China Calls on North Korea to Return Abductees

Some interesting statements emerged from a trilateral summit in Cebu:

The leaders of Japan, China and South Korea urged North Korea Sunday to scrap its nuclear weapons and to respond to international humanitarian concerns.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun made the plea in a joint statement after the first summit between the three nations in two years.

It is rare for China publicly to raise humanitarian concerns about North Korea. Beijing is Pyongyang’s only remaining big-power ally.

North Koreans, however, need not apply to have their humanitarian concerns considered.  They’re on their own.

The leaders “emphasised the importance of addressing the issue of humanitarian concerns of the international community,” said the statement after the meeting, held on the sidelines of annual Southeast Asian summits.

A senior Japanese official said the reference was to Japanese and South Korean complaints about the North’s refusal to account for past abductions of their citizens.

They also called for full implementation of U.N. Resolutions against North Korea, which suggests that this is just noise.  Neither China nor South Korea has taken compliance with 1695 or 1718 seriously.  And in the next breath, Roh Moo Hyun told everyone not to even worry about North Korea having nukes:

South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told his ASEAN counterparts that while Seoul believes that North Korea has nuclear arms, “they have limited range”.

He added that, “the short-range capability of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons should be no reason for an arms’ race in the region”.

Right.  And on the other side of the ledger, they’re in the hands of an isolated, impulsive, genocidal tyrant who would sell them to anyone.  It certainly gives us some idea of why South Korea continues to ask no questions about where its billions are going after Kaesong and Kumgang.  More here.