South Korea also cancels cross-border initiatives after Pyongyangs claim that it successfully

tested a hydrogen bomb

Justin McCurry in Tokyo

Thursday 7 January 2016 05.49 EST

South Korea has said it will resume the cross-border propaganda broadcasts that Pyongyang

considers an act of war, as fellow US ally Japan condemned North Koreas claim to have

successfully tested a hydrogen bomb as a serious threat to its national security.

The broadcasts ratcheted up tensions between North and South Korea last year and the two

countries traded artillery fire in August after Pyongyang demanded a halt.

The rivals negotiated an end to the standoff with an agreement to improve ties but a senior

presidential national security official, Cho Tae-yong, said in a statement on Thursday that the

test was a grave violation of the agreement. Our military is at a state of full readiness, and if

North Korea wages provocation, there will be firm punishment, he said.

Seoul also began talks with Washington that could see the arrival of nuclear-powered US

aircraft and submarines to the Korean peninsula.

In a phonecall on Thursday morning, the US president, Barack Obama, and the Japanese prime

minister, Shinzo Abe, agreed that North Koreas actions constituted a threat to stability in a

region already nervous about Chinese military expansion.

Abe told Obama a firm global response was needed, as the UN security council discussed

punitive action against the regime.

Obama reaffirmed the US commitment to Japans security, the White House said in a

statement, adding that the two leaders agreed to work together to forge a united and strong

international response to North Koreas latest reckless behaviour.

Obama also spoke to the South Korean president, Park Geun-hye, during which the two

leaders discussed the deployment of US strategic assets on the divided Korean peninsula, a

South Korean military official told Reuters.

Whether or not it involved a powerful hydrogen device, Wednesdays nuclear test has raised

the likelihood of tighter bilateral sanctions by Japan. It will also be seized on by hawks in

Tokyo as justification for a wider military role for Japanese troops.

North Korea nuclear test: Seoul to resume

cross-border propaganda

Japan is already within range of conventional North Korean missiles Pyongyang test-fired a

Taepodong missile over its territory in 1998 and there is growing alarm at the possibility that

the regime is close to developing a nuclear warhead small enough to be mounted on a missile.

The Japan Times quoted a senior official in Tokyo as saying that a North Korea armed with a

new nuclear weapon would expose Japan to its biggest threat.

The North seems to be highly unpredictable now. Thats scary, the unnamed official told the

paper.

Experts, though, have questioned North Korean claims that the test involved a hydrogen

bomb. On Thursday, South Koreas defence ministry said it did not believe that North Koreas

test of an enhanced nuclear fission device was successful, according to the Yonhap news

agency.

In response to Wednesdays test, South Korea is to limit entry to the Kaesong industrial

complex it jointly operates with North Korea, the unification ministry in Seoul said. Other

cross-border initiatives will also be halted, Yonhap added.

The countrys defence minister, Han Min-koo, said the nuclear test was an unpardonable

provocation seriously threatening peace and stability in the entire Asia-Pacific region and the

Korean peninsula.

Han said he and the US defence secretary, Ashton Carter, had agreed during a phonecall on

Wednesday night that North Korea should pay a corresponding price for the provocation.

After North Korea last tested a nuclear device, in 2013, Washington sent a pair of nuclear
capable B-2 stealth bombers on a sortie over South Korea in a show of force. But South Korea

said it was not considering a nuclear deterrent of its own.

Despite its anger over the test, China is thought to be reluctant to punish its neighbour with
too much economic pressure for fear of triggering a potentially catastrophic collapse.

The North Korean nuclear question was so complex that the carrot-and-stick policy of

sanctions and aid remained the most sensible option in the short term, said Caixin, a

respected Chinese magazine.

As a non-permanent member of the UN security council, Japan added its voice to calls for new

multilateral measures against North Korea overnight, but is also expected to examine fresh

bilateral sanctions.

Taking into account North Koreas reactions and the reaction by the international

community, we would like to consider responding firmly to North Korea, Yoshihide Suga, the

chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.

Tokyo imposed sanctions against North Korea after it test-fired ballistic missiles in 2006. The

measures include a trade embargo and bans on chartered flights and on North Korean ships

entering Japanese ports.

Japan relaxed some of the sanctions last year after North Korea promised to investigate the

abductions by Pyongyang agents of at least a dozen Japanese citizens during the cold war.

Although five of the victims returned to Japan in 2002, Pyongyang claimed that the remainder

had either died or never entered the country.

Relatives of the missing fear that the resumption of talks on the abductees fates will be

almost impossible if Japan imposes another round of sanctions.

The US will also be looking to Japan and its other main ally in the region, South Korea, to

coordinate a response to the latest provocation by North Korea. Tokyo and Seoul recently

agreed to settle a long-running dispute over Japans wartime use of Korean women as sex

slaves, partly in response to US pressure to shift their attention to North Koreas nuclear

weapons programme.

The US has 28,000 troops stationed in South Korea, and almost 47,000 in Japan, more than

half of them on the southern island of Okinawa.

Heightened tensions in the region could lead to even closer cooperation between Japan and

the US on missile defence, backed by a bolder security role for Japanese forces, analysts said.

To counter North Koreas aggressive behaviour and indirectly encourage China to do more,

the United States and its allies must now work to strengthen missile defence shields in Japan

and South Korea, speed up the rebalancing of US military assets to the Asia-Pacific region, and

encourage the normalisation of Japans military, said Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the

Atlantic Council in Washington.

In September, Abe pushed through controversial security laws that remove some of the

constitutional shackles on Japanese troops, potentially enabling them to fight overseas

alongside US forces.

Washington had pushed for the change amid growing concern over Chinese naval activity and

North Koreas nuclear weapons programme.

More news

Topics

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ResponseThis article deals with three countries who are protesting North Korea's
recent testing of a hydrogen bomb in its country. The most vocal countries in
protest is the US, South Korea, and Japan. All three are furious with North
Korea for violating various sanctions with each country by testing a bomb.
On the other hand, China has not proposed any actions it plans on takin g
against North Korea, but it plans to stick with the carrots a sticks policy
instead.
Japan and South Korea are not only angry about the bomb testing, but
they are both fearful for their safety because North Korea has demonstrated in
previous years that it can and it doesn't mind sending missiles to Japan and
South Korea. Both countries responded to this bomb testing with promises of
more firmness with North Korea and they have even been in talks with the
US about seeing that North Korea is punished for this crime. In response, the
US has deployed troops in both countries and various islands around the area
and South Korea has requested an American presence in the Korean
Peninsula in the form of a submarine.
There is some obvious bias throughout this article. It is most clearly seen
in the byline; the word "Tokyo". The fact that the author of this article is
writing from Tokyo can more than likely only mean that he lives in Japan.
Therefore, anything North Korea does after hearing about the hydrogen bomb
test and knowing that North Korea has missiles that reach as far as Japan is
going to be considered menacing and threatening to a resident of Japan.
Because North Korea could not be reached for or was not asked for a
comment on the situation, there is no possible way to seen their side of this
story, to have all the facts.
Essential QuestionsIf North Korea was a more transparent country, if it was in the UN, would
there be the same type of protesting when they tested bombs?
How would one find a non biassed source for information on North Korea
when so much of the world is against them?
How could North Korea fix its wrong doings and gain the trust of the US,
South Korea, and Japan?
.