Dennis Rodman serenades ‘friend for life’ Kim Jong-un; apologizes for obscenity-laced interview

2014-01-10

By Martin Sieff

ormer U.S. basketball superstar Dennis Rodman not only led other NBA players in a special exhibition game in North Korea on Jan. 8, to celebrate the birthday of his “friend for life” Kim Jong-un, he also sang happy birthday to the repressive dictator.

Kim is believed to have turned 31 and is celebrating the event as reports circulate that his aunt Kim Kyong-hui, 68, has committed suicide or died of a heart attack following the execution last month of her husband Jang Sung-taek on the young leader’s orders.

Long notorious for his cross-dressing and other outrageous antics, Rodman made clear he cared nothing for such reports or for Kim Jong-un’s well-documented record of mass executions, and enslavement of scores of thousands of his own citizens ingulag-style concentration camps.

Rodman, 52, who played on five National Basketball Association championship teams in the 1990s, became loudly abusive when interviewed on CNN on Jan. 7 about his fourth visit within a year to reclusive North Korea, the most closed society on the planet.

Interviewed from Pyongyang, he defended Kim Jong-un, telling the network’s Chris Cuomo, “I love my friend. This is my friend.”

In the past, Rodman had boasted that he would raise the issue of Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American and U.S. citizen who has been jailed in North Korea.

Rodman belligerent during interview

Rodman lost his temper with Cuomo and became defensive and abusive when asked if he would raise Bae’s plight during his visit.

“Kenneth Bae did one thing. ... If you understand what Kenneth Bae did. Do you understand what he did in this country? No, no, no, you tell me, you tell me. Why is he held captive here in this country, why? ... I would love to speak on this,” he claimed in increasingly confused comments.

Bae, a father of three, was arrested in November 2012 and sentenced last May to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea on charges of “hostile acts” and accusations that he tried to topple the government.

Bae’s sister, Terry Chung, later told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that the family was “shocked and just outraged” by Rodman’s comments.

Referring to the team of retired basketball players he had recruited to play in the Pyongyang game, Rodman said, “You know, you’ve got 10 guys here, 10 guys here, they’ve left their families, they’ve left their damn families, to help this country, as in a sports venture. That’s 10 guys, all these guys here, do anyone understand that? Christmas, New Year’s. ... “I don’t give a rat’s ass what the hell you think. I’m saying to you, look at these guys here, look at them ... they dared to do one thing, they came here.”

Before departing from Beijing on the last leg of his flight, Rodman informed reporters at the airport, while holding a bottle of Carlsberg beer, that he would not discuss North Korea’s appalling human rights record with his host. Instead, he defended Kim Jong-un as a “good guy” and a “friend,” South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported on Jan. 8.

Two days after the CNN interview, Rodman released a statement apologizing to Bae’s family and Cuomo as well as Rodman’s teammates and management for the comments he made in the interview, blaming alcohol and stress.

“I want to apologize. … I take full responsibility for my actions. It had been a very stressful day. Some of my teammates were leaving because of pressure from their families and business associates. My dreams of basketball diplomacy was quickly falling apart. I had been drinking. It’s not an excuse but by the time the interview happened I was upset. I was overwhelmed. It’s not an excuse, it’s just the truth,” he said in the statement.

Rodman, widely regarded as a colorful has-been in his native United States, is increasing the frequency of his visits to Kim. The latest trip follows one in December to train North Korean basketball players.

“People always say that North Korea is like a really communist country, that people are not allowed to go there. I just know the fact that, you know, to me he’s a nice guy, to me. Nice guy, you know. Whatever he does political-wise, that’s not my job,” theChosun Ilbo quoted him as saying.

Kim’s actions departure from father’s rule

Kim has been a spectacular and highly unpredictable departure from the carefully shielded and orchestrated formal reverence required by his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim Il-sung during the 66 years they ruled North Korea from September 1945 to December 2011. But even by his standards of alternating jovial extroversion and bonhomie with ferocious public executions, his public presentation of his friendship with Rodman has been unprecedented, and some experts believe it may be damaging his public standing.

“The behavior of young North Korean leader has already raised many eyebrows. It suffices to mention his marriage to Ri Sol-ju, a girl with a bohemian past, or his strange affection for Dennis Rodman, an eccentric athlete who did not bother to take off his cap in front of the Leader,” Tatiana Gabroussenko, professor of North Korean studies at Korea University, pointed out in an article in Asia Times Online in December.

Ralph Winnie, vice president of the Eurasian Business Coalition, told the Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF] that Kim appeared to have a rational motive in part for his public hosting and adulation of Rodman.

