U.S., DPRK hold secret talks in Malaysia
China has sent its vice-foreign minister as an envoy to visit DPRK, the first visit to the country by a high-ranking Chinese official since February, as tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear agenda show no signs of cooling down.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said Tuesday that Liu led a Chinese delegation to the third meeting of the Sino-DPRK border joint committee in Pyongyang. Liu arrived in Pyongyang on Monday.
Lü Chao, a research fellow at the Institute of China's Borderland History and Geography Studies of the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times that this kind of engagement between the two countries is normal, because the China-DPRK border is riverine, and with changes in weather and the hydrologic environment, the border and some islands change as well.
"Therefore, both sides need regular meetings to deal with these changes, and this is the main goal," Lü said. "But due to the timing, both sides will take this meeting as an opportunity to talk about the Korean Peninsula crisis."
"The timing is sensitive because first, the UN Security Council is discussing possible additional sanctions against DPRK after its nuclear tests in September; second, the U.S. presidential election; and third, South Korean president Park Geun-hye faces domestic challenges," Wang Junsheng, a researcher on East Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday.
China encourages U.S.-DPRK talks
A few days before Liu's visit, two high-ranking DPRK officials held a secret meeting with former U.S. officials on Friday and Saturday in Malaysia, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported on Sunday.
JoongAng reported that the talks were attended by DPRK's Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol, DPRK's Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jang Il-hun, and former U.S. officials Robert Gallucci, who was part of a U.S. team in 1994 that negotiated a landmark deal with Pyongyang to stop its nuclear program in exchange for economic assistance, Joseph DeTrani, a former deputy U.S. envoy to the six-party talks on DPRK's weapons program, and Leon Sigal, director of the Northeast Asia Cooperative Security Project at the Social Science Research Council.
Lü said China always encourages the U.S. and DPRK to hold bilateral talks, whether secret or not, as "they are the main parties involved in the crisis, and as long as they want to talk and exchange ideas, military conflicts could be avoided."
"This meeting also showed that some U.S. think tanks want to influence the next U.S. president's foreign policy, since the presidential election is close and Barack Obama's isolation policy on DPRK has been unsuccessful in the past few years," Wang added.
The U.S. Department of State's official website announced on Monday that Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Beijing on October 29 to meet with Executive Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui for the third interim Strategic Security Dialogue, continuing discussions between the two sides on strategic security issues, including DPRK and maritime issues.
Japan mulls sanctions for firms
Kyodo News Agency reported on Tuesday that the Japanese government is considering blacklisting companies in China and other countries for engaging in trade with DPRK.
In order to contain DPRK's ballistic missile and nuclear programs, Japan hopes to take a "more efficient approach to cutting off the country's financial resources by targeting its biggest gateways of foreign income, a government official said Monday," Kyodo reported.
"The Japanese government's plan to impose unilateral sanctions on Chinese companies would be totally illegal and provocative, as it violates UN resolutions and international law, and China will surely oppose Japan on this," Wang said.
Lü stressed that "if Japan has any problem with Chinese companies, they should talk to the Chinese government, otherwise unilateral sanctions against Chinese companies might indirectly hurt Japanese companies in China."
