Fallon and Hammond are in Japan for talks later Friday with their Japanese counterparts and are also expected to meet Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Advertisement
“(China) will communicate and cooperate closely with South Korea when the United Nations Security Council takes suitable action against the latest situation”, Wu was quoted as having said in the phone conversation which lasted for 45 minutes.
US Republicans and Democrats in the House of Representatives could join forces in a rare display of unity to further tighten sanctions on North Korea.
Leader of the Democratic minority, Nancy Pelosi of California, promised Thursday there will be strong bipartisan support for the legislation tabled by the top Republican and Democrat lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee that would target access to hard currency and other goods and step up inspections of North Korean cargo.
USA intelligence-gathering aircraft have been taking off from an American air base in southern Japan, a day after North Korea said it tested a hydrogen bomb.
North Korea announced on Wednesday it had tested a hydrogen bomb for the first time, drawing widespread worldwide condemnation but also skepticism and doubt.
The DPRK claimed that the test was conducted “in a safe and ideal manner” and that no adverse impact was caused on the environment.
At the heart of every decision the regime makes is one overriding concern: the survival of the regime itself, which depends on the glorification of its leader, Kim Jong Un, and the ability to keep at bay the United States and its allies, which Pyongyang considers to be an existential threat.
The test also alarmed Japan.
South Korea’s resumption of anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts from mammoth speakers in retaliation for the North’s fourth nuclear test is a return to old-fashioned, Cold War-era psychological warfare – something the two Koreas, locked in a standoff over the world’s most heavily armed border, specialize in. In a hydrogen bomb, a nuclear fission explosion sets off a fusion reaction responsible for a powerful blast and radioactivity.
It may take weeks or longer to confirm or refute the North’s claim that it successfully tested a hydrogen bomb, which would mark a major and unanticipated advance for its still-limited nuclear arsenal. “The main objective is to persuade the United States to enter into four-country negotiations to end the war so that there can be everlasting peace on the Korean peninsula”, the source said.
Kerry decisively denied a journalist’s allegation that the new North Korean nuclear test was a result of lack of oversight by Washington. However, sanctions at the moment are far from comprehensive, and it remains an open question whether the security council is ready to launch a full-on economic embargo, which would most likely meet with huge opposition from China.
Advertisement
North Korean state media Rodong Sinmun blamed the U.S. for the test, saying in an editorial yesterday that the move was “our answer to the US’ wrongful judgment” to cut off all communication and increase sanctions unless the country abandoned its nuclear stance.
