Beijing urges restraint on peninsula

Beijing has again urged restraint and suggested that nations involved to give serious consideration to its proposal of "dual suspensions" after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's seemingly failed missile launch on Wednesday.

Describing the Korean Peninsula's tensions as pushed to the brink, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying in a daily news conference in Beijing called for all parties involved to avoid taking actions that are provocative, risky or that may cause miscalculation.

Media reports quoted military sources of the Republic of Korea and the United States as saying they detected what appeared to be the explosion of a missile soon after its launch in the DPRK on Wednesday.

The failed launch came amid the ongoing large-scale joint military exercises between the ROK and the US.

Calling for all parties to do more to ease tensions, Hua said China's approaches of "dual suspensions" and "dual tracks" are "correct, objective, fair and reasonable" plans to find a way out of the dilemma.

The "dual-suspension" approach calls for the DPRK to halt its nuclear and missile programs and the US and ROK to halt their joint military exercises at the same time.

The "dual-track" approach calls for the parties to work on denuclearizing the peninsula and establishing a peace mechanism.

"It is better for the doer to undo what he has done," Hua said, pointing out that the crux of the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue lies in the contradictions between the DPRK and the US and ROK, as well as in the "deep-rooted hostility and mistrust" between them.

Any unilateral actions taken for the sole purpose of pursuing one's own absolute security or ensuring one's own interests will only further complicate the issue, Hua said.

"We must address both the symptoms and the root cause and find a solution that takes care of all parties' reasonable security concerns," she said, adding that China's approaches are "worth being highly valued and carefully considered by all parties under current circumstances".

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 03/23/2017 page3)