China Blames US Over North Korean Missile Launch

North Korea's longtime ally China blamed the United States during an emergency UN Security Council meeting for supposedly triggering Kim Jong-un's regime to fire two ballistic missiles in response to military drills led by Washington.

China's deputy ambassador to the UN, Geng Shuang, North Korea’s missile launches were “closely related” to the military exercises in the Korean peninsula that are being conducted by the US and its allies.

Geng accused the US of “poisoning the regional security environment,” as it, along with Seoul and Tokyo ramped up joint military drills in the past weeks, including large-scale naval and anti-submarine exercises.

China's rhetoric closely mirrors that of North Korea, which also blamed the US for “escalating the military tensions on the Korean peninsula.”

The hermit communist nation's foreign ministry also said that Washington is "posing a serious threat to the stability of the situation on the Korean peninsula.”

A total of six missile launches have occured in just two weeks, including the longest-ever test by distance, which Pyongyang's foreign ministry characterized as a “just counteraction measures of the Korean People's Army on South Korea-US joint drills.”

South Korea's military said Thursday that it detected two short-range ballistic missiles that were launched from the Samsok region located in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, toward the East Sea or the Sea of Japan.

Japan's coastguard also said it detected two potential missiles, which Prime Minister Fumio Kishida called “unacceptable.

The first missile flew about 350 kilometers (217 miles) with a maximum altitude of around 100 kilometers, while the second one had a flight range of about 800 kilometers with a height of around 50 kilometers, as per Japanese defense minister Yasukazu Hamada.

According to Agence France-Presse, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in one of their statements, "our military has reinforced monitoring and surveillance and is maintaining utmost readiness in coordination with the United States.”