China has assisted the United States in searching for remains of U.S. military personnel from World War II within Chinese territory, a spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense said Thursday.

Responding to a media query, spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said that in coordination with China's foreign ministry and military departments, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency under the U.S. Department of Defense has dispatched a team to conduct site surveys in China's Guangxi and Hunan.

These site surveys mark the first joint efforts between the two countries in searching for missing U.S. service members since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, Zhang said.

Over the past years, the Chinese side has been coordinating with the U.S. military to find remains of missing U.S. military personnel in China, he added.