The United States is pressing China to rein in North
China has offered condolences over the March sinking of the Cheonan but has not placed blame on North Korea, which has warned of "serious" consequences if the issue is brought before the United
Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military commander, said late Wednesday that China needed to take a greater role after the purported torpedo attack, which claimed 46 lives in one of the deadliest incidents since the Korean War.
"I've been encouraged by public statements made recently by the Chinese leadership as to the seriousness of this incident and the need for accountability and yet dismayed by a fairly tepid response to calls by the international community for support," Mullen said.
Mullen, speaking at a dinner of the Asia Society, indicated that the United States would soon go ahead with military exercises with South Korea which were set for early June but delayed to give a chance for diplomacy with North Korea.
"We in the United States military stand firmly by our allies in the Republic of Korea and will move forward, in keeping with international agreements, to demonstrate that solidarity in coming weeks," Mullen said.
"I think it's of no surprise to anyone that we are planning maritime exercises to sharpen skills and strengthen collective defenses," he said.
South Korea has asked the Security Council to respond to the ship's sinking and said Wednesday that investigators would brief the body's 15 members on the probe at the request of council president Mexico.
Seoul's Vice Foreign Minister Chun Yung-Woo returned Wednesday from a trip to lobby China but said that differences remained.
"We agreed to keep working toward reaching acceptable solutions, based on our strategic cooperative partnership," Chun said.
North Korea's UN representative wrote a letter to the council urging it not to be swayed by US "lies" as it was before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to state media.
The letter warned that if the warship probe was put on the council's agenda, "no one would dare imagine how serious its consequences would be with regard to the peace and security on the Korean peninsula."
Experts have speculated widely on North Korea's motivations for the sinking, with some believing that the communist state is trying to show its meddle as part of the succession to leader Kim Jong-Il.
China's relations are not always warm with North Korea, with Beijing saying Tuesday it protested after border guards from its neighbor shot dead three Chinese citizens.
But analysts believe that China's main goal is stability as it fears the prospect of North Korean refugees flooding over the border or a unified Korea with US troops right on its border.
President Barack Obama's administration has sought broader cooperation with China. But relations between the two militaries have remained uneasy, with Beijing declining Defense Secretary Robert Gates' requests to visit.
Gates had a tense exchange on Saturday with a Chinese general at a security conference in Singapore.
Major General Zhu Chenghu asked Gates to explain what he called a contradiction between the US condemnation of North Korea and a more cautious US reaction to a deadly raid by Israel against a Gaza-bound aid ship.
"The Chinese military is the most provincial, and I would say the most xenophobic, element of the Chinese elite," Jeffrey Bader, Obama's top aide on Asia, told a forum this week.
China in January cut off military relations after the United States in January unveiled a 6.4-billion-dollar arms package to Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of Chinese territory.
No comments:
Post a Comment