South Korean fishing vessel held by North: coast guard

(Reuters) – A South Korean fishing vessel with seven people aboard is being held by North Korea after sailing into the North’s exclusive economic waters off the east coast, the South Korean coast guard said on Sunday.

Simmering tensions between the two Koreas have risen a notch in recent days with the staging of military drills by the South off the west coast, infuriating Pyongyang which threatened “physical retaliation” for the exercise.

“We have found out that our fishing vessel is being investigated by North Korean officials in the presumed North Korea exclusive economic waters in northern East Sea,” the South Korean coast guard said in a statement.

“The South Korean government, according to international law, wants the swift resolution to the matter and the safe return of its vessel and its fisherman.”

Yonhap news agency reported the vessel had advised the coast guard it was being taken by a North Korean patrol to a port in the communist country.

The two sides are still technically at war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

South Korea is due to complete a five-day exercise on Monday near a tense maritime border off the west coast, the site of the sinking of one of the South’s warships in March.

Tensions heightened on the peninsula following the torpedoing of the Cheonan corvette, which killed 46 sailors. The South, with the backing of Washington, blamed the North for the sinking.

North Korea has repeatedly denied any involvement.

China’s Xinhua news agency said the boat carried a crew of four South Koreans and three Chinese, which may have a bearing on North Korea’s response to the latest territorial spat.

China is North Korea’s only major ally and host of six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

South Korea Faces Domestic Skeptics Over Evidence Against North

May 29, 2010, 2:48 PM EDT
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May 30 (Bloomberg) — South Korea’s government is trying to stem skepticism about an inquiry that blamed North Korea for the sinking of a warship, according to local media reports.

Prime Minister Chung Un Chan ordered the government to find a way to stop groundless rumors spreading on the Cheonan’s sinking, the JoongAng Daily said yesterday. Prosecutors questioned a former member of the panel that probed the incident over his critical comments, the paper said. The Joint Chiefs of Staff sued a lawmaker for defamation after she said video footage of the ship splitting apart existed, a claim the military denies, Yonhap News reported.

Almost one in four South Koreans say they don’t trust the findings of the multinational panel, according to a poll commissioned by Hankook Ilbo on May 24. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency yesterday accused the South’s “puppet military of trying to cover up the truth about the sinking” by seeking to silence opposition lawmakers with the lawsuit.

The news agency yesterday released six English-language articles asserting that the country is innocent in the March 26 sinking and attacking the evidence presented by the inquiry. The denials come as Wen Jiabao, premier of North Korea’s main ally, China, is in South Korea for a three-way summit that includes Japan.

South Korea and Japan made a joint stand yesterday blaming North Korea, and want China to also take a stance. Wen May 28 said that while China won’t protect anyone found guilty of causing the ship to sink, it is still assessing the evidence.

China is North Korea’s largest trading partner and main political ally, having fought alongside the North and against the U.S. in the 1950-1953 Korean War.

‘Blinded With Ambition’

“The South Korean conservatives are now blinded with the wild ambition to invent a pretext for escalating the confrontation,” the North Korean news service said in one report yesterday. “It has become clearer that a nuclear war is bound to break out,” the report said, “as long as such traitors are allowed to be at large.”

In another, the agency wrote: “The case of the warship sinking is a sheer fabrication made by the South Korean ruling forces, a hideous burlesque orchestrated by them.”

Lee Jung Hee, a lawmaker with an opposition party, the Democratic Labor Party, was sued for defamation by seven people at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Yonhap News reported May 25.

Lee said during a speech in parliament that while the Defense Ministry had said there was no feed from a thermal observation device showing the moment the warship’s stern and bow split apart, such a video did exist.

Accident Claims

Prosecutors May 28 questioned Shin Sang-cheol, who runs Seoprise, a Web-based political magazine, over his assertion that the Cheonan sank in an accident and that the evidence linking the North to the torpedo was tampered with, the JoonAng said. Shin served on the panel that probed the sinking.

The magnified photograph of writing on the torpedo showed that the marking was written on top of a rusted surface, the newspaper cited Shin as saying. The Defense Ministry asked the National Assembly to eject Shin from the investigation for “arousing public mistrust,” the report said.

South Korea intends to present its case against the North to the United Nations Security Council. The U.S., Japan, Australia and the U.K. have all accepted the findings of the panel. The commission included experts from Sweden, which has an embassy in Pyongyang and isn’t aligned with South Korea and the U.S.

‘Awkward Position’

North Korea warned the UN to be wary of evidence that it said falsely accuses the country of torpedoing the warship, likening the case to the claims of weapons of mass destruction that the U.S. used to justify its war against Iraq in 2003.

The Security Council risks being “misused” by the U.S., the country’s foreign ministry said last night in a news agency statement. “The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks it can occupy the Korean Peninsula just as it did Iraq with sheer lies,” the statement said.

The U.S. is joining South Korea in blaming North Korea for the sinking to “put China into an awkward position and keep hold on Japan and South Korea as its servants,” KCNA said.

North Korean Major General Pak Rim Su said in Pyongyang yesterday that the international investigation into the sinking was biased because it was supervised by the South Korean military and included the U.S., the Korean Central News Agency said.

Pak said the North does not have the type of submarines that the South said carried out the attack, Agence France-Presse reported, citing North Korea’s Chungang TV. South Korea’s Yonhap News quoted South Korean officials as saying the North has about 10 of the Yeono class submarines, AFP said.

Senior Colonel Ri Son Gwon also derided claims that writing on the torpedo was put there by North Korea, AFP reported.

“When we put serial numbers on weapons, we engrave them with machines,” Ri said, according to AFP.

Twenty-four percent of respondents said they didn’t trust the government’s evidence, with more skepticism among younger and better-educated people, the Hankook Ilbo poll found. Almost 90 percent of people over 60 trusted the findings, while only 70 percent of those in their 40s did

Thousands in Seoul call for revenge against N.Korea

SEOUL, May 27 (AFP) – An estimated 10,000 people including war veterans rallied in Seoul Thursday calling for revenge attacks against North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship.

The protesters also urged the government to punish opposition politicians and others who questioned the South’s probe, which concluded that a North Korean torpedo sank the corvette on March 26 and killed 46 sailors.

“Let’s kill mad dog Kim Jong-Il!” they shouted in reference to the communist state’s all-powerful leader who is at the centre of a personality cult along with his late father Kim Il-Sung.

Four protesters in military uniform, wielding sticks, whacked human-sized balloons painted with the two Kims’ faces as others chanted emotional slogans outside City Hall.

A large North Korean national flag was burnt as protesters waved banners urging the government to stage revenge attacks against the North.

Experts in the Korean martial art taekwondo used their feet to smash wooden boards bearing the slogans “North Korea” and “Revenge”.

The investigation report’s findings have sent tensions rising sharply.

In the latest tit-for-tat, North Korea Thursday scrapped a pact aimed at preventing accidental armed clashes with South Korea at their flashpoint sea border.

South Korea’s navy staged an anti-submarine exercise in its first show of strength since the confrontation began.

South Korea loses track of North’s subs

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/26/2910229.htm

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy

Posted 24 minutes ago

A South Korean submarine is believed to have been sunk by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine (Reuters: Jung Yeon-je)

South Korea’s military is trying to track four North Korean submarines that have disappeared from radar screens in the East Sea.

Tensions are running high on the Korean peninsula after Pyongyang was blamed for sinking a South Korean warship.

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency has quoted an unnamed military official as saying that four North Korean submarines have vanished from radar screens.

The 300-tonne Sang-O class submarines are part of Pyongyang’s 40-strong fleet.

They disappeared after leaving their base in the country’s north-east two days ago.

The South Korean and United States militaries are preparing to hold anti-submarine drills near the site of the sinking of the Cheonan.

The 1,200-tonne corvette Cheonan sank in the Yellow Sea on March 26, leaving 40 sailors confirmed dead and six still unaccounted for.

It is believed to have been sunk by a torpedo fired from a North Korean submarine.

Earlier this week the South announced a series of measures against Pyongyang over the sinking.

South Korea said it would cut trade ties, vowed to take North Korea to the UN Security Council and pledged to undertake joint military exercises with the United States.

North Korea’s official news agency says the country is severing all relations with the South and cutting communication links with Seoul.

Meanwhile, United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton says South Korea has America’s full support in dealing with Pyongyang.

Ms Clinton is in Seoul to meet president Lee Myung-Bak to discuss possible responses to the sinking of the warship.

She says the international community has a duty to respond to the torpedo attack.

“We will be working together to chart a course of action in the United Nations Security Council,” she said.

“We call on North Korea to halt its provocations, end its policy of threats and belligerence towards its neighbours and take steps now to fulfil its denuclearisation commitments and comply with international law.”

South Korea Begins Punishing North Over Ship Sinking

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said today his nation would report North Korea to the U.N. Security Council and enact new economic sanctions following the finding that the Stalinist state was almost certainly behind the sinking of one of Seoul’s naval vessels, Reuters reported (see GSN, May 21).

(May. 24) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, shown speaking today with Chinese President Hu Jintao, backed actions taken by Seoul in response to North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship (Saul Loeb/Getty Images).
South Korea will not conduct any commerce, finance or visitations with the North, and intends to cut the number of personnel at the states’ collaborative industrial site, Lee said. North Korean commercial vessels would also not be allowed in the South’s waters.

The North, already crippled by sanctions and poor financial leadership, could now face additional U.N. sanctions.

“I solemnly urge the authorities of North Korea … to apologize immediately to the Republic of Korea (South Korea) and the international community,” Lee said in a televised address.

His appearance followed the release last week of a report by investigators from South Korea and other states who found that a North Korean torpedo is likely to have sunk the patrol ship Cheonan on March 26, killing 46 sailors (Jack Kim, Reuters I/The Star, May 24).

“We can’t say it is established fact,” one high-level U.S. official who participated in a U.S. intelligence probe of the incident told the New York Times. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military” (David Sanger, New York Times I, May 22).

“North Korea (D.P.R.K.) will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable,” Lee said.

“From now on, the Republic of Korea will not tolerate any provocative act by the North and will maintain the principle of proactive deterrence. If our territorial waters, airspace or territory are violated, we will immediately exercise our right of self-defense,” he added, according to the Xinhua News Agency (Xinhua News Agency, May 24).

Pyongyang has denied attacking the ship and has threatened to conduct “all-out war” should it be hit with additional penalties, the Yonhap News Agency reported.

South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young said Friday that Seoul and Washington could ratchet up their alert status given the current situation. Moving the alert level from Watchcon-3 to Watchcon-2 would mean that there are signs of a looming danger from the North.

The status was last raised following the North’s second nuclear test blast in May 2009 (Yonhap News Agency, May 21).

U.S. officials have been quick to show support for the South’s position.

“We endorse President Lee’s demand that North Korea immediately apologize and punish those responsible for the attack, and, most importantly, stop its belligerent and threatening behavior,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement today.

“U.S. support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal, and [President Barack Obama] has directed his military commanders to coordinate closely with their Republic of Korea counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression,” he said (Jeff Mason, Reuters II, May 24).

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in China today, called Seoul’s actions “entirely appropriate,” the Times reported.

“The Republic of Korea can continue to count on the full support of the United States,” she said. “Our support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal.”

Clinton yesterday and today called on top officials in Beijing to take a harder line on Pyongyang. China traditionally has been North Korea’s primary source of economic support.

“I can say the Chinese recognize the gravity of the situation we face,” Clinton said. “This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region; it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained.”

Other U.S. officials were uncertain whether China believed that it should take action in this case, given its doubts about the ship incident and concerns that penalizing the North could undermine stability in the region (Choe/Landler, New York Times II, May 24).

“We want them to take some steps in the international arena to underscore the seriousness of the matter,” a high-level Obama administration official told the Times. Still, “We have to be realistic about what we can expect” (Mark Landler, New York Times III, May 23).

South Korea’s actions would have little impact if China simply moved to compensate North Korea for its losses, the Times reported (Sanger, New York Times I).

“There’s not much more that can be done to sanction North Korea,”Chinese strategic studies analyst Shen Jiru told the Times. “China basically feels that sanctions or other tough measures only serve to escalate conflict with North Korea, and others tend to agree.”

“The Chinese government so far has done too much to protect North Korea,” countered Beijing-based international relations professor Chu Shulong. “Why should we protect them? Why should we treat them so specially? I think China needs to change its approach” (Sharon LaFraniere, New York Times IV, May 23).

