China to appoint envoy in S. Korea as ambassador to Japan

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BEIJING, Dec. 19 Kyodo -
China has unofficially decided to appoint its ambassador to South Korea, Cheng
Yonghua, as ambassador to Japan, replacing Cui Tiankai, as early as late
January, Chinese government sources said Saturday.
Cui, 57, is expected to become a vice foreign minister and succeed Vice Foreign
Minister Wu Dawei as chair of the six-party talks on ending North Korea's
nuclear ambitions, the sources said.
Cheng, 55, is a specialist in Japanese affairs, having served as the deputy
chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy in Japan and a deputy director general
of the Foreign Ministry's Asian Affairs Department.
The planned appointment of Cui suggests China's willingness to move forward the
six-party denuclearization talks. ''As the successor to Mr. Wu, there is nobody
but Mr. Cui who can steer the stalled talks,'' a Chinese government source
said.
Before becoming ambassador to Japan in 2007, Cui served as China's deputy chief
delegate to the six-way talks, which involve the two Koreas, the United States,
China, Japan and Russia.
Cheng has firm ties with political and business circles in Japan. Given his
gentle character and rich experience with Japan, there have been growing
expectations in Japan about Cheng's assuming the ambassadorship.
In appointing Cheng as ambassador to Tokyo, the Chinese government hopes to
boost bilateral exchanges and improve public sentiment in each country toward
the other, leading to advancement in Sino-Japanese relations, according to
observers.
Cheng, who studied at Soka University in Tokyo, has been Chinese ambassador to
Seoul since 2008 after earlier serving as ambassador to Malaysia.
Cui, meanwhile, is seen as a candidate for a future foreign minister as he has
served key posts at the Foreign Ministry including assistant foreign minister
and director general of the Asian Affairs Department.
Earlier this month, U.S. President Barack Obama's special envoy Stephen
Bosworth met with senior North Korean officials in Pyongyang and reached
''common understandings'' on the need to resume the six-way talks and to
implement an aid-for-denuclearization deal the six nations struck in 2005.
But Bosworth said no date was set for the North to return to the multilateral
dialogue.
Pyongyang withdrew from the six-party talks in April to protest a U.N. Security
Council condemnation of a rocket launch it conducted the same month. It added
to the tensions with its second nuclear test in May.
==Kyodo
2009-12-20 00:58:22