Chinese military official urges US prudence

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A senior Chinese military official on Wednesday called on the US to prudently handle issues from a strategic and long-term perspective, as he accompanied a visiting top US military official to inspect a military base in northeast China amid growing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

"China and the US have maintained close communication on major regional and global issues. I believe as long as the two sides stick to handling issues from a strategic and long-term perspective, the relations between the two militaries can become the stabilizer of bilateral ties," Song Puxuan, commander of the Northern Theater Command, told chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford.

The Northern Theater Command is responsible for dealing with security threats in northern strategic scopes, especially safeguarding the sovereignty and maritime rights and interests of China's northern territory.

Song reiterated that China stayed committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, upholding its peace and stability and solving the nuclear issue on the peninsula through dialogue and negotiation.

The commander also told Dunford about China's military reform, saying the establishment of five theater commands is of vital significance to safeguard national security.

China set up the five commands in February of 2016, replacing the previous seven military area commands, in the hope that the streamlining would strengthen joint command.

Dunford, for his part, called on the two sides to strengthen communication so as to reduce the possibility of misjudgments.

Dunford, who has been in China for three days, also met Fang Fenghui, a member of China's Central Military Commission (CMC) and chief of the Joint Staff Department under the CMC, on Tuesday, and the two sides agreed to work through the difficulties affecting US-China relations together.

Dunford will also visit Japan in the coming days. His Asia tour came after President Donald Trump last week declared the US military "locked and loaded" and said he was ready to unleash "fire and fury" if the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) continued to threaten the US.