This just proves that the Chinese government is using North Korea to drive a wedge between the US and the ROK. Declaring peace with North Korea would mean an end to the reason for the existence of US Force Korea (USFK) which is what the Chinese and North Koreans both want. If China wants a more normal relationship how about they have North Korea stop threatening to nuke the US or turn South Korea into a Sea of Fire? Or how about they get them to stop launching deadly provocations against South Korea and comply with United Nations resolutions?
Chair for the foreign affairs committee of China’s National People’s Congress Fu Ying speaks at the Munich Security Conference.PHOTO: EPA
The US and North Korea need to formally declare an end to 76 years of hostility if the international community wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to stop developing nuclear weapons, a top Chinese foreign policy official said.
“North Korea and the US still have not made peace, they’ve been in an extended cease-fire,” said Fu Ying, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of China’s National People’s Congress.
“You need to think how to bring an end to the war and enter a more normal relationship.” [The Straits Times]
You can read more at the link, but in the fantasy land of peace in our time with North Korea does anyone really think the Kim regime would stop their provocations against South Korea? Without the backing of the US, the provocations would likely get worse and more threatening. The Kim regime has never accepted the legitimacy of the ROK and continue to be postured and train for the forceful reunification of the peninsula.
Last week it was made known that the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation—a Russian analogue to the U.S. House Committee on Oversight, which has consultative powers—is planning to put forward a proposal for the installation of a memorial by the site of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, dedicated to the “genocide of the American Indians,” according to the RIA News Agency.
The request for permission to install such a monument was sent to the Administration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, to the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation and to the Moscow city authorities.
“The initiative to install the monument [near the US Embassy] is very timely as an act that will remind [people today] from where the history of the USA started,” stated member of the Civic Chamber Valery Korovin, who supported the proposal. “This monument must become the silent reproach to the modern American elites which had significantly deviated from the idealistic principles that were laid into the foundation of the American state.”
According to Mr. Korovin, the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation should also appeal to the U.S. Congress to consider the “rehabilitation” of American Indians “as the native people of the United States, to admit the fact of their genocide by the US Government, to carry out the act of national repentance and thus to close this dark chapter of the U.S. history.” [The Observer]
Over at One Free Korea, there is a great update on the current actions going on in Washington, DC in response to the latest North Korean nuclear test. It appears the one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on is that the “strategic patience” strategy with North Korea has not worked. So Congress is moving forward with their own sanctions package which is forcing the executive branch to preempt this by trying to implement their own new sanctions on North Korea. Whatever the sanctions are it seems to me if it does not include threatening to cut off banks’ access to the US financial system for conducting business with North Korea it will not work to curb their nuclear program:
The leaders of the House Foreign Affairs Committee: Chairman Ed Royce (R, CA) and Ranking Member Elliot Engel (D, NY)]
So far, so good, but then, Nakamura’s sources criticize the President for not trying hard enough to get a deal, which isn’t quite fair. As The Wall Street Journaltold us yesterday, “U.S. officials say they have repeatedly tried to engage North Korea in dialogue about its nuclear program in recent months, but Pyongyang hasn’t responded to their advances.” It sounds self-serving, but the recordsupports that contention. Besides which, the harder American presidents try to “engage” North Korea, the worse their results tend to be.
In this climate, all the administration can really do is shift the focus to its push for tougher sanctions at the U.N. It needs a win in New York to make up for what looks like a general rout of its North Korea (non-) policy in Washington. The administration will probably announce new bilateral sanctions under existing executive orders to preempt some of the momentum in Congress, but I doubt that will appease Congress now. The administration can forget about any new diplomatic initiatives. Its goal now is to avoid a greater crisis, and to keep North Korea from sapping its credibility on other foreign policy issues. [One Free Korea]
This should be considered unsurprising that the US back the ROK-Japan comfort women deal, but I have yet to see what China’s official response is yet. It would think it would not be in their interest to reach a deal with Japan because of the domestic propaganda it provides:
Civil society support for the Korea-Japan agreement on resolving the issue of Japan’s wartime sexual slavery will be crucial to the deal’s success, the State Department said Tuesday.
“Everyone will make their own judgments about this agreement. But I do hope, we do hope, as the United States, that others, including here in the U.S., will support this agreement and its full implementation as we do,” State Department deputy spokesman Mark Toner said at a regular briefing.
“We believe it’s an important gesture that will promote healing and reconciliation and the support of civil society for this settlement will be crucial to its success in the end,” he said.
On Monday, South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se and his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, reached the agreement that centers on Japan’s admission of responsibility for the wartime crime and plans to pay reparations to the victims. [Yonhap]
First of all why is a North Korean agent allowed in the US in the first place? Secondly this just shows how complicit the Chinese government is in allowing these front companies to exist that give the Kim regime the capability to smuggle in not only military equipment, but luxury goods as well:
A man from North Korea accused of trying to buy military grade night vision goggles from a Utah-based undercover agent and illegally export them to China has pleaded guilty to a federal charge in an agreement with prosecutors.
Kim Song-il was arrested in Hawaii after agreeing to pay $22,000 for the equipment and packing it into boxes that he claimed were filled with used toys and towels so he could ship them to his Chinese business, charges state.
Prosecutors say they believe the six pairs of goggles would have gotten to North Korea from there, though defense attorney Scott Williams disputes that allegation. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This will be a significant development in ROK and Japanese relations if this intelligence sharing agreement does become operationalized:
The United States has been implementing a trilateral military intelligence sharing agreement with South Korea and Japan, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The memorandum of understanding, which was signed in December last year, calls for voluntary sharing of military secrets on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
The agreement was put into action earlier this year, but questions have arisen after Assistant Secretary of Defense David Shear said earlier this month that the U.S. hopes to “operationalize” the agreement.
“We are implementing the arrangement,” Cmdr. Bill Urban, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman, said in response to a question from Yonhap News Agency. The official declined to provide further details, including how many times information sharing has taken place. [Yonhap]
