China Attempting to Sway North Korea on Missile Launch Plans

China on Monday continued its campaign to convince longtime ally North Korea to cancel plans to launch a long-range rocket into space, Reuters reported (see GSN, March 19).

Chinese special envoy for Korean Peninsula Affairs Wu Dawei met in Beijing with North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to express his government's worries with the Stalinist state's intention to next month launch a rocket into orbit in seeming violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions. China is North Korea's leading economic benefactor.

"The Chinese government at the earliest moment expressed our concerns and worries," Chinese Foreign Ministry Asian Affairs Department chief Luo Zhaohui told journalists on Tuesday in describing the conversation between Wu and Ri.

North Korea claims the planned mid-April rocket launch would place an earth observation satellite into orbit and is nonmilitary in nature. The United States, Japan and South Korea have all roundly condemned the rocket launch, which they see as a front for another test of Pyongyang's long-range ballistic missile technology.

Washington has warned the rocket launch would likely lead it to halt plans to send 240,000 metric tons of food assistance to impoverished North Korea. The food aid is intended to secure the North's implementation of a bilateral agreement to shutter its uranium enrichment program and other atomic efforts at the Yongbyon complex and to refrain from conducting new nuclear and long-range missile tests (see related GSN story, today).

Japan has warned it could attempt to bring down the rocket if it is assessed as a threat to the island nation.

China is urging "all parties to remain calm and exercise restraint, avoid an escalation of the situation ... and play constructive roles to ease the situation on the peninsula," Luo said.

"We hope North Korea and the United States continue dialogue and maintain contact, and cherish these hard-earned achievements," the Chinese official said of the new nuclear shutdown deal. "This has important significance in alleviating the situation on the peninsula and improving U.S.-North Korea relations."

Beijing is the host to the paralyzed six-party talks that also include Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow, Pyongyang and Washington. The six-nation talks seek a permanent shutdown of North Korea's nuclear weapons effort; talks were last held in December 2008.

Pyongyang, however, signaled on Monday it remains undeterred from its plans to carry out the rocket firing. "The launch of the working satellite is an issue fundamentally different from that of a long-range missile," the state-controlled Korean Central News Agency said.

The organization accused the United States and partner states of hypocrisy for routinely launching satellites into space but then seeking to deny other countries the right to do so as well. 

"If they apply double standards towards us or try to improperly validate our rights, we have only to respond against it," Ri said to reporters in Beijing. He said his government still plans to implement the nuclear shutdown deal.

International Crisis Group North Korea specialist Daniel Pinkston predicted Pyongyang would follow through with its plans. "The launch will take place.Nobody's really going to do anything, because there's nothing you can do. It's not like China is going [to] support more sanctions at the U.N."

China last signed off on a new Security Council sanctions resolution targeting North Korea's weapons development in June 2009, not long after the aspiring nuclear power detonated its second atomic device and carried out what was a widely seen as a long-range ballistic missile test.

Experts believe the timing of the rocket launch is aimed at improving Pyongyang's bargaining position as it inches toward new international negotiations on its nuclear weapons development. The launch could also be intended to boost domestic standing for the regime's new head of state, Kim Jong Un.

"It really puts the U.S. in an awkward position," Pinkston said. "Whichever way it breaks out for the North, they can spin this as a win for Kim Jong Un and the regime" (Blanchard/Martina, Reuters, March 20).

North Korean state media asserted on Monday that the "launch of satellite has nothing to do with" the nuclear shutdown pact reached with Washington, the Yonhap News Agency reported (Yonhap News Agency/Korea Times, March 20).

Pyongyang also announced it had invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to send inspectors to Yongbyon to verify the halt in nuclear work as required under the U.S.-North Korea agreement, Kyodo News reported on Monday (see related GSN story, today).

The U.S. State Department said the invitation did not resolve the Obama administration's strong opposition to the rocket launch. "There's benefit to any access that the IAEA can get, but it doesn't change the fact that we would consider a satellite launch a violation not only of their U.N. obligations, but of the commitments that they made to us," department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said to reporters.

"A satellite launch with ballistic missile technology is a violation of U.N. sanctions," Nuland said. 

Security Council resolution 1874, passed in June 2009, forbids the North from utilizing ballistic missile know-how to launch any object (Kyodo News, March 20).