Seogwipo, South Korea: China's premier expressed no support for proposed UN sanctions against ally North Korea over its alleged sinking of a South Korean warship, declining yesterday to join other key nations in blaming Pyongyang.
Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday that tensions between the two Koreas need to be urgently defused.
He spoke at the end of a weekend summit in South Korea where he was closely watched for signs that Beijing would get tougher on the North, which is accused of sinking the naval ship Cheonan with a torpedo two months ago, killing 46 sailors.
China's backing is key to any effort to punish North Korea with UN sanctions because Beijing wields veto power at the Security Council as a permanent member.
North Korea has repeatedly denied attacking the ship, and yesterday tens of thousands of people packed the main square in Pyongyang, the nation's capital, for a rally condemning South Korea and the US.
The isolated North often organizes such events during times of tense relations with foreign countries.
Clapping and pumping their fists in the air, the protesters shouted anti-South Korean slogans, held signs and carried a huge portrait of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, according to video footage from APTN in North Korea.
"Because of the South Korean war-loving, mad puppets and American invaders, the North and South relationship is being driven to a catastrophe," Choi Yong Rim, secretary of the North Korean Workers Party in Pyongyang, told the crowd.
Wen joined the leaders of South Korea and Japan at the two-day summit, which was to focus on economic issues but was overshadowed by the sinking of the Cheonan, one of the South's worst military losses since the Korean War in the 1950s.
At a closing news conference, Wen gave no clear indication that Beijing was ready to endorse South Korea's plans to bring North Korea before the UN Security Council for sanctions or condemnation.
Nevertheless, Wen used China's strongest language yet to describe the grave situation between communist ally North Korea and South Korea, a vital trading partner.
100,000 join protests
A rally in Pyongyang yesterday accusing South Korea of heightening cross-border tensions over the sinking of one of its warships drew 100,000 people, according to North Korean state media.
The demonstration was held at Kim Il-Sung Square, named after the North Korea's founder and the current ruler's father, according to the state broadcasting network monitored by the South's Yonhap news agency. Slogans painted on the stage at the rally denounced South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak as a traitor, it said.
Addressing the rally, Choe Yong-Rim, chief secretary of the city's party committee, urged citizens to brace themselves for an attack from South Korea and its ally the US, saying the peninsula was on the brink of war, it said. He also rebutted Seoul's allegation that North Korea torpedoed a South Korean warship with the loss of 46 lives, Yonhap said.
— AFP
