Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, held consultations with Xu Xun, director of the Rokk National Security Office
On December 2, Xu Xuan, director of the National Security Office of the Blue House of South Korea, visited China, and Yang Jiechi, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, held consultations with Xu Xuan in Tianjin.
Yang Jiechi said that 2022 is the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and China is willing to build a more mature and stable China-ROK strategic partnership with the ROK. The two sides should strengthen communication and coordination on regional cooperation, multilateral frameworks and global issues, and jointly promote the construction of a more just and reasonable global governance system.
The Yonhap News Agency reported on the same day that the content of the discussion between the two sides may involve the issue of the "declaration of the end of war" on the Korean Peninsula that is highly concerned by the outside world. Yonhap News Agency said that Xu Xuan briefed Yang Jiechi on the progress made by South Korea and the United States on the issue of the end-of-war declaration and called on China to actively guide North Korea back to the negotiating table.
According to South Korean media reports, Xu Xuan said that peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and the entire region are of great importance, and communication and cooperation between China and South Korea are more important than ever, and it is expected that the two countries can make progress and deepen cooperation in stabilizing the situation on the Korean Peninsula and promoting the peace process on the Korean Peninsula in the future.
Since the conclusion of the Korean Armistice Agreement in 1953, the Korean War has effectively ended for 68 years, but in theory and jurisprudence, the two Koreas have only truce, and the war has not officially ended. Once one side launches an attack on the other, there is virtually no political obstacle, because since it is in a state of constant war, it does not constitute aggression by one sovereign State against another.
And the impact of this truce on inter-Korean relations is large and small: if inter-Korean relations ease, it will have basically no substantial impact; but once bilateral relations deteriorate, it will bring about a real threat of war, resulting in a long-term serious chain of suspicion between the two koreas.
This is also why Moon Jae-in has frequently called on all parties to sign a declaration on the end of war on the Korean Peninsula since coming to power. In September 2021, Moon Jae-in again proposed at the UN General Assembly that the United States, the ROK, and the DPRK or the ROK-China quadrangle issue a declaration of the end of the war to formally end the Korean War. It has been noted that this is the fourth time that Moon jae-in has launched the initiative since 2018.
Strictly speaking, however, South Korea is not a signatory to the Korean Armistice Agreement, so it is China and North Korea and the so-called "United Nations Forces" represented by the United States that are legally qualified to sign the declaration of the end of the war. Of course, as far as the facts are concerned, South Korea, as one of the direct parties to the Korean War, participated in the declaration of the end of the war, as long as the three sides of China, the United States and the DPRK did not oppose it. But Moon Jae-in's attempt to throw out the Tripartite Declaration of the End of the War without China as one of the initiatives, and it is meaningless to try to bypass China, because the Declaration of the End of the War can be without South Korea, but it cannot be without China.
In this regard, on November 22, Chinese Ambassador to the ROK Xing Haiming said in an interview with South Korea's YTN TV that China is open to the signing of the declaration of the end of the war by all parties. However, Xing Haiming also pointed out that China is an important party in Peninsula affairs and a party to the Korean Armistice Agreement, and relevant parties should maintain communication and consultation with China on matters such as promoting peace talks on the Peninsula and issuing a declaration on the end of the war.
On December 1, Liu Xiaoming, China's Special Representative for Korean Peninsula Affairs, held a video conference with Roh Gyu-hwan, Minister of Peace Representation of the ROK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Liu Xiaoming once again pointed out that as an important party in Peninsula affairs and a party to the Korean Armistice Agreement, China is willing to maintain communication and play a constructive role with relevant parties on matters such as promoting peace talks on the Peninsula and issuing a declaration on the end of the war.
During the visit of Xu Xuan, director of the National Security Office of the Blue House of South Korea, the South Korean media reported that it was "not unrelated to the declaration of the end of the war", reflecting that the South Korean side also intends to actively respond to China's concerns. However, it is worth noting that on November 29 and 30 and on December 2, Yonhap News Agency declared three consecutive times about Xu Xuan's visit to China that "I expect the Chinese side to guide the DPRK", and seemed to be deliberately linking the responsibility for signing the declaration of the end of the war with the Chinese side, and still carrying out some kind of meaningless small move.
But in fact, the biggest obstacle to the current declaration of the end of the war comes from the following two points: one is the North Korean nuclear issue, and the other is the US military issue in South Korea. These two issues are essentially two sides of the same coin, and that is the aggressive posture of the United States on the Korean Peninsula.
For North Korea, at least in theory, the reason for its nuclear possession is that the United States and South Korea have always been enemies of North Korea, and the US military even deployed nuclear weapons on the peninsula at one point, and under this asymmetrical military pressure, North Korea was "forced to defend itself with nuclear weapons." It is impossible for the declaration of the end of the war to coexist with North Korea's legitimate nuclear possession, but the extent to which North Korea will abandon its nuclear weapons for such a political declaration is unknown to the outside world.
For the United States, on the other hand, U.S. forces in South Korea form an important part of its military deployment in Northeast Asia, theoretically used to guard against the threat of North Korean force, but its practical purpose also includes containing Both China and Russia. To what extent the United States will abandon the strategic military deployment it has been building for many years for such a political declaration, especially at a time when the strategic center of gravity of the United States is constantly shifting to the Indo-Pacific region, and the outside world is even more unknown.
But what the outside world knows is that a declaration of the end of the war has its own considerations, but unless there is some kind of big change in Sino-US relations, unless South Korea truly realizes that China is of vital importance to the breaking of the Korean Peninsula and stops those meaningless small actions, the declaration of the end of the war can only be a regret for Moon Jae-in, or even more of his successors, when he left the Blue House.
Editor 丨 Zhang Sinan, chief writer of Straight News, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV", "Live Broadcasting, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan"