By Hwang Doo-hyong
WASHINGTON, April 13 (Yonhap) -- The United States Wednesday urged China to use its influence to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons and refrain from provoking South Korea.

   "China remains North Korea's largest supplier of food and fuel, and China perhaps has more interaction with North Korea than any other country," David Helvey, principal director for East Asia policy at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, told a hearing here sponsored by the U.S. Commission on China. "The PLA appears to retain access and influence in North Korea's regime, and we would like for China to use these tools to great effect to support the international community's interest in the peaceful process of denuclearization of North Korea." The People's Liberation Army refers to the Chinese military.

   The six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear dismantlement have been deadlocked for more than two years over the North's nuclear and missile tests and the sinking of a South Korean warship and shelling of a border island that killed 50 people last year.

   Seoul and Washington want Pyongyang to mend ties with Seoul before another round of the denuclearization-for-aid talks take place.

   Pyongyang refused to apologize for the provocations and walked out of a rare inter-Korean dialogue in February, thwarting hopes for an early return to the nuclear talks.

   Speaking at the hearing, Daniel Kritenbrink, acting deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, also urged China to "press North Korea to take additional steps to improve relations with South Korea, to denuclearize and to abide by its international commitments and obligations.
"We expect China to use its close relationship with North Korea to persuade the North Korean regime to cease its reckless behavior," he said.

   Some analysts say China may be willing to acquiesce to North Korea's possession of nuclear weapons, even though Beijing has been the host of the now-stalled six-party nuclear disarmament talks.

   With an eye on superpower status, Beijing is said to prefer the status quo to any instability, or a unified Korea led by South Korea and the U.S., due to concerns about losing North Korea as a buffer against the U.S.

   China, which provides more than 80 percent of the oil, food and other necessities to the North, has invested heavily in the isolated, impoverished nation in recent decades, although Pyongyang has long been under international sanctions.

   China, the North's last remaining major ideological ally, is bound by treaty to automatically intervene in case of armed conflicts in the neighboring North.

   U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit South Korea this weekend after attending a NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Berlin, and South Korea's chief nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac, is currently in Washington to meet with U.S. officials to coordinate their North Korea policy.

   Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter will fly to Pyongyang late this month to broker an agreement on North Korea's denuclearization, a peace treaty and humanitarian food aid to the impoverished communist state. In 1994, Carter met with then-North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and arranged a bilateral denuclearization deal during the first North Korean nuclear crisis.

   hdh@yna.co.kr
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