Opinion

Road to a peaceful peninsula

By Lu Chao (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-09-01 07:51

The Korean War: A History, a book by Bruce Cumings, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, has attracted a lot of attention from the US media. Since Cumings has revealed the US army's atrocities in the "forgotten war" and said American hegemony in international politics is not right, some US media outlets have called him a leftist.

It is no longer that important to discuss who fired the first shot in the war 60 years ago. The "two camps" theory is outdated, too, to assess that war now that the Cold War (1950-53) has become history. But it's a fact that the Korean War has not ended according to international laws despite the end of Cold War.

For the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) both, the Korean War is a tragedy. A decade ago, The New York Times revealed that US soldiers had killed an unidentified number of Korean refugees in the "No Gun Ri Massacre".

China was forced to join the Korean War, and later won for itself a peaceful half century and the historical opportunity to modernize its defense capability. The Korean War also ended China's history of being invaded since 1840.

Since the 1980s, China has been adjusting its policy toward the Korean Peninsula with the changing times, and it has completely got rid of the ideological shackle since the establishment of diplomatic relations with the ROK. Despite the China-DPRK Treaty for Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, China has established a strategic cooperation partnership with the ROK. No wonder, China is considered a friend of the DPRK and the ROK both

That's why China has been hosting the Six-Party Talks and played a key role in maintaining peace and stability on the Korea Peninsula.

The existing security regime in East Asia is a relic of the Cold War, which was a product of East-West confrontation. With the end of the Cold War, former military alliances have lost their real bases. But some of them have remained intact in varying degrees. The ones like the US-Japan military alliance and US-ROK military alliances have even got stronger.

America's top concern is its unilateral interest, and not the common safety of the East Asian region. Since East Asia is of great strategic importance to the US, it is highly sensitive to any attempt to undermine its interests in this region.