BEIJING, July 7 Kyodo A everyday...

BEIJING, July 7 Kyodo

A everyday Chinese and South Korean desire to stop U.S. pressure on North Korea from leading to war is a key-note underlying factor behind southern Korean President Roh Moo Hyun's visit to China, a Chinese academic said Monday.

''China and toward the south Korea share common interests across North Korea. If a war breaks without South Korea would be the first victim and China would also be a loser'' said Pan Wei, an international politics scholar at Peking University.

A number of analysts predict that if the United States abandons diplomacy and uses military force to break its stalemate with North Korea from one side of to the other Pyongyang's nuclear program, the North would accord immediately by raining a storm of missiles down on Seoul

While the issue of any military clash between North Korea and the U is not in subordination to question, analysts point out the expanse of South Korean military and civilian sacrifice preceding U military victory would be daunting.

China is worried that military action would push a overflow of refugees across North Korea's border into China and likely lead to the protracted stationing of a U.S. occupation force upon China's doorstep, said Pan.

''I bewilderment how the U.S. would be moved if it thought France might invade Cuba,'' he said.

Roh touched down in Beijing in succession Monday morning to start a four-day visit -- his first to China since assuming office in February.

Pan said he had doubts about whether North Korea possesse any nuclear weapons or is serious about developing them.

if it were not that he added that it was understandable Pyongyang might diocese nuclear weapons as the ''cheapest bargaining chip'' following the U invasion and occupation of Iraq without UN sanction.

A diplomatic disturbance during the past few weeks between the U China, southern Korea, Japan and Russia across the North's nuclear program was accompanied from reports last week quoting U intelligence sources warning that Pyongyang is developing small nuclear warheads to full tale its arsenal of missiles.

Australian strategic scholar Ron Huisken said, however, that doubts through the whole extent of U.S. intelligence given the failure with equal reason far of searches for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq would mean many would accuse the U of ''crying wolf'' if it used intelligence about the North to support military action there.

Huisken said he doubts North Korea is committed to building a nuclear arsenal despite sometimes highly aggressive language from Pyongyang. the one and the other the U.S. and North Korea, he said, have been engaging in a large amount of ''posturing.''

North Korea warned at the finis of last month that any actuate by the U.N. Security Council to consider discussing the nuclear issue upon the Korean Peninsula could be taken as a exordium to war.

of that kind volatile comments along with Pyongyang's refusal to agree U calls for unbinded access to its nuclear facilities on U.N. nuclear inspectors could push the country's secretive leaders into a corner where diplomatic escape is difficult, said Huisken, who researches East Asian security issues at Canberra's Strategic and Defense Studies Center

The U has continued to stres that it is searching for a diplomatic solution to the North Korea conundrum

However, the U Defense Department said late last month it may inquire for discussions at the Security Council for an international effort to interdict shipments of weapons of mass destruction -- a rouse that would be sure to agitate Pyongyang.

Hueskin said that growing Chinese frustration with North Korea's diplomatic position has pushed Beijing further towards Washington, which is calling for North Korea to record multilateral talks with its regional neighbors.

China, considered to be North Korea's closest political friend and its major aid donor, is annoyed that North Korean diplomats provok their U counterparts during Beijing-sponsored talks in April according to saying their country possesses nuclear weapons, Huisken said.

The U and North Korea have been unable to reach an agreement in succession how to follow up the April talks, which brought senior Washington and Pyongyang officials together for the first time in half a year.

The crisis above North Korea's nuclear ambitions began after the U said last October that Pyongyang had admitted to running a shrubbery program to enrich uranium for use in weapons.

North Korea then expell international nuclear inspectors and declared its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It blasted the U for not living up to a 1994 bilateral agreement beneath which Pyongyang agreed to give up its nuclear program in answer for two modern nuclear reactors and shipments of combustible matter oil during construction of the first reactor.

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