China Denies Troops in North Place
BEIJING - China denied that the country was in talks with North Korea for the placement of Chinese troops on the border of the isolated country, according to Chinese state media reported on Monday (1/17/2011).
"China will not send a soldier into other countries without UN approval," said an official at China's defense ministry, who declined to be named, as quoted in the official newspaper the Global Times.
South Korean daily, Chosun Ilbo, Saturday, quoting an official at the Blue House, the presidential building, which said that Beijing and Pyongyang was discussing details of the deployment plan for China in the city of Rason, a town in North Korea. Unnamed officials said the troops would protect the Chinese port facilities in the city, and a senior security official was quoted as saying said it will also allow China to intervene if North Korea has suffered instability.
China has no troops based in North Korea since 1994, when Beijing withdrew from the Military Armistice Commission which oversees the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war.
Chinese defense ministry official said, there are only a few conditions in which Chinese troops could be stationed in foreign countries, such as peacekeeping missions and disaster rescue efforts in the UN-approved.