China has started mobilizing military forces around the Korean peninsula in response to rising tensions that follow recent threats by North Korea to launch missile attacks against its southern neighbor and the United States.

According to US officials, Pyongyang’s declaration of a ‘state of war’ against South Korea has led to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to increase its military presence on the border with the North. The officials say the process has been going on since mid-March, and includes troop movements and readying fighter jets. The PLA is now at ‘Level One’ readiness, its highest.

Chinese forces, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, have been spotted in the city of Ji’an and near the Yalu River, which splits China and North Korea. Other border regions were also reportedly being patrolled by planes.

China has also been conducting live-firing naval exercises in the Yellow Sea, scheduled to end on Monday. The move is widely viewed as open support for North Korea, which continues to show extreme opposition to the US-South Korean military drills that are to last until May.

The news comes as the US deployed its USS Fitzgerald destroyer off the coast of North Korea, adding to its Sunday deployment of F-22 fighter jets to take part in the drills with the friendly South, which has further served to heighten tensions on the peninsula.

Meanwhile, North Korea has been mobilizing its short and medium-range missile arsenal, according to analyses of satellite imagery. Officials say Pyongyang is set to test its new KN-08 medium-range mobile missile; they say preparations have been spotted in the past. Pyongyang claims that since March 26, its forces have been placed on their highest possible status of alert.

Although officials believe Pyongyang will not provoke Seoul during the war games, they also fear that a miscalculation by South Korea could lead to all-out war, following its promise of retaliation against the North, should it launch its missiles first.

[size=14pt]North Korea and China have maintained a long-standing defense treaty under which Beijing is to come to Pyongyang’s aid in the event of an attack. The last time this was put into practice was during the Korean War, when tens of thousands of Chinese volunteer forces were deployed on the Korean Peninsula. The relationship between the two countries is often referred to as being “as close as lips and teeth” by Chinese military spokesmen.
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Despite the heated tensions leading to an apparent disruption in trade and commerce between China and North Korea, the two are already making future plans to bolster their economic ties. March 27 saw the announcement of a new high-speed railway, as well as a special highway passenger line.

Still, many in Chinese circles have shown displeasure at Pyongyang’s seemingly aggressive relationship with Seoul and Washington. A Chinese official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, has testified that US presence in the region is a helpful restraint against an unpredictable Kim Jong-un, which many believe to be the real reason Beijing has not been strong in its criticism of the amassing of US forces in the region.

Furthermore, Chinese websites and blogs could sometimes be found openly bashing the North Korean leader for an apparent mishandling of the situation in the region, playing diplomatic games amid chronic food shortages in his country. An editor at the country’s Study Times newspaper was recently suspended for openly criticizing China for abandoning North Korea.

Expert opinion differs on what China’s exact position is in the unfolding regional crisis.

US officials claim the China’s main fear is a collapse of order in North Korea, which would lead to a large-scale refugee flow into China.

Another possible reason for China to worry is advanced by journalist James Corbett, host of the Corbett Report, who believes that foreign military presence in the region is just as unnerving to China as it is to Pyongyang. He discussed this in the light of the latest war drills.

“I think that this has the possibility of ratcheting things up to the point where tensions might actually spill over as a result of this, and we saw that recently with the deployment of B-2 nuclear armed bombers in South Korea which is not only, I think, worrying to Pyongyang, but also to China, to have nuclear bombers that close to the peninsula there, on China’s southern border. I think that China wouldn’t be pleased with that either, so this is quite an escalation that’s taking place.”

Others believe openly that the US strategy is geared not towards the destabilization of North Korea, but that of China. Li Jie, an expert with a Chinese navy research institution, has told Reuters that “the ultimate strategic aim is to contain and blockade China, to distract China's attention and slow its development. What the US is most worried about is the further development of China's economy and military strength."

Retired Major General Luo Yuan, who is one of China’s foremost military authorities, believes, however that "once the joint US-South Korean exercises have finished and with birthday celebrations for (late founder of North Korea) Kim Il-sung imminent, the temperature will gradually cool and get back to the status quo of no war, no unification."

While it has been urging calm and peace in the region, Beijing has been very obliging at the UN Security Council, when it helped push through the latest round of sanctions against North Korea in March, following its third nuclear test the previous month. Despite being Pyongyang’s greatest ally in the region, some experts believe this is a sign of Beijing’s growing impatience. American diplomat Christopher R. Hill, who helped under the Bush administration to negotiate a deal for the dismantling of North Korea’s nuclear facilities (which didn’t last), says that the Chinese strategy is“not about the words, it is about the music.”

The resolution came hours after North Korea, angered at both the US-South Korean war games, and at the proposed UN plan, threatened pre-emptive nuclear action against the South and US military bases in the region.

This latest standoff between North and South Korea and the US is credited to have started on February 12, when Pyongyang supposedly performed its latest underground nuclear weapons test. Just this weekend, North Korea vowed to boost its nuclear arsenal, calling it a “treasure of a reunified country” which it would never trade for anything, even “billions of dollars” worth of aid.
http://rt.com/news/chinese-military-korea-alert-184/

North Korea and China have maintained a long-standing defense treaty under which Beijing is to come to Pyongyang’s aid in the event of an attack. The last time this was put into practice was during the Korean War, when tens of thousands of Chinese volunteer forces were deployed on the Korean Peninsula. The relationship between the two countries is often referred to as being “as close as lips and teeth” by Chinese military spokesmen.

shymexx:

^^^^That tells you all you need to know...

