China Warns U.S. On Naval Exercises as North Korea Promises Retaliation

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 26, 2010

China has warned the United States against engaging in military activity on its coastline.

“We oppose any military act by any party conducted in China’s exclusive economic zone without approval,” China’s Foreign Ministry replied in response to a question about the inclusion of a U.S. Aircraft carrier strike group participating in the joint exercise.

The exclusive economic zone is a maritime zone up to 200 nautical miles from a country’s coast.
It was reported today that Obama would be speaking with his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in coming days. China has refused to condemn North Korea’s attack.

The Chinese statement arrives ahead of U.S.-South Korean naval exercises, according to Reuters. Earlier in the week, the Pentagon sent the USS George Washington and four other Navy ships to the Yellow Sea after North Korea shelled South Korean soldiers and civilians in response to South Korean military exercises.

In a statement from the U.S. Navy’s Seventh Fleet, the military exercises are described as a measure to show the United States’ “commitment to regional stability through deterrence.” Joint military exercises with the South Koreans begin on Sunday. North Korea has promised “waves of retaliation” if provoked.

Asian experts and political commentators warn the provocative military exercises near the North Korean and Chinese borders may result in war on the Korean Peninsula. North and South Korea have engaged in heightened saber-rattling since the incident earlier in the week.

On Friday, North Korea engaged in artillery drills within sight of the island bombed last week. The attack killed two soldiers and two civilians. Gen. Walter Sharp, the U.S. commander in South Korea, was on the island touring the damage at the time. “None of the latest rounds hit the South’s territory, and U.S. military officials said Sharp did not even hear the concussions, though residents on other parts of the island panicked and ran back to the air raid shelters where they huddled earlier in the week as white smoke rose from North Korean territory,” reports the Associated Press.

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