The Washington Times:
China’s top diplomat said Thursday Beijing has “legitimate national security” concerns over the potential deployment of an advanced U.S. missile shield to South Korea in response to growing nuclear provocations from North Korea — but Chinese leaders also respect that it will be up to Seoul to “make a final decision” on the matter.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the comments in Washington on Thursday a day after he and Secretary of State John F. Kerry reached an agreement on a U.N. Security Council resolution to expand international sanctions against North Korea in response to its recent nuclear test.
It was unclear whether Beijing, Pyongyang’s main economic partner and ally, had agreed to cut critical coal and other mineral imports from North Korea, but the new resolution would significantly tighten international scrutiny of all goods flowing in and out of the so-called Hermit Kingdom.
The developments follow weeks of behind-the-scenes pressure on China from Obama administration officials, who have criticized Beijing for failing to pressure North Korea’s young dictator, Kim Jong-un, into abandoning his nuclear and military provocations.
Mr. Wang, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, defended China’s handling of the situation on Thursday, but suggested that Beijing is engaged in some real soul-searching over how to deal with its smaller, isolated neighbor.
The Chinese foreign minister’s comments on missile defense were a departure from Beijing’s aggressive resistance to the installation of the U.S. military’s so-called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea, noting that the missile shield would extend into parts of China.
“We believe China’s legitimate security concerns must be taken into account, and a convincing explanation must be provided to China,” Mr. Wang said, while conceding South Korea had the right to make its own decisions. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask.”
His remarks came a day after South Korean officials warned Beijing not to try and bully Seoul out of accepting the missile system. “This is a matter we will decide upon according to our own security and national interests,” Jung Youn-kuk, a spokesman for South Korean President Park Geun-hye, said on Wednesday. “The Chinese had better recognize that.”
The talk of THAAD has also drawn the ire of Russia, where officials say it would be an unnecessarily aggressive U.S. military move in North Asia.
Mr. Kerry has tread carefully on the issue, but defended the discussions given the threat from the North.
“We have made it very clear that we are not hungry or anxious or looking for an opportunity to be able to deploy THAAD,” Mr. Kerry said.
But he quickly added, “THAAD is a purely defensive mechanism. It’s not an offensive weapon [and] doesn’t have offensive capability.”
Chinese state media outlets have carried articles during recent years accusing Washington of stoking tensions with North Korea purely to create a pretext for expanding America’s military footprint in the region. Some 30,000 U.S. troops are presently stationed in South Korea and roughly 60 percent of the U.S. Navy’s active assets deployed in the Pacific theater.
