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China says aircraft carrier testing weapons in South China Sea drills

Chinese aircraft carrier in South China Sea

BEIJING (Reuters) – A group of Chinese warships led by its sole aircraft carrier is testing weapons and equipment in exercises this week in the South China Sea that are going to plan, China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday.

Exercises by the ships, in particular the aircraft carrier Liaoning, since last month have unnerved China’s neighbors, especially at a time of heightened strain with self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own, and given long-running territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

China says the Soviet-built Liaoning and the other ships conduct routine exercises that comply with international law.

“The Liaoning aircraft carrier group in the South China Sea is carrying out scientific research and training, in accordance with plans,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing.

“The purpose is to test the performance of weapons and equipment,” he said.

The People’s Liberation Army Navy said on its official microblog this week that the aircraft carrier conducted drills in the South China Sea with its fighter jets and helicopters.

U.S. warships have also been conducting what they call “freedom of navigation” patrols through the South China Sea over the past year as concern grows about Chinese construction of air strips and docks on disputed reefs and islands.

The group of warships sailed through waters south of Japan and then rounded east and south of Taiwan late last month on their way to the south China province of Hainan.

Taiwan’s defence minister warned at the time that “the threat of our enemies is growing day by day”.

Taiwan media have reported that the Liaoning could sail north up the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the narrow body of water separating Taiwan and China, on its way to its home port of Qingdao.

Taiwan’s defence ministry said the talk about the timing and northward route of the Liaoning was speculation, and it would make preparations based on the situation and “maintain its grasp of the movements” of the ship.

Business relations between mainland China and Taiwan have grown significantly over the past decade but tension has increased since the island elected a president from an independence-leaning party last year.

China distrusts President Tsai Ing-wen and has stepped up pressure on her following a protocol-breaking phone call between her and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump last month.

Beijing suspects Tsai wants to push for the island’s formal independence, a red line for the mainland, which has never renounced the use of force to bring what it deems a renegade province under its control.

Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Additional reporting by J.R. Wu in Taipei)

Lithuania said found Russian spyware on its government computers

A man types on a computer keyboard in this illustration picture

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) – The Baltic state of Lithuania, on the frontline of growing tensions between the West and Russia, says the Kremlin is responsible for cyber attacks that have hit government computers over the last two years.

The head of cyber security told Reuters three cases of Russian spyware on its government computers had been discovered since 2015, and there had been 20 attempts to infect them this year

“The spyware we found was operating for at least half a year before it was detected – similar to how it was in the USA,” Rimtautas Cerniauskas, head of Lithuanian Cyber Security Centre said.

The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a Reuters written request for comments over the Lithuanian claims. But Russia has in the past denied accusations of hacking Western institutions.

Fears of cyber attacks have come to the fore since the U.S. election campaign when hacking of Democratic Party emails led to allegations from U.S. intelligence that Russia was involved.

Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, all ruled by Moscow in communist times, have been alarmed by Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and its support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

In what Baltic officials say was a wake-up call, Estonia was hit by cyber attacks on extensive private and government Internet sites in 2007. State websites were brought to a crawl and an online banking site was closed.

Lithuanian intelligence services, in their annual report, say cyber attacks have moved from being mainly targeted at financial crimes to more political spying on state institutions.

Russian spyware was transferring all documents it could find, as well as all passwords entered on websites such as GMail or Facebook, to an internet address commonly used by Russian spy agencies, Cerniaukas said.

“This only confirms that attempts are made to infiltrate our political sphere,” said Cerniaukas.

PREPARATIONS

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency reported earlier this month a striking increase in Russian targeted cyber attacks against political parties and propaganda and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing German society.

The domestic intelligence chief said Russia may seek to interfere in its national elections next year.

Although no Russian cyber meddling was detected in the run up and during the Lithuanian general election in October, Cerniauskas said his country needs to understand it is vulnerable to such meddling.

