China
again expressed its "concerns and worries" over rocket-launch plans
announced by North Korea ahead of an international nuclear summit in
Seoul, as Beijing seeks to portray itself as a peacemaker amid rising
pressure on Pyongyang from the U.S. and its allies.
But North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator warned during a visit to
Beijing against any attempt to interfere with the launch, a day after
Japan's defense minister said he would consider shooting down a North
Korean missile if it poses a danger to that country.
"The satellite launch is, in every aspect, a part of North Korea's
rights for a peaceful space development [program]," Ri Yong Ho, the
Pyongyang official, told Chinese state-run television on Monday, in an
interview that aired Tuesday. He was emerging from a Monday night
meeting with Chinese envoy Wu Dawei.
"Regarding the planned peaceful satellite launch, should others apply
a double standard or inappropriately interfere with our rights, we
would have no choice but to respond," Mr. Ri said, without elaborating.
North Korea said last week that it would launch a satellite-bearing
rocket that could take it over Japan's Okinawan archipelago. Experts
point to a similar launch in 2009 that they say was actually a ballistic
missile, noting no satellite was ever detected in space. In a dispatch,
Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency said: "The launch of the working
satellite is an issue fundamentally different from that of a long-range
missile."
The launch plans mark a setback to apparent progress in U.S. efforts
to negotiate a halt to North Korea's nuclear ambitions after the death
of dictator Kim Jong Il and the ascension of his son, Kim Jong Eun. The
U.S. has said a launch would threaten a new deal reached Feb. 29 to
deliver food aid in return for a North Korean nuclear moratorium. South
Korea said such a launch would be a "grave provocation" aimed at
developing the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon.
Mr. Ri insisted that Pyongyang's satellite launch didn't contravene
its nuclear deal with Washington. "Our stance is to proceed with the
U.S.-North Korea agreement reached on Feb. 29," he said.
A senior Chinese Foreign Ministry official on Tuesday reiterated
Beijing's worries over the launch, first expressed on Friday. It is
"urgent for relevant parties to remain calm and prevent the situation
from escalating and going out of control," Luo Zhaohui, the
director-general of the ministry's Department of Asian Affairs, told a
news briefing. He repeated a Foreign Ministry statement that China has
"expressed its worries and concerns."
But China's Assistant Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu told the same
briefing that the issue of North Korea and its satellite launch would
not be on the agenda at the global nuclear-security summit in Seoul next
week. Chinese President Hu Jintao will attend the summit along with
other world leaders. Officials in Seoul say North Korea's nuclear
ambitions and weapons program will be discussed on the sidelines of the
summit.
China has at times expressed reservations about North Korea's weapons
programs and aggression against South Korea but has been careful to
avoid moves that could destabilize the country. China is the isolated
country's major benefactor and its largest trading partner.
Siegfried Hecker, a nuclear scientist based at Stanford
University who has visited North Korea's nuclear facilities seven times,
said at a conference in Busan, South Korea, on Tuesday that China
"holds the key to the price" North Korea will pay if it moves forward
with its weapons pursuit. "The U.S. and South Korea hold the key to
benefits they will get" for ending it, he added.
Mr. Hecker, who was shown a uranium enrichment facility when he last
visited the North in November 2010, said the rocket launch "makes a
mockery" of the Feb. 29 agreement.
—Min-Jeong Lee contributed to this article.
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