China willing to mediate Korean conflict

China says it is willing to help a ‘reconciliation and cooperation’ process between North Korea and South Korea, amid rising tension in the Korean Peninsula.

Chinese President Xi Jinping told South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday, “China is committed to maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula and realizing the peninsula’s denuclearization.”

Xi encouraged dialogue and consultation between Pyongyang and Seoul and said stability on the Korean Peninsula “is in the vital interests of the people of the peninsula and also of the Chinese people.”

On March 13, North Korea announced that it had scrapped the 1953 armistice and peace pacts signed with Seoul in protest against week-long annual military exercises South Korea held with the United States near the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea condemned the maneuvers as a launch pad for a “nuclear war” and Pyongyang cut off its communication hotline with Seoul as the drills kicked off on March 11. The exercises involved 10,000 South Korean soldiers and about 3,000 US troops.

On March 8, Seoul warned that North Korea would “perish from earth” if Pyongyang went ahead with its threats to attack South Korea.

On March 7, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution, drafted by the United States and China, against North Korea, tightening Pyongyang’s financial dealings and adding new names to the UN sanctions blacklist.

However, China said its support for the new series of UN sanctions against Pyongyang should not be construed as a basic change in Beijing’s attitude toward Pyongyang.