“Russians are really quite good in this area. They have been using information warfare since the old times. Cyberspace is part of that, only more frowned upon by law than simple propaganda”, he said.

“They have capacity, they have the attitude, they are interested, and they will get to it – so we need to prepare for it and we need to apply countermeasures.”

Lithuanian officials targeted by the Russian spyware held mid-to-low ranking positions at the government, but their computers contained a stream of drafts for government decisions of its positions on various matters, said Cerniauskas.

The head of the Lithuanian counter-intelligence agency Darius Jauniskis said Russia tried to sow chaos in Lithuania by orchestrating a cyber attack in 2012 against the Lithuanian central bank and its top online news website.

“It is all part of psychological warfare,” he told Reuters earlier this month.

(Reporting By Andrius Sytas; Editing by Alistair Scrutton)

Kremlin says almost all dialogue with U.S. frozen: RIA

MOSCOW/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday almost all communications channels between Russia and the United States have been frozen but the U.S. State Department disputed that statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia did not expect the incoming U.S. administration to quickly reject enlargement of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and that almost all communication with the United States had ceased, according to Russia’s RIA news agency.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump questioned during his election campaign whether the U.S. should protect allies seen as spending too little on defense, raising fears he could withdraw funding for NATO at a time of heightened tensions with Moscow. Russia has said it would take countermeasures in response to any expansion of the 28-member military alliance.

“Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen,” RIA quoted Peskov as saying. “We don’t communicate with one another, or (if we do) we do so minimally.”

State Department spokesman John Kirby quickly rejected Peskov’s statement.

‎”It’s difficult to know exactly what is meant by this comment, but diplomatic engagement with Russia continues across a wide range of issues,” Kirby said in an emailed statement to Reuters. “That we have significant differences with Moscow on some of these issues is well known, but there hasn’t been a break in dialogue.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke by phone on Tuesday regarding the situation in Syria, Kirby said.

Separately, the Pentagon said it had held a video conference with counterparts at the Russian defense ministry to ensure the two sides’ air operations do not come into conflict with each other in Syria. Such discussions with Russia are held regularly as U.S. warplanes conduct daily air strikes against Islamic State in Syria.

RIA, citing an interview it said Peskov gave to Russia’s Mir TV station, quoted him as saying he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin would seek re-election in 2018.

“Everyone’s heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking about elections,” Peskov said.

Most Kremlin-watchers expect Putin to run for the presidency again.

(Reporting by Peter Hobson in Moscow and Yeganeh Torbati and Lesley Wroughton in Washington; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Richard Chang)

U.S. ready to confront Beijing on South China Sea: admiral

Guided missile destroyer in South China Sea

By Colin Packham

SYDNEY (Reuters) – The United States is ready to confront China should it continue its overreaching maritime claims in the South China Sea, the head of the U.S. Pacific fleet said on Wednesday, comments that threaten to escalate tensions between the two global rivals.

China claims most of the resource-rich South China Sea through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year. Neighbors Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims.

The United States has called on China to respect the findings of the arbitration court in The Hague earlier this year which invalidated its vast territorial claims in the strategic waterway.

But Beijing continues to act in an “aggressive” manner, to which the United States stands ready to respond, Admiral Harry Harris, head of the U.S. Pacific Command, said in a speech in Sydney.

“We will not allow a shared domain to be closed down unilaterally no matter how many bases are built on artificial features in the South China Sea,” he said. “We will cooperate when we can but we will be ready to confront when we must.”

The comments threaten to stoke tensions between the United States and China, already heightened by President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to accept a telephone call from Taiwan’s president on Dec. 2 that prompted a diplomatic protest from Beijing.

Asked about Harris’s remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the situation in the South China Sea was currently stable, thanks to the hard work of China and others in the region.

“We hope the United States can abide by its promises on not taking sides on the sovereignty dispute in the South China Sea, respect the efforts of countries in the region to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea region and do more to promote peace and stability there,” he told a daily news briefing.

