When South Korea briefly resumed propaganda broadcasts in August after an 11-year break, Seoul says the two Koreas exchanged artillery fire, followed by threats of war. The majority of North Korea’s business dealings are with China, which purchased 90 percent of the isolated nation’s exports in 2013, as indicated by information compiled by South Korea’s International Trade Association.
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The United States and its two main military allies in Asia, South Korea and Japan, pledged a combined push Thursday to secure a comprehensive, hard-hitting global response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test.
It also came as South Korea is working with the U.S., Japan and other regional powers for the swift adoption of a United Nations resolution to slap strong sanctions on North Korea.
Kerry insisted that “any number of trips, any number of conversations” had focused on the North Korean situation.
“A priority must be to find ways to both further pressure North Korea to limit its nuclear weapons capabilities and engage it diplomatically”, said David Albright, president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. The United States is pressing China to end “business as usual” with its North Korean ally, but in Yanji, 30 km (19 miles) from the border and home to many ethnic Koreans, the mood was one of resigned scepticism. The park’s operation won’t likely be affected much as the restriction will apply to clients, potential buyers and service providers from South Korea, rather than managers who commute to work with North Korean labourers.
Kim Jong Un, the third generation of his family to rule North Korea, tolerates no independent news media or public Internet access.
As North Korea boosted troop deployments in front-line units, the South vowed to retaliate against any attack on its equipment, raised its military readiness to the highest level near the loudspeakers, cancelled tours of the Demilitarised Zone on the border, and also raised its cyberattack alert level.
Some analysts say the North probably hasn’t achieved the technology needed to make a miniaturized warhead that could fit on a long-range missile capable of hitting the USA mainland.
There is still widespread speculation over what device the North actually did test, but worldwide experts mostly concur that it could not have been a full-scale thermonuclear device as claimed. “We will be taking the necessary measures, giving the physical safety of South Korean citizens our top priority”, a senior official with Seoul’s Ministry of Unification said earlier that day.
On the other hand, the National Security Office condemned North Korea for allegedly performing a hydrogen bomb test.
North Koreans walk at their town Kaepoong, viewed from the unification observatory in Paju, north of Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, Jan. 7, 2016.
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CNN noted Wednesday that “a hydrogen bomb is more powerful than plutonium weapons”. Financial sanctions were mostly meaningless, Li said, adding that no major Chinese bank still dealt with the North and that authorities had cracked down on small financial institutions in the border town of Dandong, a gateway to the North. The United States overestimates China’s economic influence on the North, said a second academic at Yanbian University, who looks at relations between China and North Korea.
