|
|
U.S. Asks China to Pressure North Korea to Avoid Provocations During Transition By CHOE SANG-HUNPublished: January 5, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/world/asia/us-urges-china-to-keep-pyongyang-from-military-provocations.html
SEOUL, South Korea — A senior American diplomat on Thursday called on China to help restrain the new leadership in North Korea from military provocations during the transition of power there.
The diplomat, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell, is the highest American official to visit Northeast Asia since the death of Kim Jong-il, the longtime North Korean leader, in December. He spoke to reporters in Seoul on Thursday after meeting with the South Korean foreign minister, Kim Sung-hwan.
Mr. Campbell said that when he met with China’s vice foreign minister, Cui Tiankai, and other senior officials in Beijing on Wednesday, he asked them to “consult closely” with Washington concerning developments in North Korea.
“We also urge China to make clear the importance of restraint by the new North Korean leadership,” Mr. Campbell said Thursday.
Although the extent of Beijing’s ability to influence North Korea is unclear, China is the North’s last major ally and trading partner. International sanctions over the North’s nuclear program and long-range missile tests have deepened North Korea’s economic dependence on China in recent years, magnifying the role China might be able to play in stabilizing the Korean Peninsula if the power transition in the North goes awry. China was the first country to endorse the new North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, the third son of Kim Jong-il.
One of the biggest concerns in the region is that Kim Jong-un — or whoever is engineering his rapid rise to top leadership of the North’s military and other important agencies of power — might initiate military provocations against South Korea to help consolidate internal unity.
Mr. Kim is believed to be in his late 20s. Whether he will be able to achieve the kind of grip on power that his father had — or how the power elites might behave if he fails to do so — remain topics of intense speculation with potentially grave implications for the stability of the region.
“We underscore the strongest possible commitment of the United States to the enduring partnership between the United States and the Republic of Korea and the determination to be tightly aligned as we together face the new leadership transition in North Korea,” Mr. Campbell said, using the formal name for South Korea.
He is scheduled to meet Japanese officials in Tokyo on Friday.
North Korea has stepped up its harsh words against South Korea in the past week, vowing to punish the government of President Lee Myung-bak for not expressing condolences over Kim Jong-il’s death and threatening to turn South Korea’s presidential offices into a “sea of fire.” Mr. Lee and the South Korean military both warned of a strong response to any military provocation from the North.
Analysts say that the North’s military is considerably larger than the South’s and could do heavy damage if full-scale fighting broke out, but that it is hobbled by the country’s economic straits, making do with outdated equipment and short supplies of fuel. The South and the United States together would probably be able to defeat the North in a full-scale war, many experts say. The United States has 28,500 troops stationed in the South, which are seen as crucial to its defense.
Even so, conservatives in the South call for strengthening the country’s forces. They say that the North’s longstanding intention to reunify the peninsula by force remains unchanged, and that Seoul must make it clear to the North that a military provocation would be met with a strong counterattack — a turn of events that would worry both Washington and Beijing.
State-run media in the North have been depicting Kim Jong-un as faithful to his father’s policy of giving the military priority in all aspects of society, including first claim on the country’s limited resources. In his first public action as the country’s top leader, Mr. Kim inspected the Ryu Kyong-su tank division on New Year’s Day. The unit was the first to enter Seoul after North Korea invaded the South in 1950, and Mr. Kim’s father often watched war games in which the unit’s tanks practiced “liberating” Seoul and other cities.
Both in Beijing on Wednesday and in Seoul on Thursday, Mr. Campbell said the United States was committed to the preservation of peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
|
|
狗仔卡
楼主
提升卡
变色卡
抢沙发
千斤顶
显身卡
发表于 2012-1-29 01:28