Breakthrough after U.S. warns China on North Korea

[Guest guest]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/us_korea_north

Breakthrough after U.S. warns China on North Korea

By ce and Jeff Mason ce And Jeff Mason – Fri Jan 21,

3:47 pm ET

SEOUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States warned China it would redeploy

forces in Asia if Beijing failed to rein in North Korea, an Obama administration

official said on Friday, as Pyongyang bowed to Seoul's demands for crisis talks.

President Barack Obama's warning had persuaded China -- the North's main

diplomatic and economic backer -- to take a harder line toward Pyongyang, and

opened the door to a resumption of inter-Korean talks, possibly next month, the

official said, confirming a report in The New York Times.

North Korea accepted the South's conditions for talks on Thursday, marking a

major breakthrough in the crisis on the peninsula. Such dialogue could clear the

way for the resumption of the six-party aid-for-disarmament talks.

Obama warned his Chinese counterpart, President Hu Jintao, that if Beijing did

not step up pressure on North Korea, Washington would redeploy its forces in

Asia to protect itself from a potential North Korean strike on U.S. soil.

The Obama administration official declined to give more specific details about

any possible redeployments. China was angered by last year's large-scale

U.S.-South Korean military drills in the Yellow Sea, seen as a major projection

of U.S. power off its coasts.

The drills included participation of a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier and

were meant to be a show of force that would deter the North from any future

provocations.

Obama first made the warning in a telephone call to Hu last month, and repeated

it over a private dinner at the White House on Tuesday, the U.S. administration

official said.

White House spokesman Gibbs first hinted at the stepped-up pressure at a

news briefing on Thursday, when he told reporters that Obama's meeting with Hu

on Wednesday had helped shift entrenched attitudes on the Korean peninsula.

U.S. Defense Secretary Gates said last week that Pyongyang was becoming a

direct threat to the United States and could develop intercontinental ballistic

missiles within five years.

Wang Dong of Peking University's School of International Studies said

Washington's reported warning to Beijing was a slap in the face for the Chinese

leader, who has urged the two Koreas to resolve their differences through

dialogue.

" Playing tough like this, it might just backfire, I'm afraid, " Wang said. " If

this article represents the real thinking by American leaders, the danger of war

on the peninsula can never be dismissed. "

" China has its own strategy in trying to influence North Korea. It wants to find

the least costly path to solve this crisis. "

The proposed talks would be the first contact between the two Koreas since a

deadly artillery attack on the South in November sharply raised tensions on the

divided peninsula.

Pyongyang bowed to Seoul's demands that talks specifically address that attack

and the sinking of a South Korean warship last March, but made no mention of

talks on denuclearization -- the central component of six-party meetings.

Washington and Tokyo have cautiously welcomed the Korean talks, but there has

been no comment from Beijing.

Analysts cautioned against reading too much into the talks, saying they marked

progress but that Seoul's demands for an apology for the attacks could prove

difficult for Pyongyang to accept.

" There must be a paradigm shift from both North and South Korea for the sake of

stability in the region, " said Ahn Yinhay of Korea University. " Given the

favorable relationship between China and the United States, now is the right

time. "

NUCLEAR DIPLOMACY

Washington and Beijing have argued that North-South dialogue is a prerequisite

to a resumption of six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States,

China, Japan and Russia. Pyongyang walked out of the six-party talks, under

which it previously agreed to abandon its nuclear programs, and pronounced them

dead in 2009.

Obama and Hu have jointly expressed concern about North Korea's expanding

nuclear program and the South's Unification Ministry said it was formulating a

proposal for separate nuclear talks with the North.

" I think there will be opportunities to discuss the specific measures aimed

toward denuclearization, " the South's envoy for six-party talks, Wi Sung-lac,

told YTN radio.

" We need to confirm that North Korea is sincere about denuclearization, and

talks are needed for this reason. Through such talks we will need to see whether

the six-party talks could be productive. "

The prospect of resuming the six-party talks will set off a new wave of

diplomacy, starting with next' week's visit to the region by U.S. Deputy

Secretary of State Steinberg.

The group negotiations have been beset by problems since their start in 2003,

but experts say they are the best multilateral forum to engage Pyongyang and

control tensions.

The South's Defense Ministry said it would propose a date for the preliminary

talks sometime next week, adding they would likely take place in mid-February.

The North's KCNA state news agency on Friday published the letter sent to the

South's Defense Ministry. " We are in a firm position to resolve all military

issues including those the South wants to propose, " it said.

(Additional reporting by Miyoung Kim and Jumin Park in Seoul, Sui-Lee Wee in

Beijing, and Zengerle and Phil in Washington; Editing by

Cooney)

[Guest guest]

I'm not sure how seriously China took that warning. They control so much of our debt and manufacturing that if we did try anything they didn't like, China could yank our chain pretty hard.

In a message dated 1/22/2011 4:22:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, no_reply writes:

Breakthrough after U.S. warns China on North Korea