“He has used Rodman to try and showcase the new tourism and ski resorts he has built. Apparently he believes North Korea can generate needed hard currency from attracting foreign visitors to these outlets though the amount of revenue he would raise appears to be minimal at best,” Winnie said. “But there seems no doubt that his affection for Rodman and pleasure in his company is genuine.”

Media reported Rodman went skiing in North Korea the day after the exhibition game. One former NBA player who participated in the exhibition, Charles Smith, left North Korea after blaming Rodman for tainting efforts by the others to bring diplomacy to the country.

Rodman paid his first visit to North Korea last February when Kim was on the receiving end of unprecedented international isolation after carrying out the country’s third underground nuclear test in defiance of United Nations Security Council Resolutions.

During that visit, Rodman, began what CNN described as “an unlikely friendship” with Kim when the athlete led a group of Harlem Globetrotters for an exhibition basketball game attended by Kim.

The U.S. government has distanced itself from Rodman’s visit. CNN reported that White House spokesman Jay Carney described Rodman as taking a private trip. The Obama administration has called for Bae’s release in the past “and our views about Kenneth Bae have not changed,” Carney said.

After Kim ordered his uncle, veteran statesman Jang Sung-taek, executed, international criticism caused Paddy Power, the online betting company that had backed Rodman’s exhibition trip, to pull out of the project.

Pyongyang seeks continued economic relations with Beijing

2014-01-17

Analysis by Martin Sieff

South Korea analysts say North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un plans to maintain cordial economic ties with China even after publicly executing China’s main ally and friend in Pyongyang for 30 years, his uncle Jang Sung-taek.

Jang was shown on national television being humiliated and hauled out of a ruling Politburo Dec. 12 meeting before beingexecuted.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service says Kim is confident he has come up with a strategy that will ensure China continues its support of his country.

“North Korea is cozying up to China after executing former eminence grise [Jang], who had close ties with Beijing,” South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported. The newspaper often breaks stories from the South Korea’s intelligence community.

The newspaper said the Chinese media were continuing to report favorably on continued relations with North Korea. Chinese newspapers covered North Korean participation in an exhibition in China’s Hubei Province, Chosun Ilbo reported. “The exhibition features traditional crafts, liquor, stamps, paintings and other products from China, North Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam,” the newspaper said.

Asian newspapers also have reported that Kim recognized the importance of reassuring China about continued economic relations after the execution of his uncle. The Hong Kong weekly newspaper Yazhou Zhoukan reported that Pyongyang sought Beijing’s understanding after Jang’s execution and asked to discuss a visit by Kim. So far, the government of President Xi Jinping has held Kim at arm’s length.

Vice Marshal Choe Ryong-hae, who traveled to China in May, is the highest-ranking North Korean envoy to visit China in the two years Kim has held power.

The Yazhou Zhoukan report confirmed that the choice of Choe as “point” envoy to Beijing was meant to inform the Chinese that Choe would replace Jang as the key liaison between the countries. But the paper said Chinese leaders did not draw this conclusion from Choe’s visit at the time.

In the short term, Kim has succeeded in persuading China to continue business-as-usual relations. South Korean newspapers report that China continues to crack down on North Korean defectors attempting to escape their country across its northern border to Chinese Manchuria across the Yalu River, just as Pyongyang wants.

Kim takes control

Kim’s behavior following Jang’s execution indicated that the leader was determined to maintain his country’s crucial relationship with China, but also that he had feared Jang’s long control of Pyongyang’s bilateral ties gave him too much power, Ralph Winnie, chief of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition, told Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF].

“It is all about control,” Winnie said. “Jang had enjoyed full control of the relationship with China for decades. Kim Jong-il [Kim Jong-un’s father and predecessor, who died in December 2011] was comfortable with this arrangement, but Kim Jong-un was not. He was determined to rule on his own terms. Taking control of the China relationship into his own hands will send that message to the Chinese. It sends the same message to his own people.”

However, taking control of the relationship does not mean that Kim wants to terminate it or endanger it, Winnie said.

“Kim Jong-un certainly wants to retain the support of the Chinese leadership,” he told APDF. “But he also is determined to show them who really runs the show in North Korea. And he wants to increase his leverage with the Chinese.”

“Removing the people they have always relied upon to implement cooperation and keep track of internal developments in the North will certainly increase the uncertainty of the Chinese government in its dealings with Pyongyang,” Winnie said.

At China’s foreign ministry briefing on Dec. 13, authorities described the execution of Jang as purely internal affairs for Pyongyang. Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei reiterated the standard line that as a good neighbor, China only wants to have stability in North Korea and see its people living in happiness.

Hong also expressed the standard sentiment that bilateral economic relations remained mutually beneficial and that China looked forward to expanding them.

