On Friday, China warned US and South Korea over naval drills they are about to conduct near the Chinese border, saying it was firm in establishing peace between the North and the South.
The four day exercises could push the countries towards a war, North Korea said on Friday stepping up its game just days after it bombed a South Korean island.
However, the US said the exercises were planned long before the attack and the target was by no means China, but North Korea, so that it would stop its aggression.
Pentagon spokesman Captain Darryn James said that they have operated in the Korean waters for years now and it’s not them who are being provocative, but North Korea.
Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi met with North Korea’s ambassador Ji Jae Ryong and called US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and South Korean Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan by phone, making an appeal for calm in the region. The Chinese official also emphasized the importance of ensuring that such events are not repeated.
The US is trying to persuade China to use its power to lead in talks with impulsive North Korea, which has no plans to halt its nuclear activities.
China’s warning came as South Korea named a soldier as its new defense minister after receiving criticism on its reply to the North’s heaviest bombardments since end of the 1953 war. It killed four people, destroyed dozen of houses in the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong. The South’s military responded 13 minutes later. The size of damages is yet unknown.
The North Korean KCNA news agency said the peninsula was on the verge of war because of staged war games that target North Korea. The North Korean statement caused the South’s currency to fall by as much as 2.2 percent, as its markets closed 1.3 percent lower.
A market analyst at NH Investment & securities said that the investors were concerned by war games and North Korea’s response.
China was angered by USA’s action of sending aircraft carriers, with USS George Washington, in the lead for the exercise with the South.
China’s Foreign Ministry opposed any such activity which was in the country’s waters, 200 nautical miles from the coast, which is exclusive to China.
Pentagon official said that China was informed of the drills and that the exercises were not meant to send a message to China, but to North Korea.
