North Korea is warning the United States that their “threats” in the form of joint military drills with South Korea are making the outbreak of war “an established fact.” Kim Jong-Un’s regime is now saying that war is unavoidable.

China continues to urge calm between the two heated nations, as two American B-1B heavy bombers joined large-scale combat drills over South Korea on Thursday. These drills are being regarded by North Korea as acts of aggression. According to Reuters,  a spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry blamed the drills and “confrontational warmongering” by U.S. officials for making war inevitable.

The flights by the B-1B, one of America’s largest strike aircraft, were supposed to be playing a leading role in Washington’s attempts to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its weapons program. So far, the flights are having the opposite effect on Kim’s tyrannical regime. In September, B-1Bs were among a formation of U.S. military aircraft that flew further north up North Korea’s coast than at any time in the past 17 years, according to the U.S. Pacific Command. That prompted North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, to warn that the North could shoot down the U.S. bombers even if they did not enter North Korean airspace.

“The remaining question now is: when will the war break out?” the spokesman said late on Wednesday in a statement carried by North Korea’s official KCNA news agency. “We do not wish for a war but shall not hide from it.”

China, North Korea’s neighbor, and lone major ally, again urged calm and said war was not the answer. “We hope all relevant parties can maintain calm and restraint and take steps to alleviate tensions and not provoke each other,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a statement. “The outbreak of war is not in any side’s interest. The ones that will suffer the most are ordinary people.”

Tensions between the United States and North Korea skyrocketed in recent weeks after the rogue regime launched their most successful missile to date. The missile launch was conducted in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions and international condemnation.