Economic projects with China could be in jeopardy

Relations with China could be endangered if Kim expands his purge to topple or execute hundreds of officials who played key roles in projects with China that Jang oversaw as part of his economic empire. The Chosun Ilbo reported this could happen.

“The sharply worded article in North Korea’s state media that accused him [Jang] of treason also said he personally profited from deals with outside countries in the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone. It also accused him of being bribed by enemies,” the article said.

Daniel Pinkston, deputy director for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, told the Chosun Ilbo there is a real danger that Jang’s execution could hurt the North Korean economy by disrupting many of the vital cooperation projects with China.

“The next person to come in to run these operations that Jang had been running, I think will be under orders to renegotiate the contracts and renegotiate the prices, but of course the Chinese businessmen on the other side will want to fulfill the contracts they’ve already signed, so this will damage the poor reputation that North Korea already has, and it will have a negative impact on their ability to conduct international business,” he told the newspaper.

“China has long provided an economic aid to North Korea as well as much of the country’s food aid. Exports from China to North Korea totaled $590 million last year,” the Chosun Ilbo said.

China is ‘embarrassed and disgusted’

Veteran Asian affairs analyst Pepe Escobar agreed with Winnie’s assessment that Kim might well try and use the purge of his uncle to extort more favorable treatment and terms of cooperation from China.

“Jang was close to Beijing – and he wanted a lot of Chinese investment,” Escobar wrote in Asia Times Online. “No one knows how this purge will affect business. Those subscribing to the view of North Korea as a Mob operation will see the purge as a tactic to raise the price for North Korean ‘cooperation’ with the Chinese.”

“That’s not so far-fetched. Pyongyang does depend on China, but it will never allow itself to become a mere puppet,” he said.

China, U.S. seek peaceful resolution in East China Sea

2014-02-27

Analysis by Martin Sieff

Continuing efforts to find common ground highlighted by the California summit last summer involving the leaders of China and the United States, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno met with People’s Liberation Army Chief of the General Staff Gen. Fang Fenghui in Beijing.

At the end of his two-day visit that began Feb. 22, Odierno said China and the U.S. would establish regular high-level dialogue between their armies to promote better understanding and avoid possible conflict, South China Morning Post reported.

“We want to expand our co-operation at a very high level, and then manage our differences constructively,” Odierno said.

Ralph Winnie, director of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition told the Asia Pacific Defense Forum that the Odierno-Fang talks represented the norm in U.S.-China strategic relations.

“Both sides want to adhere to the road map created by presidents Xi [Jinping] and [Barack] Obama at their California summit last June,” he said. “The maintenance of good and stable ties is essential for the prosperity and future of both countries.”

The United States in recent months has worked to strengthen its constructive relationship with China’s People’s Liberation Army [PLA] leadership.

However, relations between China and Japan, which is the oldest and closest ally of the U.S. in Northeast Asia, have deteriorated sharply in recent months, especially over the disputed sovereignty of the Senkaku [known as Diaoyu in China] islands in the East China Sea.

Mission Action 2013

A U.S. Navy analyst warned that a major Chinese combined operations military exercise called Mission Action 2013 appeared to have as its goal the practiced destruction of all Japanese military forces in the East China Sea.

Capt. James Fanell warned that a PLA exercise last year appeared to be a preparation for a “short sharp war” against Japan in the East China Sea aimed at seizing the Senkaku Islands.

“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross-military region enterprise,” the deputy chief of staff intelligence and information operations for the U.S. Pacific Fleet [PACFLEET] told the West 2014 conference in San Diego, Calif. The conference was organized by the U.S. Naval Institute, an independent professional association founded in 1873.

Fanell said “that the massive Mission Action 2013 exercise between all three branches of the PLA last year was aimed at preparing for a war to defeat Japan’s Self Defense Forces in a conflict in the East China Sea,” The Diplomat magazine reported on Feb. 19.

“We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross military region enterprise — Mission Action 2013,” U.S. Naval Institute News [USNI] quoted Fanell. “[U.S. analysts] concluded that the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected a seizure of the Senkakus or even a southern Ryukyu [islands] — as some of their academics say.”

Fanell said China was expanding training for its navy beyond the “long-standing task to restore Taiwan to the mainland.”

Unresolved territorial disputes plague region

Fanell also warned about growing tensions and risks of conflict throughout the East and South China seas, which are the locations for a series of unresolved territorial disputes between China and several of its neighbors including Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

“Tensions in the South and East China Seas have deteriorated with the Chinese Coast Guard playing the role of antagonist, harassing China’s neighbors while PLA Navy ships, their protectors, [make] port calls throughout the region promising friendship and cooperation,” Fanell told USNI.

