South Korea Warns North Against New Attack
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/asia/30seoul.html?hp
SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak promised in a televised speech on Monday to make sure that North Korea “pays a dear price” should it attack the South again.
His toughly worded address at the Blue House, the presidential palace in Seoul, made no mention of China’s initiative over the weekend to defuse the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Analysts said that omission signaled South Korea’s disappointment that China was not doing more to rein in North Korea, which relies heavily on China for economic aid.
China called on Sunday for “emergency consultations” in early December in Beijing with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States. The so-called six-party talks among those nations, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapon program, have failed in the past, usually ending with North Korean officials walking out.
Coupled with hastily arranged high-level meetings with North and South Korean leaders, China’s proposal illustrated its nervousness over the escalation in tensions on the peninsula since North Korea’s lethal shelling last Tuesday of a South Korean island in the disputed maritime border area between them.
“I think it is a dramatic change of Chinese policy to address its growing concern,” said Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. “This initiative shows that Beijing is more proactive.”
Even so, the Chinese response, which appeared to be studiously neutral, was far from what either South Korea or the United States had publicly sought.
In his Monday morning address, South Korea’s president thanked the United States, Japan, Russia and other nations for condemning North Korea’s artillery attack on the Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong, which left 4 dead and 16 injured.
Monday brought a fresh show of support, as Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan called the shelling “barbaric” and said he hoped to meet with Mr. Lee in Tokyo next month.
President Lee said the shelling constituted a new level of aggression from North Korea. In the future, he said, South Korea will respond to such attacks in kind.
He replaced the defense minister last week after the military failed to quickly return fire after the Yeonpyeong assault and fired far fewer rounds than the North Koreans.
Mr. Lee said South Korea had showered North Korea with humanitarian aid and striven peacefully to reduce the threat of its nuclear weapons but the North had reacted with unremitting hostility, including the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which left 46 crewmen dead.
“I cannot help but be infuriated at the brutality of the North Korean regime,” he said. “Our people have clearly come to know that any more endurance and tolerance will cultivate even bigger provocation.”
Two polls of South Koreans, released in the last two days, underscored their dismay over North Korea’s belligerence, unhappiness over their military’s response to the latest incident and disappointment in China’s reaction. But one of the surveys, by the East Asia Institute, also suggested that South Koreans were deeply ambivalent over how to react to North Korea. While nearly 7 in 10 said military aggression called for retaliation, more than half also said they preferred conciliatory policies toward North Korea.
Especially annoying to many South Koreans is China’s failure to criticize North Korea for last week’s artillery barrage, which resulted in the first South Korean civilian deaths from North Korean weaponry since the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War. Instead, China’s state-run media gave equal prominence to North Korea’s claim that the United States had masterminded the crisis.
“This is disappointing,” Yoon Duk-min, a regional security specialist at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, said of China’s proposal. “The six-party talks are a dialogue to solve the nuclear issue, not the current crisis on the peninsula.”
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Dongguk University, said South Korea was unlikely to accept China’s offer to host talks because it would seem to reward North Korea’s violence. “Maybe after time passes, but not now,” he said.
The Chinese effort came as the United States, South Korea’s most powerful ally, conducted four-day naval war exercises with South Korean forces in the Yellow Sea in response to the shelling, a move that both China and North Korea have criticized as provocative.
Read more here
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/asia/30seoul.html?hp
His toughly worded address at the Blue House, the presidential palace in Seoul, made no mention of China’s initiative over the weekend to defuse the latest crisis on the Korean Peninsula. Analysts said that omission signaled South Korea’s disappointment that China was not doing more to rein in North Korea, which relies heavily on China for economic aid.
China called on Sunday for “emergency consultations” in early December in Beijing with North Korea, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States. The so-called six-party talks among those nations, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapon program, have failed in the past, usually ending with North Korean officials walking out.
Coupled with hastily arranged high-level meetings with North and South Korean leaders, China’s proposal illustrated its nervousness over the escalation in tensions on the peninsula since North Korea’s lethal shelling last Tuesday of a South Korean island in the disputed maritime border area between them.
“I think it is a dramatic change of Chinese policy to address its growing concern,” said Zhu Feng, deputy director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at Peking University. “This initiative shows that Beijing is more proactive.”
Even so, the Chinese response, which appeared to be studiously neutral, was far from what either South Korea or the United States had publicly sought.
In his Monday morning address, South Korea’s president thanked the United States, Japan, Russia and other nations for condemning North Korea’s artillery attack on the Yellow Sea island of Yeonpyeong, which left 4 dead and 16 injured.
Monday brought a fresh show of support, as Prime Minister Naoto Kan of Japan called the shelling “barbaric” and said he hoped to meet with Mr. Lee in Tokyo next month.
President Lee said the shelling constituted a new level of aggression from North Korea. In the future, he said, South Korea will respond to such attacks in kind.
He replaced the defense minister last week after the military failed to quickly return fire after the Yeonpyeong assault and fired far fewer rounds than the North Koreans.
Mr. Lee said South Korea had showered North Korea with humanitarian aid and striven peacefully to reduce the threat of its nuclear weapons but the North had reacted with unremitting hostility, including the sinking of a South Korean warship in March, which left 46 crewmen dead.
“I cannot help but be infuriated at the brutality of the North Korean regime,” he said. “Our people have clearly come to know that any more endurance and tolerance will cultivate even bigger provocation.”
Two polls of South Koreans, released in the last two days, underscored their dismay over North Korea’s belligerence, unhappiness over their military’s response to the latest incident and disappointment in China’s reaction. But one of the surveys, by the East Asia Institute, also suggested that South Koreans were deeply ambivalent over how to react to North Korea. While nearly 7 in 10 said military aggression called for retaliation, more than half also said they preferred conciliatory policies toward North Korea.
Especially annoying to many South Koreans is China’s failure to criticize North Korea for last week’s artillery barrage, which resulted in the first South Korean civilian deaths from North Korean weaponry since the 1953 armistice that halted the Korean War. Instead, China’s state-run media gave equal prominence to North Korea’s claim that the United States had masterminded the crisis.
“This is disappointing,” Yoon Duk-min, a regional security specialist at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and National Security in Seoul, said of China’s proposal. “The six-party talks are a dialogue to solve the nuclear issue, not the current crisis on the peninsula.”
Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Dongguk University, said South Korea was unlikely to accept China’s offer to host talks because it would seem to reward North Korea’s violence. “Maybe after time passes, but not now,” he said.
The Chinese effort came as the United States, South Korea’s most powerful ally, conducted four-day naval war exercises with South Korean forces in the Yellow Sea in response to the shelling, a move that both China and North Korea have criticized as provocative.
Read more here
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/world/asia/30seoul.html?hp
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