[Editorial] China's two faces

Latest developments in South Korea-China relations and how the Chinese government responds to the crisis involving North Korean nuclear and missile menace pinpoint China’s self-contradiction.

President Xi Jinping himself is a good case in point. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos early this year, Xi declared that China would be a strong advocate of globalization and free trade. “Pursuing protectionism is locking oneself in a dark room, while wind and rain may be kept outside, so are light and air,” he said.

One need look no further than what the Chinese government has been doing against Korean firms like Lotte and Hyundai Motor to know who is locking itself in a dark room. No one who is witnessing the ruthless, carefully-coordinated Chinese retaliations against South Korea over its decision to station a US missile shield system would recognize China as an advocate of globalization and free trade.

China’s double face comes clearer when you follow closely what it has been doing over the crisis generated by North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations. The Chinese ambassador to the US gave a good example over the last weekend.

First of all, Ambassador Cui Tiankai said that his country does not recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. “We are certainly opposed to the existence of nuclear weapons anywhere on the Korean Peninsula,” he said.

That certainly defies the cold reality, as North Korea -- while China was sitting idle -- has already conducted six nuclear tests, claiming the last one to be a hydrogen bomb.

Cui, speaking in a National Day event in Washington, also expressed clear opposition to the mounting calls for South Korea, Japan and Taiwan to seek their own nuclear armament or deploy US tactical nuclear weapons to counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats. In other words, Cui is arguing that only China and North Korea, which fought side by side during the Korean War, would have nuclear capability with countries around them having to live without any effective means to protect themselves.

It would have been better if Cui had not said that China understood South Korea’s fears. If it did, Beijing would not have slapped so many discriminatory punishments against Korean businesses only because Seoul decided to bring in a missile shield system which has little to do with Chinese missiles.

It may be ironic but China’s vehement opposition to the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System battery and Cui’s sensitive reaction to the talk of South Korea, Japan and Taiwan seeking nuclear armament show that the international community -- especially the US, South Korea and Japan -- could use it as leverage in pushing China to help end the North’s weapons of mass destruction programs.

Now the North’s nuclear and missile provocations are driving one country after another to take action to punish the rogue regime in Pyongyang. Following Mexico and Peru, Kuwait and Spain have decided to expel the North Korean ambassador from their respective capitals.

Reports said that Kuwait will also downgrade Pyongyang’s diplomatic presence to a charge d‘affaires and three diplomats and stop issuing visas to North Koreans and suspend all trade relations and air travel with Pyongyang. The actions will have considerable impact on the North Korean economy, as there are between 2,000 and 2,500 North Korean workers in Kuwait, and thousands more are believed to be working in other Gulf states.

There were also reports that Vietnam, North Korea’s former communist ally, has expelled the chief of the North’s Tanchon Commercial Bank‘s branch in the country under the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council sanctioning the North’s nuclear and missile provocations.

Now Ambassador Cui and other Chinese officials should answer this question: Who -- those sensible members of the international community or China -- is doing the right thing to end what has become a major threat to global security and nonproliferation?