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is scheduled to soon visit South Korea and Japan, which has also condemned the apparent North Korean attack, the Washington Post reported Saturday.

Officials from Seoul, Tokyo and Washington are seeking a strategy that would prevent Pyongyang from conducting similar strikes without instigating a wider military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, according to the newspaper.

“I think it’s clear that the South Koreans do not wish to go to war. … They will not take steps that run that risk,” said one high-level U.S. official.

U.S. says “fully supports” S.Korea’s response on warship sinking

WASHINGTON, May 24 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama “fully supports” South Korea’s response to the sinking of one of its warships, the White House said Monday.

“U.S. support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal, and the president has directed his military commanders to coordinate closely with their Republic of Korea counterparts to ensure readiness and to deter future aggression,” the White House said.

The South Korean government said Monday it will hold military drills aimed at deterring what it calls further aggression by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and will put on hold all exchanges and trade with Pyongyang.

A few hours earlier, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said his country will resort to self-defense measures in case of further military provocation from Pyongyang over the sinking of the South Korean warship in late March, which killed 46 sailors near a disputed maritime border between the two countries.

International investigators have earlier concluded in Seoul that the South Korean navy warship was torpedoed by a DPRK submarine and the torpedo was manufactured in the DPRK.

Condemning the DPRK for violating the United Nations Charter and the Korean War Armistice Agreement, Lee said his government will refer the incident to the UN Security Council.

However, the DPRK National Defense Commission rejected as a “fabrication” the South Korean claims that its warship was torpedoed by a DPRK submarine, the DPRK’s KCNA news agency reported.

It (South Korea) finally announced the results of the joint investigation based on a sheer fabrication, which assert that the warship was sunken by our torpedo attack, in a bid to mislead the public opinion,” the KCNA quoted a spokesman for the National Defense Commission as saying.

The spokesman also warned that the DPRK will take tough countermeasures, including an all-out war if new sanctions are imposed on the country.

Also on Monday, the DPRK warned that if South Korea installs propaganda loudspeakers along the border line, the DPRK military would fire at and destroy them.

According to the KCNA, the commander of forces of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) in the central sector of the front issued an open warning to the South Korean authorities that if the South refused to remove the anti-DPRK posters and loudspeakers set up along the Military Demarcation Line, the KPA would “start the firing of direct sighting shots to destroy them.”

The commander stressed that if South Korea continued challenging the DPRK with such moves, the KPA will “eliminate the root cause of the provocations with a stronger physical strike.”

The two Koreas reached a deal in June 2004 that obliges the two sides to stop all propaganda campaigns against each other, including using loudspeaker broadcasting and slogan boards, from Aug. 15 of that year.

But since the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, tensions have notably escalated between the two countries.

Related:

S Korea takes punitive measures against DPRK over warship sinking

SEOUL, May 24 (Xinhua) — South Korea unveiled Monday a series of punitive measures against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) over the sinking of a South Korean naval warship.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak warned in a nationally televised speech that the country will resort to measures of self- defense if the DPRK further wages aggression, saying Pyongyang’s alleged sinking of its 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan in late March resulted from a surprise torpedo attack. Full story

S Korea to resort to self-defense measures against further DPRK provocations

SEOUL, May 24 (Xinhua) — South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said Monday his country will resort to measures of self-defense in case of further military provocation of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), calling Pyongyang’s alleged sinking of its warship in late March work of a surprise torpedo attack.

“North Korea (DPRK) will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. I will continue to take stern measures to hold the North accountable,” Lee said in a nationally televised speech to the public, a few days after an international team of experts announced that South Korea’s 1,200-ton corvette Cheonan was torpedoed by its wartime rival, killing 46 sailors. Full story

S Korea to take ship sinking case to UN Security Council

SEOUL, May 23 (Xinhua) — South Korea is planning to seek an additional resolution on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the United Nations Security Council, following the sinking of South Korea’s warship Cheonan in March, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Sunday quoting officials here.

“We are focusing on diplomatic means of punishment as we found out that existing sanctions and resolutions are not enough,” a senior government official told Yonhap News Agency. “It is time to decide whether we go over to another step.” Full story

Editor: Tang Danlu

No Good Options As Korea Tensions Rise

by Corey Flintoff
May 21, 2010 Tensions between North and South Korea have escalated after an international investigation determined that a North Korean torpedo sank the South Korean naval vessel Cheonan, killing 46 sailors in March.

