This includes condemnation by the global community, preparation of a United Nations Security Council resolution denouncing Pyongyang’s latest nuclear gambit and discussion at the world body about further sanctions.
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Roberta Cohen of the US Brookings think tank called China “the elephant in the room and what it is willing to do unilaterally as well as in the United Nations”.
North Korea has been under Security Council sanctions since it first tested an atomic device in 2006.
On Wednesday, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said North Korea had “ignored” objections from the worldwide community to its staging of such tests.
About 150 people from a conservative civic group gathered near Gwanghwamun Square and called for the South Korean government to take stern measures against North Korea.
A North Korean television anchor, reading a typically propaganda-heavy statement, said a test of a “miniaturized” hydrogen bomb had been a “perfect success” that elevated the country’s “nuclear might to the next level”.
“The test constitutes yet another violation of the DPRK’s obligations under multiple Security Council resolutions, contravenes the DPRK’s commitments under the September 2005 Joint Statement of the Six-Party Talks, and increases the risk of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction”, she said.
The explosion drew criticism, including from China and Russian Federation.
Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regularly scheduled news conference that Beijing had not been warned before the test and would summon Pyongyang’s ambassador in Beijing to lodge a protest.
But, he wrote on the North Korea-focused 38 North website, “The North has now had a nuclear weapons program for more than 20 years”.
The North Korean strategy is to up the ante and hope the world will acknowledge it as a nuclear weapons power that has to be dealt with.
The impoverished state boasts of its military might to project strength globally but also plays up the need to defend itself from external threats as a way to maintain control domestically.
“North Korea appears to have had a hard time mastering even the basics of a fission weapon”, he said.
They suggested it might not be a hydrogen bomb, which uses an atomic weapon to set off a bigger reaction. Japan would consider further sanctions against the North Korea, Xinhua news agency reported.
“The answer to North Korea’s threats is more pressure, not less”, said Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The latest blast also occurred in the same location as earlier tests.
Satellite photographs analysed by 38 North, a Washington research institute that follows the North’s nuclear activity closely, showed evidence of a new tunnel being dug in recent weeks.
The State media announced the test after monitors detected a 5.1 magnitude quake close to the Punggye-ri site.
Washington and nuclear experts have been skeptical of past North Korean claims about hydrogen bombs, which are much more powerful and much more hard to make than atomic bombs.
The Obama administration has claimed improved cooperation from China on North Korea policy. North Korea has made repeated claims about its nuclear capabilities that outside analysts have greeted with scepticism. “If they throw that arrow, there will be confusion”, he stated.
Asked about North Korea, Republican White House hopeful Donald Trump told CNN that “China should solve that problem” or face trade retaliation from the United States. South Korea had previously said that the broadcasts were just one of many punitive measures Seoul was considering.
Even North Korea’s main ally, neighbouring China, says it firmly opposes the test, urging North Korea to commit to denuclearisation.
In 2010, during a visit to Seoul, he addressed the leaders of North Korea directly, warning that their pursuit of nuclear arms denied them dignity and would only lead to more of the same: “more broken dreams, more isolation”.
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But the fourth test of any kind of nuclear device by the isolated country would signal its continuing defiance of the outside world – including China, which has long expressed displeasure with Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
