Future of 6-party talks unclear

Chinese experts have differed on what China should do to break the current Korean nuclear deadlock as Vice-Foreign Minister Wu Dawei visited Seoul yesterday.

The visit is "significant" as it aims to prevent the already tense situation from spinning out of control, said Liu Jiangyong, an expert on Northeast Asian security at Tsinghua University.

It also enables China to have a better grasp of each country's position after Pyongyang's nuclear test on May 25.

"It shows that China, as the host of the Six-Party Talks, is trying its best to ease the situation, and working hard to bring the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue back to the track of dialogue and negotiations," he said, referring to a resumption of the six-nation talks.

But Zhang Liangui, a senior researcher on East Asia Studies at the Central Party School, said he doubted Wu's visit would achieve any substantial results.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) had already declared it would permanently withdraw from the Six-Party Talks. If China still insists that the six-nation mechanism is the only option to resolve the Korean nuclear crisis, it will only find itself in a dilemma," he said, adding that any hope about a possible resumption of the Six-Party Talks is "unrealistic".

Zhang said a proposal by ROK President Lee Myung-bak for five-party talks excluding the DPRK as a supplement to the Six-Party Talks might help break the current deadlock.

As Pyongyang has been demanding direct talks with Washington, the five nations can hold talks first to coordinate their positions, before letting the US to talk with the DPRK directly on behalf of the five parties, Zhang said.

But he said such a mechanism would let the US steal the limelight from China as a key player in resolving the nuclear crisis, "so Beijing would not accept the proposal."

"Wu's visit will yield no substantial results, except listening to other parties' positions and reiterating China's own," he said.

(China Daily 07/14/2009 page12)