McCain: China must get more engaged with NKorea

On the eve of a week-long trip to Asia, US Senator John McCain warned that North Korea is on "dangerous ground" with a planned rocket launch and urged China to do more to rein in Pyongyang.

"It argues for, again, increased sanctions on North Korea and increases the urgency of the Chinese becoming far more engaged in this issue," McCain told AFP in an interview about his travels to Hong Kong, Hanoi, Beijing and Tokyo.

Japan, South Korea and the United States see the North's plan to launch a communications satellite sometime between April 4 and 8 as a disguised test of a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile which could in theory reach Alaska or Hawaii.

Asked whether the possible launch constituted a foreign policy crisis, the Arizona Republican replied: "I can't say 'crisis,' but it certainly is an enormous challenge.

"On the one hand, North Korea is just trying to get attention. On the other hand, they're getting into very, very serious and dangerous ground," said McCain, his party's senior member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

McCain, who lost his bid for the White House to Democratic President Barack Obama in November, said an early March naval confrontation between US and Chinese ships was "certainly disturbing" but highlighted the importance of Sino-US relations.

"Overall, our relationships with China are still good. We have to continue the dialogue. We have to maintain a careful balance between our respect and advocacy for human rights and our broader relationship with China," he said.

Asked about recent Chinese comments seen as questioning US global economic preeminence, McCain said the Chinese occasionally like to "rhetorically flex their muscles."

The senator, 72, plans question-and-answer sessions with students at Peking University in Beijing and Hanoi's Diplomatic Academy, a kind of grilling he called "the fun part" of the trip.

"In both places, these are future leaders of the countries. Sometimes you get into fairly frank discussions with them," said McCain, who hoped that both countries would allow his words to reach a broad audience.

And he underlined that a deep freeze in US relations with Pakistan under a 1985 US law aiming to curtail Islamabad's nuclear program "did not prove to be of any value. Quite the opposite."

Asked about relations with Japan, McCain stressed that "the Japanese remain our steadfast friends in the region" and noted he would be discussing with officials there plans to relocate some 8,000 US troops from Okinawa to Guam.

The United States has committed to completing the move by 2014, while Japan pledged to contribute more than six billion dollars towards the planned relocation of the US Marines.

The senator, who spent roughly five years as a prisoner of war after being shot down over Vietnam in 1967, was last there five years ago but has made numerous trips back over the years, notably to work on the issue of US soldiers missing in action.

McCain's trip opens Sunday in Hong Kong, and will take him to Hanoi, Beijing and Tokyo for meetings with officials -- and includes a tour of the USS John McCain destroyer, which is named for his father and grandfather.

The ship is based at Yokosuka Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan.

McCain's travels will take up the first of two weeks of "recess" before lawmakers return to work in late April.







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