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Laura Zhou

Military chiefs from China and the United States have pledged to overcome differences and fortify links between their armed forces as fears of conflict over nuclear-armed North Korea persist.
The commitment came as Fang Fenghui, chief of the Joint Staff Department of the People’s Liberation Army, met his US counterpart Joseph Dunford in Beijing on Tuesday.
According to the defence ministry, Fang told Dunford that China would work with the US to handle disputes and efficiently manage and control risks.
US ‘moving forward’ with THAAD deployment in South Korea as North Korean crisis grows
Fang, a member of the powerful Central Military Commission, said both sides should “push forward stable military ties as an important and major stablising factor in bilateral relations”.
Dunford, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said both sides were willing to overcome discord.
“We have many, many difficult issues where we don’t necessarily share the same perspective,” Reuters quoted Dunford as saying. “We share a commitment to work through these difficult issues.”
The defence ministry also said the two sides exchanged views on issues of common concern, including Taiwan, the South China Sea and North Korea’s nuclear development.
Tensions have flared in the last week amid a war of words between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
But those strains could be easing with North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency saying Pyongyang would put its plan to hit the US territory of Guam on hold to watch the US “a little bit more”.
Senior US national security officials do their best to walk back President Donald Trump’s threats to unleash ‘fire and fury’ against North Korea
KCNA quoted Kim as saying North Korea would be ready to approve the launch of four intermediate-range Hwasong-12 ballistic missiles if the US “persists in their extremely dangerous, reckless actions on the Korean peninsula and its vicinity”.
It did not say what those actions were but the US and South Korea are expected to conduct annual war games from Monday. The exercises involve tens of thousands of US and South Korean troops and simulate an attack from the North.
Dunford had said that his goal for the trip was to further develop a working relationship with China to lessen the risk of miscalculation on the Korean peninsula.
Washington is trying to enlist Beijing, Pyongyang’s traditional ally and biggest trade partner, to put maximum pressure on the reclusive regime.
But Chinese analysts said Beijing would not fall in behind the US.
Meet China’s new point man to handle North Korean affairs
Yue Gang, a military commentator and retired PLA colonel based in Beijing, said: “China will not simply follow the US’ lead on every matter … nor should it get too involved [in the tensions between the US and North Korea].”
Li Jie, another Beijing-based military analyst, said China was not willing to go beyond economic sanctions.
“The US might have told China [at the meeting] about their plan for a possible military response if North Korea attacks, because they would want to know how China would react,” Li said.
“But China would have let the US know that our action towards North Korea is limited to economic sanctions – that would be the most China would do in coordination with the US.”
‘A bully has to be countered’: Guam governor welcomes Donald Trump’s ‘punch in the nose’ for North Korea
Jie Dalei, assistant professor of international relations at Peking University, said China would do its best to stop the US attacking North Korea, but it would not support North Korea unconditionally in a military conflict.
“On an operational level, China needs to prepare for the worst-case scenario and needs to make decisions based on its own interests,” Jie said.
Tokyo is the next stop on Dunford’s Asian tour.
Earlier in Seoul, he told South Korean President Moon Jae-in that full military options were being prepared but were the last resort when diplomatic and economic sanctions failed.
Also on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov that China and Russia would not allow any provocations in the two countries’ backyard and they should work together to ease tensions over North Korea, state-run Xinhua reported.
Additional reporting by Kinling Lo


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PLA General Fang Fenghui (left) accompanies US Joint Chiefs Chairman General Joseph Dunford during a welcome ceremony at the Bayi Building in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: AP

Senior US national security officials do their best to walk back President Donald Trump’s threats to unleash ‘fire and fury’ against North Korea

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in a January 2017 file image, denounced WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as a "narcissist" who works in concert with Russia, on Thursday, April 13, 2017. (Riccardo Savi/Sipa USA/TNS)

National security adviser H.R. McMaster speaks during a press briefing at the White House in May. MUST CREDIT: Photo by Jabin Botsford for The Washington Post.

US ‘moving forward’ with THAAD deployment in South Korea as North Korean crisis grows

A Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) interceptor is test-launched in this undated photo by the US Department of Defence, Missile Defence Agency. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Supporters of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye march with a U.S. flag during a rally urging the deployment of an advanced U.S. missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Aug. 12, 2017. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a plea for cool-headedness over escalating tensions between the U.S. and North Korea in a phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, urging both sides to avoid words or actions that could worsen the situation.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-Joon)

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Both sides pledge to strengthen ties between defence forces as top US and Chinese military brass meet in Beijing


China, US military chiefs vow to patch up differences as North Korea threat rumbles on

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Both sides pledge to strengthen ties between defence forces as top US and Chinese military brass meet in Beijing

Both sides pledge to strengthen ties between defence forces as top US and Chinese military brass meet in Beijing