Tag Archives: Kim Jong-un

North Korea bolsters defenses after flight by U.S. bombers as rhetoric escalates

North Korea bolsters defenses after flight by U.S. bombers as rhetoric escalates

By Christine Kim and Christian Shepherd

SEOUL/BEIJING (Reuters) – North Korea has boosted defenses on its east coast, a South Korean lawmaker said on Tuesday, after the North said U.S. President Donald Trump had declared war and that it would shoot down U.S. bombers flying near the peninsula.

Tensions have escalated since North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3, but the rhetoric has reached a new level in recent days with leaders on both sides exchanging threats and insults.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said Trump’s Twitter comments, in which the U.S. leader said Ri and leader Kim Jong Un “won’t be around much longer” if they acted on their threats, amounted to a declaration of war and that Pyongyang had the right to take countermeasures.

South Korean lawmaker Lee Cheol-uoo, briefed by the country’s spy agency, said the reclusive North was in fact bolstering its defenses by moving aircraft to its east coast and taking other measures after U.S. bombers flew close to the Korean peninsula at the weekend.

Lee said the United States appeared to have disclosed the flight route of the bombers intentionally because North Korea seemed to be unaware.

Ri, the foreign minister, said on Monday the North’s right to countermeasures included shooting down U.S. bombers “even when they are not inside the airspace border of our country”. (Graphics on ‘Kim’s latest act of defiance’ – http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010050KV1C3/index.html)

“The whole world should clearly remember it was the U.S. who first declared war on our country,” he told reporters in New York on Monday, where he had been attending the annual United Nations General Assembly.

“The question of who won’t be around much longer will be answered then,” he said.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders denied on Monday that the United States had declared war, calling the suggestion “absurd”.

Speaking in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said war on the Korean peninsula would have no winner.

“We hope the U.S. and North Korean politicians have sufficient political judgment to realize that resorting to military force will never be a viable way to resolve the peninsula issue and their own concerns,” Lu told a daily news briefing.

“We also hope that both sides can realize that being bent on assertiveness and provoking each other will only increase the risk of conflict and reduce room for policy maneuvers. War on the peninsula will have no winner.”

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, speaking on the sidelines of a U.N. meeting in New York, said the situation on the Korean peninsula was at a very dangerous stage, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The urgent task was to prevent North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs progressing, to avoid a further escalation in tensions and to especially prevent resorting to arms, Wang added.

While repeatedly calling for dialogue to resolve the issue, China has also signed up for increasingly tough U.N. sanctions against North Korea.

China’s fuel exports to North Korea fell in August, along with iron ore imports from the isolated nation, as trade slowed after the latest U.N. sanctions, but coal shipments resumed after a five-month hiatus, customs data showed on Tuesday.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged Kim Jong Un to resume military talks and reunions of families split by the 1950-53 Korean War to ease tension.

“Like I’ve said multiple times before, if North Korea stops its reckless choices, the table for talks and negotiations always remains open,” said Moon.

He was speaking at a event to mark an Oct.4, 2007, summit declaration promoting goodwill signed between then-South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un’s father.

In Moscow, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it was working behind the scenes to find a political solution and that using sanctions against North Korea was almost exhausted.

During a visit to India, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said diplomatic efforts continued.

“You have seen unanimous United Nations Security Council resolutions passed that have increased the pressure, economic pressure and diplomatic pressure, on the North, and at the same time, we maintain the capability to deter North Korea’s most dangerous threats,” he told reporters in the Indian capital.

RISK OF MISCALCULATION

U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers escorted by fighter jets flew east of North Korea in a show of force after a heated exchange of rhetoric between Trump and Kim.

North Korea has been working to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland, which Trump has said he will never allow.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce and not a peace treaty.

The Sept. 3 nuclear test prompted a new round of sanctions on North Korea after the Security Council voted unanimously on a resolution condemning the test.

The North says it needs its weapons programs to guard against U.S. invasion and regularly threatens to destroy the United States, South Korea and Japan.

However, the rhetoric has been ratcheted up well beyond normal levels, raising fears that a miscalculation by either side could have massive repercussions.

Trump’s threat last week to totally destroy North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States or its allies, prompted an unprecedented direct statement by Kim, calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and vowing to tame the U.S. threat with fire.

White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster defended Trump’s rhetoric and said on Monday he agreed that the risk was that Kim might fail to realize the danger he and his country faced.

However, McMaster also acknowledged the risks of escalation with any U.S. military option.

“We don’t think there’s an easy military solution to this problem,” said McMaster, who believed any solution would be an international effort.

“There’s not a precision strike that solves the problem. There’s not a military blockade that can solve the problem.”

(Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols at the UNITED NATIONS, Dmitry Solovyov in MOSCOW and Malini Menon in NEW DELHI; Writing by Paul Tait and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Clarence Fernandez)

A North Korea nuclear test over the Pacific? Logical, terrifying

FILE PHOTO: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the launch of a Hwasong-12 missile in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 16, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

By Hyonhee Shin and Linda Sieg

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – Detonating a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific Ocean would be a logical final step by North Korea to prove the success of its weapons program but would be extremely provocative and carry huge risks, arms control experts said on Friday.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho suggested leader Kim Jong Un was considering testing “an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb” over the Pacific in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat at the United Nations to “totally destroy” the country.