“Protection of maritime rights is a Chinese euphemism for coerced seizure of coastal rights of China’s neighbor,” he said.

“Fanell also predicted China, which declared an air defense zone last year in the East China Sea where it is locked in a territorial dispute with Japan over a string of small islands, would declare another air defense zone by the end of 2015, this time in the South China Sea,” Reuters news agency reported.

“There is growing concern that China’s pattern of behavior in the South China Sea reflects an incremental effort by China to assert control of the area contained in the so-called 9-dash line despite the objections of its neighbors, and despite the lack of any explanation or apparent basis under international law,” Fanell said.

China challenges officer’s statements

Chinese analysts reacted in a matter-of-fact way to Fanell’s warnings.

Senior Col. Li Jie of the PLA Navy’s Military Academy told the South China Morning Post that Fanell’s comments “about China’s intention to declare another air defense identification zone [ADIZ] were meant to deter China from making such a move.”

Li told the South China Morning Post that this statement was “a typical U.S. diplomatic strategy.”

“Washington is very concerned about the tension developing in the South China Sea, which will relate to its strategic interests,” he said. “The establishment of another ADIZ over the South China Sea is necessary for China's long-term national interest.”

Ukraine crisis has China walking line between Russia and U.S.

2014-03-12

Analysis by Martin Sieff

The Ukraine crisis is putting China on the horns of a dilemma between Russia on one side and the United States and Western Europe on the other.

“The Chinese views of this crisis are extremely complex,” Charles W. Freeman, Jr., co-chairman of the U.S. China Policy Foundation, told Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF] in an interview. “I think the Chinese are probably counselling restraint in Moscow.”

On March 2, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang “urged all sides involved in the Ukraine situation to comply with international law and seek a political solution to their disputes through dialogue and negotiations.

“China is deeply concerned with the current Ukraine situation,” Qin told reporters. He had been asked to state China’s position after the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, authorized President Vladimir Putin to use military force if he judged it necessary to protect Russian citizens and soldiers in Ukrainian territory.

Qin condemned the use of violence by all parties in the Ukraine crisis. China’s state news agency Xinhua reported Qin said China had advised all sides in Ukraine to resolve their conflicts peacefully in accordance with the country’s law, safeguard the legitimate rights of the Ukrainian people and reestablish social order as quickly as possible.

Qin emphasized that China was basing its position on the Ukrainian issue on the principle of non-interference in any country’s internal affairs. Beijing continued to respect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, Xinhua reported.

Continuing good relations and steadily expanding trade with both the 27-nation European Union and the United States are central to President Xi Jinping’s strategy.

“The political legitimacy of all modern Chinese governments rests on their continuing ability to provide economic growth and rising standards of living to their people,” Ralph Winnie, head of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition, told APDF.

China seeks to maintain relations with U.S., Russia

China needs the continued friendship of the United States. However, China also has strong connections with and sympathies for Russia.

Russia has been China’s main strategic ally for almost 13 years since the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was launched in its completed form at the Shanghai summit on June 15, 2001.

China also shares Russia’s concern that the United States and the EU might use the excuse of pro-democracy protests or full-scale revolutions to topple friendly neighboring governments or even eventually decentralize their own countries.

“On the one hand, the Chinese look at Ukraine and draw a comparison with Taiwan,” sympathizing with Russia’s desire to at least increase its influence on a major territory it ruled for centuries,” Freeman said.

“The Chinese also draw parallels between Crimea’s status in Ukraine and Tibet’s continuing inclusion their own country,” he said. “China is not going to champion the principle of self-determination in any context.”

Beijing has made clear that it wants to retain good relations with the new, pro-Western coalition government of Ukraine in Kiev, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying announced in Beijing on March 4. China wanted to maintain and expand its existing strategic partnership with Ukraine on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, Xinhua reported.

Hua told a daily press briefing that the Beijing government continues to monitor events unfolding in Ukraine and expressed hope that conditions are improving.

China takes cautious public stance

“We hope that the political process of resolving the crisis in Ukraine will continue to move ahead within the framework of the law,” Hua said.

Italian analyst Francesco Sisci, writing in Asia Times Online on March 5 argued that behind their careful, cautious public statements, Chinese leaders had been shocked by the toppling of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych by public protests and that they fundamentally remained on the side of Russia in the crisis.

“China has been shocked by developments in Ukraine, and it has sided with Russia, fearful that similar revolutions could threaten Beijing and also that a defeat in Ukraine could irritate Russia,” wrote Sisci, who is a columnist for the Italian daily newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

While China wanted to avoid angering the United States and the European Union in the crisis, it did not want to alienate Russia, its main strategic ally, Sisci wrote.

