BEIJING: Chinese leader Xi Jinping has urged Donald Trump to peacefully resolve tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program, as the US president touted the power of a naval “armada” steaming toward the Korean peninsula.
China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday the two leaders had spoken by phone, days after Trump sent the aircraft carrier-led strike group to the region in a show of force ahead of a possible nuclear test.
The deployment was followed by a renewed warning that Washington was ready to take on North Korea alone if Beijing declined to help rein in its maverick neighbor’s nuclear ambitions.
Pyongyang has issued a defiant response, saying it was ready to fight “any mode of war” chosen by the United States and even threatening a nuclear strike against US targets.
The sabre-rattling has unnerved China, which has made clear its frustration with Pyongyang’s stubbornness but whose priority remains preventing any military flare-up that could bring chaos and instability to its doorstep.
In the call, Xi stressed that China “advocates resolving the issue through peaceful means,” the foreign ministry said.
On Tuesday, the US president tweeted that “North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! USA.”
A barrage of recent North Korean missile tests has stoked US fears that Pyongyang may soon develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.
There is speculation that the country could be preparing a missile launch, or even another nuclear test, to mark the 105th birthday anniversary of its founder Kim Il-Sung on Saturday.
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump warned: “We are sending an armada. Very powerful.”
“We have submarines. Very powerful. Far more powerful than the aircraft carrier.”
The flotilla includes the Nimitz-class aircraft supercarrier USS Carl Vinson, a carrier air wing, two guided-missile destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser.
“This goes to prove that the US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase,” a spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry said in response.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Wednesday it was “irresponsible and even dangerous to take any actions that may escalate the tension.”
“All relevant parties should exercise restraint and keep calm, easing tensions instead of provoking each other and adding fuel to the fire,” he said at a regular press briefing.
Pyongyang has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year, and analysis of satellite imagery suggests it could be preparing for a sixth.
China’s Global Times newspaper, which sometimes reflects the thinking of the country’s leadership, said a new test would be a “slap in the face of the US government” and that Beijing would not “remain indifferent.”
“Presumably Beijing will react strongly to Pyongyang’s new nuclear actions,” it said, adding there was increasing popular support for “severe restrictive measures that have never been seen before.”
The language suggested China — the North’s sole major ally and economic lifeline — could restrict oil imports to the country, after already announcing a suspension of all coal imports until the end of the year.
The call between the leaders of the world’s largest economies followed their first face-to-face meeting late last week.
During the call, Xi told Trump that China remains “willing to maintain communication and coordination with the American side on the issue of the peninsula,” according to the foreign ministry.
Trump, it added, said it was vital for the two heads of state to maintain close ties.
The high-profile summit in Florida was overshadowed by a US missile strike on Syria that was also interpreted as a warning to North Korea.
Xi told Trump on the call that the Syria issue “must continue to move toward a political solution,” and that “any use of chemical weapons is unacceptable.”
He said their summit produced “significant results,” and that both sides would work together to ensure Trump visited China later this year.
Trump’s election campaign was marked with acerbic denouncements of the Asian giant’s “rape” of the US economy and his vow to punish Beijing with punitive tariffs.
But he dropped his anti-China bombast in Florida, afterwards hailing an “outstanding” relationship with his Chinese counterpart.
Xi urges peaceful resolution of N. Korea tensions in Trump call
Xi urges peaceful resolution of N. Korea tensions in Trump call
2025 among world’s three hottest years on record, WMO says
- All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said
- The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements
BRUSSELS: Last year was among the planet’s three warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said on Wednesday, as EU scientists also confirmed average temperatures have now exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming for the longest since records began.
The WMO, which consolidates eight climate datasets from around the world, said six of them — including the European Union’s European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and the British national weather service — had ranked 2025 as the third warmest, while two placed it as the second warmest in the 176-year record.
All eight datasets confirmed that the last three years were the planet’s three hottest since records began, the WMO said. The warmest year on record was 2024.
THREE-YEAR PERIOD ABOVE 1.5 C AVERAGE WARMING LEVEL
The slight differences in the datasets’ rankings reflect their different methodologies and types of measurements — which include satellite data and readings from weather stations.
ECMWF said 2025 also rounded out the first three-year period in which the average global temperature was 1.5 C above the pre-industrial era — the limit beyond which scientists expect global warming will unleash severe impacts, some of them irreversible.
“1.5 C is not a cliff edge. However, we know that every fraction of a degree matters, particularly for worsening extreme weather events,” said Samantha Burgess, strategic lead for climate at ECMWF.
Burgess said she expected 2026 to be among the planet’s five warmest years.
CHOICE OF HOW TO MANAGE TEMPERATURE OVERSHOOT
Governments pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to avoid exceeding 1.5 C of global warming, measured as a decades-long average temperature compared with pre-industrial temperatures.
But their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions means that target could now be breached before 2030 — a decade earlier than had been predicted when the Paris accord was signed in 2015, ECMWF said. “We are bound to pass it,” said Carlo Buontempo, director of the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. “The choice we now have is how to best manage the inevitable overshoot and its consequences on societies and natural systems.”
Currently, the world’s long-term warming level is about 1.4 C above the pre-industrial era, ECMWF said. Measured on a short-term basis, average annual temperatures breached 1.5 C for the first time in 2024.
EXTREME WEATHER
Exceeding the long-term 1.5 C limit would lead to more extreme and widespread impacts, including hotter and longer heatwaves, and more powerful storms and floods. Already in 2025, wildfires in Europe produced the highest total emissions on record, while scientific studies confirmed specific weather events were made worse by climate change, including Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean and monsoon rains in Pakistan which killed more than 1,000 people in floods.
Despite these worsening impacts, climate science is facing political pushback. US President Donald Trump, who has called climate change “the greatest con job,” last week withdrew from dozens of UN entities including the scientific Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The long-established consensus among the world’s scientists is that climate change is real, mostly caused by humans, and getting worse. Its main cause is greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas, which trap heat in the atmosphere.