“It may mean North Korea will fire a warhead-tipped (intermediate range) Hwasong-12 or Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile and blow it up a few hundred kilometers above the Pacific Ocean,” said Yang Uk, a senior researcher at the Korea Defence and Security Forum in Seoul.

“They may be bluffing, but there is a need for them to test their combined missile-bomb capability. They could have already prepared the plan and are now trying to use Trump’s remarks as an excuse to make it happen,” said Yang.

Such an atmospheric test would be the first globally since China detonated a device in 1980, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tests of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles are rarer still. The United States’ only test of an operational ballistic missile with a live warhead was fired from submarine far out in the Pacific Ocean in 1962.

China was widely condemned for a similar test with a missile that exploded over its Lop Nur test site in the country’s west in 1966.

North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date have all been underground, the most recent earlier this month by far its largest.

“We have to assume they *could* do it, but it is exceedingly provocative,” said Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at  Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“To put a live nuclear warhead on a missile that’s only been tested a handful of times, overflying potentially populated centers. If it…doesn’t go exactly as planned….it could be a world changing event.”

North Korea has fired two ballistic missiles over Japan’s north Hokkaido region in the past month as part of a series of tests that experts say have illustrated unexpectedly rapid advances.

“They said Pacific Ocean, which pretty much means firing a missile over Japan,” said Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the U.S.-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, California. “They want to shut us all up for doubting they could build it.”

SERIOUS FALLOUT

While a missile would be the most ideal means of delivery, it is also possible to put a bomb on a ship and detonate on the surface of the ocean or in the sea, the experts said.

Either way, the radioactive fallout could be significant, as well as the diplomatic backlash from around the world. North Korea’s recent missile launches over Japan especially drew stern rebukes from Tokyo and the international community.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga called Pyongyang’s remarks and behavior “completely unacceptable”.

Narang said a test high enough over the ocean would limit the radioactive fallout but risks included damage from an electro-magnetic pulse, something Pyongyang has hinted it might employ on an attack on the United States or its allies.

“If it doesn’t go exactly as planned and the detonation occurs at a lower altitude we could see some EMP-like effects for anything in the area. A lot of dead fish too.”

Pyongyang has launched dozens of missiles this year as it spurs a program aimed at mastering a nuclear-tipped missile that can strike the United States, in addition to its Sept 3 nuclear test.

If Kim’s threat materializes, it will be a “tipping point” for China, and may prompt many other countries to demand an “end to the regime,” said David Albright, founder of the non-profit Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.

“No one has tested above ground for decades and the radioactive fallout could be terrifying to many,” Albright said.

Other experts said such an atmospheric nuclear test is unlikely for now due to its substantial technical and diplomatic risks.

Joshua Pollack, editor of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Review, said it would be an “end-to-end demo of everything.”

“But I would be surprised if this were their very next move. They have yet to test an ICBM at full range into the Pacific,” said Pollack. “That will probably come first.”

(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin in Seoul and Linda Sieg in Tokyo; Additional reporting by James Pearson in Seoul, Nobuhiro Kubo and Timothy Kelly in Tokyo, and David Brunnstrom in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

North Korea may consider H-bomb test in Pacific, Kim calls Trump ‘deranged’

North Korea may consider H-bomb test in Pacific, Kim calls Trump 'deranged'

By Christine Kim and Steve Holland

SEOUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) – North Korea said on Friday it might test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean after President Donald Trump vowed to destroy the reclusive country, with leader Kim Jong Un promising to make Trump pay dearly for his threats.

Kim did not specify what action he would take against the United States or Trump, whom he called a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” in the latest bout of insults the two leaders have traded in recent weeks.

South Korea said it was the first direct statement of its kind by a North Korean leader. However, Kim’s foreign minister, Ri Yong Ho, said North Korea could consider a hydrogen bomb test of an unprecedented scale over the Pacific Ocean. Ri told reporters in New York he did not know Kim’s exact thoughts.

Japan, the only country ever to suffer an atomic attack, described the threat as “totally unacceptable”.

The U.S. president, who has not shrunk from fighting fire with fire in his rhetoric on North Korea, sent another message Friday on Twitter.

“Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who is obviously a madman who doesn’t mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before,” Trump said, a day after announcing additional sanctions on Pyongyang.

Trump said in his first address to the United Nations on Tuesday he would “totally destroy” North Korea, a country of 26 million people, if it threatened the United States and its allies, and called Kim a “rocket man” on a suicide mission.

Kim said the North would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history” against the United States and that Trump’s comments had confirmed his own nuclear program was “the correct path”.

Pyongyang conducted its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept. 3 and has launched dozens of missiles this year as it accelerates a program aimed at enabling it to target the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.

