North Korea slams ally China over growing closeness to US

North Korea has slammed China for accusing its erstwhile ally of destabilising the region with its nuclear weapons programme, saying it would never “beg” for Beijing’s friendship.

China has backed sanctions against North Korea in the UN Security Council and President Donald Trump has said co-operation with the Chinese is improving. China is reluctant to impose further sanctions, however, because it may undermine the government of Kim Jong-un and it doesn’t want instability on its borders.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) issued a defiant dispatch saying critical commentaries in the Chinese Communist Party organ People’s Daily and the nationalist Global Times were “rubbish”.

“They even talked rubbish that the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] DPRK strains the situation in northeast Asia and offers the US excuses for deploying more strategic assets in the region,” it said.

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Aid and investment from China has helped to prop up the North Korean economy, and the ideological allies fought side by side against American-led forces during the Korean War (1950-53), but the relationship has frayed over North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests.

North Korea would “never beg for the maintenance of friendship with China, risking its nuclear programme, which is as precious as its own life, no matter how valuable the friendship is,” KCNA said.

In February, North Korea criticised China for halting imports of coal, saying a “neighbouring country was dancing to the tune of the US”.

The South Koreans, who have angered Beijing by installing a US THAAD anti-missile defence system in the face of North Korean belligerence, said the criticism was unusual because it mentioned China directly. Pyongyang usually refers to “a neighbouring country” when criticising China.

Tensions have been simmering for weeks with both Washington and Pyongyang antagonising the other.

US strategic bombers took off from Guam this week and conducted a drill with South Korean fighter jets, which North Korea dubbed a “reckless provocation” that could push the peninsula to the brink of war.

China called on both Washington and Pyongyang to stay calm and “stop taking provocative actions”, with foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang insisting the situation was “highly complex”.

“The urgent task is to lower temperatures and resume talks,” he told a news briefing.

There have also been media reports that the Chinese embassy in North Korea has advised Korean-Chinese residents to return to China amid growing fears of a US attack.

Radio Free Asia quoted a Chinese resident in Pyongyang saying the Chinese embassy had been sending messages since April 20th.

There has been speculation that the North will conduct its sixth nuclear test any day now, but a number of possible opportunities, such as the 105th anniversary of the state’s founder Kim Il-sung’s birth on April 15th, have come and gone without any test taking place. Satellite images showed increased activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear facility.