If US hits Korea, China will stop it

Beijing warns Trump to cool it

AN OFFICIAL newspaper says China will stay out of it if North Korea attacks the United States. But if the US attacks Pyongyang, “We will stop them”.

China is the North’s most important ally and trading partner and has called for calm in the current crisis.

It has shown frustration with Pyongyang’s repeated nuclear and missile tests and with behaviour from South Korea and the US that it sees as escalating tensions.

US President Donald Trump ratcheted up his rhetoric toward North Korea yesterday, warning its leader Kim Jong-un against attacking Guam or US allies after it disclosed plans to fire missiles over Japan to near the US Pacific territory.

Referring to his “fire and fury” threat, “If anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough,” Mr Trump told reporters at his New Jersey golf club.

He said North Korea had “better get their act together or they are going to be in trouble like few nations have ever been in trouble”.

The widely read state-run Global Times said Beijing was not able to persuade either side to back down.

“It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardise China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand,” it said. “If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.”

China has long worried any conflict on the peninsula could unleash a wave of destabilising refugees into its north-east and could leave a reunified peninsula allied with the US.

North Korea is a useful buffer for China between it and US forces in South Korea and Japan.

The paper said China will “firmly resist any side which wants to change the status quo of the areas where China’s interests are concerned. The Korean Peninsula is where the strategic interests of all sides converge, and no side should try to be the absolute dominator of the region.”