Wang said China opposed North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes and any “words or actions” that cause tension on the Korean peninsula, China’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
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North Korea fired a ballistic missile from a submarine into the Sea of Japan, South Korean and USA officials said.
Missiles of such capability could also potentially strike parts of Japan, including US military bases on the island of Okinawa, considering the operational range of North Korea’s Sinpo-class submarines, which can move about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) underwater at a time, said analyst Kim Dong-yub at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies.
The Foreign Ministers of China, Japan and South Korea criticised North Korea’s latest submarine missile test on Wednesday during their annual talks that were held amid lingering frictions over territorial disputes and wartime history. Markets were steady following the submarine launch of a ballistic missile by North Korea. The launch of a presumed KN-11 submarine-launched ballistic missile occurred off the coast of Sinpo, it said adding, it “did not pose a threat to North America”.
A North Korean submarine fired a ballistic missile on Wednesday that flew about 500 km (300 miles) towards Japan, a show of improving technological capability for the isolated country that has conducted a nuclear test and as series of missile launches this year in defiance of United Nations sanctions.
Last month, the US and South Korea agreed to deploy a missile defence system to counter threats from the North.
North Korea has become further isolated after a January nuclear test, its fourth, and the launch of a long-range rocket in February which brought tightened United Nations sanctions.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe confirmed reports that the missile fell into Japan’s ADIZ, an area of airspace over which a country exercises security controls.
Kishida said Tokyo lodged a protest to the North over the missile, and urged his counterparts to step up cooperation as they face the latest development.
The diplomatic event, as well the North’s provocation, came on the second day of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, a Korea-US joint military exercise, to which North Korea has strongly protested and vowed retaliatory action.
Wang said the three neighbors, despite problems and difficulties among them, should work together to deal with regional threats like North Korea’s missile and nuclear ambitions.
Despite such conflicts, the three foreign affairs chiefs all agreed to call for an worldwide response, including resolution on the United Nations Security Council level, against the North’s provocations.
It comes as South Korea and the U.S. begin annual military drills, which routinely anger Pyongyang.
The launch also comes at a time of intensified animosity between the rival Koreas over the defection of a senior North Korean diplomat in London and a USA plan to install a sophisticated missile defense system in South Korea.
The American-led U.N. Command in South Korea on Tuesday accused North Korea of planting land mines near a truce village inside the Demilitarized Zone that divides the two Koreas.
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It said it’d “sternly and firmly react to any provocation by North Korea”.
