Wikileaks row: China wants Korean reunification, officials confirm - The Guardian

 Night dancing in Kim Il-Sung Square, Pyongyang, North Korea. The Guardian revealed today that senior figures in Beijing told their South Korean counterparts China was leaning towards acceptance of reunification. Photograph: Dan Chung
China supports the "independent and peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula" and cannot afford to give the North Korean regime the impression it has a blank cheque to act any way it wants, Chinese officials based in Europe said today.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, spoke after the Guardian revealed that senior figures in Beijing, exasperated with North Korea behaving like a "spoiled child", had told their South Korean counterparts that China was leaning towards acceptance of reunification under Seoul's control.
China's moves to distance itself from the North Korean regime were revealed in the latest tranche of leaked US embassy cables obtained by Wikileaks and published yesterday by the Guardian and four international newspapers.
One Chinese official said today reunification was not going to happen overnight and China's first priority was to calm down the situation, restart a dialogue, and maintain stability in the region. But Beijing had always backed peaceful reunification as a longer term goal.
The officials admitted to a sense of frustration in Beijing over North Korea's recent actions, including its nuclear and missile tests – which China opposed – and last week's lethal artillery bombardment of a South Korean island.
A general discussion was continuing about the direction of North Korea policy, another official said. North Korea produced strong feelings among the Chinese leadership and public, and China had to be careful. Beijing wanted to maintain its friendship with Pyongyang. But it did not want to be led by the nose.
The officials expressed optimism that talks between the North and its regional interlocutors, South Korea, China and Japan, could be successfully restarted, despite Washington's dismissal of China's proposal as "PR activity".
South Korea might be tempted to indulge in tit-for-tat actions against the North, one official said. But a new war on the peninsula was unimaginable; it would be devastating for the two Koreas and for the region as a whole. Therefore China was trying to provide a steadying hand. If the current tense situation was allowed to escalate, North Korea was capable of taking radical actions.
The officials said the Chinese government was talking to the North on a regular basis; there were many channels that could be used. But the North was a proud nation and China could not ultimately control it, they said. Beijing told the North's leaders what it thought – but sometimes they behaved irrationally.
"We do not have an effective way to influence them. Sometimes when we try it only makes things worse," a senior Chinese diplomat said.
Referring to last week's artillery attack, the diplomat said it could be part of what North Korean leaders described was their strategy of "setting a fire under the Americans" in order to get their attention and win concessions.
There was growing evidence the Chinese public was running out of patience with the North's behaviour and this influenced the Chinese leadership's thinking, the diplomat said, adding that, in short, there was a limit to China's patience.
Officials described the Wikileaks disclosure of secret and classified US embassy cables relating to the Korean question as mischievous. When reading the diplomatic reports, they said, it was essential to distinguish between the personal opinions of those quoted and official government policy.
The Chinese foreign ministry spokesman noted the Wikileaks reports and urged the US to "appropriately resolve related issues" before declining further comment.
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