“For Beijing, distancing itself from Moscow at this moment would also arouse suspicions that China may be interested in weakening Russia’s hand in general, something that could help China in Central Asia and Siberia, where its economic might is growing and Moscow is scared for it,” he wrote.

Freeman agreed that China continues to regard Russia as a partner in maintaining security across Eurasia, and that this attitude also factored into China’s position on the crisis.

China’s response to U.S. focus on Asia

“The Chinese have responded to the Obama administration’s ‘[rebalance] to Asia’ by strengthening their ties with Russia in order to create a compensating strategic depth for themselves in Eurasia,” he told APDF.

A Xinhua commentary, reprinted in the state-published China Daily on March 5, stated, “With the EU having proved unable to broker peace in Ukraine, the West should now show more appreciation for what Russia can do to solve the crisis. Given Russia's historical and cultural influence in the country, the Kremlin is the piece that cannot be missing in this political puzzle.”

“The United States and European countries must work with, not against, Russia to tackle the crisis,” it concluded

North Korea missile tests signal ‘business as usual’

2014-03-04

Analysis by Martin Sieff

The North Korean military test-fired four projectiles a day after the historic reunion of families separated for more than 60 years since the Korean War, signaling a return to business as usual for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“The North fired four projectiles which we presume were short-range ballistic missilesfrom Kitdaeryong in Anbyon, Kangwon Province in a northeasterly direction into the sea,” a South Korean Defense Ministry official in Seoul told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper in comments reported on Feb. 28. “We presume the missiles to have a range of more than 200 kilometers [120 miles].”

North Korea fired two more missiles off its eastern coast four days later. South Korean officials said those missiles had a longer range – 500 kilometers [300 miles]. Defense ministry officials said they are on high alert and are monitoring the launches. They called on North Korea to stop testing missiles.

The launches were intentional and “a kind of provocation,” South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency. South Korean officials think the missiles were Scud-type, Spokesman Kim said. Pyongyang launched the missiles in response to the regular United States-South Korean joint military exercises that began on Feb. 24, he said according to Yonhap.

More than 12,500 U.S. troops participated in the exercises which include Key Resolve, a computer-based simulation, and Foal Eagle, which involves air, ground and naval drills.

North Korea had demanded that the regular joint exercises be cancelled, “claiming that they are a rehearsal for a war against it,” Yonhap said. North Korea test fired the missiles in Kitdaeryong, a mountainous area about 40 kilometers [24 miles] south of Wonsan where trucks carrying missiles and launchers are easily concealed, the Chosun Ilbo said.

South Korea, Japan take measured response

South Korean President Park Geun-hye took a measured response to the latest incident.

“The government and military authorities believe Pyongyang has no intention of seriously dampening an ongoing cross-border detente given that the missiles had a short range and were not fired toward the South,” the Chosun Ilbo said.

The Japanese government was equally steady in its reaction. There would be no increase in the alert levels of the country’s defense forces, senior spokesman Yoshihide Suga said.

“At this point in time, we are not thinking that this has affected our country’s security or that an emergency has happened,” he said in comments carried by the BBC.

The test-firings marked “the North’s first firing of a Scud missile since 2009,” South Korean spokesman Kim said. This “poses a threat to South Korea as the whole Korean Peninsula is in range,” he said.

Kim Jong-un is adhering to the pattern of carefully calibrated defiance that had characterized the weapons tests of his father and predecessor, Kim Jong-il, Ralph Winnie told Asia Pacific Defense Forum. Winnie is vice president of the Eurasian Business Coalition.

“There is a rationality behind such moves by Pyongyang,” he said. “North Korea fears being ignored and dismissed. There has long been a widespread sense that they can only gain the leverage they believe they need in diplomatic negotiations and seeking economic concessions if they are seen as developing their own weapons programs. They are determined to maintain the sense in the United States and among their neighbors that they cannot be ignored.”

North Korea has 3 types of Scud missiles

North Korea “has three types of Scud missiles – the Scud B with a range of 300 kilometers [180 miles], the Scud C with a range of 500 kilometers [300 miles] and the Scud D with a range of 700 kilometers [420 miles],” Yonhap news agency reports.

North Korea’s missile launches are seen as response to the start of the annual joint exercises, but they were not the only responses.

On Feb. 24, “the first day of the drills, North Korea briefly violated the tense western sea border three times, following [the previous] week’s firing of what military sources believed to be a new type of rocket larger than 300mm-caliber from a multiple rocket launcher,” the South Korean news agency said.

