China’s role in East Asia’s peace

By Choi Yearn-hong

During the China-Japan-South Korea meeting on Jeju Island, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao expressed his and China's condolences to the families of the victims of the sunken Korean Navy ship Cheonan.

I appreciate his sympathy and compassion over the tragic deaths of 46 sailors on the night of March 26. An investigation team comprised of South Korean and foreign experts concluded that North Korea torpedoed the ship and presented convincing evidence to the world. However, China does not want to punish North Korea.

President Lee Myung-bak made an impressive speech saying the Seoul would no longer tolerate any more provocation and humiliation from Pyongyang, and summed up that the South's enormous sacrifices for the North and its unilateral economic assistance have become meaningless. I agreed with him, as did many South Koreans.

Former President Kim Dae-jung and his successor Roh Moo-hyun launched the sunshine policy, with only wishful thinking. However, the 10 years under their rule did not produce any meaningful change in the North Korean regime.

China has sided with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. The latter's survival has basically depended on Beijing support, even as China has emerged as a superpower.

It has used its position of permanent member of the United Nations' Security Council to protect North Korea. But its blind support and alliance with North Korea are raising questions as to China's ability as a superpower.

The North Korean dictatorial regime is heading for a three-generation succession, while its people are starved to death. A hundred thousand or more North Korean people are wandering around northeast China for their mere survival.

China behind North Korea supported South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's sunshine policy toward the North when it began in 1998. That sunshine policy helped the North Korean regime survive with South Korea's economic assistance and humanitarian aid.

However, that has been betrayed over the years by North Korea instigating sea battles in the Yellow Sea, killing an innocent woman tourist at the Mt. Geumgang resort and the conducting of a couple of nuclear bomb and long-range missile tests, well before the torpedo attack.

Now, many South Korean people believe that Seoul should give up the so-called sunshine policy. They ask why they should tolerate North Korea's barbaric acts, while continuing to provide astronomical economic assistance it.

Ten years is more than long enough to see some decent changes in the North, but nothing has happened. Behind this ``no change," has been China. This is a very unfortunate situation for China and North Korea.

Some, a very few, American journalists are sympathetic to the North Korean dictatorship and critical of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak's hard-line policy toward the North. They are ridiculous.

These people do not see the cause-and-effect relationship. Lee has been trying to maintain a reciprocal relationship with the North. He has genuinely tried to maintain an amicable relationship with Pyongyang under the most difficult situations.

President Barack Obama's foreign policy toward North Korea has been one ``tough but fair." Lee and Obama have made every effort to bring North Korea to the table for the six-nation talks to freeze its nuclear ambitions for a ``nuclear-free Korean Peninsula."

Nevertheless, China has not used its superpower status and its U.N. Security Council membership to punish North Korea for its barbaric acts. That is the reason why the latter continues to behave like an ugly barbarian nation.

China should do something to admonish and penalize crimes willfully committed by the North and any other countries: China is trying to say ``neutral" on the two Koreas. Neutrality is just an excuse.

Under the name of neutrality, it provides forgiveness and encouragements of crimes against humanity. Under the protection of China, North Korea developed nuclear weapons and threatened South Korea, Japan and the United States.

Why is this? Probably because North Korea is China's colony or satellite.

China should be serious toward North Korea, and control the latter's behavior. It is in a position to teach and admonish its ``satellite" country.

Superpower nations should not just be armed with nuclear weapons, but civility and humility. China should show the world its decency, civility and responsibility.

Rogue nations should be punished by the international community. The United Nations is supposed to be a decent organization.

Assume: China's naval ship was destroyed by Taiwan's submarine attack, and 46 were killed. Could China be quiet or neutral?

China will not tolerate any attack from any nation. If this is the case, China should not tolerate the North Korean submarine's torpedo attack on a South Korean ship in South Korean waters.

There is no excuse for China's ``neutrality" which only encourages North Korea's barbaric acts!

Dr. Choi is a political scientist educated at Indiana University and taught at the University of Wisconsin and University of Seoul. He can be reached at yearnhc@hanmail.net.

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