China will remain neutral if North Korea fires missiles at United States territory first...but should the US launch a preemptive strike, as it has suggested it might, North Korea's chief ally would come to the North's aide. While not direct government policy, that verdict of how the country should react amid the unfolding nuclear threats from the US and North Korea is contained in an editorial in the influential Communist Party–run Global Times newspaper "if the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so."