In fact, North Korea’s series of responses to the latest joint exercises appeared carefully calibrated to express their usual anger, but without risking any further escalation.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim noted that there had been no indications of any other missile launches or any other form of provocation against South Korea, Yonhap said.

The “North has banned its fishing boats from operating in the East and Yellow Sea, and put its troops in the border region on ‘special alert,’” other South Korean government officials told Yonhap.

The timing of the missile launches suggested that North Korea wanted to signal it had not gone soft in its reaction to the regular joint U.S.-South Korean exercises, but that it did not want to jeopardize the cautiously improved relations indicated by its approval of the families reunion, the first set of meetings of the kind to have been held in four years. The test missiles were only fired after the reunion meetings were completed.

Ukraine crisis: China, India tread carefully

2014-03-21

Analysis by Martin Sieff

The crisis in Ukraine has provoked a complex spectrum of reactions across Asia. India, which has strong and growing defense ties, has been supportive of Russia. China, Russia’s partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has had a more complicated position.

China sat on the fence when the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York City deadlocked on a draft resolution on the crisis on March 15.

“China does not agree to a move of confrontation,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang stated after the vote, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Russia used its veto power as one of the five UN Security Council Permanent Members to block the draft resolution, drawn up by the United States and backed by Western countries. That resolution stated the March 16 referendum organized by Russia on the status of the Crimea “can have no validity” and urged nations and international organizations not to recognize it.

“The vote on the draft resolution by the Security Council at this juncture will only result in confrontation and further complicate the situation, which is not in conformity with the common interests of both the people of Ukraine and those of the international community,” Qin said.

China always respected the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, Qin said. This remains the long-standing fundamental foreign policy principle of the Beijing government.

“In the current situation, we call on all sides to remain calm and exercise restraint to avoid further escalation of the tensions,” Qin said.

“China holds an objective and fair position on the Ukraine issue,” Liu Jieyi, Chinese permanent representative to the UN, told the Security Council, according to Xinhua.

India: Russia has ‘legitimate interests’ in Ukraine

In contrast to China’s balancing act, the government of India has not hesitated to support Russia’s takeover of the Crimea.

“India believes Russia has ‘legitimate interests’ in Ukraine – a position that is opposed to the stand of the west on the latest crisis. Interestingly, China has opposed Russia’s intervention in Crimea, deviating from a long-standing support to Moscow in the UN Security Council,” The Times of India reported on March 8.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement March 13 expressing concern “at the subsequent escalation of tension, especially in view of the presence of more than 5,000 Indian nationals, including about 4,000 students, in different parts of Ukraine.”

“There are legitimate Russian and other interests involved and we hope they are discussed and resolved,” National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon told The Times of India.

China ‘triangulation’ seeks to avoid clash with U.S.

China’s careful approach to the crisis was determined by its continuing close trade and investment relationship with the United States, Ralph Winnie, director of the China program at the Eurasian Business Coalition, told Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF].

“President Xi [Jinping]’s government, like those that preceded it over the past 35 years, draws its ultimate legitimacy from its continued success in maintaining and raising China’s standard of living. Therefore continued stable global conditions for economic growth, the attraction of international investment and continued stable ties with the United States remain its abiding priority,” he said.

“The Chinese therefore genuinely want to see threatening international crises quickly and peacefully resolved and they also want to avoid any break with Russia just as they are determined to maintain good relations with the United States,” he told APDF.

This Chinese “triangulation” position to avoid any clash with Washington while avoiding any open break with Moscow is recognized across Asia.

Writing in the Malaysian newspaper The Star on March 16, Bunn Nagara, a senior fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies [ISIS] Malaysia argued that it even overrode comparisons with China’s domestic national security concerns.

“Lopsided understanding has produced naïve hopes that China would weigh in on the US/EU side against Russia on the UN Security Council. The assumption is that Beijing would not want to see a part of China break away like Crimea,” Nagara wrote.

Beijing’s moderation revealed that “China’s ethos has changed,” analyst Rowan Callick wrote in The Australian on March 13.

“To a remarkably wide-ranging degree, China … is engaged economically, and even socially, with the world at large, through trade, study, mutual investment and cultural curiosity,” he wrote.

Callick identified the central dilemma for China in determining its position on Crimea and the Ukraine.

“The Ukraine move presents difficulties for Beijing, of course, because China has long and strenuously opposed all interventions in the domestic affairs of other countries, and an invasion would certainly appear to come into that category,” he wrote.

China is also concerned that if Russia feels emboldened by its takeover of Crimea, it might try to regain its old power and standing in the energy-rich former Soviet republics of Central Asia at Beijing’s expense, Callick warned.

