Chinese analysts blame U.S. for tensions

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BEIJING, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Chinese analysts blamed the United States for the tensions on the Korean Peninsula and asked Washington to review its policy toward North Korea.

In a report Monday, the China Daily said the analysts' call came as U.S. President Barack Obama prepared to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this week in Washington amid rising tensions stemming from North Korea's latest nuclear test, its third since 2006.

The United States should take the major share of blame for the growing tensions on the peninsula and it is time it adjusted its policies toward North Korea, Wang Junsheng at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences told the official newspaper -- adding U.S. policy toward the North has never been clear since the Cold War ended, which has only added to the isolated country's sense of insecurity.

Wang said North Korea's Feb. 12 nuclear test was inappropriate and asked that country to remain calm and abide by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

China Daily quoted Professor Shi Yinhong at Renmin University of China as telling the official Xinhua News Agency North Korea is an independent country and decides its own affairs.

Professor Chen Qi at Tsinghua University told China Daily the nuclear issues on the Korean Peninsula have not been settled because the United States does not respect the North's security concerns.

He said an unresolved North Korean nuclear issue provides an excuse for the United States to deploy antimissile systems in line with its military rebalance to East Asia.

"The core of the nuclear issue is that Pyongyang's security concerns have long been ignored by Washington," Chen said.

"The current situation in Northeast Asia is imbalanced, with (South Korea) and Japan sheltered under the U.S. nuclear umbrella," Ruan Zongze, deputy director of the China Institute of International Studies, told Xinhua.