Beijing: China warned the United States and South Korea Thursday against holding joint war games near its waters and urged the two nations to guard against exacerbating festering tensions with North Korea.
The joint military exercises were scheduled after the March sinking of a South Korean warship that Seoul has blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack and which killed 46 sailors and sent regional tensions soaring.
“China has expressed its serious concerns with relevant parties,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters when asked about the war games.
“We are firmly opposed to foreign military vessels engaging in activities that undermine China’s security interests in the Yellow Sea or waters close to China.”
Beijing has refused to condemn its neighbour and close ally North Korea for the alleged attack despite an international probe that blamed the isolated communist state. China has said it was studying the investigation’s findings.
China kicked off six days of live-fire military exercises off its eastern coast this week, in what state-controlled media said was a response to the planned US-South Korean war games.
State television this week showed footage of Chinese warships firing advanced missiles and other weaponry in a mock defence of the nation’s territorial waters.
No date has been publicly announced for the exercises between the American and South Korean forces.
China, which provides badly needed aid to impoverished North Korean, is obliged by a 1961 treaty to help defend it against unprovoked aggression.
“We hope relevant parties will exercise calm and restraint and refrain from actions that exacerbate tensions in the region,” Qin said.
China, a permanent, veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, is working with other members of the body to formulate a “document” on the alleged attack, he said, giving no other details.
South Korea has asked the UN Security Council to censure Pyongyang but China has so far not lent its support to that call.
