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Ambassador Fu Cong, the permanent representative of China to the United Nations, speaks at a meeting of the UN Security Council. (from @ChinaAmbUN on X)

A Chinese diplomat said China wants peace and stability, rather than chaos, crisis and war, on the Korean Peninsula. 

“The peninsula issue has been protracted for years. The core is the disputes between the US and the DPRK. And the key to solving the problem lies in [the] hands of the US,” Ambassador Fu Cong, the permanent representative of China to the United Nations, said during a meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday.

“It is imperative for all parties to take a rational and pragmatic approach and work to build mutual trust, so as to create a conducive atmosphere for deescalating the situation,” he went on.

“What has happened over the years has given us ample reason to question whether or not the US really wants to ease the situation on the peninsula, or rather to use it as an excuse to achieve its greater geopolitical aims. If the US is sincerely wishing to break the current deadlock, it should know what to do,” Fu continued. 

“The US should abandon its erroneous practices of bloc politics, provoking bloc confrontations, conducting military exercises at will, and constantly threatening to exert pressure. Only in this way, can the situation on the peninsula be eased and conditions created for the peaceful resolution of the crisis through dialogue,” Fu said.

“As a close neighbor of the Peninsula, China hopes for peace and stability on the Peninsula and does not wish to see any turbulence or even war and chaos there,” he said.

Fu asserted that China’s proposed dual-track approach — that is, moving forward, step by step, toward peace and denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula at the same time — remains, even now, a realistic and practicable way of arriving at a fundamental solution to the Korean question.

China’s assertion that the US is principally to blame for the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula suggests that China’s primary security concern is efforts by the US, South Korea and Japan to strengthen ties and hold military exercises, along with other forms of military cooperation, with the goal of countering China.

But China may also be signaling that it’s closely monitoring the deepening relationship between Russia and North Korea and North Korea’s deployment of troops to Russia. Such developments are introducing instability to the Korean Peninsula, which is not in China’s interest. China’s attitude is subtly different from Russia’s enthusiastic support of North Korea and its call for lifting sanctions against the North in the same UN Security Council meeting on Monday.

“The phrase about war and chaos breaking out — in Chinese, shēng zhàn shēng luàn (生战生乱) — is typically used when discussing how to mitigate the likely impact of chaos or wars in nearby countries on core national interests such as sovereignty, security and development,” said Yang Gap-yong, a senior researcher at Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy.

“For the Chinese ambassador to the UN to use the phrase while speaking about the North Korean nuclear issue means this issue is tied to China’s core interests and expresses serious concerns about the present situation,” he assessed.

The last time a senior Chinese official used this phrase to refer to the situation on the Korean Peninsula was in March, eight months ago, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was speaking to the domestic and foreign press in a press conference.

It’s also notable that Fu referred to China’s dual-track approach to denuclearization, considering that Chinese officials have not brought that up recently. The dual-track approach includes a call for a “double suspension” of nuclear weapon and missile tests and joint military exercises between South Korea and the US.

For China to invoke its proposed approach now suggests it “thinks the current situation involves considerable peril,” Yang suggested.

By Park Min-hee, senior staff writer

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