“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” Kim said in the statement on the KCNA state news agency.

Asked about the North Korean hydrogen bomb threat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told ABC that diplomatic efforts will continue but all military options were still on the table.

“We are quite challenged” with the escalating rhetoric, he said, but hoped increased sanctions and “voices from every corner of the world” would help lead Kim to talks.

“SLEEPWALKING INTO WAR”

In a separate report, KCNA made a rare criticism of official Chinese media, saying their comments on the North’s nuclear program had damaged ties and suggested Beijing, its only major ally, had sided with Washington.

Singling out the official People’s Daily and its more nationalistic sister publication, the Global Times, KCNA said Chinese media was “openly resorting to interference in the internal affairs of another country” and driving a wedge between the two countries.

At the United Nations, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for statesmanship to avoid “sleepwalking” into a war.

South Korea, Russia and China all urged calm.

“All relevant sides should exercise restraint and dedicate themselves to easing the situation rather than irritating each other,” said Lu Kang, China’s foreign ministry spokesman.

However, the rhetoric was starting to rattle some in the international community. French Sports Minister Laura Flessel said France’s team would not travel to the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in South Korea if its security could not be guaranteed.

The 2018 Games are to be staged in Pyeongchang, just 80 km (50 miles) from the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, the world’s most heavily armed border.

Asian stocks fell, and the Japanese yen and Swiss franc gained, on the possibility of a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific. [MKTS/GLOB]

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan handed back earlier gains and was down 0.4 percent.

MORE TIME

In Thursday’s sanctions announcement, Trump stopped short of going after Pyongyang’s biggest trading partner, China, praising as “tremendous” a move by its central bank ordering Chinese banks to stop doing business with North Korea.

Asked about the order on Friday, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said, “As far as I understand, the situation you have just mentioned does not accord with the facts.

“In principle, China has always fully and strictly enforced U.N. resolutions and accepted our international obligations”.

He did not elaborate. Chinese government ministries generally do not offer comment on decisions taken by other government departments. The additional sanctions on Pyongyang, including on its shipping and trade networks, showed Trump was giving more time for economic pressure to weigh on North Korea after warning about the possibility of military action on Tuesday.

Asked before a lunch meeting Thursday with the leaders of Japan and South Korea if diplomacy was still possible, Trump nodded and said, “Why not?”

Trump said the new executive order on sanctions gives further authorities to target individual companies and institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea.

It “will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind”, Trump said.

The White House said North Korea’s energy, medical, mining, textiles, and transport industries were among those targeted and that the U.S. Treasury could sanction anyone who owns, controls or operates a port of entry in North Korea.

The new measures do not target Pyongyang’s oil trade.

“ON NOTICE”

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said banks doing business in North Korea would not be allowed to operate in the United States.

“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both,” Mnuchin said.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

(For a graphic on Nuclear North Korea, click http://tmsnrt.rs/2n0gd92)

(Additional reporting by Linda Sieg in Tokyo, Michael Martina, Ben Blanchard and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING, David Brunnstrom, Michelle Nichols and Arshad Mohammed, Jeff Mason in NEW YORK, Doina Chaicu in Washington, Soyoung Kim in SEOUL; Writing by Yara Bayoumy and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Chizu Nomiyama)

North Korea threatens to ‘sink’ Japan, reduce U.S. to ‘ashes and darkness’

North Korea threatens to 'sink' Japan, reduce U.S. to 'ashes and darkness'

By Jack Kim and Kiyoshi Takenaka

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) – A North Korean state agency threatened on Thursday to use nuclear weapons to “sink” Japan and reduce the United States to “ashes and darkness” for supporting a U.N. Security Council resolution and sanctions over its latest nuclear test.

The Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee, which handles the North’s external ties and propaganda, also called for the breakup of the Security Council, which it called “a tool of evil” made up of “money-bribed” countries that move at the order of the United States.

“The four islands of the archipelago should be sunken into the sea by the nuclear bomb of Juche. Japan is no longer needed to exist near us,” the committee said in a statement carried by the North’s official KCNA news agency.

Juche is the North’s ruling ideology that mixes Marxism and an extreme form of go-it-alone nationalism preached by state founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un.

Regional tension has risen markedly since the reclusive North conducted its sixth, and by far its most powerful, nuclear test on Sept. 3, following a series of missile tests, including one that flew over Japan.

The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a U.S.-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions on Monday in response, banning North Korea’s textile exports that are the second largest only to coal and mineral, and capping fuel supplies.

The North reacted to the latest action by the Security Council, which had the backing of veto-holding China and Russia, by reiterating threats to destroy the United States, Japan and South Korea.

“Let’s reduce the U.S. mainland into ashes and darkness. Let’s vent our spite with mobilization of all retaliation means which have been prepared till now,” the statement said.

Japan’s Nikkei stock index and dollar/yen currency pared gains, although traders said that was more because of several Chinese economic indicators released on Thursday rather than a reaction to the North’s latest statement.

