Experts, meanwhile, are trying to uncover more details about the detonation that drew worldwide skepticism and condemnation.
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She called the test “not only a grave provocation to our security, but is also a threat to our existence and future”, particularly if the test is found to have involved a hydrogen bomb, as North Korea claims.
North Korea’s Taepodong-2 missile is thought to have a range of 6,000 kilometres which would put Alaska in range of a potential hydrogen bomb, even though experts do not believe the country has developed a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a missile.
“Any escalation in this region, any over-reaction can easily lead to not only a conflict between South and North Korea, but drag China and the United States and Japan into a confrontation”, Cordesman said.
Asked about a suggestion from US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump that China could do more to rein in North Korea, Hua said: “What constructive efforts have they made?”
The broadcasts include Korean pop songs, world news and weather forecasts as well as criticism of the North’s nuclear test, its troubled economy and dire human rights conditions, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.
The U.N. Security Council agreed to roll out new measures to punish the North and vowed to begin work on a new U.N. draft resolution that would contain “further significant measures”.
The resolutions noted that the nuclear test clearly violates a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the 2005 six-party joint statement on North Korea’s nuclear programs and the 2002 Pyongyang declaration between Japan and North Korea. Pyongyang also promised that North Korea “will steadily escalate its nuclear deterrence of justice both in quality and quantity”. When South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts in August after an 11-year break, Seoul says the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire. The response could be even greater this time around, as the broadcasts will pointedly resume on the North Korean leader’s birthday.
Last year, the two countries renewed their cost-sharing agreement, known as the Special Measures Agreement, with Seoul agreeing to pay 920 billion won (US$886 million) for the upkeep of the USA troops in 2014, a 5.8 percent increase from a year earlier.
Which countries could be in range of a North Korean H-bomb?
Lee Chun-geun, a senior research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, said nuclear weapons development and manufacturing becomes more complex as production shifts from basic nuclear bombs to a hydrogen bomb.
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The costs for the most recent North Korea nuclear test claim, however, are yet to be determined.
