After Nuclear Test, South Korea Urges China to Rein In North

The New York Times

By CHOE SANG-HUNJAN. 13, 2016

SEOUL, South Korea — A week after North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, President Park Geun-hye of South Korea urged China on Wednesday to do more to rein in the North, amid growing criticism that Ms. Park’s policy of building stronger ties with Beijing was not showing results.

“China has repeatedly said publicly that it would not tolerate North Korea’s nuclear weapons,” Ms. Park said in a nationally televised speech. “I think China is fully aware that if such strong will is not matched by necessary measures, we cannot prevent fifth and sixth nuclear tests by the North or guarantee real peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

China joined much of the world in condemning the nuclear test last week. On Wednesday, a senior United States negotiator repeated Washington’s call for China to put more pressure on North Korea, using the leverage it has as the impoverished country’s sole major ally and leading trade partner.

“I hope the Chinese authorities agree with us that we simply cannot take a business-as-usual approach to this latest provocation,” said Sung Kim, the special American representative for North Korea policy, after meeting his South Korean and Japanese counterparts in Seoul to discuss sanctions. “I think the Chinese will agree with us that the only way to send a clear message to Pyongyang is to adopt strong international measures.”

North Korea said its test was of a hydrogen bomb, a far more powerful weapon than the nuclear devices it has tested before, but that claim has been greeted with widespread skepticism. Still, the test has underlined South Korea’s geopolitical challenges and exposed Ms. Park’s China policy to more scrutiny at home.

Continue reading the main story

RELATED IN OPINION

Opinion: How ‘Crazy’ Are the North Koreans?JAN. 9, 2016

In recent days, some lawmakers in Ms. Park’s party have said that South Korea must consider developing nuclear arms itself, contending that neither China nor the United States was able or willing to stop the North’s weapons program.

Ms. Park said Wednesday that she understood that point of view but that South Korea remained committed to nuclear nonproliferation. She said the United Nations Security Council needed to adopt a new round of sanctions “strong enough to change North Korea’s attitude.”

“China’s role is important in the process,” she said.

Since taking office in early 2013, Ms. Park has worked to build closer ties with Beijing, meeting with President Xi Jinping more often than with any other foreign leader. China is by far South Korea’s largest trading partner, and policy makers in Seoul said a closer relationship would make China more receptive to appeals to put more pressure on the North.

A signature moment for that strategy came in the fall, when Ms. Park stood beside Mr. Xi on a podium in Beijing watching a huge military parade — the only leader of a significant American ally to attend Chinese ceremonies for the 70th anniversary of World War II’s end. Detractors in South Korea said she was endangering the country’s alliance with Washington, but aides to Ms. Park said it was to South Korea’s advantage to be friendly with both powers.

Yet since the North’s latest nuclear test, even some South Korean newspapers generally supportive of the conservative president have argued in editorials that the courtship had done little to tame North Korea.

South Korean officials have described top Chinese leaders as largely unresponsive to attempts to discuss North Korea in recent days. China and South Korea established a military hotline last year with much fanfare, but the South Korean defense minister has been unable to get his Chinese counterpart on the line, according to the Defense Ministry.

Ms. Park has tried and failed to arrange a telephone conversation with Mr. Xi since the nuclear test; she spoke with President Obama and Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, soon after the test. South Korea’s foreign minister, Yun Byung-se, spoke with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, for 70 minutes on Friday, seeking China’s support for “resolute sanctions,” but Mr. Wang stuck to Beijing’s longstanding insistence that denuclearization and stability in Korea must be achieved only through “dialogue,” South Korean officials said.

China has also indirectly criticized South Korean and American responses to the test: Seoul’s resumption of propaganda broadcasts at the inter-Korean border and a flyover near North Korea by an American nuclear-capable B-52 long-range bomber, which the Americans described as a show of strength. China called for “calm” and “prudence.”

A report released in Washington on Wednesday said that key facilities at North Korea’s main nuclear complex, in Yongbyon, appeared to be in operation, indicating Pyongyang was continuing to stockpile bomb fuels.

In the report, David Albright and Serena Kelleher-Vergantini at the Institute for Science and International Security said they had found what appeared to be steam emissions from the turbine building of an old Soviet-style nuclear reactor that had been mothballed.