China warns US, S. Korea against ‘provoking’ tack

BEIJING – China warned Washington and Seoul against “provoking confrontation” with North Korea on Thursday, after President Joe Biden and his South Korean counterpart said Pyongyang would face the “end” of its leadership if it uses its nuclear arsenal.

“All parties should face up to the crux of the ( Korean) peninsula issue and play a constructive role in promoting a peaceful settlement of the issue,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said, urging against “deliberately stirring up tensions, provoking confrontation and playing up threats”.

If North Korea uses its nuclear weapons against the United States or its ally South Korea, it would be “the end” of Kim Jong Un’s regime, Seoul and Washington announced this week.

The stern threat comes as President Yoon Suk Yeol is on a six- day state visit to the United States, where he and his counterpart Joe Biden discussed ramping up the US security shield for South Korea in the face of the nuclear-armed North’s increased missile tests.

- Is it significant? -

The state visit undoubtedly “represents a new high-water mark for US-South Korea relations, with the breadth and depth of security, economic, and cultural cooperation on full display”, LeifEric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, told AFP.

US officials described the new arrangement as akin to moves last witnessed when Washington oversaw the defence of Europe against the Soviet Union.

Yoon has been trying to reassure the South’s increasingly nervous public about the US commitment to so- called “extended deterrence”, where US assets – including nuclear weapons – serve to prevent attacks on allies.

A majority of South Koreans now believe the country should develop its own nuclear weapons, surveys show. Yoon has previously hinted Seoul could pursue this option.

- Will Seoul get nuclear weapons? -

Absolutely not. And this could cause problems, experts said.

“One thing was clear: there was an implied agreement that Seoul would not go nuclear,” said Soo Kim, Policy Practice Area Lead at LMI Consulting and a former CIA analyst.