Category: China

A mysterious North Korean aircraft caused speculation that Kim Jong-un was visiting China:

Japanese and South Korean media are speculating that a high-ranking North Korean official, possibly even leader Kim Jong Un, is visiting China after an airliner from the North landed in the Chinese port city of Dalian.

The South’s official Yonhap News Agency said the plane arrived Monday amid tight security. Japanese broadcaster NHK ran a picture of the Air Koryo plane that it said had been taken Tuesday afternoon at Dalian airport.

There are no regularly scheduled flights between North Korea and Dalian, although North Koreans are frequent visitors and its port has been instrumental in two-way trade.  [Fox News]

It turned out that Kim Jong-un was in fact in China getting his marching orders from Emperor President Xi before Kim’s summit with President Trump:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their second summit in about 40 days in northeast China, the two nations’ state media reported Tuesday, ahead of an anticipated summit between Kim and U.S. President Donald Trump.

In a dispatch from the Chinese city of Dalian, China’s Xinhua news agency reported that Kim and Xi held talks on Monday and Tuesday. The second summit between Kim and Xi appears to highlight efforts by the allies to restore ties that have been chilled by the North’s nuclear and missile development.

Kim and Xi “had an all-round and in-depth exchange of views on China-DPRK relations and major issues of common concern,” Xinhua said. DPRK is an acronym for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.  [Yonhap]

This would explain why Kim Jong-un made the unusual public appearance of sorrow after the tragic bus accident in North Korea that killed 32 Chinese tourists:

Chinese communist revolutionary Mao Zedong’s only grandson Mao Xinyu was possibly killed in a bus crash in North Korea in April that killed over 30 Chinese, according to a report from French radio.

Xinyu, the son of Mao Zedong’s second son Anqing who died fighting in the Korean War, was possibly one of 32 Chinese tourists who died when a bus fell from a bridge in North Hwanghae Province, Radio France Internationale’s Chinese version reported on April 30, citing a Chinese source.

The report said Xinyu, a Major General in the People’s Liberation Army of China, and most of the other Chinese tourists were the children of Chinese soldiers who fought in the Korean War.

The accident also killed four North Koreans.

The tourists died reportedly on their way back from a cemetery in Hoechang County in South Pyongan Province that was for Chinese soldiers who died during the Korean War. Mao Zedong’s eldest son Anying was buried there, which leads to the supposition Xinyu could have visited the cemetery to pay tribute to his uncle.

If it is true that Xinyu was among the dead, two direct descendants of Mao Zedong have perished on the Korean Peninsula.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

With all the developments happening on the Korean peninsula the Chinese have decided to show the South Koreans who is still boss in the region:

Seoul called in China’s ambassador on Saturday after a Chinese military plane violated South Korea’s air defense identification zone (KADIZ), officials said.

South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Yoon Soon-gu summoned Chinese Ambassador Qiu Guohong and called for Beijing to come up with measures to prevent such a violation from happening again, ministry officials said.

Separately, the Defense Ministry said it called in Du Nongyi, military attache of the Chinese embassy in Seoul, and lodged a stern protest against the Chinese military plane’s violation of the KADIZ.

According to Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the Chinese aircraft, believed to be a reconnaissance plane, entered the air defense zone in the northwest in the morning and stayed for about four hours.

“At 10:44 a.m., one Chinese military plane entered the KADIZ from northwest of Ieo Island,” the JCS said in a statement, referring to the submerged rock south of Jeju Island.

It then changed direction near the southeastern port city of Pohang toward the eastern island of Ulleung before steering south and exiting the KADIZ on its entry route at 2:33 p.m., the JCS said.  [Korea Times]

For those that don’t know Ieodo continues to be a territorial dispute between South Korea and the Chinese.  The Chinese regularly violates the South Korean ADIZ at key times of their choosing to send a message to South Korea.

The Chinese Navy may be looking to expand their reach into the South Pacific to be able to threaten US allies Australia and New Zealand:

The islands of Vanuatu may appear as relative specks in the South Pacific Ocean, but for China’s military strategists, they could provide a significant boost in Beijing’s ability to project naval power.

The prospect of a Chinese military base in the heart of the South Pacific, reported by Australia’s Fairfax Media on Tuesday, will also complicate the strategic dominance of Western powers in an ocean area they have long effectively controlled, according to diplomats and experts monitoring developments.

Fairfax Media reported China has approached Vanuatu about establishing a permanent military presence there, saying the possibility of such a facility has already alarmed high level officials in Canberra and Washington.