The United States estimates Beijing has added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land on seven features in the South China Sea over the past three years, building runways, ports, aircraft hangars and communications equipment.

In response, the United States has conducted a series of freedom-of-navigation operations in the South China Sea, the latest of which came in October.

The patrols have angered Beijing, with a senior Chinese official in July warning the practice may end in “disaster”.

Harris said it was a decision for the Australian government whether the U.S. ally should undertake its own freedom-of-navigation operations, but said the United States would continue with the practice.

“The U.S. fought its first war following our independence to ensure freedom of navigation,” said Harris. “This is an enduring principle and one of the reasons our forces stand ready to fight tonight.”

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Jacqueline Wong)

Iran to work on nuclear-powered boats after U.S. ‘violation’ of deal

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani ordered scientists on Tuesday to start developing systems for nuclear-powered boats, in reaction to what he called the United States’ violation of a global atomic deal.

The announcement marked Iran’s first concrete response to a U.S. Congress decision last month to extend legislation making it easier for Washington to reimpose sanctions on Tehran.

Rouhani described the technology as a “nuclear propeller to be used in marine transportation,” but did not say whether that meant just ships or possibly also submarines. Iran said in 2012 that it was working on its first nuclear-powered sub. http://reut.rs/2gVr80g

His words will stoke tensions with Washington, already heightened by comments from U.S. president elect Donald Trump who has vowed to scrap the deal, under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for lifted sanctions.

There was no immediate reaction from the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors Iran’s nuclear work.

“The United States has not fully delivered its commitments in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the nuclear deal),” Rouhani wrote in a letter published by state news agency IRNA.

“With regards to recent (U.S. congress) legislation to extend the Iran Sanctions Act, I order the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to … plan the design and construction of a nuclear propeller to be used in marine transportation to be used in marine transportation.”

U.S. Congress members have said the extension of the bill does not violate the nuclear deal agreed last year to assuage Western fears that Iran is working to develop a nuclear bomb. The act, Congress added, only gave Washington the power to reimpose sanctions on Iran if it violated the pact.

Washington says it has lifted all the sanctions it needs to under the deal between major powers and Iran.

But Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last month that the extension was a definite breach and Iran would “definitely react to it”.

Iran always argued its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla in Vienna; editing by John Stonestreet and Andrew Heavens)

North Korea’s Kim guides special operations drill targeting South

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided a special operations drill targeting the South, the North’s media reported on Sunday, as rival South Korea remained on alert for any attempt by the North to take advantage of political turmoil in the South.

The North’s KCNA state news agency report did not say when North Korean forces conducted the combat exercise, nor did it mention the South Korean parliament’s vote on Friday to impeach its president, Park Geun-hye.

Pictures in a Sunday report on the exercise in the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper showed what appeared to be a mockup of South Korea’s presidential Blue House as a target.

Park will remain in the Blue House, though her powers have been suspended and assumed by the South’s prime minister while the Constitutional Court weighs parliament’s impeachment vote.

South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn has urged a high state of military alert in case of any provocation by North Korea, including possible cyber attacks.

“We are ready to retaliate if North Korea makes any provocations and we condemn its malicious threat,” a South Korean military official told Reuters.

Tension on the divided Korean peninsula has been high this year after two North Korean nuclear tests and an unprecedented flurry of ballistic missile tests.

The North’s tests have brought tighter U.N. Security Council sanctions but no indication North Korea and its young leader Kim are willing to compromise on its nuclear and missile programmes.

The Rodong Sinmun pictures included one of Kim observing the exercise through binoculars.

“Watching the brave service personnel independently and pro-actively perform their combat duty destroying specified targets of the enemy, he said with a broad smile on his face: ‘Well done, the enemy troops will have no space to hide themselves, far from taking any counteraction’,” KCNA cited Kim saying.

