PRESS RELEASE

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Beijing Urges Both Pyongyang and Washington To Exercise Restraint as the Situation Becomes Inflammable

April 25, 2017 (EIRNS)—An editorial in today’s China Daily, titled "Misjudgment Biggest Risk To Peninsula," wrote:

"If the risks surrounding the Korean Peninsula were perceived to be dangerously high, it was because of the fear that anything could happen at any time in the tense standoff that had developed between Washington and Pyongyang."

The editorial appeared at a time when, as Channel News Asia reports, the nuclear-powered U.S. submarine, U.S.S. Michigan, made a port call in South Korea, as the top nuclear envoys from South Korea, Japan, and the United States have decided to meet in Tokyo to discuss responses to the North’s refusal to give up its nuclear program.

Pointing out that "a nuclear test, or missile launch, would not constitute the ‘full-out war’ Pyongyang has threatened," the government’s China Daily editorial further wrote that

"in contrast to Pyongyang’s war rhetoric, Washington appears very much in line with Beijing on pursuing a peaceful resolution, at least for now."

China Daily continued that

"judging from their recent words and deeds, policymakers in Pyongyang have seriously misread the UN sanctions, which are aimed at its nuclear/missile provocations, not its system or leadership."

As a result,

"they are at once perilously overestimating their own strength and underestimating the hazards they are brewing for themselves. They need to reassess the situation so they do not make any misjudgments.

"Likewise Washington should continue to exercise restraint and pursue a peaceful resolution to the issue,"

China Daily urged.