“The largely landlocked ‘stans’ of Central Asia, most of which used to be Russian satellites, most recently via the Soviet Union, are mostly also heavily dependent on energy production.”

“Will the Crimea grab enhance the value of their output, or perhaps tempt Moscow to tighten its influence over them, in competition with Beijing?” he asked. “And might the unfolding of events in Ukraine inspire breakaway and nationalist elements in the ‘stans’ too, with Russia perhaps more willing to consider requests to answer pleas for help? There must be concerns.”

North Korea could carry out next nuclear test by April

North Korea is expanding its underground facilities at Punggye-ri in its remote northeast and could be preparing for a fourth underground nuclear test within four to six weeks, the 38 North blog on North Korea reports.

“Recent commercial satellite imagery [conducted in February] indicates a significant acceleration in excavation activity at the West Portal area since last viewed in early December 2013. The size of the pile of spoil excavated from a new tunnel appears to have doubled in a period of a little over a month,” analyst Jack Liu writes. The 38 North blog is based at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C.

“Once a decision is made in Pyongyang, indicators visible in satellite imagery of an impending nuclear test can appear four to six weeks prior to the test, both near the tunnel entrance and in other areas of the site,” he warned.

While “there is no evidence that points to Pyongyang’s preparation for another nuclear test, if a decision were made tomorrow, it could conduct a blast probably by late March or April,” said Joel Wit, a former United States Department of State official and editor of the blog, according to South Korea’s Arirang TV News.

Liu cautioned that until such indicators are detected, “based on the most recent satellite imagery, there are no signs that a test is in preparation. If these estimates are correct, they represent a significant acceleration of North Korean efforts since the beginning of 2014 to complete excavation of this new tunnel.

“In addition to the tunnel under excavation at the West Portal area, North Korea appears to have two completed tunnels at the South Portal area that could be used for a nuclear test if Pyongyang decided to conduct one,” Liu wrote. “When last viewed in early December 2013 there were no signs of test preparations, although it is likely a test could be prepared in one to two months once the order is given by Pyongyang.”

South Korean official discusses potential nuclear test

Pyongyang “appears ready to conduct its fourth nuclear test, but no imminent signs have been detected at its main site on its northeastern tip,” South Korea Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin told parliament in Seoul on Feb. 10, the official Yonhap news agency reported.

“During a parliamentary interpellation session, Kim Kwan-jin said Pyongyang has prepared for an underground nuclear test at the Punggye-ri site, which was used for the third atomic test a year ago, and has taken ‘initial steps’ for a missile launch at its northwest test site in Tongchang-ri,” the Yonhap report said.

“These things [the nuclear test and the missile launch] depend on the decision by the North Korean leadership. As seen in the past, the long-range missile test and the nuclear test are connected to each other,” Kim said according to the Yonhap report. “We are closely watching [the North Korean military] to prepare against any provocations.”

North Korea is likely to try to carry out another type of provocation, most likely another attempted test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile [ICBM], to trigger international protests or sanctions, analyst Zachary Keck said. North Korea would use that as a justification for its next nuclear test. He based this prediction on previous patterns of behavior by Pyongyang before earlier tests.

“The country appears to be laying the groundwork to begin a new round of provocations, which could very well take the form of a missile and/or nuclear test,” Keck wrote in The Diplomat.

“Despite its deliberate … attempts to portray itself as an irrational actor, North Korea’s provocations usually follow a well-worn playbook,” he wrote.

North Korea had integrated its pattern of ICBM and underground nuclear testing into a set pattern to maintain its reputation, Ralph Winnie, said vice president of the Eurasian Business Coalition. The country is trying to leverage its weapons of mass destruction [WMD] development programs to squeeze more concessions out of South Korea and other nations, he said.

Kim Jong-un had continued the careful pattern of behavior in building up to nuclear tests that had been developed under his father, Kim Jong-il, who died in December 2011, he told the Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF].

“Their behavior is certainly rational in terms of the perceptions of the policymakers who frame it,” Winnie said. “The only effective way to modify that behavior is to work with China to constructively engage the [North Korean] leadership and convince it that it is in its own interest to modify its behavior,” he said.

Analyst: North Korea behavior may backfire

North Korea’s pattern of behavior in preparing for nuclear tests and ICBM launches threatened to backfire and make it more isolated and unpredictable than ever, analyst Joseph R. DeTrani warned. DeTrani served as special envoy for the Six-Party Talks with North Korea from 2003 to 2006 and is president of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

“It’s likely the North will persist with another nuclear test and additional missile launches, probably to include the KN-08, a mobile inter-continental ballistic missile with significant reach,” DeTrani wrote in Asia Times Online.