South Korea’s won also edged down around the same time over domestic financial concerns.

Despite the North’s threats, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said he was against having nuclear weapons in his country, either by developing its own arsenal or bringing back U.S. tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn in the early 1990s.

“To respond to North Korea by having our own nuclear weapons will not maintain peace on the Korean peninsula and could lead to a nuclear arms race in northeast Asia,” Moon said in an interview with CNN.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry also said it planned to provide $8 million through the U.N. World Food Programme and UNICEF to help infants and pregnant women in the North.

The move marks Seoul’s first humanitarian assistance for the North since its fourth nuclear test in January 2016 and is based on a longstanding policy of separating humanitarian aid from politics, the ministry said.

“DANCING TO THE TUNE”

The North’s latest threats also singled out Japan for “dancing to the tune” of the United States, saying it should never be pardoned for not offering a sincere apology for its “never-to-be-condoned crimes against our people”, an apparent reference to Japan’s wartime aggression.

It also referred to South Korea as “traitors and dogs” of the United States.

Japan criticized the North’s statement harshly.

“This announcement is extremely provocative and egregious. It is something that markedly heightens regional tension and is absolutely unacceptable,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, visiting India, called for strict enforcement of the U.N. resolution, saying the world must force a change.

The 15-member Security Council voted unanimously on a U.S.-drafted resolution and a new round of sanctions against North Korea on Monday in response to its latest and most powerful test, banning North Korea’s textile exports that are the second largest only to coal and mineral, and capping fuel supplies.

North Korea had already rejected the Security Council resolution, vowing to press ahead with its nuclear and missile programs.

A tougher initial U.S. draft of Monday’s resolution was weakened to win the support of China, the North’s lone major ally, and Russia. Significantly, it stopped short of imposing a full embargo on oil exports to North Korea, most of which come from China.

The latest sanctions also make it illegal for foreign firms to form commercial joint ventures with North Korean entities.

U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed that North Korea will never be allowed to threaten the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile, but has also asked China to do more to rein in its neighbor. China in turn favors an international response to the problem.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said the international community had reached a “high consensus” on trying to realize a peaceful solution.

“We urge the relevant directly involved parties to seize the opportunity and have the political nerve to make the correct political choice as soon as possible,” Hua told a regular press briefing.

The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with North Korea because the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce and not a peace treaty.

(Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Hyonhee Shin in Seoul, Sanjeev Miglani in New Delhi and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Editing by Paul Tait and Nick Macfie)

France discusses increased pressure on North Korea with Trump, Abe

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance with Ri Hong Sop (2nd L) and Hong Sung Mu ( 2nd R) on a nuclear weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 3, 2017. KCNA via REUTERS

PARIS (Reuters) – France’s Emmanuel Macron discussed increased pressure and sanctions on North Korea on the telephone with U.S. President Donald Trump and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday, the French president’s office said.

The three leaders stressed the need for a “united and firm” reaction from the international community toward Pyongyang, Macron’s office said.

South Korea was bracing on Saturday for a possible further missile test by North Korea as it marked its founding anniversary, just days after its sixth and largest nuclear test.

The French presidency said North Korea’s “repeated provocations” were a “threat to peace and international security”. It also said Macron had expressed France’s “solidarity” with Japan.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has escalated as North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has stepped up the development of weapons, testing a string of missiles this year, including one flying over Japan.

Experts believe the Pyongyang government is close to its goal of developing a powerful nuclear weapon capable of reaching the United States, something U.S. President Trump has vowed to prevent.

(Reporting by Michel Rose,; Writing by Matthias Blamont, Editing by Leigh Thomas and Angus MacSwan)

‘Lips and teeth’ no more as China’s ties with North Korea fray

FILE PHOTO: North Korean soldiers chat as they stand guard behind national flags of China (front) and North Korea on a boat anchored along the banks of Yalu River, near the North Korean town of Sinuiju, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, June 10, 2013. REUTERS/Jacky Chen

By Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd

BEIJING (Reuters) – When Kim Jong Un inherited power in North Korea in late 2011, then-Chinese president Hu Jintao was outwardly supportive of the untested young leader, predicting that “traditional friendly cooperation” between the countries would strengthen.

Two years later, Kim ordered the execution of his uncle Jang Song Thaek, the country’s chief interlocutor with China and a relatively reform-minded official in the hermetic state.

Since then, ties between the allies have deteriorated so sharply that some diplomats and experts fear Beijing may become, like Washington, a target of its neighbor’s ire.

While the United States and its allies – and many people in China – believe Beijing should do more to rein in Pyongyang, the acceleration of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities has coincided with a near-total breakdown of high-level diplomacy between the two.

Before retiring this summer, China’s long-time point man on North Korea, Wu Dawei, had not visited the country for over a year. His replacement, Kong Xuanyou, has yet to visit and is still carrying out duties from his previous Asian role, traveling to Pakistan in mid-August, diplomats say.

The notion that mighty China wields diplomatic control over impoverished North Korea is mistaken, said Jin Canrong, an international relations professor at Beijing’s Renmin University.

