Kim Jong Il Sends Top Aide to Beijing as Diplomacy Founders
2010-11-30 08:02:23.80 GMT
By Bloomberg News
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea dispatched one of Kim
Jong Il's top aides to Beijing the same day as leaked U.S.
diplomatic dispatches showed China is increasingly willing to
consider a unification of Korea under the South's control.
Choe Thae Bok, chairman of North Korea's Supreme People's
Assembly, left for Beijing today for talks with Chinese leaders,
state-run Korea Central News Agency reported. Choe met China's
President Hu Jintao in the Chinese capital on Oct. 2 and
accompanied Kim on a trip to the city in May, according to KCNA.
Choe's visit comes after China proposed on Nov. 28 that
negotiators from the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the U.S. meet
in Beijing early next month to defuse tensions following a Nov.
23 North Korean artillery attack on a South Korean island that
killed four people. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is now
conducting exercises in the Yellow Sea off the Korean coast.
Japan rejected the Chinese proposal yesterday. Talks can't
be held only because North Korea has "run amok," Japanese
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told the Wall Street Journal in
an interview. Nicholas Snyder, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy
in Beijing, said "clear steps by North Korea are needed to
demonstrate a change of behavior." South Korea's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade said it would consider China's call
for talks "very cautiously."
China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and a source
of much of the country's food, fuel, and foreign currency. The
two countries have been allies for 60 years since fighting
together against U.S.-led forces during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The two countries share a 1,415-kilometer (880 mile) border.
Unreliable
A leaked Feb. 22 diplomatic cable provided to the Guardian
by WikiLeaks.org said that South Korea's then-vice foreign
minister, Chun Yung Woo, told U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens
that young Chinese Communist party leaders don't think North
Korea is a reliable ally. Chun also said two unidentified
Chinese officials told him they believed Korea should be unified
under the South.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday said the
Obama administration "strongly condemns" the unauthorized
release of more than 250,000 diplomatic documents that WikiLeaks
began posting two days ago. State Department spokeswoman Nicole
Thompson said she "can't provide veracity of anything WikiLeaks
has released to the media," adding the agency's policy is to
refrain from commenting on specific leaked materials.
China hopes the U.S. will "properly handle" the situation
caused by the leaked messages, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong
Lei told reporters in Beijing today.
South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young Sun said
it would be "inappropriate to comment on other countries'
diplomatic documents.
'Regrettable'
''If it is true that details of diplomatic discussions have
been leaked, it is regrettable,'' Kim said.
The U.S. is pressing China to censure North Korea for the
shelling of Yeonpyeong island. China has avoided blaming its
ally of 60 years, instead criticizing joint naval exercises by
South Korea and the U.S. in the Yellow Sea that began Nov. 28.
Chun, now South Korea's national security adviser, told
Stephens that China ''has much less influence than most people
believe'' over Kim Jong Il's regime, according to the Feb.
22 cable cited in the Guardian, a U.K. newspaper.
Chinese officials told U.S. diplomats that their efforts
to cajole North Korea had been rebuffed, and that the U.S. was
the only country with real influence, according to a leaked
June 17, 2009, cable. "The United States was the key while China
was only in a position to apply a little oil to the lock," the
cable cited an unidentified Chinese official as saying.
'Spoiled Child'
A separate message from Beijing said China's vice-foreign
minister He Yafei in April 2009 told an American diplomat that
North Korea's missile tests were designed to get the attention
of the U.S. and that the government in Pyongyang was acting
''like a spoiled child." Two months later, U.S. Ambassador to
Kazakhstan Richard Hoagland sent a cable saying his Chinese
counterpart, Cheng Guoping, told him North Korea was a "threat
to the whole world's security," the Guardian said.
The cables all predate a surge in diplomatic activity
between China and North Korea this year.
Kim made an unprecedented two visits to China this year,
meeting with President Hu Jintao on both occasions. In October,
Zhou Yongkang, a member of China's ruling Politburo Standing
Committee, stood next to Kim during a Pyongyang military parade.
Later that month, top Chinese general Guo Boxiong visited North
Korea, marking the two countries' "victory" over
"imperialist" U.S.-led forces during the 1950-53 Korean war.
China also refrained from criticizing or blaming North
Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean warship. An
international panel found evidence that a North Korean torpedo
was responsible for the sinking, which killed 46 sailors.
WikiLeaks.org, a nonprofit group that releases information
that governments and businesses want to keep confidential, has
over the past two days posted on its website what it says are
secret, confidential or in some cases unclassified U.S. embassy
cables.
--Michael Forsythe, Yidi Zhao, Bomi Lim, John Brinsley. Editor:
Bill Austin, Ben Richardson.
To contact the reporter on this story:
John Brinsley in Tokyo at +81-3-3201-7048 or
jbrinsley@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Bill Austin at +81-3-3201-8952 or
billaustin@bloomberg.net
2010-11-30 08:02:23.80 GMT
By Bloomberg News
Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea dispatched one of Kim
Jong Il's top aides to Beijing the same day as leaked U.S.
diplomatic dispatches showed China is increasingly willing to
consider a unification of Korea under the South's control.
