North Korea has signaled a shift toward a peace offensive after three months of saber-rattling that increased tension on the Korean Peninsula.
On Thursday, China’s state television quoted Choe Ryong-hae, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s envoy to China, as saying that North Korea “is willing to accept China’s suggestion to have talks with all parties” involved in tackling “the problems of the Korean Peninsula.”
A day earlier, Pyongyang proposed to Seoul that the two sides jointly host an event in Gaeseong or Mount Geumgangsan to mark the first inter-Korean summit on June 15, 2000.
Pyongyang’s offers for talks are welcome. But talks for the sake of talks are meaningless. They are meaningful only when they are intended to denuclearize North Korea. Yet Pyongyang has not shown any intention of giving up its nuclear programs.
The North Korean envoy’s remark appears to be intended to repair the North’s frayed ties with its only ally before Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s summits next month with U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Relations between the two supposed allies have soured following the North’s third nuclear test in February and China’s subsequent participation in the United Nations’ sanctions against it.
Beijing has been tightening the screws on Pyongyang since the nuclear test. In China’s view, the North has crossed a red line and hurt its strategic interests by detonating a nuclear device for the third time.
Now, China no longer views North Korea as an asset. Rather it sees the impoverished and nuclear-armed neighbor as a liability. Previously, it put priority on keeping the Pyongyang regime afloat. Now it puts denuclearization before the regime’s survival.
In this regard, Beijing is on the same page with Seoul and Washington on how to handle the North Korean nuclear problem.
The Pyongyang envoy’s statement is clearly meant to curry favor with China, given that Beijing has consistently urged the North to resume the stalled six-party talks on its nuclear programs.
Yet China should not offer any favor just because the North has expressed a willingness to have talks with the participants in the multilateral dialogue.
In an editorial on the North Korean envoy’s visit, the Global Times, a sister paper of the People’s Daily, called on Beijing leaders not to make unnecessary concessions to the North.
Whatever the purpose of the envoy’s visit, says the editorial, China should not retreat from its current stance on North Korea. We are of the same opinion.
