BEIJING: China said on Tuesday war on the Korean peninsula will have no winner, after North Korea?s foreign minister said US President Donald Trump had declared war on the North and that Pyongyang reserved the right to take countermeasures.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said Beijing hopes that US and North Korean politicians can realize that resorting to military means would never be a viable way out.

China also disapproved of the escalation of the war of words between the United States and North Korea, Lu told a daily news briefing in Beijing.