Asia-Pacific

China urges not to 'pour oil on flames'

By Wu Jiao, Qin Jize and Cheng Guangjin (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-12-02 06:48

China urges all sides not to 'pour oil on flames' as more drills planned

BEIJING - China has called on all sides to exercise calm and restraint and not "pour oil on the flames" as tensions continue on the Korean Peninsula.

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Beijing does not seek to "protect any side" in the current crisis and calls on all parties to avoid acts that risk further inflaming heightened tensions, Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said on Wednesday.

Attending a forum held in the Foreign Ministry compound, Yang told his audience of diplomats and academics that Beijing is highly concerned about the current situation in the region.

Calm and restraint are required and talks are now needed to cool the situation, Yang said.

Nothing should be done to inflame matters, and China will handle the issue as a responsible major power, he added.

China has been engaged in a flurry of diplomacy after the two Koreas exchanged fire last week in waters off the divided peninsula near a disputed maritime border.

It has proposed to hold an emergency consultation among the heads of delegations to the Six-Party Talks, in Beijing, in early December.

Meanwhile, top legislator Wu Bangguo on Wednesday met with Choe Thae-bok, secretary of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) Workers' Party Central Committee and chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly.

Choe's five-day trip to China is the first such visit by a high-level DPRK official since it unveiled a new uranium enrichment facility and conducted the Nov 23 artillery attack.

Meanwhile, a four-day joint naval drill between the US and the Republic of Korea (ROK) concluded on Wednesday but Seoul will hold another joint naval exercise with Washington in the Yellow Sea before the end of the year.

"The situation has become more complicated," said Huang Youfu, director of the Institute of Korean Studies at Minzu University of China. "It's not easy for China to restart the talks."

"If military confrontation continues, conflicts are unavoidable. But military threats never work for the DPRK," said Huang.

Huang noted that China's sway over the DPRK is not as much as the international community presumes.

"We never intervene into DPRK's internal affairs," Huang said.

Gong Yuzhen, a military expert and professor at Peking University, said the US, the ROK and Japan's refusal to come back to the Six-Party Talks makes the situation more difficult. "China has much to do to persuade the parties involved (to restart talks)," said Gong.