HONG KONG — China warned on Friday that tensions on the Korean Peninsula could spin out of control, as North Korea said it could test a nuclear weapon at any time and an American naval group neared the peninsula in a show of resolve.
“The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering,’’ said China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, according to state news agency Xinhua.
“We urge all sides to no longer engage in mutual provocation and threats, whether through words or deeds, and don’t push the situation to the point where it can’t be turned around and gets out of hand,’’ Wang said.
His comments were the bluntest this week from China, which has been trying to steer between the Trump administration’s demands for it to do more to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and its longstanding reluctance to risk a rupture with the North, its neighbor and longtime partner. In a phone conversation with Trump on Wednesday, China’s president, Xi Jinping, also called for restraint.
The North Korean military issued a statement on Friday threatening to attack major US military bases in South Korea, as well as the presidential Blue House, warning that it could annihilate those targets “within minutes.’’
The statement also denounced what it called the Trump administration’s “maniacal military provocations,’’ like threats of possible unilateral action coming from Washington and the deployment of warships near the Korean Peninsula.
“Nothing will be more foolish if the United States thinks it can deal with us the way it treated Iraq and Libya, miserable victims of its aggression, and Syria, which did not respond immediately even after it was attacked,’’ a spokesman of the General Staff of the North’s People’s Army said in a statement on its official Korean Central News Agency.
Analysts say recent satellite images from North Korea suggest that it might soon carry out another underground detonation, despite pointed warnings by the United States not to do so.
On Saturday, the North marks the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder, Kim Il Sung, and it often uses such occasions as an opportunity to show off its military advances. The country said it could test a nuclear weapon whenever its current leader, Kim Jong Un, decided.
Russia echoed China in urging all parties on Friday to exercise caution. A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, called on “all the countries to refrain from any actions that could amount to provocative steps,’’ Reuters reported.
