US carrier fleet heads for Korean waters

China calls for restraint as leaders discuss North Korea

Chinese President Xi Jinping called for all sides to exercise restraint yesterday in a call about North Korea with US President Donald Trump, as Japan conducted joint drills with a US aircraft carrier strike group headed for Korean waters.

The carrier group was sent by Trump for exercises in waters off the Korean peninsula as a warning, amid growing fears North Korea could conduct another nuclear test soon in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

Angered by the approach of the US carrier group, a defiant North Korea said yesterday the deployment of the USS Carl Vinson was “an extremely dangerous act by those who plan a nuclear war to invade the North”.

“The United States should not run amok and should consider carefully any catastrophic consequence from its foolish military provocative act,” Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said in a commentary An official North Korean website warned yesterday Pyongyang will ‘wipe out’ the United States if Washington starts a war on the peninsula, the latest tit-for-tat sabre-rattling that has sent tensions soaring in the region.

The US supercarrier Carl Vinson will arrive in waters off the Korean peninsula ‘in a matter of days’, Vice-President Mike Pence said on Saturday, amid reports the North could be preparing a sixth nuclear test. Pyongyang is still believed to be far from reaching its aim of building a missile capable of reaching the US mainland, but the secretive nation has ramped up its rhetoric in recent weeks and has carried out two rocket tests this month alone.

In a series of editorials the newspaper — the official mouthpiece of the ruling Workers’ Party — said the North’s forces were undeterred and called the US strike group’s imminent arrival ‘undisguised military blackmail’. ‘Such threat may startle a jellyfish, but can never work on the DPRK,’ it said, using the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

A day earlier it said the North’s revolutionary forces were ‘combatready to sink the US nuclear aircraft carrier with a single strike’.

A separate editorial on the North’s propaganda website Uriminzokkiri yesterday claimed that the dispatching of the Carl Vinson signalled a war: ‘It is proof that an invasion of the North is nearing day by day.’ yesterday.

“What’s only laid for aggressors is dead bodies and deaths,” the newspaper said.

Two Japanese destroyers have already joined the carrier group for drills in the western Pacific, and South Korea said yesterday it was also in talks about holding joint naval exercises.

Washington and its allies fear Pyongyang could be preparing to conduct another nuclear missile test or launch more ballistic missiles.

China is increasingly worried the situation could spin out of control, leading to war and a chaotic collapse of its isolated and poverty-struck neighbour. Xi told Trump China resolutely opposes any actions that run counter to UN Security Council resolutions, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said.

China “hopes that all relevant sides exercise restraint, and avoid doing anything to worsen the tense situation on the peninsula”, the statement paraphrased Xi as saying.

The nuclear issue can only be resolved quickly with all relevant countries pulling in the same direction, and China is willing to work with all parties, including the United States, to ensure peace, Xi said.

The issue has gained added urgency as North Korea prepares to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the foundation of its Korean People’s Army today. It has marked similar events in the past with nuclear tests or missile launches.

‘Repeated provocation’

Earlier, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described his conversation with Trump as a “thorough exchange of views”.

“We agreed to strongly demand that North Korea, which is repeating its provocation, show restraint,” Abe told reporters.

“We will maintain close contact with the United States, keep a high level of vigilance and respond firmly,” he said.

Abe also said he and Trump agreed that China, North Korea’s sole major ally, should play a large role in dealing with Pyongyang.