Choe Thae Bok, chairman of North Korea's Supreme People's
Assembly, left for Beijing today for talks with Chinese leaders,
state-run Korea Central News Agency reported. Choe met China's
President Hu Jintao in the Chinese capital on Oct. 2 and
accompanied Kim on a trip to the city in May, according to KCNA.
Choe's visit comes after China proposed on Nov. 28 that
negotiators from the two Koreas, Japan, Russia and the U.S. meet
in Beijing early next month to defuse tensions following a Nov.
23 North Korean artillery attack on a South Korean island that
killed four people. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is now
conducting exercises in the Yellow Sea off the Korean coast.
Japan rejected the Chinese proposal yesterday. Talks can't
be held only because North Korea has "run amok," Japanese
Foreign Minister Seiji Maehara told the Wall Street Journal in
an interview. Nicholas Snyder, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy
in Beijing, said "clear steps by North Korea are needed to
demonstrate a change of behavior." South Korea's Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade said it would consider China's call
for talks "very cautiously."
China is North Korea's biggest trading partner and a source
of much of the country's food, fuel, and foreign currency. The
two countries have been allies for 60 years since fighting
together against U.S.-led forces during the 1950-53 Korean War.
The two countries share a 1,415-kilometer (880 mile) border.
Unreliable
A leaked Feb. 22 diplomatic cable provided to the Guardian
by WikiLeaks.org said that South Korea's then-vice foreign
minister, Chun Yung Woo, told U.S. Ambassador Kathleen Stephens
that young Chinese Communist party leaders don't think North
Korea is a reliable ally. Chun also said two unidentified
Chinese officials told him they believed Korea should be unified
under the South.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday said the
Obama administration "strongly condemns" the unauthorized
release of more than 250,000 diplomatic documents that WikiLeaks
began posting two days ago. State Department spokeswoman Nicole
Thompson said she "can't provide veracity of anything WikiLeaks
has released to the media," adding the agency's policy is to
refrain from commenting on specific leaked materials.
China hopes the U.S. will "properly handle" the situation
caused by the leaked messages, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong
Lei told reporters in Beijing today.
South Korea's foreign ministry spokesman Kim Young Sun said
it would be "inappropriate to comment on other countries'
diplomatic documents.
'Regrettable'
''If it is true that details of diplomatic discussions have
been leaked, it is regrettable,'' Kim said.
The U.S. is pressing China to censure North Korea for the
shelling of Yeonpyeong island. China has avoided blaming its
ally of 60 years, instead criticizing joint naval exercises by
South Korea and the U.S. in the Yellow Sea that began Nov. 28.
Chun, now South Korea's national security adviser, told
Stephens that China ''has much less influence than most people
believe'' over Kim Jong Il's regime, according to the Feb.
22 cable cited in the Guardian, a U.K. newspaper.
Chinese officials told U.S. diplomats that their efforts
to cajole North Korea had been rebuffed, and that the U.S. was
the only country with real influence, according to a leaked
June 17, 2009, cable. "The United States was the key while China
was only in a position to apply a little oil to the lock," the
cable cited an unidentified Chinese official as saying.
'Spoiled Child'
A separate message from Beijing said China's vice-foreign
minister He Yafei in April 2009 told an American diplomat that
North Korea's missile tests were designed to get the attention
of the U.S. and that the government in Pyongyang was acting
''like a spoiled child." Two months later, U.S. Ambassador to
Kazakhstan Richard Hoagland sent a cable saying his Chinese
counterpart, Cheng Guoping, told him North Korea was a "threat
to the whole world's security," the Guardian said.
The cables all predate a surge in diplomatic activity
between China and North Korea this year.
Kim made an unprecedented two visits to China this year,
meeting with President Hu Jintao on both occasions. In October,
Zhou Yongkang, a member of China's ruling Politburo Standing
Committee, stood next to Kim during a Pyongyang military parade.
Later that month, top Chinese general Guo Boxiong visited North
Korea, marking the two countries' "victory" over
"imperialist" U.S.-led forces during the 1950-53 Korean war.
China also refrained from criticizing or blaming North
Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean warship. An
international panel found evidence that a North Korean torpedo
was responsible for the sinking, which killed 46 sailors.
WikiLeaks.org, a nonprofit group that releases information
that governments and businesses want to keep confidential, has
over the past two days posted on its website what it says are
secret, confidential or in some cases unclassified U.S. embassy
cables.
--Michael Forsythe, Yidi Zhao, Bomi Lim, John Brinsley. Editor:
Bill Austin, Ben Richardson.
To contact the reporter on this story:
John Brinsley in Tokyo at +81-3-3201-7048 or
jbrinsley@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Bill Austin at +81-3-3201-8952 or
billaustin@bloomberg.net
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