Senior Chinese envoy meets N Korean leader in Pyongyang

A TOP Chinese foreign policy official, state councillor Dai Bingguo, has met North Korea’s Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang, amid the continuing military crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Xinhua did not immediately say what Mr Dai discussed with Mr Kim, but as North Korea’s only significant ally, China is under heavy international pressure to use its leverage to find a solution to the crisis.

Beijing describes the relationship between the two neighbours as being “as close as lips and teeth”. Tensions have been ratcheted up by North Korea’s recent artillery attack on a South Korean island near the Koreas’ disputed sea border. The barrage killed four South Koreans.

The meeting between Mr Kim and Mr Dai was held in a warm and friendly atmosphere, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said, and they discussed ways to further strengthen the two countries’ relations. The agency gave no details about whether they discussed North Korea’s recent artillery attack.

There was criticism for China earlier in the day. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said China was enabling Pyongyang’s “reckless behaviour”.

North Korea’s economy is impoverished and it depends heavily on China for economic assistance and diplomatic support. China fought on North Korea’s side during the 1950-53 Korean war.

China responded later with comments from the foreign ministry, which said that military threats could not resolve the tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu questioned what Mr Mullen had done for “peace and stability in the region”, and called his remarks on China’s support for North Korea an “accusation”.

China is keen for a resolution to be found through the platform of six-party talks – chaired by Beijing and comprising the US, Japan, Russia, China and the two Koreas. These have been largely stalled for the past two years. In the interim, North Korea tested a long-range rocket and exploded its second nuclear device.

Pyongyang made a strong statement yesterday, underlining its claim to waters around the island it shelled two weeks ago and accusing the United States of orchestrating the attack.

South Korea “fired as many as thousands of shells into the territorial waters of the DPRK [North Korea] side,” the state news agency reported, citing a report by the North Korean Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.

“This reckless act was obviously a deliberate provocation to prompt the DPRK to take a military counteraction,” it said.