“Based on the North’s past behavior,” its goal of developing weapons of mass destruction “will likely be pursued at any cost, including diverting scarce resources from producing food for its people,” he warned. “Compounding these issues is North Korea’s history of proliferation, which includes selling missiles to countries like Syria and Libya and, in the case of Syria, providing a plutonium reactor, at Al-Kabar, that was destroyed by Israel in 2007.”

North Korea takes hardline stance on unification proposal

South Korea’s President Park Geun-hyeunveiled a visionary and generous program for increased economic cooperation with North Korea, looking toward the eventual goal of reunification. Her vision is being met with hostility from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Park’s program announced March 28 is the most detailed and practical ever presented by a South Korean leader. But it appears to have frightened and enraged Kim, who is set on a course of further nuclear development, threats and confrontation.

The initiative received an immediate but extremely negative indirect response from Kim as North Korea launched a series of almost hysterical personal attacks on her. It also threatened to carry out a new nuclear test.

North Korea also carried out the heaviest artillery bombardment at its boundary with South Korea offshore in three years, firing 500 shells, 100 of which fell within South Korean territorial waters just two days after Park’s speech.

An underwater explosion two days later deep in the sea off the North Korean coast measured 5.1 on the Richter scale. The blast was identical in magnitude to North Korea’s most recent underground nuclear test in 2013.

Park’s proposal draws little media attention

President Park’s program for bringing the North and South together received remarkably little media coverage outside South Korea, especially in the English-speaking world even as she took care to unveil it during her four-state visit to Germany.

The South Korean leader known as Asia’s Iron Lady unveiled a three-point program to overcome suspicion and fear between the Koreas after receiving an honorary degree from Dresden University of Technology on March 28. She proposed using the financial and material resources of South Korea, Asia’s third largest and most prosperous industrial economy after China and Japan.

For her first point, Park announced “the urgency of allowing thousands of Koreans on both sides of the border [to] see the family members they’ve been separated from for more than six decades,” South Korea’s Arirang News reported.

In her second point, Park said the Korean states should join forces to raise North Korea’s miserable agricultural production and create a vastly expanded transportation and communication infrastructure for it.

The South Korean leader made clear she is committed to bringing the Koreas together.

“Reunification was a keyword for President Park Geun-hye during [her] state visit to Germany this week,” the Chosun Ilbo newspaper in Seoul reported on March 27.

Park points to German reunification

Park sought German support for her “trust-building process” with Pyongyang. She “discussed how Berlin can share its own unification experiences with Seoul” and “visited the Brandenburg Gate, a landmark in Berlin, symbolic of German reunification,” Arirang News said.

Park’s “hopes to learn from the German experience and seek ways to better prepare for the aftermath” also dominated her meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the newspaper said.

“Speaking to German broadcaster ARD, Park said she is open for constructive talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un,” it said.

“For the two Koreas to communicate well and truly integrate, we would need to narrow differences in our values and ways of thinking,” she said.

She stressed that North Korea must give up its nuclear arms and start looking after its own people.

“She ought to have been more careful about using the reunification of Germany, where East was absorbed into West, as an analogy to South and North Korea,” Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies told The Hankyoreh. “It could send a negative message to North Korea.”

Park said she hoped North Korea would rejoin the six-party international negotiationson its nuclear program, but she laid out no concrete proposals for South Korea to take in persuading the North to rejoin that process.

Nor did she include any concrete proposals for military joint confidence-building measures or increased transparency on security issues to reduce tensions on both sides, South Korean commentators pointed out.

“President Park recognizes the urgent need to engage North Korea But she also understands that you have to strike ab balance and get the right balance to win [North Korean leaders’] trust and cooperation,” Ralph Winnie, vice president of the Eurasian Business Coalition in Washington, D.C., told Asia Pacific Defense Forum [APDF] in an interview.

Winnie pointed out that Park unveiled her program at a time when Kim clearly had other priorities.

“Kim Jong-un is trying to consolidate his own power right now. That is his absolute priority and he will not allow himself to be distracted from it,” he said.

Hooters-NCAA Wrestling Tournament in Oklahoma City

On February 24th, 2014, Alexandra Senyi and Ralph E. Winnie, Jr. met with Dr. Alexey Ulyukaev when he gave a major policy speech at Georgetown University on economic development in the Russian Federation.

Ralph Winnie discusses the East China Sea crisis, particularly the presence of Chinese forces and defense systems in place in the Asia Pacific in this article, titled: "Former U.S. officials: the East China Sea crisis has affected the strategic interests of the United States". January 16, 2014.

Article in Chinese.

http://www.voachinese.com/content/east-china-sea-20140116/1831854.html