“There has never existed a subordinate relationship between the two sides. Never. Especially after the end of the Cold War, the North Koreans fell into a difficult situation and could not get enough help from China, so they determined to help themselves.”

A famine in the mid-1990s that claimed anywhere from 200,000 to three million North Koreans was a turning point for the economy, forcing private trade on the collectivized state. That allowed the North a degree of independence from outside aid and gave credence to the official “Juche” ideology of self-reliance.

AVOID CHAOS

China fought alongside North Korea during the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Chinese leader Mao Zedong lost his eldest son, and Beijing has long been Pyongyang’s chief ally and primary trade partner.

While their relationship has always been clouded by suspicion and mistrust, China grudgingly tolerated North Korea’s provocations as preferable to the alternatives: chaotic collapse that spills across their border, and a Korean peninsula under the domain of a U.S.-backed Seoul government.

That is also the reason China is reluctant to exert its considerable economic clout, worried that measures as drastic as the energy embargo proposed this week by Washington could lead to the North’s collapse.

Instead, China repeatedly calls for calm, restraint and a negotiated solution.

The North Korean government does not provide foreign media with a contact point in Pyongyang for comment by email, fax or phone. The North Korean embassy in Beijing was not immediately available for comment.

China’s foreign ministry did not respond to a faxed request for comment. It has repeatedly spoken out against what it calls the “China responsibility theory” and insists the direct parties – North Korea, South Korea and the United States – hold the key to resolving tensions.

‘FEUDAL AGES’

Until his death in 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made numerous entreaties to ensure China would back his preferred son as successor.

While then-President Hu reciprocated, the younger Kim, in his late 20s at the time, began to distance himself from his country’s most powerful ally.

“There’s a lot of domestic politics in North Korea where this young leader who isn’t well-known, he’s not proven yet, especially has to show that he’s not in the pocket of Beijing,” said John Delury of Seoul’s Yonsei University. “I think he made the decision first to keep Hu Jintao and then (current President) Xi Jinping really at bay.”

Within months of coming to power, Kim telegraphed North Korea’s intentions by amending its constitution to proclaim itself a nuclear state. The execution of Jang in 2013 sealed Beijing’s distrust of the young leader.

“Of course the Chinese were not happy,” said a foreign diplomat in Beijing focused on North Korea. “Executing your uncle, that’s from the feudal ages.”

In an attempt to warm ties, Xi sent high-ranking Communist Party official Liu Yunshan to attend the North’s October 2015 military parade marking the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea.

Liu hand-delivered a letter from Xi praising Kim’s leadership and including congratulations not just from the Chinese Communist Party but Xi’s personal “cordial wishes” in a powerful show of respect.

Xi’s overture has been repaid with increasingly brazen actions by Pyongyang, which many observers believe are timed for maximum embarrassment to Beijing. Sunday’s nuclear test, for example, took place as China hosted a BRICS summit, while in May, the North launched a long-range missile just hours before the Belt and Road Forum, dedicated to Xi’s signature foreign policy initiative.

MISREADING LIPS

Mao Zedong’s description of North Korea’s relationship with China is typically mischaracterised as being as close as “lips and teeth”.

His words are better translated as: “If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold,” a reference to the strategic importance of the North as a geographical security buffer.

Despite its resentment at the pressure North Korea’s actions have put it under, Beijing refrains from taking too hard a line.

It said little when Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was assassinated in February at Kuala Lumpur’s airport. The half-brother, Kim Jong Nam, had been seen as a potential rival for power in Pyongyang and had lived for years in Beijing, then Macau.

An editorial in China’s influential Global Times warned after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test that cutting off North Korea’s oil would redirect the conflict to one between North Korea and China.

Zhao Tong, a North Korea expert at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing, said North Korea was deeply unhappy with China’s backing of earlier UN sanctions.

“If China supports more radical economic sanctions that directly threaten the stability of the regime, then it is possible that North Korea becomes as hostile to China as to the United States.”

(This story has been refiled to remove reference to uncle in paragraph 18)

(Reporting by Philip Wen and Christian Shepherd; Editing by Tony Munroe and Lincoln Feast)

Trump says U.S. not ‘putting up with’ North Korea’s actions

Trump says U.S. not 'putting up with' North Korea's actions

By Jeff Mason and Michael Martina

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) – President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that the United States would no longer tolerate North Korea’s actions but said the use of military force against Pyongyang will not be his “first choice.”

His comment appeared to be in line with classified briefings to Congress in which Trump’s top national security aides – Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence – stressed the search for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, lawmakers said.

A senior administration official, meanwhile, said that the White House has set aside for now consideration of exiting a free trade pact with South Korea, a move being contemplated by Trump that could have complicated relations with Seoul.

In a flurry of phone calls with world leaders days after North Korea’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping committed to “take further action with the goal of achieving the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” the White House said.

“President Xi would like to do something. We’ll see whether or not he can do it. But we will not be putting up with what’s happening in North Korea,” Trump told reporters, though he offered no specifics.

