China holds back from condemning Pyongyang

CHINA resisted pressure yesterday from South Korea and Japan to censure North Korea publicly for the sinking of a warship, calling only for regional tensions over the incident to be defused.

Host President Lee Myung-Bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama teamed up at the two-day summit to nudge China’s premier Wen Jiabao to declare Pyongyang responsible for the sinking of the South Korean corvette.

However, Wen gave no sign China is ready to back UN Security Council action against its ally over the sinking, which cost 46 lives.

“The urgent task now is to defuse the impact of the Cheonan incident, change the tense situation and avoid clashes,” Wen told a joint press conference.

“China will actively communicate with relevant parties and lead the situation to help promote peace and stability in the region, which fits our common and long-term interests best.”

South Korea announced reprisals including a trade cut-off after international investigators reported on May 20 that a North Korean submarine fired a heavy torpedo to sink the Cheonan.

The North denies involvement and has responded to the reprisals with threats of war, fuelling regional tensions. In its latest response, Pyongyang said it did not possess the type of small submarine allegedly used for the attack, according to its official media.

“Some say there is political instability in the region due to the Cheonan incident,” President Lee told the summit yesterday, according to his senior spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan. “We are not afraid of war, but we do not want war either. We have no intention to go to war.”

Wen, whose country is the North’s economic lifeline, has been cautious since arriving in South Korea on Friday. At a meeting with Lee that day, he said Beijing would, before determining its position, review the results of the international probe into the Cheonan’s sinking, but would not protect those responsible.

Lee told the press conference on the southern resort island of Jeju that he expects “wise co-operation” from neighbouring countries in handling the disaster.

Hatoyama, whose government announced new sanctions against the North on Friday, said the three leaders agreed “that this is a serious issue related to peace and stability in north-east Asia”.

South Korea, at least in public, appeared fairly satisfied with the outcome of the Jeju summit.

“The inclusion of those remarks on the Cheonan in the joint press announcement in itself has significance,” Lee’s senior spokesman said.

But Paik Haksoon, of the Sejong Institute think-tank, said Wen’s comments “indicate that China is still questioning the authenticity and authority of the investigation”.

“There would be no point in taking this issue to the UN Security Council without securing support from China in advance,” Paik told AFP.