Chinese, South Korean presidents to weigh moves to punish North Korea
By Tony White,WNS Asia Bureau Chief
BEIJING - The Chinese and South Korean presidents will hold a summit in Beijing on Friday to discuss how to respond to North Korea's shock announcement of a nuclear weapons test. Chinese President Hu Jintao and his South Korean counterpart Roh Moo-Hyun are seen as the world leaders with the greatest sway over the reclusive communist country that sits between their nations.
The Beijing summit, only the third meeting between the two presidents, comes as regional players are striving to put aside historic differences. When Pyongyang announced its atomic bomb test on Monday, Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had just arrived in Seoul from Beijing on a fence-mending trip to soothe tensions over how Japan has dealt with its wartime past. Hu and Roh will discuss joint countermeasures against the North, said Roh's spokesman Yoon Tae-Young. "Summit discussions will be focused on an effect-oriented method of crisis settlement, rather than an emotional one," a senior official was quoted by Yonhap news agency as saying.
China, North Korea's former wartime ally, major aid donor and trade partner, is seen as the lynchpin in UN Security Council discussions on how to punish the hermit regime. Beijing wields veto power. China has also hosted the six-party talks -- also involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan and Russia -- that have since 2003 tried but failed to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions. South Korea, though still technically at war with North Korea since their 1950-53 conflict, has also tried to engage its neighbour with its "sunshine" policy of diplomacy, industrial cooperation and tourism. Both countries have now voiced deep frustration with the North over its atom bomb test and signalled the regime should be punished, although they have not said what sanctions they would support.
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