Military pressure on Korea Peninsula will lead to dead end: China

ISTANBUL

China said Thursday that military deterrence and pressure on the Korean Peninsula will only pave the way to a "security trap of tension and antagonism."

“If the right path of establishing a peace mechanism on the peninsula is abandoned while the wrong path of military deterrence and pressure is embraced, the Korean Peninsula can hardly get rid of the security trap of tension and antagonism,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said at a news conference in Beijing.

The comment come amid reports that the US is planning to send a strategic nuclear submarine to South Korea and the two allies will discuss their first Nuclear Consultative Group meeting in late July.

Urging the US and South Korea to "understand the key issues" of the peninsula, Wang urged the two allies to "play a constructive role in politically resolving the Peninsula's challenges."

The Korean Peninsula issues are mainly “political and security-related,” he said, according to a transcript of the news conference released by the ministry.

South Korea has developed close relations with the US as Washington competes with Beijing for influence in East Asia.

The Korean War started in 1950 with a North Korean invasion. The US led a UN intervention to support South Korea. China and the Soviet Union aided North Korea.