Source: Wall Street Journal by Brian SpegeleBEIJING—China brushed aside criticism by U.S. President Barack Obama over its refusal to blame its close ally North Korea for the sinking of a South Korean warship, as tensions between China and the U.S. over the incident escalated.
Mr. Obama said on Sunday that he raised the issue with Chinese President Hu Jintao at a meeting of world leaders in Toronto over the weekend. "I think there's a difference between restraint and willful blindness to consistent problems," Mr. Obama said.
Asked about those comments, Chinese foreign-ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news briefing on Tuesday: "China borders on the Korean peninsula, and we have our own feeling on the issue, different from that of the countries tens of thousands miles away.…We have more direct and intense concerns."
In response to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, in which 46 sailors died, the U.S. is planning joint naval exercises with South Korea designed to signal strong support for its ally. China, North Korea's chief international supporter, has condemned the exercises as destabilizing to the region.
A U.S. military spokesman said on Tuesday that the drills could take place next month. U.S. Navy spokesman Cmdr. Jeff A. Davis said the drills weren't meant to intimidate China or destabilize the region, but "are designed to ensure we have the ability to maintain peace and defeat aggression on the Korean peninsula."
China has announced it will conduct its own drills in the East China Sea beginning Wednesday. Chinese state media have suggested those exercises are a direct response to the planned U.S. operations. Mr. Qin denied this, saying the Chinese drills have "nothing to do with the situation on the Korean peninsula."
South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are pushing for the United Nations Security Council to recognize North Korea's culpability in the ship sinking. Such a move would need the support of China, a permanent council member.
Some defense experts suggest the U.S.-South Korea exercises are partly intended to reassert the U.S. military's presence in the Pacific even as its forces appear heavily committed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Given recent economic problems and U.S. disarray in Afghanistan, it is necessary to show the world in general, and China in particular, that the U.S. is an active and committed Pacific power," said Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, a professor at Georgetown University and a former State Department official in Beijing.
China froze military relations with the U.S. earlier this year following President Obama's decision to go ahead with $6.4 billion in weapons sales to Taiwan.
Tensions flared openly at a conference of senior defense officials in Singapore last month after Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pointedly criticized China for its continued objection to Taiwan arms sales.
"Only in the military-to-military arena has progress on critical mutual security issues been held hostage over something that is, quite frankly, old news," Mr. Gates said in a speech.
Many analysts say military friction between the U.S. and China will be contained. They note that relations in other areas have improved markedly, particularly since a high-level dialogue in Beijing last monthin which both sides tempered their rhetoric.
"Let's face it, the balance of power remains where it is," said Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies. "China needs the United States on so many levels, just as the United States needs China."
Another source of tension—China's currency policy—has eased somewhat since China announced earlier this month that it would ease the yuan's peg to the dollar and allow greater exchange-rate flexibility. The yuan has since edged higher against the dollar.
Some scholars in China see the planned U.S.-South Korean naval exercises as an act of disrespect toward a rising power. Shi Yinhong, an expert on international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said the drills are a "slap in the face" for the Chinese government. "The United States has not treated China as a great power," he said.
Cmdr. Davis, the U.S. Navy spokesman, noted that joint naval exercises between the U.S. and South Korea aren't out of the ordinary and U.S. Navy ships routinely patrol the Yellow Sea.
Chinese state media have reported the presence of a U.S. aircraft carrier near China's shores. An article Tuesday on the English-language website of the People's Daily, a Communist Party organ, said China is under the ship's "combat scope."
Cmdr. Davis declined to discuss the potential location or size of the fleet involved in the naval drills, saying details for the exercise hadn't been finalized.
Some foreign analysts say hawks within the People's Liberation Army are putting pressure on politicians to respond to what are viewed as aggressive acts by the U.S., and their leverage is growing as policy makers seek the military's support ahead of a leadership transition in 2012.
"This is one of the moments the PLA are in more power," Mr. Glosserman said. "No political leader can afford to be seen as weak."
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