Advertisement
Advertisement

Beijing's influence on N Korea wanes

Pyongyang steps up contacts with Washington, Tokyo and Seoul, leaving China on the sidelines of nuclear negotiations

As North Korea has reached out to key dialogue partners in recent weeks, offering new proposals to end the nuclear stalemate, the mainland has appeared a passive onlooker - leading to speculation the host of three rounds of six-party talks has been sidelined.

Since the third round of talks ended inconclusively last month in Beijing - with an agreement to meet again in September - North Korea has stepped up its contacts with the United States and begun making overtures to Japan and South Korea.

At the same time, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission recommended Congress to press the Bush administration to develop new options to resolve the standoff over North Korea's nuclear programmes, which are suspected of disguising weapons development.

Even while the June talks were still on, the North Korean delegation had a 21/2-hour talk with the American negotiators on the sidelines. Later, American Secretary of State Colin Powell met his North Korean counterpart at the Asean Regional Forum security conference in Jakarta.

Since then, two North Korean diplomats to the United Nations made an unprecedented visit to Capitol Hill - a sign of new flexibility from the US.

In contrast, when US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice visited Beijing as part of a three-nation tour this month, discussion of the North Korea issue took second place behind her hosts' repeated expressions of concern at Washington's position on Taiwan.

This week, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun on the Korean resort island of Cheju and briefed him on his recent talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang.

Mr Koizumi reportedly said that since that visit, Japan and North Korea had been toning down their mutual hostility and were working towards establishing formal ties.

At last month's six-party talks, North Korea offered to freeze its nuclear programme in exchange for alternative energy supplies, the lifting of US economic sanctions and a security guarantee from Washington. It said the freeze would be a step towards eventual dismantling of its programmes.

The US rejected the offer. It said that if North Korea declared an end to its nuclear ambitions, energy aid would follow immediately. North Korea would have three months to disclose all its nuclear sites and allow outside monitoring.

The apparent lack of progress called into question the effectiveness of the talks as a means of resolving the crisis.

Explaining the mainland's relative inactivity on the North Korea issue, one Beijing-based analyst said: 'China has no new proposal other than reiterating that freezing is the first step to dismantling the nuclear programmes.'

Another analyst, from a government linked think-tank, contested the view that a subdued profile meant its influence was waning.

'China is being apprised of the development in all bilateral contacts,' he said. 'The channel of communication is wide open.'

The analyst said the bilateral talks were important to keep the momentum going before the next round of talks, and that other countries' efforts to defuse the crisis would reduce the pressure on the mainland - applied mainly by the US - to force North Korea to scrap its nuclear programmes.

The analyst said that by expanding the talks from their original trilateral format to a six-party arrangement, the mainland had accomplished the goal of providing a multilateral platform for addressing regional security issues.

'China will conduct its shuttle diplomacy to co-ordinate the views before the fourth round of talks,' he said. 'Expecting China to get involved in every phase of the interim bilateral exchanges is not realistic.'

Post