China, US to further improve military ties

The Chinese customs agency’s announcement follows an escalating exchange of angry words between US President Donald Trump and Mr Kim’s government.

Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comment at a regular press briefing.

Fan acknowledged that the mutual trust between the two militaries had seen “healthy development” in the past few years, but he criticized recent US actions as “wrongful”.

Military action is not an option in resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis, a senior Chinese army official told his United States counterpart on Thursday.

Annual joint US-South Korea exercises are non-negotiable and will continue as planned amid threats from the North, a top US military official said.

The so-called Joint Strategic Dialogue Mechanism Agreement was signed in China’s capital of Beijing on Tuesday by US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Corps Gen. Joe Dunford and his Chinese counterpart Gen. Fang Fenghui. No details of the talks have been released.

“I think our collective challenge is to sincerely and with candor attack these issues that we have to address”, Dunford said.

Around 90 percent of North Korea’s trade is with China, and Chinese officials appear serious about enforcing the United Nations action, US officials said.

The US and North Korea have been engaged in heated verbal sparring since Trump warned Pyongyang that it faced “fire and fury” if it continued to threaten the US and other countries with its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Issues involving North Korea are among the many points of contention between China and the US.

The decision was announced today after days of increasingly bellicose rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un’s regime, which has raised global alarm about where the crisis is headed.

He said his aim in all three countries was to discuss contingency plans for a crisis on the Korean peninsula.

Washington this month called on Beijing to endorse a legally binding code of conduct over the disputed region, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson joining his Australian and Japanese counterparts in promising to “continue to fly, sail and operate wherever worldwide law allows”. Obtaining credible assurances that the USA and its allies would take no steps to promote or support regime change, in spite of the Kim regime’s dangerousness and brutality, is key for China. A miscalculation on either side could lead to military confrontation.

“But what Secretary [of State Rex] Tillerson has articulated is that the diplomatic and economic pressure will cease the testing, cease the development of nuclear programs and set, perhaps, the political conditions for moving forward in the broader issues that effect North and South Korea”.

Washington and Seoul say the exercises are defensive in nature and crucial to deterring North Korean aggression. He said no U.S. military action on the Korean Peninsula could be taken without Seoul’s consent.