rocket intercept as an act of war.
Reports said Tokyo will likely issue an order tomorrow for its armed forces to prepare to intercept the rocket.
Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone and Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura were to meet yesterday to discuss Japan’s response.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
RSS