War of words grows between US and Beijing over North Korea nuclear test

Washington, rather than Beijing, should take greater responsibility for Pyongyang's third nuclear test last week, Xinhua said in a commentary attacking foreign media reports that China's North Korean policy had failed.

The Xinhua article, issued on Saturday night, accused "a few Western media that has ulterior motives" of "throwing dirty water" at China by concluding that Beijing's policy towards long-term communist ally North Korea was a failure.

Although Xinhua did not name names, the Wall Street Journal's Chinese website ran an article on Wednesday - one day after Pyongyang tested the bomb - penned by a Shanghai-based independent analyst with the headline "The test signifies the failure of China's policy on the North's nuclear programme". The WSJ article argued that Beijing, restricted by communism ideology and deluded by a "strategic buffer zone" concept about Pyongyang, has repeatedly wasted opportunities to rein in its neighbour's nuclear ambition.

"The North's [second] nuclear test in 2009 already declared the death of the six-party talk [sponsored by Beijing], but out of a need to save face, and more importantly, to eschew being taken accountable for its failed policies, China has just sat around and watched the nuclear situation on the Korean Peninsula spin out of control," the article said.

The Xinhua commentary, quoting several mainland experts, said the "China's NK policy has failed" argument seen in the Western media had other purposes, which were to stimulate and provoke Beijing to take a tougher line against the North. It went on to argue that it was Washington, instead of Beijing, that should seriously reflect and reassess its North Korea policies.

"The North's nuclear test was not targeting China, not even South Korea, but the United States," Xinhua quoted an international relations scholar at Tsinghua University as saying.