China claims US nuclear submarine in South Korea ‘source of tension’ in region

President Joe Biden’s decision to send nuclear submarines to South Korea as a show of force to deter North Korea “hurts the strategic interests of other countries,” a senior Chinese official insisted.

“The U.S. puts its own geopolitical interests before the security of the whole region,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told reporters. “The U.S. has been a source of tension through exploiting the issues on the Korean Peninsula. The U.S. behavior is a result of its Cold War mentality.”

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North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has overseen missile launches at an unprecedented rate in recent years, with a pointed emphasis on his regime’s so-called tactical nuclear weapons program in the months since Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. South Korea regards those signals as “a serious threat to the peace on the Korean Peninsula,” as President Yoon Suk Yeol put it Thursday during a joint address to Congress, and so the task of deterring the Kim regime was a top priority for his state visit.

“We’re not going to be stationing nuclear weapons on the peninsula, but we will have … port visits of nuclear submarines and things like that,” Biden said Wednesday during a joint press conference with his South Korean counterpart. “We are not walking away from that.”

The two leaders unveiled a milestone statement, called the Washington Declaration, which emphasized that “any nuclear attack by the DPRK against the ROK will be met with a swift, overwhelming and decisive response … backed by the full range of U.S. capabilities, including nuclear.”

Yoon touted the pledge as a key bulwark against conflict with North Korea. “Sustainable peace on the Korean Peninsula does not happen automatically,” he said Wednesday. “We want to customize our response against North Korea’s nuclear threat based on extended deterrence. And in the process of achieving this goal, any concerns that Koreans may have against North Korean nuclear weapons will be relieved, I believe.”

Senior U.S. lawmakers hailed the Washington Declaration as “an important step” for countering Pyongyang’s growing arsenal.

“The North Korean nuclear program grows more threatening as Pyongyang continues to test more advanced nuclear delivery systems, including intercontinental ballistic missiles and shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons,” Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Senate Armed Services Chairman Jack Reed (D-RI) said Wednesday. “Increasing the frequency, breadth, and depth of our consultations and enhancing the regular visibility of U.S. strategic assets in the region underscore our steadfast commitment to the Korean people.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime long has denounced U.S.-South Korean military cooperation. Chinese officials imposed informal economic sanctions on South Korea over the 2016 decision to deploy a U.S.-made terminal high-altitude missile defense battery to the peninsula, which the United States and South Korea touted as a defense against possible missiles from North Korea.

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And China has taken to blaming the U.S. for tensions with North Korea amid a wider souring of the relationship between Washington and Beijing.

“What the U.S. has done stokes bloc confrontation, undermines the nuclear non-proliferation system, and hurts the strategic interest of other countries,” added Mao, the foreign ministry spokeswoman. “I would like to stress that the issues concerning the Korean Peninsula are highly complex and sensitive. All sides need to grasp the crux of the issues and play a constructive role in their political resolution through dialogue and consultation, rather than deliberately create tension, stoke confrontation, and hype up about threat.”