“I believe that President Xi agrees with me 100 percent,” he added.

Asked whether he was considering a military response to North Korea, Trump said: “Certainly, that’s not our first choice, but we will see what happens.”

Xi, who has been under pressure from Trump to do more to help curb North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, told the U.S. president during their 45-minute call that the North Korean issue must be resolved through “dialogue and consultation.”

The focus on negotiations by China, North Korea’s main trading partner, contrasted with Trump’s assertions over the last few days that now was not the time for talks with North Korea while pressing instead for increased international pressure on Pyongyang.

The United States and South Korea have asked the United Nations to consider tough new sanctions on North Korea after its nuclear test on Sunday that Pyongyang said was an advanced hydrogen bomb.

Late on Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin indicated that if the U.N. Security Council fails to approve sufficiently strong measures, Trump could authorize him to impose sanctions on any country or entity that trades with North Korea.

“We believe that we need to economically cut off North Korea,” Mnuchin told reporters aboard Air Force One as it flew back from North Dakota, where Trump gave a speech on tax reform. “I have an executive order prepared. It’s ready to go to the president. It will authorize me to . . . put sanctions on anybody that does trade with North Korea.”

Mnuchin said that Trump would consider the order “at the appropriate time once he gives the U.N. time to act.”

He provided no further details, including whether Trump would consider slapping sanctions on China, North Korea’s largest trade partner.

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted on Wednesday that resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis was impossible with sanctions and pressure alone.

Putin met South Korea’s Moon Jae-in on the sidelines of an economic summit in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok amid mounting international concern that their neighbor plans more weapons tests, including possibly a long-range missile launch before a weekend anniversary.

Putin echoed other world leaders in denouncing North Korea’s latest nuclear bomb test on Sunday, saying Russia did not recognize its nuclear status.

“Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear program is a crude violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, undermines the non-proliferation regime and creates a threat to the security of northeastern Asia,” Putin said at a news conference.

“At the same time, it is clear that it is impossible to resolve the problem of the Korean peninsula only by sanctions and pressure,” he said.

No headway could be made without political and diplomatic tools, Putin said.

MOON SEEKS SANCTIONS

Moon, who took office this year advocating a policy of pursuing engagement with North Korea, has come under increasing pressure to take a harder line.

He has asked the United Nations to consider tough new sanctions after North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

The United States wants the Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban the country’s exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean laborers abroad and subject leader Kim Jong Un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

Diplomats say the U.N. Security Council could also consider barring the country’s airline.

“I ask Russia to actively cooperate as this time it is inevitable that North Korea’s oil supply should be cut at the least,” Moon told Putin, according to a readout from a South Korean official.

Putin said North Korea would not give up its nuclear program no matter how tough the sanctions.

“We too, are against North Korea developing its nuclear capabilities and condemn it, but it is worrying cutting the oil pipeline will harm the regular people, like in hospitals,” Putin said, according to the South Korean presidential official.

Russia’s exports of crude oil to North Korea were tiny at about 40,000 tonnes a year, Putin said. By comparison, China provides it with about 520,000 tonnes of crude a year, according to industry sources.

Last year, China shipped just over 96,000 tonnes of gasoline and almost 45,000 tonnes of diesel to North Korea, where it is used across the economy, from fishermen and farmers to truckers and the military.

Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed in a telephone call on Tuesday that China must do more to persuade North Korea to cease its missile tests, a spokesman for May said.

‘FREEZE FOR FREEZE’

Sanctions have done little to stop North Korea boosting its nuclear and missile capacity as it faces off with Trump, who has vowed to stop it from being able to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear weapon.

China and Russia have advocated a “freeze for freeze” plan, where the United States and South Korea stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs, but neither side is willing to budge.

North Korea says it needs to develop its weapons to defend itself against what it sees as U.S. aggression.

South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

China objects to both the military drills and the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. missile defense system that has a radar that can see deep into Chinese territory.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the four remaining batteries of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system would be deployed on a golf course in the south of the country on Thursday. Two THAAD batteries have already been installed.

For a graphic on nuclear North Korea, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010031V7472/index.html

(Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk in VLADIVOSTOK, Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA, William Mallard and Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO, Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina in BEIJING, and Jonathan Landay and Jim Oliphant in WASHINGTON; Writing by Matt Spetalnick and Lincoln Feast; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Putin says sanctions, pressure alone won’t resolve North Korea crisis

Putin says sanctions, pressure alone won't resolve North Korea crisis

By Denis Pinchuk and Christine Kim

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia/SEOUL (Reuters) – Resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis is impossible with sanctions and pressure alone, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday after meeting his South Korean counterpart, adding that the impact of cutting oil would be worrying.

Putin met South Korea’s Moon Jae-in on the sidelines of an economic summit in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok amid mounting international concern that their neighbor plans more weapons tests, possibly a long-range missile launch ahead of a weekend anniversary.

Putin denounced North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear bomb test on Sunday, saying Russia did not recognize its nuclear status.

“Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear program is a crude violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, undermines the non-proliferation regime and creates a threat to the security of northeastern Asia,” Putin said at a joint news conference.

“At the same time, it is clear that it is impossible to resolve the problem of the Korean peninsula only by sanctions and pressure,” he said.

No headway could be made without political and diplomatic tools, Putin said, later telling the TASS news agency that Russian and North Korean delegations might meet at the Vladivostok forum.

Moon, who came to power this year advocating a policy of pursuing engagement with North Korea, has come under increasing pressure to take a harder line.

He has asked the United Nations to consider tough new sanctions after North Korea’s latest nuclear test.

Diplomats say the U.N. Security Council could consider banning North Korean textile exports, barring its airline or stopping supplies of oil to the government and military.

Other measures could include preventing North Koreans from working abroad and putting top officials on a blacklist aimed at imposing asset freezes and travel bans.

“I ask Russia to actively cooperate as this time it is inevitable that North Korea’s oil supply should be cut at the least,” Moon told Putin, according to a readout from a South Korean official.

Putin said North Korea would not give up its nuclear program no matter how tough the sanctions.

“We too, are against North Korea developing its nuclear capabilities and condemn it, but it is worrying cutting the oil pipeline will harm the regular people, like in hospitals,” Putin said, according to the South Korean presidential official.

Russia’s exports of crude oil to North Korea were tiny at about 40,000 tonnes a year, Putin said. By comparison, China provides it with about 520,000 tonnes of crude a year, according to industry sources.

Last year, China shipped just over 96,000 tonnes of gasoline and almost 45,000 tonnes of diesel to North Korea, where it is used across the economy, from fishermen and farmers to truckers and the military.

‘FREEZE FOR FREEZE’

Sanctions have done little to stop North Korea boosting its nuclear and missile capacity as it faces off with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to stop it from being able to hit the U.S. mainland with a nuclear weapon.

China and Russia have advocated a “freeze for freeze” plan, where the United States and South Korea stop major military exercises in exchange for North Korea halting its weapons programs, but neither side is willing to budge.

North Korea says it needs to develop its weapons to defend itself against what it sees as U.S. aggression.

South Korea and the United States are technically still at war with North Korea after the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended with a truce, not a peace treaty.

China objects to both the military drills and the deployment in South Korea of an advanced U.S. missile defense system that has a radar that can see deep into Chinese territory.

South Korea’s Defence Ministry said the four remaining batteries of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system would be deployed on a golf course in the south of the country on Thursday.

Two THAAD batteries have already been installed.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang reiterated China’s opposition to the system, saying it could only “severely damage” regional security and raise “tensions and antagonism”.

“China strongly urges the United States and South Korea to pay attention to China and other regional nations’ security interests and concerns, immediately halt the progress of the relevant deployment, and remove the relevant equipment,” Geng said.

BIG BLAST

Asian stocks fell on Wednesday after a slide on Wall Street overnight while the dollar was on the defensive with Korean tension showing few signs of abating.

Sunday’s test of what North Korea said was an advanced hydrogen bomb was its largest by far.

Japan upgraded its assessment of the North Korean test to 160 kilotons from 120 kilotons after the size of the earthquake it generated was revised to magnitude 6.1.

“We estimate this was far bigger than previous nuclear tests,” Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera told reporters.

Satellite imagery appeared to show the blast caused landslides at North Korea’s Punggye-ri test site, according to 38 North, a Washington-based North Korean monitoring project.

South Korean officials said they were watching for radioactive fallout from the test and for signs of preparations for more activity.

British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Wednesday China held the key to resolving the crisis, reiterating comments made by Prime Minister Theresa May and Australian leader Malcolm Turnbull after they spoke with Trump.

“China holds the key, the oil to North Korea flows from China … China has not just influence but has many of the levers that are needed to change behavior in North Korea,” Fallon told BBC radio.

For a graphic on nuclear North Korea, click: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/NORTHKOREA-MISSILES/010031V7472/index.html

(Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in SEOUL, Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA, William Mallard and Kaori Kaneko in TOKYO, Christian Shepherd and Michael Martina in BEIJING; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing by Paul Tait, Robert Birsel)

North Korea warns of ‘more gift packages’ for U.S.

North Korea warns of 'more gift packages' for U.S.

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Amid international uproar over North Korea’s latest and biggest nuclear weapons test, one of its top diplomats said on Tuesday it was ready to send “more gift packages” to the United States.

Han Tae Song, ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to the U.N. in Geneva, was addressing the U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament two days after his country detonated its sixth nuclear test explosion.

“I am proud of saying that just two days ago on the 3rd of September, DPRK successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test for intercontinental ballistic rocket under its plan for building a strategic nuclear force,” Han told the Geneva forum.

“The recent self-defense measures by my country, DPRK, are a ‘gift package’ addressed to none other than the U.S.,” Han said.

“The U.S. will receive more ‘gift packages’ from my country as long as its relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,” he added without elaborating.

