Pressure grows on China to rein in N Korea

The ability of the U.S., South Korea and Japan to change North Korea’s behavior has always been constrained by two factors: the reluctance of China, North Korea’s chief patron and economic partner, to crack down on its errant neighbor; and competing agendas among the U.S. and its allies. The document states that the incident was a serious provocation and threatens regional security, and would further increase global pressure and isolation of North Korea.

The United States and its ally South Korea are limited in their military response. Leaflets by the American-led United Nations forces typically urged North Korean and Chinese troops to surrender, while North Korean leaflets criticized the United Nations forces and tried to make them homesick by posting pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Thanksgiving Day turkeys, according to South Korean media reports. South Korea’s birthday gift to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un, who is believed to have turned 33 today, was to turn its loudspeakers back on and denigrate his wife.

None of the sanctions contained in the Security Council resolutions have stopped North Korea from thumbing its nose at the so-called “international community” and conducting as many nuclear and missile tests as it wishes.

“We do not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve”, declared Secretary of State John Kerry.

Data from North Korea is hard to analyze, Eberstadt pointed out, because the country is closed to observation by outsiders.

People were seen dancing in the streets Friday, two days after North Korea announced it has successfully tested its first hydrogen bomb.

“My greatest concern is not so much whether or not they actually tested a hydrogen bomb, but rather that they tested at all”, Siegfried Hecker, the former Los Alamos Laboratory director, said in an interview published Thursday in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

The subsequent explosion triggered an artificial natural disaster, which the United States Geological Survey recorded at 5.1 magnitude, about the same size as previous nuclear tests – a hydrogen bomb test would have been expected to have had more of an impact.

The UK has urged Seoul to show restraint, describing resuming the broadcasts as “rising to the bait”.

“North Korea is still a long way off from being able to strike the United States mainland”, he said.

The broadcasts, in rolling bursts from walls of loudspeakers at 11 locations along the heavily militarised border, blared rhetoric critical of the Pyongyang regime as well as “K-pop” music, ratcheting up tension between the rival Koreas.

Performers on Seoul’s propaganda playlist include a female K-pop band that rose to fame when its members fell multiple times on stage, a middle-aged singer who rose from obscurity last year with a song about living for 100 years and songs by a young female singer, IU, whose sweet, girlish voice might be aimed at North Korean soldiers deployed near the border.

But he continued, “we have to be bigger than the North Koreans….”

Kerry rejected a reporter’s suggestion that the Obama administration had neglected the North Korean threat as it focused on curbing Iran’s nuclear program.

BBC reports that the broadcasts are set to start again on Friday, which happens to be the 33rd birthday of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The US and weapons experts voiced doubts the device North Korea tested on Wednesday was a hydrogen bomb, but calls mounted for more sanctions against it for its rogue nuclear programme. B-2 and B-52 bombers are capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

The claim has been met with condemnation and skepticism.