USS George Washington, a floating airbase aimed at North Korea and China
[Commander-in-Chief Obama’s decision to send the USS George Washington and supporting warships to the North China Sea is a full-court military press aimed at intimidating North Korea and putting greater pressure on China to bring North Korea back to the 6 country talks that have been suspended for months. North Korea’s willingness to strike back at military provocations by South Korea (such as South Korea’s continual military exercises along the border), and its willingness to expend enormous economic resources on its military and nuclear program are not simply “defensive.” The North Korean government hopes to use the threat of its powerful military to South Korea to extract substantial economic aid and investments (such as the South Korean export zones that already exist in the North) from South Korea and the US in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons program. It remains to be seen how successful tthe US political/military strategy will be.–Frontlines ed.]
BEIJING – China expressed concern about South Korea’s planned joint military exercise with the United States and said it was maintaining contact with Washington over tensions on the Korean peninsula, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday. “We have noted the relevant reports and express our concern about this,” a spokesman for the ministry, Hong Lei, told a regular news conference.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Thursday a joint military exercise with the United States due later this month will send a clear message to North Korea. The resumption of stalled six-party talks to persuade Pyongyang to abandon nuclear disarmament [sic] was “urgently” needed, Hong said, adding that all parties in the dispute in the Korean peninsula should “do more to ease” the situation.
China has been urged by the United States and its regional allies, South Korea and Japan, to help rein in Pyongyang after North Korea shelled a South Korean island on Tuesday, killing four people and triggering a confrontation. Beijing was angered earlier this year by joint U.S.-South Korea naval exercises off the South Korean coast that those two nations said were meant to warn North Korea. Beijing said such exercises could threaten its security and regional stability.
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle 