SHAFAQNA

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – Saturday's earthquake in China's Sichuan province, measured by China's earthquake administration at magnitude 7.0 and by the U.S. Geological Survey at 6.6, killed at least 192 people, injured more than 11,000 and left nearly two dozen missing, mostly in the rural communities around Ya'an city.

The temblor struck along the same fault line where a devastating quake to the north killed more than 90,000 people in Sichuan and neighboring areas five years ago in one of China's worst natural disasters. Relief teams flew in helicopters and dynamited through landslides to reach some of the most isolated communities, where rescuers in orange overalls led sniffer dogs through piles of brick, concrete and wood debris to search for survivors.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: sacbee

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) Japan has summoned the Chinese ambassador in protest over a flotilla of Chinese government ships that entered territorial waters near a disputed island chain.

Japan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had called in the envoy after eight Chinese vessels entered waters near the Senkaku islands, which China calls Diaoyu, the most in a single day since Tokyo nationalised part of the archipelago in September.

The Chinese boats drove out a flotilla of 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists from the nationalist Ganbare Nippon ("Stand Firm, Japan") group, which sailed into waters around the islets early on Tuesday.

They then began to withdraw from the area on the orders of Japanese Coast Guard patrol ships, when Chinese government surveillance ships came nearby.

"Our latest intelligence indicates that a large number of Chinese vessels have entered Japanese territorial waters," an unidentified coast guard member told the activists.

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday confirmed the incident. "Today there has been eight Chinese maritime surveillance vessels that have entered the Senkaku island area around Uotsuri Jima," he said.

China said the trip by Ganbare Nippon was "illegal" and "troublemaking," and a foreign ministry spokesman said the government has lodged an official protest with Japan.

'Under our active control'

Japanese Coast Guard vessels then escorted some of the fishing boats back to the the port of Ishigaki, where they originally departed from.

Ganbare Nippon had said the purpose of their trip was to survey fishing grounds. Last August, about 10 activists from the group landed on one of the islets.

Japanese and Chinese patrol ships have been playing a cat-and-mouse game near the Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands, where China is seeking to assert its claim to sovereignty by sending ships into the disputed waters.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe however said that it was Japan who was still fully in control of the island chain.

"The Senkaku islands are under our active control," he said when asked in parliament what he thought the status of the islands were.

"Since it has become the Abe government, we have made sure that if there an instance where there is an intrusion into our territory or it seems that there could be landing on the islands then we will deal will it strongly," Abe added.

The waters around the islets are rich fishing grounds and also have potentially huge oil and gas reserves.

The territorial dispute has escalated in recent months to the point where China and Japan have scrambled fighter jets while patrol ships shadow each other, raising fears that an unintended collision could lead to a broader clash.

www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –Japan has summoned the Chinese ambassador in protest over a flotilla of Chinese government ships that entered territorial waters near a disputed island chain.

Japan's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had called in the envoy after eight Chinese vessels entered waters near the Senkaku islands, which China calls Diaoyu, the most in a single day since Tokyo nationalised part of the archipelago in September.

The Chinese boats drove out a flotilla of 10 boats carrying about 80 Japanese activists from the nationalist Ganbare Nippon ("Stand Firm, Japan") group, which sailed into waters around the islets early on Tuesday.

They then began to withdraw from the area on the orders of Japanese Coast Guard patrol ships, when Chinese government surveillance ships came nearby.

"Our latest intelligence indicates that a large number of Chinese vessels have entered Japanese territorial waters," an unidentified coast guard member told the activists.

Japanese chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga on Tuesday confirmed the incident. "Today there has been eight Chinese maritime surveillance vessels that have entered the Senkaku island area around Uotsuri Jima," he said.

China said the trip by Ganbare Nippon was "illegal" and "troublemaking," and a foreign ministry spokesman said the government has lodged an official protest with Japan.

'Under our active control'

Japanese Coast Guard vessels then escorted some of the fishing boats back to the the port of Ishigaki, where they originally departed from.

Ganbare Nippon had said the purpose of their trip was to survey fishing grounds. Last August, about 10 activists from the group landed on one of the islets.

Japanese and Chinese patrol ships have been playing a cat-and-mouse game near the Japanese-controlled East China Sea islands, where China is seeking to assert its claim to sovereignty by sending ships into the disputed waters.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe however said that it was Japan who was still fully in control of the island chain.

"The Senkaku islands are under our active control," he said when asked in parliament what he thought the status of the islands were.

"Since it has become the Abe government, we have made sure that if there an instance where there is an intrusion into our territory or it seems that there could be landing on the islands then we will deal will it strongly," Abe added.

The waters around the islets are rich fishing grounds and also have potentially huge oil and gas reserves.

The territorial dispute has escalated in recent months to the point where China and Japan have scrambled fighter jets while patrol ships shadow each other, raising fears that an unintended collision could lead to a broader clash. -www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:AL Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) Hours after they dug out Wang Qiong's body they buried her again on a mountain slope close by what remained of her home: a heap of rubble and heavy concrete slabs. Her dazed, red-eyed widower and 12-year-old younger daughter clambered over the ruins on Sunday, salvaging stray items: a toy giraffe; a single trainer; letters.

Wang's elder daughter barely had time to comfort them before she left to tend to the stream of patients at a nearby hospital. "Mum, I need to help other people now," the nurse said as she left her mother's graveside.

More than 200 people are dead or missing after the powerful earthquake rocked Sichuan, south-west China, at 8.02am on Saturday – arousing memories of the devastating shock along the same faultline that killed tens of thousands in the province five years ago next month.

Another 11,800 are injured, almost 1,000 seriously, and an estimated 100,000 homeless. Blocked roads and damaged communications have hampered efforts to rescue survivors and provide emergency shelter and supplies, with aftershocks of 5.4 magnitude triggering repeated landslides.

Wang's sister-in-law, Zhang Dexiang, was working at a brick factory when the quake struck "We started work as usual at 8am, but all the machines began jumping," she said. "We panicked and ran outside. We all rushed back home but by the time I got here there was nothing left. When we dug [Wang] out, she was already dead."

Wang, 45, was a warm, gentle woman, loved for her kindness to children and the elderly. Due to a disability, she stayed at home raising pigs while the rest of the household went out to work; she was the only one there when the house collapsed around her.

Now her family are sheltering under a tarpaulin with the meagre possessions they retrieved: a few wooden stools and a couple of quilts. "We have nothing," said Zhang.

The wreckage of the 6.6 magnitude quake lay strewn across the area around the epicentre near Ya'an city: a car crushed by a huge boulder; cracks in the roads and toppled telegraph poles; ceilings and walls that had slammed to the ground; pavements thick with bricks strewn by slumping buildings; a house now useless but so new that its windows still bore tape when they crashed from their frames. In one sagging building, an enormous hog, loosed by the quake, rooted through its master's destroyed kitchen.

The area is known for its beauty: its river gorges, thick bamboo groves and lush green paddy fields. But the steep wooded slopes bore the red scars of landslides, and aftershocks continued to shake the ground on Sunday, further unnerving survivors.

The Sichuan meteorological observatory warned that rain was likely in the quake zone over the next three days. The county government for Lushan, badly hit by the disaster, said water had already been drained from five reservoirs that had suffered cracks and leakage to protect residents.

The Chinese premier Li Keqiang flew into the disaster zone, where he met rescuers and survivors. "Treat and heal your wounds with peace of mind," the state news agency Xinhua quoted Li as telling patients at a hospital. "The government will take care of all the costs for those severely wounded."

State media said that rescuers had pulled a three-month-old baby alive from the rubble of her mountain home, although her mother had died in the quake. In another development, a 12-year-old girl reportedly emerged from a coma as she was treated at a military hospital in Chengdu after she was dug out of the ruins of their house.

Thousands of troops have swarmed the area, clearing roads, restoring communications, helping specialist teams to search for survivors and setting up camps for the homeless. Xinhua said 18,000 soldiers had been dispatched.

But landslides reblocked cleared roads, officials said. Military and rescue vehicles also congested the narrow mountain road from Ya'an city to Lushan, which was closed to all but emergency vehicles for hours.

Hundreds of armed police marched in single file, bearing shovels, to Baoxing, one of the worst hit areas, before the route was repaired late on Sunday. At least 26 died there and 40,000 are homeless, the state news agency reported.

Xinhua warned that rescuers had yet to reach some parts of the quake zone. But Chen Yong, the vice director of the Ya'an city government earthquake response office, told reporters that he believed the death toll was unlikely to rise dramatically.

Casualties include two rescuers who were in a vehicle that plunged off a 300-metre cliff in Baoxing county, Xinhua said.

China's foreign ministry said foreign rescue teams and medical and relief supplies were not needed, citing the problems with traffic and communications in the quake zone.

"The Lushan county centre is getting back to normal, but the need is still considerable in terms of shelter and materials," said Kevin Xia of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "Supplies have had difficulty getting into the region because of the traffic jams. Most of our supplies are still on the way."

Throughout the disaster zone, survivors sat along the roadside, some with bloodied bandages, under crude shelters they had arranged themselves or emergency tents from rescuers.

Though relief teams quickly set up camps in some areas, survivors were still begging workers for tents. Xinhua reported shortages of drinking water and at one junction, a group of children and old people held up cardboard signs pleading for water.

Li Baojun, deputy head of the disaster relief department of the civil affairs ministry, said 30,000 tents, 50,000 quilts and 10,000 camp beds would be transported to the provincial capital Chengdu for distribution to affected areas as soon as possible.

Disease prevention work has already started, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said, and psychological help will be provided for vulnerable people.

One woman described how her legs had turned to jelly as she watched her house fall down – but beamed as she recalled the moment she saw her children emerge unscathed.

"We heard an explosion in the mountains first, like an eruption from a volcano," said 40-year-old Peng Guiwu, wearing a neighbour's clothes because she had not dressed when the shock hit.

"Then dust started falling and the houses were groaning and everything started collapsing. My husband and I grabbed our kids and ran. Everything was moving," she added, showing the scars on her legs and arm where furniture had smashed into her as she escaped. "I was scared to death – the children were so frightened they clung to us."

Though 2008's earthquake was many times the power of Saturday's, and far more deadly, it left Ya'an and the surrounding area largely unscathed.

"Last time there were only a few tiles that came loose and we repaired it very quickly," said Peng, whose house now bears a long crack down its front. "But we learnt from that earthquake. We used quilts to cover our heads."

Many residents said the training and information programmes that followed the last earthquake had taught them what to do: leave at once, protect your heads, gather well away from buildings. That helped to ensure that a mother escaped with her seven-day-old baby unscathed; and that a 15-year-old boy carried his little sister to safety while his mother was out.

But Peng's neighbour lost her little girl in the quake, and was lying injured in hospital. Tan Xuelan, 84, could not move as the house collapsed around her and was saved by the kindness of a neighbour, who returned to carry her to safety. And Wang, who found it hard to walk due to her disability, was crushed before she could make it out of the door.

Experience was not enough to save those who were too small, too slow or simply too unlucky.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) –South Korea's foreign minister canceled a trip to Japan on Monday after Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made an offering to a shrine seen as a symbol of Japan's former militarism, a South Korean government official said.

China also objected to Abe's offering on Sunday to the Yasukuni shrine, where 14 Japanese leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honored, saying Japan had to face up to its past nationalistic aggression.

Abe, an outspoken nationalist, made a ritual offering of a pine tree to the shrine. He did not go there but two Japanese ministers and a deputy chief cabinet secretary did visit it on the weekend.

Such gestures upset Asian victims of Japan's war-time aggression, including China and South Korea.

"We are disappointed," said a South Korean government official.

"Through a diplomatic channel, we sent a message several times that we did not want any visit to the shrine before our minister's trip," said the official, who declined to be identified.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se had aimed to discuss the direction of relations with his Japanese counterpart during his planned visit, the official said.

"It is now almost impossible to have a constructive conversation," the official said, referring to the decision to cancel the trip.

For Koreans, the shrine is a reminder of Japan's brutal colonial rule from 1910-1945.

China, which also suffered under Japanese occupation, also takes offence when Japanese leaders pay their respects at the shrine.

"PRIVATE CONDUCT"

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Japan's relations with its neighbors hinged on its acceptance of its history.

"Japan must face up to its history of nationalist aggression" and respect the feelings of victims, the Chinese spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a daily news briefing.

"We believe that only when Japan attains a deep understanding of its past history can it open up its future and develop a cooperative relationship with other Asian countries," she said.

In Tokyo, Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference that final details of Yun's visit had not been worked out. Visits to the shrine should not disrupt relations between Japan and its neighbors, he said.

"Each country has its own position. We should not let it affect diplomacy."

Suga said the ministers' visits to the shrine were private.

"Cabinet ministers paying visit as private individuals is their private conduct. The government refrains from commenting," he said.

It is not clear how Abe made his offering.

China's Global Times newspaper, published by the Chinese Communist Party's official newspaper, the People's Daily, said the shrine gesture was evidence that Japan was "a troublemaker and provocateur among Asian countries".

"This is yet another time that Japan has gone out of its way to manipulate Asian politics," it said. - www.shafaqna.com/English

Source:Reuters

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – At least 28 people have been killed in a 6.6 magnitude earthquake which struck the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan, the official China News Service reported.

The quake hit just after 8am (0000 GMT) on Saturday and was felt in the provincial capital of Chengdu 110 kilometres to the east, the state news agency Xinhua reported.

Sichuan, like neighbouring areas, is prone to such tremors and saw one of the country's worst quakes in decades in 2008 that left 87,000 people missing or dead.

Xinhua put the quake at magnitude 7.0 with a depth of 13 kilometres, citing the China Earthquake Networks Centre, while the USGS downgraded the quake from an earlier reading of 6.9.

Earthquakes frequently strike the country's southwest, with twin tremors in neighbouring Yunnan province last September triggering landslides that left at least 80 people dead.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: Al Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – China has accused the US of destabilising the Asia-Pacific region by strengthening its military presence in the area.

China made the claim in its defence ministry’s annual white paper, saying the US was sending more ships, planes and troops into the region.

"There are some countries which are strengthening their Asia-Pacific military alliances, expanding their military presence in the region and frequently make the situation there tenser,” the document, published on Tuesday, said.

It states that the US policy has emboldened Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam regarding territorial disputes and China now faces “multiple and complicated security threats”.

“Certain efforts made to highlight the military agenda, enhance military deployment and also strengthen alliances are not in line with the calling of the times and are not conducive to the upholding of peace and stability in the region,” Yang Yujun, spokesman, said at a news conference marking the report's release.

China has criticised the US deployment of ships and personnel to Asia, as well as its increasing cooperation with treaty partners, including Japan, South Korea and the Philippines.

Re-orientation defended

For his part, John Kerry, US secretary of state, defended the re-orientation of US foreign policy as he ended his trip to the region.

The US calls the restructuring a natural reallocation of resources to the world's most economically dynamic region.

China, however, sees it as designed to contain its diplomatic, military and economic rise.

The US policy determines that 60 percent of the navy's fleet will be deployed to the Pacific by 2020.

Singapore will house four new US Littoral Combat Ships designed to fight close to shorelines, while Indonesia wants to buy a range of American hardware and take part in joint manoeuvres.

The Philippines wants to host more US troops and Australia has agreed to allow up to 2,500 Marine Corps soldiers to deploy to the northern city of Darwin.

China has also been angered by what it sees as US support for its opponents in disputes with Japan, the Philippines and others over territory in the East China and South China seas.

“China views the US actions as proving it is biased against it,” Qian Liwei, an associated research fellow at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, wrote in the official English-language newspaper, China Daily, on Tuesday.

“It will take time and patience to convince China that it isn't the target of the US's rebalancing.”

In its report, the defence ministry tried to address concerns about its 500-percent-plus increase in defence spending over the past 14 years, making China's defence budget the second largest in the world after America.

Much of the report was devoted to the military's contribution to UN peacekeeping efforts and disaster relief.

It also asserted the army's role as a guarantor of China's core interests, pledging to tolerate no violation of those.

"China will resolutely take all necessary measures to safeguard its national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the report said.-www.shafaqna.com/English

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) -- China's economic growth has slowed to 7.7 percent in the first quarter of 2013, new data has revealed.

The figures released on Monday showed that China's economic growth had fallen below expectations, fuelling concerns that a recent recovery is faltering due to a subdued overseas demand.

The latest numbers for the period January-March from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) compares with a median 8.0 percent forecast in a poll of economists by AFP news agency and marks a slowdown from 7.9 percent seen in the previous quarter.

Observers have expressed hopes that China's economy, the world's second biggest, will be a driver of a global recovery and the pick-up at the end of last year - which snapped seven straight quarters of slowing - had reinforced those hopes.

But analysts said Monday's data and a slew of other downbeat figures recently pointed to a weak outlook and questioned whether policymakers would be able to address it.

'Ensuring stability'

In a statement the NBS cited "the complicated and volatile economic environment at home and abroad", adding that China's ruling Communist Party and government were committed to "making progress while ensuring stability".

NBS spokesperson Sheng Laiyun told reporters the global economy saw "profound adjustment" in the first quarter of 2013, blaming aggressive monetary easing policies overseas for strengthening China's yuan currency and hitting exports.

"The recovery has been slow, in particular some developed countries have carried out quantitative easing policies and stepped up efforts in these regards," he said.

"This has created bigger pressure for the appreciation of currencies in developing countries and this has made it more difficult to increase exports."

Sheng did not name any individual countries but central banks in the United States and Japan have unveiled measures to support their economies with aggressive monetary easing.

Wendy Chen, a Shanghai-based economist at Nomura Securities, told AFP: "The (GDP) figure was lower than market expectations, indicating the recovery in the real economy was not on a solid foundation and remained weak."

She said given concerns about inflation rising in the next few months it was unlikely the central bank would move to stimulate the economy by cutting interest rates "as loosening monetary policy may bring greater inflationary risks".

The government "will likely take steps on the fiscal policy side, possibly continuing to promote investment in infrastructure construction", she said.

'Good shape'

China's economy grew 7.8 percent in 2012, its slowest rate in 13 years, and authorities have kept their growth target for 2013 at a conservative 7.5 percent.

Monday's figures follow results last week showing China recorded a deficit of $880 million in March owing to softening demand in key US and European markets, while below-forecast inflation pointed to weakness at home.

Policymakers have pledged to rebalance the economy away from a reliance on the traditional growth drivers of investment and exports, and towards consumer demand.

But fixed-asset investment, an important measure of government spending on infrastructure, jumped 20.9 percent in the first quarter from the same period in 2012, the NBS said.

Still, compared with the 21.2 percent growth for the first two months of the year, the cumulative data for the first quarter indicate the pace is slowing this year.

Monday's GDP figure came after Chinese President Xi Jinping last week expressed confidence in the economy, telling business leaders it was in "good shape".

He said China would probably not be able to sustain the "ultra-high speed of economic growth" of the past, but that a "relatively high speed of economic growth" would be possible.

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SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) – US Secretary of State John Kerry

The top diplomats of China and the US have pledged to work together on "challenges" presented by North Korea, after a series of nuclear war threats from Pyongyang.

Meeting Chinese leaders in Beijing on Saturday, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the two countries were committed to finding a peaceful way to ensure a nuclear-free Korean peninsula.

Beijing is Pyongyang's main trading partner, financial backer and diplomatic ally, and is seen as having unique leverage over the government of Kim Jong-un.

"To properly address the Korean nuclear issue serves the common interests of all parties," China's State Councillor Yang Jiechi, who is in charge of Beijing's foreign policy, said.

"China will work with other relevant parties including the United States to play a constructive role."

Neither Yang nor Kerry gave details of any concrete measures that had been agreed. But Kerry said they would have "further discussions to bear down very quickly with great specificity on exactly how we will accomplish this goal".

The world is facing a "critical time", Kerry told China's President Xi Jinping, also citing Iran's nuclear programme and the conflict in Syria.

"Mr President, this is obviously a critical time with some very challenging issues," Kerry told Xi.

"Issues on the Korean peninsula, the challenge of Iran and nuclear weapons, Syria and the Middle East, and economies around the world that are in need of a boost."

'Historical stage'

Kerry arrived from South Korea to press Beijing to help defuse soaring nuclear tensions on the Korean peninsula ahead of an expected missile launch by the North, which conducted a nuclear test in February.

But Xi did not refer to the Korean peninsula or other issues raised by Kerry in his opening remarks at the meeting, instead saying that the US-China relationship was "at a new historical stage and has got off to a good start".

As North Korea's sole major ally, Kerry said ahead of his visit that China has a unique ability to influence the impoverished, isolated state.

"There is no group of leaders on the face of the planet who have more capacity to make a difference in this than the Chinese, and everybody knows it, including, I believe, them," Kerry said in Seoul on Friday.

"They want to see us try to reach an amicable resolution to this."

Analyst of North Korean affairs Hazel Smith told Al Jazeera that both the US and China want to keep the situation on the Korean peninsula under control but that they each think the other can do more.

“China sees that the United States has a responsibility as well as North Korea to get in some form of serious diplomatic relations about bringing to an end the overall conflict between the two protagonists, so that these military situations don’t reoccur,” Smith said.

Kerry's visit to Asia, which will include a stop in Tokyo on Sunday, takes place after weeks of North Korean threats of an impending war since the imposition of new UN sanctions in response to its third nuclear test.

Separately, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen visited South Korea for the first time. He toured the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates the North and the South on Saturday, and viewed North Korean territory from the observatory located within the DMZ.-www.shafaqna.com/English

Source: AL Jazeera

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association) The United States said on Saturday that China had agreed to help rid North Korea of its nuclear capability by peaceful means, but Beijing made no specific commitment in public to pressure its long-time ally to change its ways.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met China's top leaders in a bid to persuade them to push reclusive North Korea, whose main diplomatic supporter is Beijing, to scale back its belligerence and, eventually, return to nuclear talks.
Visiting Beijing for the first time as secretary of state, Kerry has made no secret of his desire to see China take a more active stance towards North Korea, which in recent weeks has threatened nuclear war against the United States and South Korea.

Kerry and China's top diplomat, State Councillor Yang Jiechi, said both countries supported the goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

"We are able, the United States and China, to underscore our joint commitment to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula in a peaceful manner," Kerry told reporters, sitting next to Yang at a state guesthouse in western Beijing.

But North Korea has repeatedly said it will not abandon nuclear weapons which it described on Friday as its "treasured" guarantor of security.

Yang said China's stance on maintaining peace and stability on the peninsula was clear and consistent, repeating phrasing used by the Foreign Ministry since the crisis began.

"We maintain that the issue should be handled and resolved peacefully through dialogue and consultation. To properly address the Korea nuclear issue serves the common interests of all parties. It is also the shared responsibility of all parties," he said, speaking through an interpreter.

"China will work with other relevant parties, including the United States, to play a constructive role in promoting the six-party talks and balanced implementation of the goals set out in the September 19 joint statement of 2005."

The United States and its allies believe the North violated the 2005 aid-for-denuclearization deal by conducting a nuclear test in 2006 and pursuing a uranium enrichment program that would give it a second path to a nuclear weapon in addition to its plutonium-based program.

Six-party aid-for-disarmament talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, Japan, Russia and host China, collapsed in 2008 when the North walked away from the deal.

Kerry declined to comment on what specifically China may do to push for a peaceful solution on North Korea, saying only that they had discussed all possibilities.

At a news conference in Seoul on Friday and in a U.S.-South Korean joint statement issued on Saturday, Kerry signaled the U.S. preference for diplomacy, but stressed North Korea must take "meaningful" steps on denuclearization.

"We don't want to get into a threat for threat or ... some kind of confrontational language here. There's been enough of that," Kerry said in Beijing.

If North Korea got rid of its nuclear capabilities, then the United States would have no reason to maintain recently deployed defensive capabilities - such as a missile defense system sent to Guam - he said.

"Now, obviously, if the threat disappears, i.e. North Korea denuclearizes, the same imperative does not exist at that point in time for us to have to have that kind of robust, forward leaning posture of defense."

The Pentagon has in recent weeks responded to the North Korean threats by announcing plans to position two Aegis guided-missile destroyers in the western Pacific and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defense system to Guam.

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