US plays Korean card to perfection

US President Barack Obama urged China on Sunday to exert more pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to resolve the Cheonan issue. The Cheonan was a corvette of the Republic of Korea (ROK) that sank on March 26, 2010.

This ploy of the US is not new. Actually, some US scholars had been repeatedly saying that China was the key factor in dealing with the DPRK. In their articles, using the Cheonan incident as an example, William H. Tobey, senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, have argued that China has "coddled and appeased the DPRK" and it is crucial to handling the Korean Peninsula issue.

The fact remains that no conclusive evidence has been found to implicate the DPRK in the Cheonan incident. An explosion near the Cheonan caused it to break in half and sink. After the remains of the ship were hauled up, an international investigation team was formed to determine the cause of the sinking. On May 20, the multinational panel concluded that the cause was a "non-contact underwater explosion triggered by a torpedo that was fired by a midget submarine of the DPRK".