Korea urges tough global response to North’s test

South Korean President Park Geun-hye gave her annual New Year address and press conference on Wednesday.

South Korea has appealed to China to use its influence to rein in North Korea, warning of further provocation from its northern neighbour after its latest nuclear test. But China is still seen as reluctant to clamp down on the North in part because of fears that a toppled government in Pyongyang would see millions of desperate North Koreans flooding across the border with China and a U.S.-backed South Korean government in control of the Korean Peninsula.

The meeting was aimed at continuing the “close trilateral coordination on North Korea policy and the worldwide community’s response to North Korea’s nuclear test”, it added. Park’s comments came after Seoul said Pyongyang flew leaflets across the border that described Park and her administration as “mad dogs”.

Earlier Wednesday, Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke by phone and agreed that the North’s test defies past U.N. Security Council resolutions, according to the Foreign Ministry. “In many ways, it’s what the leadership’s legitimacy is staked on”, says Nat Kretchun, who analyzes North Korean information flows for InterMedia, based in Washington, D.C.

Japan’s meteorological agency officer Yohei Hasegawa displays a chart showing seismic activity, (at L top is today’s observation result, observed in China) after a North Korean nuclear test, at the agency in Tokyo on January 6, 2016.

Answering a question about whether Seoul would consider ending its involvement in the jointly-run Kaesong industrial zone, just north of the border, Ms Park said its future depended on Pyongyang’s actions.

Experts and government officials have generally been in agreement that the North’s claimed “successful” hydrogen test did not go as planned.

South Korea and China have grown increasingly close in recent years.

Hong also said it is China’s clear and consistent stance to disapprove of North Korea’s nuclear test, adding that South Korea and China are maintaining communication on the issue of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The president stressed that China, North Korea’s main ally and economic benefactor, would be critical in securing an effective Security Council resolution.

Ms Park said South Korea would also continue its controversial propaganda broadcasts over the border.

“I think it was the same for people around me who were also too busy worrying about their next meal to care about whether or not there had been a nuclear test”, she said.

But what is more important than whether North Korea’s specific test was a success or not and whether the bomb was a hydrogen bomb or not, is whether Pyongyang’s test means it has advanced its technology sufficiently for mounting a nuclear device on a missile.

Noting Beijing’s public admonishments of Kim’s regime over its nuclear programme, Park said it was time for China to move beyond rhetoric. “Now, Seoul suddenly finds itself in a position where it must change its entire diplomatic approach”, South Korea’s biggest circulation newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, wrote in an editorial.

“I believe China is aware that if its strong determination is not put into actual, necessary actions, we will not be able to prevent a fifth or sixth nuclear test”, Park said, referring to the North’s four previous tests in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016.