BEIJING (Reuters) - If North Korea launches an attack that threatens the United States then China should stay neutral, but if the United States attacks first and tries to overthrow North Korea's government China will stop them, a Chinese state-run newspaper said on Friday.
President Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric toward North Korea and its leader on Thursday, warning Pyongyang against attacking Guam or U.S. allies after it disclosed plans to fire missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific territory.
China, North Korea's most important ally and trading partner, has reiterated calls for calm during the current crisis. It has expressed frustration with both Pyongyang's repeated nuclear and missile tests and with behavior from South Korea and the United States that it sees as escalating tensions.
The widely read state-run Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party's official People's Daily, wrote in an editorial that Beijing is not able to persuade either Washington or Pyongyang to back down.
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WNU Editor: Global Times is the publication that is used by the Chinese government to transmit its intentions abroad, and their editorials have to be considered as Chinese government policy. The editorial that Reuters is using can be read here .... Reckless game over the Korean Peninsula runs risk of real war (Global Times editorial). The message of the editorial is teh followingr .... China will stay neutral if North Korea launches an attack that threatens the U.S. (I personally doubt that China will stay neutral), and China will intervene if the U.S. attacks first (I can only presume they mean war).
8 comments:
Does this announcement constitute a "payoff" for Kim and his policy? To Kim the answer is probably yes, but now he has to consider the real possibility that it is just words that the Chinese have no intention of following through with. All signs say Kim is taking that gamble, but the firm evidence will be a launch.
The back and forth with China and then this has stripped away all the pretense of Chinese being a neutral party in this and it's designs for the immediate area and it's signature "New Silk Road" policy.
If this is the China line, that's becoming pathetic. All these words are wishes: China doesn't want any change no matter what, the only conflict will be in the Korean peninsula, forget India, forget South China Sea, forget Japan as an allied of South Korea and USA....China is anxious and don't know what to do.
As I've written countless times, the north Korean regime and its nuclear missile program is backed by the Chinese to a) create a buffer state that cannot be invaded by the US and b) potentially nuke SF to reign in the Chinese century.
This article just goes in line with china's thinking, and the world needs to recognise: China is not and will not be our friends. The war for this century has begun and China is willing to allow millions to die to get its way. Better reckon.
About as reasonable a statement as you could expect from China. And logical from their perspective. Whether they hold fast to the abstaining pledge is an open-ender.
FAIR,
ENOUGH,
R
This is just a Chess game for China. The goal is Japan.
Hans,
You're right, but it is only one of many Chinese goals. If the Chinese are successful in their South China Sea activities Japan and South Korea would be isolated and would have to yield at least somewhat to the Chinese.
Jac,
"All these words are wishes: China doesn't want any change no matter what" That's the thing Jac you're probably right, but no one really knows. Xi's campaign against internal enemies has clouded the ability of the West to determined Chinese intent.
"China should stay neutral if North Korea attacks first." In the fog of war, it may be hard to tell just who attacks first. For example, if a person/country knows someone/another country is about to hit them, they may well attack "first" to avoid being seriously hurt or to at least give themselves a fighting chance not to be seriously hurt rather than wait for a crushing blow to land upon them before striking back. In such a case, while the intended victim technically attacked first, the substance of the matter is the intended victim actually did not attack first but was reacting preemptively to an attack that was imminent or they had good reason to believe would be imminent.
Sorry about the length of the post but another example is during a robbery the robber is giving every intention that they are going to shoot people or the responding officer had good reason to believe the robber was going to shoot people he/she shoots first to prevent the robber from shooting people. Technically the officer shot first but in substance it was the robber.
Having agreed to sanctions on their ally even though the sanctions are not air tight China has essentially limited its options. The same applies to Russia. As such, this may be China's way of "saving face." No matter what it can always be claimed that North Korea "attacked first" and there would be some validity to this.
As such, should the war become hot, North Korea will be fighting alone against the US and its allies. With that said North Korea is STILL a VERY FORMIDABLE enemy and will be VERY difficult to defeat, however, it would have been MUCH more difficult if they had the full backing of China and Russia. At present this looks like an absolutely brilliant move on the part of team Trump to get China and Russia to support us or, at the very least, not oppose against North Korea.
This almost seems to good to be true. I would like to know what we gave up to procure such support or at least lack of opposition from these powers.
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