(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Yun Hwan Chae; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Exclusive: Risking Beijing’s ire, Vietnam begins dredging on South China Sea reef

Vietnam begins building in South China Sea

By Lincoln Feast and Greg Torode

SYDNEY/HONG KONG (Reuters) – Vietnam has begun dredging work on a disputed reef in the South China Sea, satellite imagery shows, the latest move by the Communist state to bolster its claims in the strategic waterway.

Activity visible on Ladd Reef in the Spratly Islands could anger Hanoi’s main South China Sea rival, Beijing, which claims sovereignty over the group and most of the resource-rich sea.

Ladd Reef, on the south-western fringe of the Spratlys, is completely submerged at high tide but has a lighthouse and an outpost housing a small contingent of Vietnamese soldiers. The reef is also claimed by Taiwan.

In an image taken on Nov. 30 and provided by U.S.-based satellite firm Planet Labs, several vessels can be seen in a newly dug channel between the lagoon and open sea.

While the purpose of the activity cannot be determined for certain, analysts say similar dredging work has been the precursor to more extensive construction on other reefs.

“We can see that, in this environment, Vietnam’s strategic mistrust is total … and they are rapidly improving their defences,” said Trevor Hollingsbee, a retired naval intelligence analyst with Britain’s defence ministry.

“They’re doing everything they can to fix any vulnerabilities – and that outpost at Ladd Reef does look a vulnerability.”

Reuters reported in August that Vietnam had fortified several islands with mobile rocket artillery launchers capable of striking China’s holdings across the vital trade route.

Vietnam’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

The vessels at Ladd Reef cannot be identified in the images, but Vietnam would be extremely unlikely to allow another country to challenge its control of the reef.

Greg Poling, a South China Sea expert at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said it remained unclear how far the work on Ladd Reef would go. Rather than a reclamation and a base, it could be an attempt to simply boost access for supply ships and fishing boats.

Ladd could also theoretically play a role in helping to defend Vietnam’s nearby holding of Spratly Island, where a runway is being improved and new hangars built, he said.

“Vietnam’s knows it can’t compete with China but it does want to improve its ability to keep an eye on them,” Poling said.

Vietnam has long been fearful of renewed Chinese military action to drive it off its 21 holdings in the Spratlys – worries that have escalated amid Beijing’s build-up and its anger at the recent Philippines legal action challenging its claims.

China occupied its first Spratlys possessions after a sea battle against Vietnam’s then weak navy in 1988. Vietnam said 64 soldiers were killed as they tried to protect a flag on South Johnson reef – an incident still acutely felt in Hanoi.

BUILDING BURST

The United States has repeatedly called on claimants to avoid actions that increase tensions in the South China Sea, through which some $5 trillion in world trade is shipped every year.

Vietnam has emerged as China’s main rival in the South China Sea, actively asserting sovereignty over both the Paracel and the Spratly groupings in their entirety and undergoing its own naval modernisation. Taiwan also claims both, but its position is historically aligned with Beijing’s.

The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, run by the CSIS, says Vietnam has added about 120 acres (49 hectares) of land to its South China Sea holdings in recent years.

Regional military attaches say Vietnam’s key holdings are well fortified, some with tunnels and bunkers, appearing geared to deterring easy invasion.

Vietnam’s reclamation work remains modest by Chinese standards, however.

The United States, which has criticized China for militarizing the waterway, estimates Beijing has added more than 3,200 acres (1,300 hectares) of land on seven features in the South China Sea over the past three years, building runways, ports, aircraft hangars and communications equipment.

Beijing says it is entitled to “limited and necessary self-defensive facilities” on its territory and has reacted angrily to “freedom of navigation” operations by U.S. warships near Chinese-held islands.

CHINESE RECLAMATION WORK DAMAGED

In another image provided by Planet Labs, reclamation work in the Chinese-held Paracel Island chain appears to have been damaged by recent storms.

