North Korea Nuclear Test Reveals the Limits of China-South Korea Cooperation

Bitterly antagonized by the South Korean action, the North has reportedly reinforced frontline troops.

“The global community’s countermeasures against North Korea’s last nuclear test must differ from the past”, Park told an annual press conference.

North Korea’s “successful” submarine-launched ballistic missile test last month was, in fact, an explosive failure that was not even launched from a submarine, separate expert analyses concluded Wednesday.

It wouldn’t be the first time the North’s claims have turned out to be fakes. “China has repeatedly said publicly that it would not tolerate North Korea’s nuclear weapons”, she said.

With Seoul seeking the support of Pyongyang’s old ally China, North Korea’s next move will be monitored closely.

The broadcasts – a high-decibel mix of K-pop and anti-North messages – are a red rag to Pyongyang, which had threatened artillery strikes on the loudspeaker units when they were used during a cross-border crisis previous year.

Separately, South Korea’s military fired warning shots at a North Korean drone that briefly entered Southern airspace in the DMZ, sending the vehicle back into the North.

Park Geun-hye added that Washington was providing South Korea with security by deploying its strategic B-52 bomber in the country.

As well as working with the United Nations to adopt the “strongest” resolution to penalize North Korea, Seoul would also discuss additional “punitive sanctions” with the United States and its allies, she added.

CNN was given access to both men this week, just days after isolated North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test.

However China, as veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, is seen as key to imposing those sanctions.

But experts are questioning the North’s boast, saying early evidence suggests the blast, which caused a magnitude 5.1 quake, similar to its last test three years ago, wasn’t caused by a hydrogen bomb.

Beijing is 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 US-backed South Korean government in control of the Korean Peninsula.

The US House of Representatives voted almost unanimously late on Tuesday to pass legislation to broaden sanctions on the North’s nuclear programme. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters on Monday night during a break in a classified briefing on North Korea by Obama administration officials. “I believe the Chinese government won’t allow the situation to deteriorate further”, she said.

A TV screen shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at an electronics store in Tokyo, Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2016.

North Korean drone flights across the world’s most heavily armed border are rare but have happened before.

 South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator Hwang Joon-kook is scheduled to fly to Beijing on Thursday to meet his Chinese counterpart Wu Dawei, and to Moscow next Tuesday for talks with Russia’s envoy for Korean nuclear disarmament Igor Morgulov. It is usually South Korean activists who send anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.