Military measures being taken by North Korea were “an exercise of restraint and justified self-defense right” to counter “the ever-growing and decade-long U.S. nuclear threat and hostile policy aimed at isolating my country”.

“Pressure or sanctions will never work on my country,” Han declared, adding: “The DPRK will never under any circumstances put its nuclear deterrence on the negotiating table.”

U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood said that North Korea had defied the international community once again with its test.

“We look forward to working with our partners in the (Security) Council with regard to a new resolution that will put some of the strongest sanctions possible on the DPRK,” he told the conference.

“Advances in the regime’s nuclear and missile program are a threat to us all … now is the time to say tests, threats and destabilizing actions will no longer be tolerated,” Wood said.

“It can no longer be business as usual with this regime.”

The White House said on Monday President Donald Trump had agreed “in principle” to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles in the wake of the North’s latest test.

The United States accused North Korea’s trading partners of aiding its nuclear ambitions and said Pyongyang was “begging for war”.

(Editing by Tom Miles and Andrew Roche)

North Korea launch increases focus on risky U.S. shootdown option

A missile is launched during a long and medium-range ballistic rocket launch drill in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on August 30, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea’s firing of a ballistic missile over Japan could increase pressure on Washington to consider shooting down future test launches, although there is no guarantee of success and U.S. officials are wary of a dangerous escalation with Pyongyang.

More attention is likely to focus on the prospects for intercepting a missile in flight after North Korea on Tuesday conducted one of its boldest missile tests in years, one government official said.

Such a decision would not be taken lightly given tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

And while President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed that “all options are on the table”, there has been no sign of any quick policy shift in Washington toward direct U.S. military action.

But Pyongyang’s launch of an intermediate-range Hwasong-12 missile over Japan’s northern Hokkaido island underscored how Trump’s tough rhetoric, pursuit of sanctions and occasional shows of military force around the Korean peninsula have done little to deter North Korea’s leader.

“Kim Jong Un has chosen to thumb his nose at the Americans and Japanese by conducting this test,” said David Shear, former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for East Asia.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has already pledged that the military would shoot down any missile it deemed a danger to U.S. or allied territory.

What is unclear is whether Washington would be prepared to use its multi-layered missile defense systems to intercept a missile like the one that overflew Japan but never directly threatened its territory.

Doing so would essentially be a U.S. show of force rather than an act of self-defense.

“I would think that in government deliberations that would likely be one of the options out on the table,” Shear said.

Some analysts say there is a danger that North Korea would see it as an act of war and retaliate militarily with potentially devastating consequences for South Korea and Japan.

China, North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner, would also likely oppose such a direct U.S. military response.

MINIMIZING DAMAGE

Experts say there is no guarantee that U.S. missile defense systems, including Aegis ballistic missile defense ships in the region and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems based in Guam and South Korea, would hit their target, despite recent successful tests.

A failed attempt would be an embarrassment to the United States and could embolden North Korea, which this year has already conducted two tests of an intercontinental ballistic missile believed capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

The United States has spent $40 billion over 18 years on research and development into missile defense systems but they have never been put into operation under wartime conditions.

Mattis this month expressed confidence the U.S. military could intercept a missile fired by North Korea if it was headed to Guam, after North Korea said it was developing a plan to launch four intermediate range missiles to land near the U.S. territory.

If North Korea fired at the United States, the situation could quickly escalate to war, Mattis said.

GROWING THREAT

Not everyone is convinced the U.S. military can defend against North Korea’s growing missile capability.

Some experts caution that U.S. missile defenses are now geared to shooting down one, or perhaps a small number, of incoming missiles. If North Korea’s technology and production keep advancing, U.S. defenses could be overwhelmed.

“If a shootdown fails, it would be embarrassing, though not terribly surprising,” said Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the 38 North think tank in Washington.

“Missile defense does not provide a shield that protects against missiles. Rather, it is like air defense; it is designed to minimize the damage an adversary can inflict,” he said.

One U.S. official said the military would be especially cautious about shooting down a North Korean missile that did not pose a direct threat because of the risk of civilian casualties if it were intercepted over Japan or South Korea, as well as difficulty in determining how Pyongyang might retaliate. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. military and intelligence officials warn North Korea could unleash a devastating barrage of missiles and artillery on Seoul and U.S. bases in South Korea in response to any military attack.

Targeting of a North Korean missile in flight that did not endanger the United States or its allies could also raise legal questions. U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban Pyongyang’s ballistic missile programs do not explicitly authorize such actions.

Japan also faces questions over the legality of shooting down missiles in its airspace but not aimed at Japan. Under legislation passed in 2015, Tokyo can exercise a limited right of collective self-defense, or militarily aiding an ally under attack, if it judges the threat to Japan as “existential”.

(Reporting By Matt Spetalnick and David Brunnstrom Additional reporting by Idrees Ali and Mike Stone in WASHINGTON, Linda Sieg and Tim Kelly in TOKYO; Editing by Warren Strobel and Lincoln Feast)