The dilemma for South Korea, and its close ally, the United States, is how to respond in a way that will punish the North without risking war.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned North Korea on Friday. At a news conference in Tokyo with Japan’s foreign minister, she said “I think it is important to send a clear message to North Korea that provocative actions have consequences.”

Clinton told reporters that it would be premature to give details about a possible response, but she said the response must be international, rather than regional.

North Korea was unequivocal in its response, denying responsibility and saying that any retaliation would mean all-out war.

There are few, if any, good options.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak called the sinking a “military provocation,” but added that his government cannot afford to make any mistakes in responding “and will be very prudent in all response measure we take.”

Retaliation Not Feasible Without Risking Wider War

South Korea has a more modern, better-equipped military than the North, backed by some 28,000 U.S. troops. But the close quarters of the two small countries on the Korean Peninsula mean that the South is still vulnerable.

Seoul, the South Korean capital, is within range of artillery from North Korea.

Even the threat of war could hurt South Korea’s economy, which has been boasting a strong recovery from the global recession, by driving off investors.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs stopped short of calling North Korea’s action an act of war, choosing instead to label it an “act of aggression.”

“For the South, it’s pretty clear that there’s not an appetite for a military confrontation,” says Scott Snyder, the director of U.S.-Korea policy at the Asia Foundation.

South Korea is expected to bring the matter to the United Nations Security Council next week, seeking tougher sanctions on the North’s already-restricted trade.

The South Korean news agency, Yonhap News, also quoted government sources as saying the South could block North Korean vessels from using sea routes through South Korean waters.

Investigators Say Evidence Is Overwhelming

The South Korean vessel broke in two and sank after an explosion on March 26, in waters near the border with North Korea. A joint team of civilian and military experts from South Korea, the U.S., Australia, Britain and Sweden said evidence “points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that the torpedo was fired by a North Korean submarine. There is no other plausible explanation.”

The investigation cited North Korean lettering on torpedo parts that were dredged from the ocean bottom by South Korean trawlers.

North Korea says the evidence was fabricated and denies that it had any part in the Cheonan sinking.

China, the North’s traditional ally, has said it will conduct its own assessment of the findings.

John Park, a Korea expert at the United States Institute of Peace, says the investigation was scientifically conducted, “and about as transparent as these things get,” but he says there’s still a public perception in Asia, and especially in China, that the sinking could have been accident.

If the investigation’s conclusion is true, why would the North risk an act that could provoke open war?

Snyder says the attack could be related to the North’s own internal power struggles over establishing a successor to ailing leader Kim Jung-il.

“Another possibility is that they’ve essentially been caught by technology,” says Snyder. He adds that the North Koreans may not have expected such a thorough investigation into the cause of the sinking.

Snyder says the North Koreans may have thought they could send an aggressive message to the south with an attack that could never have conclusively been pinned on them.

An Attention-Getting Move?

“One of the biggest issues in all this,” Snyder says, “is that the North Koreans feel that South Korea has begun to look past them.” Past South Korean administrations, he says, made the North such a high priority that the North learned it could get economic aid without have to do much in return.

Now, Snyder says, the current government of South Korean has made relations with the North a relatively low priority. “The main motive,” he says, may be “to send a message that you can’t ignore us.”

The investigating team’s report has created a dilemma for the U.S., says Park. “The U.S. is only now getting the beginnings of cooperation with China and Russia on Iran.” At some point, he says, the U.S. may have to decide whether North Korea or Iran is a bigger priority.

Park also calls the situation “the worst possible diplomatic nightmare for China. They need to have good relations with both North Korea and South Korea.”

Park says Chinese leaders have been trying to persuade North Korea to undertake economic reforms through a delicate process of institution building. That process could easily be upset if the North feels that China is favoring its rival to the south.

North Korean rhetoric escalates

As threats of all-out war continue, North Korea’s news agency KCNA has posted several new releases aimed at the “puppet regime” in South Korea.

Stating that the South “far-fetchedly tried to link the case with us without offering any material evidence … in a bid to mislead the public opinion inside and outside Korea,” they demand that “the group of traitors produce … material evidence” and “that there should not be a shred of doubt”.

The North goes on to escalate their threats of war on Seoul. “The all-out war to be undertaken by us will be a sacred war involving the whole nation, all the people and the whole state for completely eliminating the strongholds of the group of traitors.”

The DPRK calls upon the South Korean people to revolt against the current government. The situation “urgently requires the people to turn out in the struggle against dictatorship” says one KCNA statement.

The statements are peppered throughout with references to nuclear threats, ultra-conservative South Koreans, and the aim of global domination on the part of the US. But most of all, they remind the world of their willingness to go to war.

“We will brand any small incident that occurs in the territorial waters, air and land where our sovereignty is exercised including the West Sea of Korea as a provocation of confrontation maniacs and react to it with unlimited retaliatory blow, merciless strong physical blow. It is our invariable iron will to react to “retaliation” with more powerful retaliation and to “punishment” with indiscriminate punishment of our style. Availing ourselves of this opportunity, we sternly warn the U.S. and Japanese authorities and riff-raffs, their poor lackeys, to act with discretion.”

“All the fellow countrymen will never pardon the clique of traitors, which finds fault with fellow countrymen, though it has committed so hideous acts of treachery, and gets frantic with the scheme to bring the dark clouds of a nuclear war, but mete out a stern punishment to it on behalf of the nation.”

Tank company, ROKA 15th div are moving through Kaesungri range before sabot discharge

Clinton Says North Korea Ship Attack Requires Action

By Nicole Gaouette and Takashi Hirokawa

May 21 (Bloomberg) — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean warship “cannot go unanswered” and the response by the international community must not be “business as usual.”

The evidence that North Korea fired a torpedo and sank the ship is “overwhelming and condemning,” Clinton said at a press briefing in Tokyo today with Japan’s Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada. “There must be an international, not just a regional, but an international response.”

The two diplomats offered unqualified support for South Korea after an international panel yesterday issued a report saying evidence provided “conclusive” proof of North Korea’s role in the March 26 sinking, which killed 46 sailors. South Korea’s National Security Council met today as the North threatened to sever all ties and reiterated a threat of war.

“The importance of the Japan-U.S. alliance is increasing as the sinking of the South Korean ship shows the instability” in the region, Okada said.

Clinton stopped in Tokyo for four hours on her way to China where she will take part in talks on climate change, the Afghan war and sanctions to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Okada said Japan is studying an agreement Iran struck with Turkey and Brazil to hand over half of its enriched-uranium stockpile in exchange for fuel. In the meantime, Japan supports the U.S. pursuit of a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran, he said.

‘Eye to Eye’

“We see eye to eye,” Okada said. Clinton said “the burden is on Iran” to live up to its obligations “or face growing isolation.”

Clinton and Okada also discussed a dispute over where to relocate an American military facility on Okinawa. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who initially called for moving the Futenma Marine Base off the island in response to local sentiment, said earlier this month he will transfer the base within Okinawa, largely in line with a 2006 bilateral agreement.

Clinton said both countries share the same goals on moving the base, and are seeking an “operationally viable and politically sustainable” solution.

Japan and the U.S. will release as early as May 28 a joint agreement on relocating Futenma, the Yomiuri newspaper said today, without citing anyone. Okada today said both sides would make every effort to conclude the matter by the end of the month.

War Threats

South Korea yesterday demanded a “stern” global response the sinking of the 1,200-ton naval vessel Cheonan. Kim Jong Il’s regime, already under UN sanctions for its second nuclear test last year, threatened “all-out war” if the international body imposes additional restrictions.

Tension on the Korean peninsula is overshadowing the planned centerpiece of Clinton’s Asia trip. She and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will be in Beijing May 23-25 to take part in the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue.

While Geithner will press the Chinese to improve domestic demand and address the value of the yuan, Clinton’s agenda includes climate change, energy security and Iran. She then will go to Seoul to discuss the South Korean report.

The U.S. will be in “deep and constant consultations, not only between the United States and Japan, but also South Korea, China and others to determine our response” to North Korea, Clinton said.

Improving Strained Ties

The talks in China come as both countries are trying to improve ties after strains earlier this year. Chinese censorship of Google Inc., the Mountain View, California-based Internet- search company, a Washington visit by the Dalai Lama and disagreements over China’s currency weighed on relations.

