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China PM faces Korean standoff over warship sinking
Chris Buckley and Jack Kim
SEOUL
Fri May 28, 2010 3:00am EDT
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SEOUL (Reuters) - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao confronts mounting regional tensions on Friday, when a summit with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak will test China's efforts to stay above the fray of strife with North Korea.
World | China | South Korea | North Korea
Seoul is convinced that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean warship Cheonan in March, and along with the United States and Japan has urged Beijing to join international denunciation of the sinking, which killed 46 sailors.
North Korea has said it will rip up military agreements with the South guaranteeing safety of cross-border exchanges, and has reportedly puts its military on combat readiness, after Seoul said it would banned trade with the North and stop its commercial ships using South Korean waters following the sinking.
The mounting antagonism between the two Koreas has unnerved investors, worried the confrontation could erupt into conflict. But most analysts say that neither side is ready to go to war but warn there could be more skirmishes, especially along their disputed sea border off the west coast.
Beijing has resisted turning publicly on North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong-il visited China early this month in a show of friendship between the two communist neighbors.
U.S. officials have said Wen may use his visit to South Korea, including a weekend three-nation summit with Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, to spell out how China wants to deal with the confrontation at its northeastern doorstep.
Wen is unlikely to give President Lee full-throated support against North Korea, but will be looking to ease antagonism and cool South Korean disquiet with China's efforts to stay above the dispute, said several Chinese analysts.
"China feels it's on the backfoot and has to find a more active posture on the Cheonan incident," said Zhang Liangui, an expert on North Korea at the Central Party School, a training school for officials in Beijing.
"It's difficult even for China to influence North Korea's behavior. But China will also hope that South Korea steps back so that confrontation can cool down," he said.
On Friday, a Chinese newspaper said it was time for all sides to step back before confrontation got out of hand.
"The United States and Japan must step back more to turn around the situation, as the room for North Korea to move in is limited," said a commentary in the Global Times, a Chinese newspaper that focuses on international affairs.
CHINA UNLIKELY TO CHANGE NKOREA STANCE
Wen will be the first Chinese leader to meet South Korea's prime minister after Seoul officially concluded last week that Pyongyang torpedoed its corvette.
U.S. officials said this week that there were signs that China, the North's main benefactor and ally, is reviewing ties with the isolated state.
But South Korean officials doubted that Beijing will side with them and the United States, when Seoul takes the North to the United Nations Security Council over the sinking.
A senior South Korean official said that ultimately Beijing was likely to abstain from a vote on the ship sinking, rather than an outright veto of any statement or resolution directed at North Korea. Wei Zhijiang, a Chinese expert on Korea, agreed.
"I personally do not think that Wen's visit (to South Korea) will mark a fundamental change in China's position on the Cheonan incident," said Wei, a professor at Zhongshan University in southern China who is now a visiting scholar in Tokyo.
"China has its own strategic stake in the Korean Peninsula, and if North Korea is further isolated or sanctioned that would escalate tensions and risk serious instability," he said.
"If South Korea and the United States really take this to the Security Council, then China won't want to have a falling out with them but won't want more sanctions over this, so an abstention vote seems likely."
North Korea has escalated blistering rhetoric since the release of the South Korean investigations' findings into the warship sinking, threatening to severe all ties with the South.
On Thursday, the North said it was taking the first steps in severing the border link which provides access for South Korean workers to the Kaesong factory park project -- the last major commercial link that had been a symbol of reconciliation.
The South will send in troops if the North shuts down the border and holds its citizens hostage in Kaesong, a South Korean official said on Friday on the condition of anonymity.
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