Following Washington’s plan to send nuclear submarines to Seoul in an effort to ostensibly defend it against Pyongyang, China has issued a warning to South Korea and the US warning them against “raising tensions” and “provoking confrontation” with the North.
Beijing warned Washington and Seoul on Thursday to avoid “provoking confrontation” with Pyongyang, Seoul’s longtime adversary, in response to the US decision to send nuclear-armed submarines to South Korea.
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning stated at a press briefing that “all parties should face up to the core of the (Korean peninsula) issue and play a constructive role in promoting a peaceful settlement of the issue.”
She added cautioned the US and South Korea from “deliberately provoking conflict, playing up threats, and escalating tensions.”
The so-called Washington Declaration contract with Seoul was also denounced by Mao, who argued that the US “ignores regional security and insists on exploiting the peninsula issue to create tension.”
She emphasized that “what the US is doing… provokes confrontation between camps, undermines the nuclear non-proliferation regime, and the strategic interests of other countries,” and warned that US actions “aggravate tensions on the peninsula, undermine regional peace and stability, and run counter to the goal of denuclearization on the peninsula.”
In the military pact agreed on Wednesday by the presidents of the United States and South Korea, Washington promised to “end” Kim Jong-un’s regime should Pyongyang launch a nuclear strike on Seoul.
In 1981, the US last dispatched ballistic missile submarines to South Korea.
As a result of the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 to 1953 and ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty, leaving the two neighbors technically still at war, more than 28,500 American troops remain stationed in South Korea.
In 2022, North Korea test-fired multiple missiles, including its most sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile yet. North Korea has been under to severe sanctions by the United States and the UN Security Council for years because to its defense nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
North Korea has repeatedly stated that it will continue to develop and test-launch missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent against ongoing joint military exercises that the US and South Korean armed forces hold close to its waters and that Pyongyang views as drills to invade its territory.
China, North Korea’s main economic supporter, and largest trading partner, has repeatedly advocated for a peaceful resolution to the crisis and urged all sides to refrain from taking any steps that would inflame tensions or spark a military clash in the area.