May God help us all and save us from the impending armageddon...

HNosegbe:
There's only ONE reason why China continues to prop up the North Koreans (and America the South): It's not in their interest for both Koreas to be reunited.

The strategy is simple: Keep supporting North Korea (as irrational a rogue state as they may be), keep the Koreas divided, and maintain the existing balance of power.

If Chinese and American interests are aligned on any issue, it's in keeping North and South divided.

Feed me more:
This kid, (Kim) is in charge of a huge army, has delusions of grandeur and a willingness to use all of his power as absolute dictator to create havoc. The world had better start figuring out how to reign him in before he does some real damage and starts a war.

shymexx:

Sis, the young man is just trying to be a strong leader - a weakling can never rule a military state... However, he has made some not-so-good gaffes which are borderline psychotic and suicidal since all the rancour and sabre rattling started... but NK isn't the aggressor here...

Btw, it's nice to see you making contributions in the foreign affairs and politics sections... That's a good look and kind of different of the norm... Most of the chics here are permanently domiciled in the romance and family sections...

Feed me more:
Hmmm... So you call what he is doing as being strong? Smh. Trying to be a strong leader by subjecting his people into perpetual starvation? Trying to be strong leader by isolating his country with the rest of the world? N.K. is the most extreme example of Orwellian Big Brother Totalitarianism in modern times.

I just hear that Obnoxious leader have refuses the south Korean enter the joint factory at the border town of Kaesong. Kim needs to keep upstaging himself to prove his bluffs aren't bluffs. This standoff could be inadvertently pushed to war because of his escalating idle threats.

I visit the romance section, but i decided not to comment as often as I do on politics and foreign affairs section, coz the romance and sexuality section is full of Kids who are contemptuously rude....

shymexx:
Btw, why do you think NK is a rogue state??

HNosegbe:
Rogue state

n.(Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a state that conducts its policy in a dangerously unpredictable way, disregarding international law or diplomacy

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rogue+state

Doesn't NK fit the description?

shymexx: Don't you think the Chinese are also irritated by America's deployment of B-2 bombers and nuclear warheads to its borders?? And also America's military maneuvering in that axis?? Most experts believe North Korea is just a cover-up - and that the yanks are there to militarily blockade China; spy on its army; and try to contain its military and economic growth...

shymexx: Since late 2011, there has also been a shift in the US security policy from the Atlantic towards the Asia-Pacific... and this is to contain China... Also since the shift, there has an incessant anti-China campaigns by the smaller countries in that region, who're US allies... I'm sure the Chinese know what's going on and I think they're just being pro-active here... and don't forget that NK has a defense pact with China and China also has a defense pact with Russia....

shymexx:

Don't you think the same definition applies to America

HNosegbe:
By this, are you referring to Iraq and Afghanistan?

Well I would respond by saying that we live in a world where might is right. The US could ride roughshod over UN resolutions back then simply because they could. Can we say the same for any other nation?

HNosegbe:
America has always been active in deploying military assets around the Korean peninsula right from World War II. Remember that the US assisted China back then in repelling Imperial Japan (of course all this was long before the (re)emergence of China as a major world power).

What evidence to these "experts" have about NK being a cover-up? My theory has always been (and I stand by it) that NK has always been a communist-inspired outpost, propped up first by the Soviet Union and now China, and designed to prevent a united Korean Republic from attaining its true potential and serving as a counterbalance to the power of neighbouring countries. This is why I insist that American, Chinese (and even Japanese) interests remain aligned, as far as the perpetual partition of Korea is concerned.

Modern-day China may see American presence as a threat to their own expansionary designs... But we must also remember that the US has a strategic interest in the region as well.

Agreed. The so-called "pivot to Asia" represents an American attempt to contain China by encirclement i.e. making allies of China's neighbours. That's why the US retains close ties with India, Japan and South Korea. It also partly explains why they went to war in Vietnam.

The US simply wants to keep the Chinese pinned down in their own backyard and limit their expansion elsewhere. Nothing strange in that, just the whole power play.

nitlad: Ain't nothing like nuclear-deterrence.

When a psycho who doesn't think he has anything to lose is provoking a nuclear all-out, the bullies and all those who have much more to lose should be careful!

That underaged rotund is a nut-case!

1st ola: [size=16pt]CHINA AND N.K WILL CRUMBLE U.S, THEN IRAN WILL... ISRAEL.
CHINA IS CAPABLE - EVERYTHING IS MADE IN CHINA...[/size]

1st ola: [size=16pt]CHINA AND N.K WILL CRUMBLE U.S, THEN IRAN WILL... ISRAEL.
CHINA IS CAPABLE - EVERYTHING IS MADE IN CHINA...[/size]

HNosegbe:

By this, are you referring to Iraq and Afghanistan?

Well I would respond by saying that we live in a world where might is right. The US could ride roughshod over UN resolutions back then simply because they could. Can we say the same for any other nation?

jude33084:


Even if Nk should deploy its nuke against the US, non will go half way to its target but NK will surfer ♍☺re in terms of human and infrastructural facilities destruction, infact some people in US won't even know if there is a war in Nk .

The last time China supported them NK was almost left in ruins

I pitty SK