Chinese officials on Tuesday reiterated their objection to a joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea, which is expected to take place later this month.
Earlier this month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said China had expressed ‘serious concern’ over the naval drill, which was scheduled to begin in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of South Korea. Perhaps out of consideration of the protest, Seoul and Washington have reportedly agreed to begin the exercises, which will include the aircraft carrier the USS George Washington, in the Sea of Japan (off South Korea’s east coast) before moving to the Yellow Sea.
The drills were announced after South Korea announced the results of its investigation into the sinking of the Cheonan warship in March, which found that the ship had been torpedoed by a North Korean submarine.
At a press briefing last week, Qin explained China’s opposition to the drill, saying China ‘resolutely opposes foreign warships and fighter jets entering, and flying over, the (West) Sea and adjacent waters and engaging in activities that affect China's security interest.’
Of course Chinese officials wouldn’t dream of telling South Korea what it can and can’t do as this would amount to meddling in a country’s internal affairs. So instead, it just defines its own interests as broadly as necessary (ask Vietnam, which has been the victim of a unilateral fishing ban imposed by China in waters popular with Vietnamese fishermen).
The problem with this, though, is that it looks particularly hypocritical in light of its own recent naval exercises near Japan, including in April when Japan’s Maritime Self-Defence Force reportedly spotted two submarines and eight destroyers sailing between Okinawa’s main island and the island of Miyako.
The presence of such a large convoy, and the alleged ‘buzzing’ by a Chinese helicopter from one of the vessels, which came within about 90 metres of a Japanese ship, prompted Japanese Defence Minister Toshimi Kitazawa to announce a detailed analysis was being undertaken, including over whether ‘there was any intent toward this country or not.’
But, seeing as China is in the mood to pass judgment on what other countries are doing that might ‘affect’ its security interests, why not put a little more pressure on North Korea over the way it’s treating its citizens. China has a clear in ensuring a stable North Korea—the last thing it wants is a large number of refugees trying to cross the border into China in the event that the North Korean regime does collapse.
Yet the dire state of the health system as reported today by Amnesty International is surely cause for concern about the prospects for at some kind of least social stability. In a truly awful investigation into the state of health care in North Korea, Amnesty reports that in some cases doctors have been performing amputations without anesthesia.
That said, one defector who was interviewed for the report suggested that things have been so bad for so long that unrest is unlikely as North Koreans are simply numbed to the state of their health care system. According to the report, she said:
‘(T)hings keep progressively getting worse, or even staying the same but at that low level…So when something else happens they're not quick to react and think, 'Oh, this is my entitlement.’
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ksou
From what all my Chinese friends have told me China’s one real concern is keeping its populace content and undisruptive . Any tough talk is done for purposes of nationalism (make China look strong-this is for its own people.).
harry
then i have to say your friends know nothing about CHinese. Chinese have you ever been to a Chinese forum? In their nearly everyone knows we are still not a powerul country we Chinese know most Chinese are poor compared to the west, we Chinese know that our military is relitivly weak against the Americans. But natonalism is does not work like that, every single Chinese knows inorder for China to be powerful inorder for Chinese to be rich ALL Chinese must work together. ONLY then we Chinese will think about radical political reforms and setting in a democratic system because at the moment the Chinese way of doing things are working better than any country. When you have 1.4 billion people think like that then you better prepare for a Chinese dominated world in a few decades time.
LungShaShou
Your friends are seriously misguided. Anyone who takes a look at blogs and forums can see that the mood of the younger educated Chinese is towards demonstrating their countries’ power. This garbage about the one real concern being keeping the population content beggars belief. True it is a real concern, but not the one real concern. The Boston Consulting Study commissioned by the Dictatorship showed that 1% of the population own 70% of the wealth. Endemic corruption and the lack of moral treatment of many citizens by a corrupt and savage leadership mean that keeping them screwed down is a concern, as is inciting nationalist hatred of other nations. They are more concerned about the “No Chinese or Dogs” signs and opium war colonial past than the fact that the paedophilic despotic Mao killed around 60 million of their Chinese brothers and sisters with his idiotic reforms and attempt to keep others off balance while he entrenched power. They are as racist as any white man has ever been and are itching to demonstrate their power. Trying to minimise and deny their tough talk is wish fulfillment at best.
jim
So Jason cited Japanese example. But Didn’t Japanese government protest against China even though the exercise was in the international water? Since the exercise was legal under the international law, shouldn’t Japanese not even protest?
Furthermore, when does a couple of military planes compared with nuclear warship? Imagine Russian decided to deploy a nuclear warship near the Cuba, US probably will intercept the warship. Remember the Cuba missile crisis.