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France urges China to ease North Korea crisis

France said on Wednesday it wanted China, which "has power over North Korea", to intervene in the military crisis rocking the Korean peninsula.

Published: 3 April 2013 11:51 CEST

France urges China to ease North Korea crisis

South Korean passengers at the Seoul train station watch TV news reporting North Korea's apparent nuclear test on February 12th (Photo: Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP)

Stressing that he did not exclude North Korea's "unpredictable" leader Kim Jong-un would use nuclear weapons, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on BFM-TV that he would travel to China next week to discuss the situation.

The Korean peninsula has been locked in a cycle of escalating tension that has seen Pyongyang threaten missile and nuclear strikes against the United States and South Korea in response to UN sanctions and joint military drills.

On Wednesday, it went a step further by blocking access to a key joint industrial zone with South Korea – the Kaesong complex – which is the one surviving example of inter-Korean cooperation.

"We have asked for a (UN) Security Council meeting and in particular we ask the Chinese who have power over North Korea to intervene," Fabius said.

Beijing has been Pyongyang's sole major ally for decades and is its biggest trading partner, providing key energy supplies to the poverty-stricken nation.

On Wednesday, China appealed for "calm and restraint" on the Korean peninsula, adding that Vice-minister Zhang Yesui had met North Korea's ambassador on Tuesday to express "serious concern" over the situation.

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China derides Copenhagen democracy meet as 'political farce'

Demonstrators gathered outside the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday. Photo: Emil Helms/Ritzau Scanpix

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit was held Monday and Tuesday in the Danish capital and organised by the Alliance of Democracies, an organisation targeted by Beijing sanctions in March and founded by former NATO boss Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

In addition to Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen and Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law, Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod also participated in the forum by video link, which Beijing said violated “the one-China principle.”

“This summit is a political farce,” the Chinese embassy in Denmark wrote in a statement published on Tuesday. “Inviting those who advocate Taiwan and Hong Kong ‘independence’ to the meeting violates the one-China principle and interferes in China’s internal affairs,” it said.

“Some hypocritical western politicians are good at meddling in other countries’ internal affairs and creating divisions and confrontation in the name of ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’. They are bound to fail,” it added.

At the conference on Monday, Kofod said it was “deplorable” that Beijing had imposed sanctions on 10 European individuals and organisations in response to EU sanctions on Xinjiang officials over their actions against the Uyghur Muslim minority.

Like most countries, Denmark applies the one-China principle — under which Beijing bars other countries from having simultaneous diplomatic relations with Taipei — though it does maintain relations with Taiwan.

Cut off politically from the rest of China since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the territory is self-governing but is not recognised by
the United Nations.

Beijing considers Taiwan a rebel province that will one day return under its control, by force if necessary.

China’s sabre-rattling has increased considerably over the past year, with fighter jets and nuclear-capable bombers breaching Taiwan’s air defence zone on a near-daily basis.

“Our government is fully aware of the threats to regional security, and is actively enhancing our national defence capabilities to protect our
democracy,” Tsai told the conference in a video address on Monday. US President Joe Biden is expected to present his China strategy soon, as
calls mount for him to publicly commit to defending Taiwan militarily in the event of a Chinese attack.

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