China began dredging and land filling earlier this year at North Island, about 12 km (7 miles) north of Woody Island, where it has a large military base and this year stationed surface-to-air missiles.

Satellite images in February and March showed dredging vessels working to build a 700 meter (2,300 ft) sand bridge connecting low-lying North Island with neighboring Middle Island.

But images taken after two powerful storms spun through the region in October show the narrow sand strip has been largely swept away.

The Paracels have been under Chinese control for more than 40 years after a battle towards the end of the Vietnam War, when Chinese forces removed the then-South Vietnamese navy. Analysts say they play a key part in protecting China’s nuclear armed submarine fleet on Hainan Island, to the north.

China has not commented publicly on the work at North Island and the foreign ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

(Additional reporting by Martin Petty and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Netanyahu to discuss ‘bad’ Iran deal with Trump, Kerry stresses settlements

By Jeffrey Heller and Arshad Mohammed

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he would discuss with Donald Trump the West’s “bad” nuclear deal with Iran after the U.S. president-elect enters the White House.

Speaking separately to a conference in Washington, Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry clashed over the Iran deal and Israel’s settlement construction on the occupied West Bank, which Kerry depicted as an obstacle to peace.

During the U.S. election campaign, Trump, a Republican, called last year’s nuclear pact a “disaster” and “the worst deal ever negotiated”. He has also said it would be hard to overturn an agreement enshrined in a U.N. resolution.

“Israel is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. That has not changed and will not change. As far as President-elect Trump, I look forward to speaking to him about what to do about this bad deal,” Netanyahu told the Saban Forum, a conference on the Middle East, in Washington, via satellite from Jerusalem. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

Netanyahu has been a harsh critic of the nuclear deal, a legacy foreign policy achievement for Democratic President Barack Obama. But he had largely refrained from attacking the pact in recent months as Israeli and U.S. negotiators finalised a 10-year, $38 billion military aid package for Israel.

Before the nuclear agreement, Netanyahu, a conservative, strained relations with the White House by addressing the U.S. Congress in 2015 and cautioning against agreeing to the pact.

The Obama administration promoted the deal as a way to suspend Tehran’s suspected drive to develop atomic weapons. In return, Obama agreed to lift most sanctions against Iran. Tehran denies ever having considered developing nuclear arms.

Under the deal, Iran committed to reducing the number of its centrifuges by two-thirds, capping its level of uranium enrichment well below the level needed for bomb-grade material, reducing its enriched uranium stockpile from around 10,000 kg to 300 kg for 15 years, and submitting to international inspections to verify its compliance.

“The problem isn’t so much that Iran will break the deal, but that Iran will keep it because it just can walk in within a decade, and even less … to industrial-scale enrichment of uranium to make the core of an arsenal of nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu told the forum.

‘NO, NO, NO AND NO’

Appearing later in person, Kerry defended the deal, arguing its monitoring provisions provided the ability to detect any significant uptick in Iran’s nuclear programs, “in which case every option that we have today is available to us then.”

Kerry pushed Israel to rein in construction of Jewish settlements on West Bank land it occupied in a 1967 war that the Palestinians want for a state. He also bluntly rejected the idea advanced by some Israelis that Israel might make a separate peace with Arab nations that share its concerns about Iran.

“No, no, no and no,” Kerry said. “There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace.”

On settlements, Kerry said: “There’s a basic choice that has to be made by Israelis … and that is, are there going to be continued settlements … or is there going to be separation and the creation of two states?”

The central issues to be resolved in the conflict include borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state, the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which most nations regard as illegal, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

(Additional reporting by Larry King; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Vietnam gives thumbs-up to U.S. regional role

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam supports U.S. “intervention” in the Asia-Pacific if it helps keep peace and stability, the defense ministry said, in a timely endorsement of a continued U.S. presence amid uncertainty over Washington’s faltering “pivot”.

