WEN Jiabao has said China “opposes any threat of force” on the Korean Peninsula and is committed to maintaining peace in the wake of North Korea’s deadly artillery attack.
The statement comes as South Korea beefs up its military presence on five islands bordering the North.
“The current situation we are facing is severe and complicated,” the Chinese Premier was quoted as saying during a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in reports carried in state-run Chinese news agencies today.
“All parties concerned should maintain an utmost restraint. The international community should do more to ease the ongoing tension.”
The rhetoric falls short of the level of involvement the rest of the world wants to see from Beijing.
The Chinese government is under pressure to help implement sanctions against North Korea, reduce its economic assistance to the rogue state and convince it to stop its attacks on the South and its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal.
US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said high-level talks between China and the US would probably occur within the next few days and the American government expected Beijing to use its influence to restrain its ally.
“China does have influence with North Korea and we hope and expect that they use that influence first to reduce tensions that have arisen as a result of North Korean provocations” and encourage the North to take affirmative steps to denuclearise, he said.
CNN reported yesterday that Barack Obama was expected to hold phone discussions with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in the next few days.
The crisis erupted on Tuesday when the North launched an artillery barrage on the South Korean-controlled Yeonpyeong Island as a South Korean naval drill was taking place in nearby waters.
Residents clambered into shelters during the hour-long attack, which damaged houses and a military base and left two South Korean marines dead and two civilians dead.
South Korea’s presidential palace announced today it would will strengthen its military presence.
The government “has decided to sharply increase military forces, including ground troops, on the five islands in the Yellow Sea and allocate more of its budget toward dealing with North Korea’s asymmetrical threats,” said senior public affairs secretary Hong Sang-Pyo.
He said the military – which has faced media criticism for an allegedly weak response to Tuesday’s shelling — would also change its rules of engagement.
Mr Hong described existing rules as “rather passive” and focused on stopping a conflict escalating. The new rules would “change the paradigm”, Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying without elaborating.
Nations including Australia, the US and Japan have urged China to help curb Pyongyang’s attacks on the South as a leading Korea scholar warned of the risk of a catastrophic war.
Australia’s National Security Committee met yesterday on the crisis and Julia Gillard said the government was deeply concerned by the attack on an ally.
The US and South Korea will stage joint war games from Sunday in the Yellow Sea off the Korean Peninsula and will involve the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS George Washington.
The drills, which the US said were planned before this week’s attacks, are a more measured response than the retaliatory attack Seoul initially threatened, but given South Korean naval exercises were the trigger for the North’s barrage, the exercises will ensure tension persists on the Korean Peninsula.
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