Vanuatu’s foreign minister denied there had been any such discussion of a Chinese military base in the country. China’s defence ministry said the Fairfax report “completely did not accord with the facts” while a foreign ministry spokesman said the report was “fake news”.  (…….)

While far from key shipping lanes and not as important as Indian Ocean ports, Vanuatu would put China close to the coast of Australia, a major U.S. ally, and give it a presence nearer the U.S. base of Guam beyond the Asian island chains that hem in Beijing.

Graeme Smith, a Pacific Affairs expert at the Australian National University, said a Chinese base on Vanuatu would send a strong message to Australia, the United States and their allies.

“It would be an incredibly aggressive signal to both the U.S. and Australia that ‘We’re here, get used to it’,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. [Reuters]

You can read more at the link, but how long will it be before some Chinese scholar says Vanuatu was historically part of China?

.@benjaminkatzeff looks into Dandong and finds that laborers are returning to the city, a sign that the Chinese may be relaxing sanctions enforcement there. Read the latest from our affiliate site North Korean Economy Watchhttps://t.co/pcixJL5Ccw pic.twitter.com/yxhCuCeq2W

— 38 North (@38NorthNK) April 9, 2018

This photo capture from the North’s Central TV on April 1, 2018, shows a clip from a movie filmed jointly by North Korea and China, whose title roughly translates to “Promise Made in Pyongyang.” The movie had not been run since it first aired in February 2014, but it was rerun on the day following North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s visit to Beijing the previous week. The movie is about a Chinese dancer building a friendship with North Korean dancers during her travels through the North. (Yonhap)

Let’s Party pic.twitter.com/PTghGSmoV5

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) March 28, 2018

It looks like Kim Jong-un may be receiving his marching orders from the Chinese government before the upcoming summits with the ROK and US presidents:

Kim Jong-un was rumoured to be paying a secret visit to China on Monday after an armoured North Korean train pulled into Beijing under heavy guard.

Passengers were diverted and services cancelled as the train arrived in Beijing around 3pm, before video emerged showing a car driving away under police escort.

The train bears a marked similarity to one that Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, used for his trips to China, sparking speculation that the Supreme Leader was on board.

If the news is confirmed, it would mark Kim’s first visit to any foreign country since taking the reins of power. [Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but considering the honor guard, VIP motorcade, and the amount of security that met the train it seems likely it is either Kim Jong-un or maybe his sister visiting North Korea to justify such a response.

The Chinese government has long sought to break up the US-ROK and US-Japan military alliances that maintains the current security framework in Northeast Asia.  The THAAD issue is a perfect example of how they have created tension in the US-ROK alliance with disinformation.  The comfort women issue is another issue that Beijing has weaponized to create tension between the US, Korea, and Japan:

The “comfort women” issue appears, on the surface, to be a bilateral problem between South Korea and Japan. In reality, it is deeper. The key player is increasingly not South Korea, but China, and the ultimate target is not Japan, but the United States, as the comfort women are co-opted by Beijing in its anti-American information war.

China has been waging this war since Beijing realized after the First Gulf War that it would likely be unable to the United States on the battlefield. As the document Unrestricted Warfare, published by two high-ranking Chinese military officials, makes clear, the Chinese have chosen to fight the US, and particularly the US-Japan alliance, using desinformatsiya rather than hardware and troops.  (…)

Overseas Chinese groups have also pressed hard on the comfort women and Nanjing issues in the US and Canada: In San Francisco, Superior Court judges Julie Tang and Lillian Sing retired from the bench in order to co-found the Comfort Women Justice Coalition, which was ultimately successful in bringing a comfort woman statue to San Francisco. Chinese-American San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was himself a vocal proponent of the comfort woman statue.  [Asia Times]

You can read more at the link, but I would not be surprised if Beijing isn’t fanning the flames of the anti-base sentiment in Okinawa as well to create further tension between the US and Japan.

In other news today China has returned to having an Emperor:

China’s rubber-stamp lawmakers on Sunday passed a historic constitutional amendment abolishing presidential term limits that will enable President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely.

The National People’s Congress’ nearly 3,000 hand-picked delegates endorsed the constitutional amendment, voting 2,958 in favor with two opposed, three abstaining and one vote invalidated.

The amendment upends a system enacted by former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1982 to prevent a return to the bloody excesses of a lifelong dictatorship typified by Mao Zedong’s chaotic 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution. The constitution had until now limited presidents to serving only two consecutive terms.  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read more at the link, but President Xi has pretty much made himself Asia’s Putin.