China resisted pressure yesterday from South Korea and Japan to censure North Korea publicly for the sinking of a warship, calling only for regional tensions over the incident to be defused.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama teamed up at the two-day summit to nudge Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) to declare Pyongyang responsible for the March sinking of the South Korean corvette.
However, Wen gave no sign China is ready to back UN Security Council action against its ally over the sinking, which cost 46 lives.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“The urgent task now is to defuse the impact of the Cheonan incident, change the tense situation and avoid clashes,” Wen told a joint press conference. “China will actively communicate with relevant parties and lead the situation to help promote peace and stability in the region, which fits our common and long-term interests best.”
However, that was the strongest language China has used yet to describe the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul announced reprisals including a trade cut-off after international investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the Cheonan. The North denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war.
In its latest response, Pyongyang’s official media said the North did not possess the type of small submarine allegedly used for the attack.
“Some say there is political instability in the region due to the Cheonan incident,” Lee told the summit yesterday, according to his senior spokesman Lee Dong-kwan. “We are not afraid of war, but we do not want war either. We have no intention to go to war.”
Wen has been cautious since arriving in South Korea on Friday. At a meeting with Lee that day, he said Beijing would, before determining its position, review the results of the international investigation into the Cheonan’s sinking, but would not protect whoever was responsible.
Lee told the press conference on the island of Jeju that he expects “wise cooperation” from neighboring countries in handling the disaster.
Hatoyama, whose government on Friday announced new sanctions against the North, said the three leaders agreed “that this is a serious issue related to peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”
South Korea, at least in public, appeared fairly satisfied with the outcome of the summit.
“The inclusion of those remarks on the Cheonan in the joint press announcement in itself has significance,” Lee’s senior spokesman said.
However, Paik Hak-soon, of the Sejong Institute think tank, said Wen’s comments “indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation.”
“There would be no point in taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance,” Paik said.
Hatoyama had promised to give Seoul his country’s “full support” when the case is referred to the council, his spokesman said.
He had also stated clearly that the resumption of six-party nuclear talks is unthinkable until the North offers a clear apology for attacking the Cheonan, South Korean officials said.
Meanwhile, in Pyongyang yesterday tens of thousands of demonstrators packed the main square for a rally condemning South Korea and the US.
Clapping and pumping their fists in the air, the protesters shouted anti-South Korean slogans, held signs and carried a huge portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, according to video footage from APTN in North Korea.
“Because of the South Korean war-loving, mad puppets and American invaders, the North and South relationship is being driven to a catastrophe,” Choi Yong-rim, secretary of the North Korean Workers Party in Pyongyang, told the crowd.
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