“It felt like both countries went right up to the edge then looked over into the abyss below and backed away from it,” said Taiya Smith, a senior research fellow at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. “Now the attitude is, we want to be partners, can we use our time at the highest level to engage on issues in ways that are in each countries’ best interests.”

Clinton will start the China portion of her fifth trip to Asia in Shanghai, host to the 2010 World Expo, where she will focus on commercial diplomacy and visit the U.S. pavilion.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Tokyo at ngaouette@bloomberg.net; Takashi Hirokawa in Tokyo at thirokawa@bloomberg.net

North Korea gets blamed; China, South Korea get the mess

(Reuters) – The North Korean torpedo that killed 46 South Korean sailors is rupturing ties across the peninsula, but it is also damaging China’s regional standing and its self-portrayal as a helpful broker between its neighbors.

South Korea said on Thursday international investigators had shown it was a North Korean submarine that sank its navy corvette near the disputed sea border with the North in March.

Isolated, sanctioned and heavily armed, North Korea has for years used apocalyptic threats, a nuclear program and occasional firefights as a means to keep its dynastic ruler in power despite deepening economic misery.

An international storm of condemnation has broken out over the sinking, but the tight lipped-response of China, North Korea’s sole supporter, looks to some like a snub to a worried region and a lost opportunity to assert influence.

“The North Korea issue is an absolutely crucial test of whether China has what it takes to be a world leader,” said Lee Jung-hoon, a Yonsei University professor of international relations.

“Depending on how it handles it, it can demonstrate itself as a true global leader or otherwise it will simply remain a socialist giant.”

Beijing has called the ship sinking “unfortunate” and refused to be drawn into the condemnation of Pyongyang and its leader Kim Jong-il, whom it hosted earlier this month on a rare trip abroad, to the irritation of South Korea.

For China, say some analysts, the priority is to prop up Kim rather than risk the North imploding in chaos that would spill into its territory and, perhaps, lead to South Korea and its ally the United States moving right up to its border.

But that risks undermining Beijing attempts to play more of a role as a great power in the region and is already hurting ties with South Korea, one of its leading trade partners.

“This is a big dilemma for China, but it would be unrealistic to expect China to line up behind South Korea so soon after Kim Jong-il’s visit,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international security at Renmin University who follows Korean affairs.

“The price that China will pay will be its regional influence, especially over South Korea. It will have some impact on that influence … now regional governments may feel that Chinese foreign policy is out of balance.”

INTENSE EFFORTS

For more than a decade, China has devoted intense diplomatic efforts to cultivating its Asian neighbors — assiduously attending an endless round of summits, sending top leaders on regular bilateral trips, and presenting its idea of a “harmonious world” as a cure for all ills.

Now that harmony has taken a blow.

One early victim could be attempts by Beijing to resume North Korea denuclearization talks among regional powers which it has long hosted but which Pyongyang has boycotted for over a year.

South Korea, Japan and the United States have all made clear that they see little point in resuming talks and effectively helping the North.

South Korea itself is mindful that however angry it may feel, it cannot afford to strike back at the North. Investors, vital to Asia’s fourth largest economy, have long tolerated the animosity between the Koreas but only as long as they feel the threat of actual war is remote.

Indeed, President Lee Myung-bak refused to blame the North in the aftermath of the attack on the corvette and waited for the report by an international team of investigators, despite widespread anger in the South.

And although it feels justified now to step up the rhetoric against Pyongyang, the prosperous South has reason to be terrified of a collapse of the North.

Sudden, and forced, unification would force it to bear the cost of absorbing 23 million North Koreans who have little idea of how modern business works and whose own economy barely functions.

It is also painfully aware that its very open economy can quickly see investors flee at the sight of major risk.

The South is offering major investment across the border to reduce the pain of what it believes will be eventual unification.

But for the North’s leadership that would require what analysts say would be unacceptable acquiescence to Seoul and put at risk its own legitimacy, based largely on its perceived ability to fend off a hostile world even it means abject poverty for the masses.

Ultimately, Seoul may have miscalculated the propensity of Pyongyang to take differences to the brink.

“It shows that we failed to manage the way North Korea inherently is … it is in their nature to wage provocations,” said Cho Min of the Korea Institute for National Unification