China issues warning
threatened to annihilate U.S. military bases in South Korea and the presidential palace in Seoul in response to what it called Mr. Trump’s “maniacal military provocations.”
Tensions have been steadily mounting in recent weeks, as North Korea prepares for what it is calling a “big” event to mark the April 15 anniversary of the founder’s birthday, while the Trump administration warns that all options are on the table.
Expectations for a nuclear test or missile launch in the lead-up to Saturday’s celebrations in Pyongyang have not come to pass. Instead, signs indicate the regime is getting ready to hold a huge parade this weekend, perhaps showing off new missiles — something that would qualify as the “big” event it had heralded.
The U.S. has sent an aircraft carrier strike group to the Korean Peninsula region, and Mr. Trump has repeatedly tweeted that if China will not use its leverage to rein in North Korea, the U.S. will act.
Vice President Mike Pence is to arrive in Seoul on Sunday on the first leg of an Asia tour, and he will doubtless underscore Washington’s strong alliances with South Korea and Japan and their determination to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.
But North Korea’s vice foreign minister said Mr. Trump was “becoming more vicious and more aggressive” than previous presidents, which was only making matters worse.
“Trump is always making provocations with his aggressive words,” Han Song Ryol told The Associated Press in an interview in Pyongyang. He also repeated the regime’s common refrain that North Korea is ready to act to defend itself.
“We’ve got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a U.S. pre-emptive strike,” Mr. Han told the AP. As for when the next nuclear test would take place, “that is something that our headquarters decides,” he said.
His message chimed with a statement Friday from North Korea’s Institute for Disarmament and Peace that it was the United States pushing the Korean Peninsula, “the world’s biggest hotspot,” to the brink of war by bringing back a naval strike group.
“This has created a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out any moment on the peninsula and pose a serious threat to the world’s peace and security,” the statement said.
North Korea has a habit of fueling tensions to increase the rewards it might extract from the outside world if it desists. Previously, North Korea has agreed to return to denuclearization talks in return for aid or the easing of sanctions.
Mr. Trump is tearing up that old playbook, analysts said. Some in Beijing are noting the difference.
“It should be noted that there is a personality difference between Trump and Obama,” the Global Times newspaper wrote Friday. The paper does not speak for the Chinese government on policy but often reflects a strain of thinking within the Communist Party.
“Trump is also willing to show he is different. Bombing Syria helps him to show that,” it continued, while noting that he was far from “revolutionary” because he dispatched only missiles, not troops.
But North Korea could prove different if it calls Mr. Trump’s bluff and conducts another nuclear test, the paper said. “Trump just took the office; if he loses to Pyongyang, he would feel like he had lost some prestige.”