Vice defense minister, Senior Lieutenant-General Nguyen Chi Vinh, met on Monday with Cara Abercrombie, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, and told her Vietnam backed a positive U.S. role.

The general’s words of support, conveyed by a normally reclusive defense ministry, come when the United States most needs them, with its “rebalance” – aimed at boosting its Asian foothold and tempering China’s rise – now under strain in the run-up to a U.S. presidential election.

Vinh “affirmed that Vietnam will support the U.S and other partners to intervene in the region as long as it brings peace, stability and prosperity”, it said in a statement.

At the dialogue, Abercrombie said the United States would not change its rebalance strategy, the statement added.

Uncertainty lingers in Asia over changes ahead at the White House and whether a new leadership would give less priority to keeping China in check as it grows increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, a waterway vital to global trade.

Washington’s traditional defense alliances in Southeast Asia are currently being tested, with ties with Thailand frosty since a 2014 coup and questions about the future of a tight military relationship with the Philippines under volatile new President Rodrigo Duterte, a staunch U.S. critic.

Relations between the United States and Vietnam, in contrast, have warmed substantially in the past two years, much to do with jitters over the South China Sea to which Hanoi has disputes with Beijing.

The latest affirmation of those ties came after the full lifting of a U.S. lethal arms embargo on Vietnam in May, allowing closer defense links and some joint military exercises between the former enemies.

Two U.S. warships earlier this month made a call at a new international port built at Vietnam’s strategic Cam Ranh Bay in a brief but symbolic return for U.S. combat vessels.

The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam last week admitted the U.S. dynamism once seen in the region had “a little bit diminished”, but said there was still appetite for U.S. involvement.

Ted Osius also said a dramatic change in U.S.-Vietnam ties was “not about to happen” because of Philippine leader Duterte’s outreach toward China.

(Reporting by My Pham; Editing by Martin Petty)

China paper says U.S., South Korea will ‘pay the price’ for planned missile system

BEIJING (Reuters) – The United States and South Korea are destined to “pay the price” for their decision to deploy an advanced missile defense system which will inevitably prompt a “counter attack”, China’s top newspaper said on Saturday.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has been high this year, beginning with North Korea’s fourth nuclear test in January, which was followed by a satellite launch, a string of tests of various missiles, and its fifth and largest nuclear test last month.

In July, South Korea agreed with the United States to deploy the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to protect against any North Korean threats.

South Korea aims to deploy the system on a golf course, a defense ministry official said on Friday.

But the plan has angered China, which worries that THAAD’s powerful radar would compromise its security and do nothing to lower temperatures on the Korean peninsula.

In a commentary, the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily said China’s opposition to THAAD would never change as it was a serious threat to the regional strategic security balance.

“Like any other country, China can neither be vague nor indifferent on security matters that affect its core interests,” the newspaper said in the commentary, published under the pen name “Zhong Sheng”, meaning “Voice of China”, often used to give views on foreign policy.

The United States and South Korea have to wake up to the fact that the Korean peninsula is no place to take risks, it added.

“If the United States and South Korea harm the strategic security interests of countries in the region including China, then they are destined to pay the price for this and receive a proper counter attack,” the paper added, without elaborating.

NO DETAILS YET

China has repeatedly promised to take specific steps to respond since the THAAD decision was announced, but has given no details about what it may do.

The United States and South Korea have said THAAD does not threaten China’s security or target any country other than North Korea.

China is North Korea’s most important diplomatic and economic partner, but Beijing has been infuriated by its nuclear and missile tests and has signed up for strong United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

However, China has continued to call for talks to resolve the North Korean issue and said sanctions are not the ultimate solution.

At a reception in Pyongyang on Friday for China’s National Day, Chinese Ambassador Li Jinjun said his country wanted to consolidate its friendship with North Korea, China’s Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.

The report made no mention of the nuclear issue.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Richard Borsuk)

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