We have been following the Cheonan incident on the blog — from Geoff Forden’s initial post indicating Torpedo damage (ROK Ship: Typical Torpedo Damage), to Josh Pollack’s posts on the report that concluded, yes, indeed North Korea had torpedoed the Cheonan (The Cheonan Report, The Cheonan Report, Continued) and South Korea’s response (Lee Myung-bak’s Line Drawn in the Water.)

Today’s commentary comes from Gregory Kulacki, who argues that the press is not accurately reporting the comments of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is reported to have said that China would not defend any country guilty of the attack.

The U.S. press (and possibly the US government) is potentially misinterpreting what Wen Jiabao said in Korea. Fortunately, both Korea and Japan use the Chinese characters, so there will be no misunderstanding there, but Wen chose a characteristically traditional and subtle word that carries a different connotation than “defend” and most certainly did it intentionally. And he did not say “country” but “behavior.” These are small but important differences.

The AP story states the following

The premier of China, North Korea’s main ally, offered condolences Saturday to South Korea for the sinking of a warship blamed on Pyongyang after promising that Beijing — under pressure to punish the North —would not defend any country guilty of the attack.

The meaning of the English word “defend” here is not entirely wrong, but a better, more accurate translation of what Wen meant was that “China opposes and will not make excuses for any behavior that damages peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.”

Taken as a whole that reads quite differently, at least to me, that what AP and others are reporting.

Late Update | 11:20 am I was a little quick on the post. Gregory emailed me to add “Another possible definition of the term is ‘condemn’ or ‘seriously criticize’ and it is a word used in political contexts to expressed strong criticism of the inappropriate, misguided, mistaken or malicious behavior or policies of individuals, groups and nations.”